THE ARK

Day 926

The helicopter flew north, following the Colorado River. Cowan and Travers sat in back enjoying the view. Without warning, the helicopter made a sharp turn to the right and continued for almost a mile. It made a gentle descent at the base of a large mountain and came to rest on a dirt landing pad. All visibility was briefly lost as the rotor blade kicked up a massive dust cloud

An army Lieutenant driving a Humvee met them. “Sir, Ma’am, I’m Lieutenant Parker. General Fitch asked that I meet you and give you a ride,” said the short Hispanic officer

The Lieutenant took their bags and loaded them in the Humvee. As Cowan and Travers climbed aboard Parker looked at them and asked. “Is this your first time here?”

Cowan and Travers both answered that question since it was their first visit.

“Well I don’t know how much you know about the place but I’ll tell you what I can on the way up,” Parker offered.

As they approached the mountain, they could start to see an opening at the base of the mountain.

“That helipad you came in on is temporary. The permanent pad will be on the other side of the mountain, it’s under construction now.”

They rapidly approached the tunnel entrance. The tunnel was recessed into the base of the mountain. It was a good fifty feet in diameter. There was a massive blast resistant door. It was four feet thick. The door was currently open and a massive dump truck was backed far down the tunnel. The far end of the tunnel was at least a half-mile away and was open as well. Even from this distance, it was clear that the other end was much wider.

As they drove in the tunnel entrance, the Lieutenant explained. “Remember this was supposed to be the new command and control center for NORAD, many of the design plans are similar to their current facility.

“The reason this is designed with an opening on each end is so that in the event a nearby impact from a nuke, the pressure wave would literally pass through the mountain instead of slamming into it. If needed the blast doors can shut in less than half a minute and they weigh about fifty tons each. That’s twice the size of the doors at the original facility.”

Their Humvee stopped and they climbed out. The tunnel was much wider here. Cowan suspected a jetliner could sit in here with room to spare. In front of them was a massive hole in the floor. There was a platform visible about two hundred feet down.

“That’s an elevator, similar to what you’d see on aircraft carriers. All types of vehicles will be going up and down on that thing all day.” As the Lieutenant spoke, there was a loud humming noise and a slight vibration. It took a full minute for the elevator to reach the top. Riding the elevator up were two of the largest dump trucks that Cowan had ever seen. Each was piled high with dirt and rocks. The trucks exited the tunnel through the larger of the two ends. As soon as they were clear of the exit, there were two others moving in from the end of the tunnel. They traveled side by side and stopped on the elevator. The elevator was descending before the trucks were even completely stopped.

There were multiple recessed doors on either side of the tunnel. The Lieutenant took them to the first door on the right. He pressed his palm and fingers firmly against a square of Plexiglas that was flush with the wall at chest level. Immediately the door slid to the left into the wall, and a mechanical sounding voice said, “Good morning Lieutenant Parker.”

“When they first got this system online, I thought the computer voice was real cool, but if you’re going through these doors twenty or more times a day, it gets a bit annoying,” stated the Lieutenant

They moved through the door and down a corridor. Cowan noted that the walls and ceilings were all steel. The floors were covered with carpeting, but he assumed that it was steel under there too. The passage was similar to what you would see on a ship.

Lieutenant Parker was in the rear and noticed Cowan looking around. “Sir, all the rooms, and that includes corridors, are individually fashioned steel structures. Each of these structures rests on a bed of massive springs, and each of those springs weighs close to a half ton. In the event of a nuke strike, or even an earthquake the springs will drastically reduce the movement and therefore the damage in here.”

Cowan remembered hearing about this once before. The current NORAD facility was designed in a similar way and he had once seen part of a documentary that talked about it.

At the end of the corridor was another large door. There was another plexiglass plate on the wall. Cowan pressed his right hand against the plate. Immediately the computer voice said, “You are not authorized to enter this area.”

“Let me, Sir, You aren’t set up yet,” said Parker, as he moved to the front of the line

“Good morning Lieutenant Parker,” said the voice as the door slid open.

