There are about a dozen people hanging around outside when we reach the entrance to the base. Some of them are heavily armed; the others are smoking or chatting. Two young boys are making a snowman. Watching them, I suddenly understand why Mandy said what she did. Hiding in our little camp in the valley, we could pretend it was all a mistake, that the world outside was just as we left it, with family and loved ones waiting for us to come home. But the last few days have taught us something different. The bad dream is the world. We’re going to live in some kind of underground refugee camp for the rest of our lives. Maybe, if we’re lucky, that won’t be very long.
From the outside, the entrance looks like an abandoned mine, rough stone with heavy, weathered wooden supports. A rusty rail track leads in. There are even overturned coal carts, adding to the authenticity. But inside the entrance, the outlook changes dramatically. As we enter, automatic lights flick on, revealing a large open area, cluttered with jeeps and other supplies and equipment. Two more armed guards leap to their feet.
“Only me,” Liam says. “We found them right where the drone clocked them.” He thumbs back at the six of us, now shivering with the change of temperature. It’s much warmer inside than it was outside, but the hike in wet snow has left us damp and disoriented.
Liam and a guard reach inside their jackets, pulling out key cards on heavy chains. When they swipe the cards there’s a heavy-sounding clang, and they swing open a large door. The door is over a foot thick and solid metal.
“This is a nuclear bomb shelter?” Emily says. “Like NORAD?” Liam smiles at her in a way that makes me grateful I didn’t eat any breakfast.
“This is the NORAD even NORAD didn’t talk about. A long-lost deal between us and the Americans against the Russkies. It was a total command center, but full operations shut down years ago. Since then it’s been a bit of a ghost town around here. The commander and a few others had codes and keys. Someone reactivated it when the whole terrorism thing started to look bad, but on a much smaller scale. I’m not sure who that was. Whoever it was, we haven’t heard from him. He’s probably dead.”
Liam leads us into a long passageway. It’s wide and high enough for a small vehicle, and lit by motion-sensitive electric lights, which flick on and off as we pass.
“We’ll get you sleeping arrangements, and then you might like to wash. We have running hot water.” Liam looks proud to inform us of this.
“Doesn’t that waste fuel?” I can’t resist saying.
“Geothermal,” he says, a prim expression on his face. “The base itself is fully self-sufficient. Only the vehicles need fuel. And we use solar, wind, and hydro for luxuries like music and stuff.”
Topher and I exchange a glance. I know exactly what he’s thinking. This is as good as he could have hoped for, a safe, permanent refuge. Somewhere we would be fools to leave if he were to disappear in the night. My heart flickers at the thought of following him. Or stopping him. I haven’t decided which.
“What do you do for food?” Mandy asks. Mandy loves to feed people. She was going to teach camp cooking and permaculture, along with first aid. Mandy may run screaming out of here if it turns out we all have to eat some kind of Soylent Green paste for sustenance.
“We have a pretty big stockpile, and people brought stuff with them. But it won’t last forever.” Liam looks uncertain again. A tiny chink appears in his bravado, the son of the commander of what might be my last refuge on earth. “This place hasn’t been set up for something like this for decades. So it’s . . . well . . . we’re not that well prepared. I guess we’ll figure it out somehow.”
It’s a pity, I think, that I might be long gone before Liam realizes that death by starvation is coming for him too.
EIGHTH
The dream of the human girl ends up being both terrifying and sensational. I wake up, heart pounding, blushing with shame, and with parts of my body doing things that are not normal, though not entirely unfamiliar.
It takes several whimpering minutes for the urgent heat of the dream to wear off and for my heart rate, and other things, to calm down. The humiliation sticks with me though. How could I think of a human that way, even in a dream?
The disgrace of it makes me want to break something. I spend an hour snapping enough branches to build a hundred fires but feel only a fraction better. Then I light a fire and fuss over it until hunger makes me think of getting up and finding something to eat. Soon I’m crunching the bones of some hapless animal I dug out of its den. I barely register even what it looks like, never mind the taste. But having food in my stomach alleviates the effects of the slug syrup somewhat, and my anger and hate dissipate back to ordinary embarrassment.
For the first time since she died, I’m grateful Sixth isn’t here with me. I would never tell her willingly what I dreamed, but she would find a way to make me confess. Then she would punish me for it somehow. Whack me behind the ear with her rifle, or maybe just tell me over and over that I’m defective. Possibly she would add the words “perverted,” “disgusting,” “pitiful.” Sixth hated humans more than I ever could. I can only imagine what she would say if she knew I dreamed of one like that. It’s so wrong, I feel sick.
I reach up and pull a branch down from the pine tree above my head, crushing a handful of needles under my nose. The smell clears my head a bit, then a bit more. I press my free hand into the fresh snow around me and fix my gaze onto the green treetops and the rolling clouds behind them. It’s enough to nearly bring a smile to my face. A fleeting sense of peace and happiness calms my mind sufficiently to formulate one perfectly coherent thought.
I want to see the human girl again.
Not like in the dream. Nothing like that.
Throwing the needles into the fire, I close my eyes and press both my hands over my face. One hand now smells of pine needles, like the girl’s hair. I lean forward, plunge that hand into the fire and hold it there until the skin starts to burn off.
That’s going to hurt for a few days, but I deserve much worse.
RAVEN
We all indulge in sinfully long, hot showers. Emily and Mandy giggle at the state of their unshaven legs and underarms and pay no attention to my own unremarkable nudity, even though I’m covered in some fairly impressive bruises. I take special care with the rings of bruises around my wrists. If not for them I might think that the Nahx I met in the trailer was part of a dream. I let the warm water flow over my wrists, soothing the lingering ache but not easing the disorientation the experience left behind. He could have killed me, darted me, snapped my neck, or smashed my head in. But he didn’t. That changes things somehow. It’s a slight shift, but it feels like an earthquake.