AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well what did he look like?”
“I don’t know... like a soldier? Average height, average weight, wearing a uniform.”
Jane stopped her pacing and sat down in a huff. “Well it would have been nice if you had been paying attention to the only person who’s so far acted like they could help us.”
“Even if we found him again I wouldn’t want to ask him for anything else.”
“Why not?”
Rick sat up in his bed and swung his legs over the side. Jane sat in a chair near the shower while Dr. Evans was perched on top of the desk, gently kicking his legs back and forth as he watched Jane and Rick talk. In his hands was the small black object Rick had received from the soldier.
“Because,” Dr. Evans said, holding up the object in his hands, “if someone finds out he gave this to us then he will never see the light of day again. Ever.”
“You figured out what it is?” Jane looked over at Dr. Evans.
“It’s just a miniaturized computer. Nothing all that fancy. Protective shell hides the screen and small keyboard. It’s like those old phones more than anything else, really.”
“Great.” Jane rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you order us a pizza before we all get thrown in a cell.”
Dr. Evans smiled as he popped open the computer to reveal the small display. “As with many things it’s not what’s on the outside that matters quite as much as what’s inside.”
Rick hopped out of his bed and crossed the room. He took the computer from Dr. Evans and looked at the screen, tapping at it and on the keyboard. “What is all of this?”
“Information.”
“That’s kind of vague. What type of information?”
“I’m not entirely certain yet. But if this soldier gave it to you after our conversation with General Black and the soldier mentioned Damocles then it must have something here to help us.”
As Dr. Evans talked Rick continued to browse through the files on the device. His eyes widened as he reached a folder full of filenames that started to make sense. “These look like military bunker locations. They’re all marked as top secret.”
“Bunker locations?” Jane got up from her chair and circled around to look at the device alongside Rick and Dr. Evans. “What good does that do?”
“That’s just one small fraction of the information on this thing.” Rick closed the device and handed it back to Dr. Evans. “I bet that soldier dumped everything that might even be tangentially related to Damocles onto this. He probably stole it from their archives here.”
Dr. Evans nodded. “Agreed. I’ll look through it and see if I can find anything that’ll be immediately useful in our search. You two should figure out how we’re going to get out of here. I’m not entirely comfortable with using the General’s car.”
Rick shrugged. “The soldier said that would be the easiest thing to do. I’m inclined to believe him until we see otherwise.”
“Just be safe. Both of you.”
Rick and Jane nodded before Rick turned towards the door. “Come on, let’s look around a bit and see what kind of trouble we can get into.”
Jane rubbed her hands together and grinned. “Now you’re talking!”
***
While Dr. Evans toiled away on the uncomfortably small computer, Rick and Jane did their best to look like two normal people out for a stroll inside an underground military complex. The oldest part of the complex was larger than Rick had initially expected, with multiple buildings beyond the initial one that he had seen and that housed General Black’s office. The deeper sections of the complex were obviously newer and there were ones that were even farther underground than the st
ructure where he, Jane and Dr. Evans were being housed.
Cheyenne Mountain had never been originally intended as a place for civilians to be housed for long periods of time. Over the years, though, as the threat of global wars based on nuclear, chemical and biological attacks grew, the government revised some of its plans. Predictions based on civilian casualty numbers ranging from mild to extreme were created and a general guideline was drawn up that would be enacted should the situation warrant it.
At its most basic level this guideline directed military teams to secure and protect civilians that happened to fall within their local jurisdictions. For places like Nellis that had huge populations next door this directive didn’t work very well given that the civilian population could overwhelm and overrun the base. For Cheyenne Mountain and other underground locations, though, it worked much better.
So long as the situation didn’t require that the bases “button-up” they would remain open to collect as many people as they could hold. Once full, however, they would close their doors and keep anyone from moving in or out until the threat levels dropped. The Cheyenne Mountain Complex, while not near capacity, had other protocols to follow and thus would be closing in less than two days. Being equipped with enough food and water for the residents inside to wait things out for up to five years meant that Rick and Jane had to find a way out of the base and fast.
“Where are we? Haven’t we just gone deeper into the complex?” Rick turned around and looked at the multi-colored stripes painted on the wall. Different colors branched off into different tunnels though none of them were marked by name.
