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3
Six months ago
“So we’re actually comingout of lockdown?” I ask the question breathlessly but not because of the intensity of the topic. Grant and I have been training now for thirty-five minutes, and I’m sweating and panting from the effort.
Automatically I make note of Grant’s stance—poised with feet apart, knees bent slightly, hands up in a defensive position. He’s been teaching me to fight and defend myself now for a year and a half. I know what I’m doing, and he tells me I’ll be able to hold my own with most attackers. But I still can’t get the better of him.
His eyes never stop moving, taking in the smallest flicker of my arms and legs and the tiniest twitch of my expression, but he has no trouble answering my question. “Pretty soon, yeah. Not sure of the exact day, but we can’t hold off so many people who want out for much longer.”
The mood in the bunker has been getting increasingly tense for the past year, with more and more people wanting to get out of here and take a chance on the outside world. According to the latest readings, the air quality isn’t quite back to what it was before the asteroid hit, but it’s not a serious health risk anymore. So the main dangers we’d be facing would come from other people. I’d love to get out too, but I trust Dave and Dr. Willoughby and Grant and everyone else who knows better than me about the likely risks when we open the door. So every time we’ve had a vote about the issue in the past year, I’ve sided with them.
“But those people are still being outvoted,” I say.
“Sure, but it’s almost neck and neck now. And once you have that many people who want out, they’re going to make it out one way or the other. We don’t want them trying to go around us and putting everyone in danger. If we take charge of it ourselves, at least we can control how it happens and make sure everyone stays as safe as possible.”
“How would you do that?” I wait until it looks like he’s going to answer, and then I take a quick jab toward the left side of his jaw, hoping he’s distracted enough for me to get a blow in.
He’s not, of course. He never loses his focus. He blocks my punch and uses the momentum to grab me around the waist. I just barely manage to slip out of his grip before he gets me to the ground. In the scuffle, I do manage to trip him up with a quick kick toward his ankle. It won’t hurt him, but he has to back off to catch his balance.
“Nice one,” he murmurs, which is a high compliment from him. “We’d set up camp on the surface with easy access to the bunker. We’ve got the equipment to put up an electrified fence around the perimeter, and with guards stationed we’ll probably be safe enough. We need to send scouts to check out the region. We think a lot of the population has moved away from here, but we need to know who’s out there and how much of a threat they might be. Our supplies might be running low, but we still have a lot of resources that desperate people would happily kill us for.”
We’re circling the mat on the floor of the private training room we still use for practice, both of us scrutinizing the other, looking for an opportunity to advance. We do this almost every night, also practicing on the shooting range a couple of times a week. I’m proficient now with various kinds of guns, although I still don’t like them, and I’m much more capable of defending myself than I was eighteen months ago. Because of our daily training, I spend more time with Grant than anyone else in the bunker, but I’m still not sure if he considers me a friend. I know him better, but in a lot of ways he’s still completely unreadable. “Well, that sounds like a good plan. Surely we’d be safe behind that kind of perimeter.”
“We’ll be safe from people on foot. We won’t be safe from tanks or trucks.”
This startles me so much it distracts me, and as always Grant offers me no leeway. He kicks out at me, using one leg for leverage against the back of my knees. I fall backward, but roll away immediately, managing to elude his arms and jump to my feet before he can follow up on his advantage.
“Very nice,” he mutters, giving me a brief nod. “Your mistake was getting too involved in the conversation.”
“I know that,” I reply with a snarl. “But what did you mean about tanks or trucks? You think we’ll be attacked by an army or something?”
“It’s not likely. Fuel production had to have come to a standstill after the asteroid, and I doubt there’s still enough gas around to fuel tanks and trucks. But the thing is, we don’t know. We only have a few surface cameras still working, so we only see what they pick up. There used to be huge armies of dangerous people moving through the area. They’d be able to wipe us out in a matter of hours. We haven’t seen them lately, but we don’t know for sure whether they’re still around. If they are, I’m not sure what we can do to defend ourselves except get back into the bunker as fast as we can.”
“We should do emergency drills, just to practice our response if something like that happens.”
“That’s in the plans. We’ll do the best we can, although it’s going to be a huge gamble. But it’s one we’ll have to make eventually since our supplies aren’t going to last forever. And the last thing we need is a revolt down here.”
There’s been a lot of angry debate in the past year, but no one has tried to take physical action to get what they want. We’ve been lucky in that way. I can imagine all kinds of nightmare scenarios, prompted by desperation and discontent, that we haven’t had to deal with.
Grant and I are circling each other again. “So how soon do you think we’ll be opening up?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say within the next month.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know if I should be excited or terrified.”
“Both are probably legitimate.”
Before I can respond, muffled voices come from the hallway outside the room. Probably just a couple of people passing by, but Grant turns his head to look, evidently thinking they might be coming into the room.
He’s trained me well. I know how to take advantage of momentary distraction. I run toward him while his head is turned, convinced I can finally knock him off his feet.
I’m wrong. It’s always wrong to underestimate Grant. He reaches out with one arm before he even gets his head turned back in my direction, and he grabs me by the waist, using the momentum of my run to swing me onto my back on the floor.
He softens the landing intentionally so the impact on the mat doesn’t hurt, but I’m briefly winded and can’t roll away even though my brain is screaming that I should.