They all stepped into a spacious elevator. As soon as the door shut, they began a rapid descent. The doors opened and they stepped out into the center of another wide corridor. There was a door to the left, at the end of the corridor, which said, ‘COMMAND CENTER’. To the right, there were several doors on either side. There was another elevator at the far end; above its door was a sign that read ‘ENGINEERING’. The small party turned to the left. They passed a door marked “MESS HALL”. As they passed that door, Cowan noticed that there was no Plexiglas palm reader mounted by this door. Across the hall from the Mess Hall was a sign that read ‘HEALTH CENTER’.

Parker’s hand worked the scanner and the double doors to the Command Center opened. They were immediately aware of a lot of activity. There were technicians standing on yellow ladders, they were running orange fiber optic cable from conduits in the wall to computer terminals. New systems were being installed and the far wall was being painted. There was a large central console with four chairs facing it, off to the right. Most of the electronic work seemed to be centered on this console.

General Fitch was located in a recessed office off to the far left. As soon as he saw them, he was on his feet and moving to them at a rapid pace. “James, Amy, glad you’re here. Things are a little crazy here.”

“Sir, this facility is amazing!” Travers exclaimed.

“It sure is. I’m still a bit overwhelmed myself; fortunately, it isn’t too hard to find your way around here.”

“Will this place be able to meet our needs?” Cowan asked.

“Definitely, with the changes I’ve ordered, I think it’ll be close to perfect.”

“We saw a little on the way here, but I’d sure like a complete tour when there is time,” Cowan said.

“Let’s go. The sooner we get that complete the sooner I can get you both to work,” said the General

As they left Fitch added. “I assume there were no problems with the last experiment?”

“None sir,” Amy said. “They all woke up without incident. The staff is packing up, and awaiting instructions.”

“Good, we have a lot to do and in all honesty, I don’t know where to even start.

“This is the main control area; from here we’ve access to over a dozen communication satellites. We can communicate now with any military or civilian group we want. There are some new satellites, which will be launched at the time of a disaster. When the sleepers awaken, they’ll be able to use them for communication with the shelters and for monitoring what’s happening all over the planet.

“There are seventy-five external and just as many internal cameras. The external cameras are spaced out so that we can see every inch of ground up to five miles out. There are also terminal imaging and sound detection systems all around the perimeter. All of that’s monitored from here.

“We can also open and close the main doors at the tunnel entrance. Originally, the idea was to make it so they could completely collapse the main tunnel from here with remote explosives. As of now, I think we’ll scrap that idea. We can assume control over all automatic functions from here. That includes elevators, fire suppression, and water flow. If necessary, we’ll even be able to manage the main power and computer systems from here. I plan to make it so we can monitor and manage the sleep capsules from here too. If you’ve any suggestions, I welcome them.”

Cowan said. “Sounds good, I’m sure we’ll have some ideas as we get a better feel for this place.”

Travers agreed with a simple nod.

The trio left the control room and started down the corridor. The first door on the left was the Health Center. The doors parted without any security check and they entered into a hall. On the left was a large open area about one hundred foot square. “This was intended to be a small fitness center. Ideally, I’d love to keep it and even expand it. I’m waiting to hear back as to whether or not that will be possible. The medical facilities here were designed to hold a small clinic. We need to expand that to a full feature hospital, and medical labs. We will also have to have the ability to fabricate needed drugs and medications. I have spoken to the engineers and they’re working on the plans to make this area twenty-five times larger than it’s now. We may lose the fitness center, but they know that I want to keep it if possible. As they walked through the existing center, they saw an Air Force Captain briefing an Army Major about current procedures. They were in a small office off to the side.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” the General said.

The two officers stood quickly as they noticed the General at the door.

“Major Cross, I want you to meet James Cowan and Captain Amy Travers. They’re my team. Here to get things moving for our mission.”

Introductions were made and General Fitch added, “Major Stephen Cross will be the Senior Medical Officer here. Much of his support staff is already in route.”

They left the men to continue their discussion and continued further into the Health Center.

“Captain Warbler, back there was the senior medical officer before we took over. We offered him the chance to stay on but he declined.

“Cross is a good man with experience in every kind of environment you can think of. There will be eight physicians working under him and they have a very wide area of expertise. They specialize in everything from pediatrics to neurosurgery. The only capabilities we’ll be lacking will be in the area of organ transplants and one of the surgeons even has some experience there,” Matt Fitch continued.

They approached a large room marked TRIAGE, inside there was an Air Force nurse treating a worker with an injury to his arm. The worker sat on a hospital bed and the nurse was rinsing dirt out of a large laceration on the man’s upper arm.

They headed back down the hall, and Cowan asked, “How did the transfer of command go?”

“Actually, it was extremely smooth. Someone paved the way so that when I got here there were no issues. In fact, the facilities commander was Colonel Will Franks but the Air Force actually had a Major General here to make sure things went well. I suspect he was sent right from the Pentagon and laid the law down before I ever landed. Everyone was extremely helpful. He treated me as if I was the one with two stars and he had just the one. The biggest transition problems are in me trying to get up to speed without revealing too much information and the modifications we need to make. There are still a bunch of Air Force personnel here to make sure we have things under control. I made it clear to my superiors that I’m in no hurry to replace them. If they know what they’re doing, let them stay,” Fitch explained

They approached the next door on the right, it opened and they entered the mess hall. This room was partly finished and there were some crude furnishings. There was the smell of pizza. There was a small buffet line and a few small tables.

“At least the important stuff is ready,” commented Travers

“True, unfortunately, this will all have to be ripped out,” Cowan said

“Exactly,” Fitch responded. “This was designed to serve about three hundred people but we need it to be able to handle about ten thousand. The engineers have confirmed that the expansion is possible. The problem is that when these people wake up we don’t know what they’ll face. They’ll need a significant amount of food with them. I figure one to two years. That means a massive amount of food storage space, including warehouse size freezers. I don’t think eating MREs for two years will cut it,” Fitch explained, referring to the military’s pre-packaged Meal Ready to Eat packets that could be eaten anywhere anytime and would last on the shelf for many years.

“They hopefully will have plans for the Health Center and the Mess Hall ready soon. I plan to triple the number of workers we have on the site. There are already housing quarters under construction outside for the workers, and after the wake-up, they’ll house some of the former sleepers,” the General explained.

They left the Mess Hall and headed further away from the command center. They passed the elevator that had brought them here and found doors on either side of the passage. “These rooms are mostly built, but again will need to be expanded, I suspect that they’ll house sleep capsules. They’re checking to see how large they can be made. I suspect that there will be a core team of about one hundred fifty to two hundred that will be awakened and check things out. When it comes time to start rebuilding the rest will be awakened.

“We will also need to have specific individuals who are keyed to awaken if specific circumstances occur, like a medical emergency, a fire, or a reactor issue. The systems will monitor outside environmental factors and when specific parameters are met, key personnel will then be awakened to make the final decision,” Fitch explained

The looked into each room, both were unfinished and bare. They each measured about one hundred foot square.

At the end of the hall was a large elevator. The sign above read ‘Engineering’. Fitch touched the plate in the wall. “Good morning General Fitch.” The doors slid open.

As the elevator descended, Matt Fitch started explaining. “This level houses all the behind the scenes stuff including the reactor room, waste disposal facilities, water purification, computer center and everything else like that. There will be a need for a manufacturing center; since they will need to build anything that they don’t have, as well as things that won’t survive for long periods of time, like batteries. For lack of a better location, I think that this might be the place. They’ll also be installing the print shop down here”

“Sir, why will they need a print shop?” Travers asked.

“When everyone wakes up there will be a need to make contact with the survivors. The ones in shelters will be contacted by radio and given instructions on where to go. Those few that survived outside of shelters will be located by satellite or aircraft by their heat signatures, and leaflets will be dropped to them from one of the aircraft that the sleepers will have. There is no way of knowing how many people will survive so we want to make sure that the ability to produce a million or more leaflets will be possible,” The General explained

After what seemed like an eternity, the elevator stopped and the doors opened. They stepped out and went straight down a long hall. There was considerably more noise here. Fitch led them to the computer center. After the doors parted for the General, they stepped in and noticed the temperature was much cooler than in the hall. The room was one hundred feet long and at least fifty feet wide. There was row after row of computers in tall racks. Most of the equipment Cowan could not identify.

“We plan to have web-based applications that tie into the databases here. We want to have all the knowledge possible available for the sleepers. If they want to know anything, we want the information easily available. Everything from the chemical composition of Viagra to how to build a zambon. I’ll be in there and easily available when the time comes.

“Also these systems will monitor everything during the sleep and will be responsible for sounding alarms and initiating the initial wake-up sequence. These systems will have as much redundancy built into them that’s possible. We want each system to be able to have multiple component failures before the system has to go down” Fitch explained.

As they spoke, an Air Force Major and an Army Major approached them. “General, are these your team leaders?” one of the men asked.

“Yes, they are. Can you get them taken care of?”

“Of course, Sir. Can you two come over here? We have all your information. We just have to assign your clearance. Sorry you had to come down here for this, there will be a security station up top, just off the main tunnel, that can do this in the future, but it’s still under construction,” explained the Air Force Major

Cowan responded. “No problem, we’re getting a quick tour anyway.”

’I just need you two to place each of your hands against this when I say”

He held up a small square box. In the center was a Plexiglas plate similar to the one that was seen by the doors. There was a cable running out to the back of the box and it plugged into the USB port in a laptop computer.

“Captain Travers, when the machine says your name press one hand then the other on the reader.”

The major typed on the laptop’s keyboard and the computer voice spoke from the laptop. “Captain Travers.” Amy placed one hand on the plate and then the other. As soon as she removed her hand, the computer spoke again. “Captain Travers, Complete.”

After several seconds voice was back “Mr. Cowan.” Cowan completed the procedure in the same fashion and with the same results.

“General, did you want them to have full security access?”

“Yes, Major, access to everything,” stated Fitch

They left the computer center and headed for the reactor room. As they approached the entrance, there was an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel standing in front of the door.

“Sir, we’re doing some calibration testing of the radiation detection sensors. If you want we can stop, but we’ll have to start over and we’ve been at this for four hours so far,” explained the Lt. Colonel

“No Colonel, we can come back later. These people are in charge of different parts of this project. Can you give them a brief overview of the power systems?” Requested the General

“Of course sir. This is a new design in nuclear reactors. It’s all automated and can run without refueling for five years if it’s under full load, much longer if less than a full load is required. It’s similar to the reactors on Navy ships, except their designs are twenty to thirty years old. This design is state of the art,” he explained.

“Have you been given information about the expansions we’re doing, and the energy requirements of our equipment?” Cowan asked.

“Yes, General Fitch went over some of that with me when we got here. I don’t know what you folks are doing but he gave me some estimates on power utilization.”

“Will the new power requirements be a problem for this system?” Cowan questioned.

“No. We’re currently providing power for this whole facility and for all the outside construction projects in this compound; we’re running at right around three to five percent capacity. I estimate that when your stuff is all running we’ll be just below seven percent capacity,” the Colonel explained.

“Excellent. When would be a good time for us to return for a tour?” Cowan asked.

“Late this afternoon or anytime tomorrow would be fine,” was the answer

The trio continued on, and the team looked over the heating, cooling and ventilation systems, as well as the water purification and waste removal systems.

They took a different elevator system up; as it was ascending Travers spoke up. “Everything we saw down there looks great, but some of it will need an overhaul. None of it was designed to be completely unsupervised for twenty years. There are few backup systems in case of a failure, all that will need to be upgraded.”

“Exactly,” Cowan agreed.

“Good, Amy, that project is now added to your plate,” stated General Matt Fitch

“Should’ve kept your mouth shut Amy,” Cowan said with a laugh

“I wouldn’t laugh if I were you; I already have a list of things for you to help me with,” Fitch said looking at Cowan

The elevator opened at the end of a short hall. As they walked the hall they passed through an open, thick steel door that could be shut to seal the hall off, at the end was another closed door. This opened, again without an electronic palm scanner and they stepped out into the main tunnel where they had first entered the mountain. They noted they were considerably farther down the tunnel than the entrance that Lieutenant Parker had led them through.

“So far everything you’ve shown us is down from here, is there anything up?” Travers asked

“The elevator you first came down in will also go up. There are two unfinished conference rooms and a large room that I plan to make into an off-duty lounge. There will be some personal quarters there too. I don’t know how many, it all depends on how much they can tunnel out. There are also several passages to the top; they carry cables for antenna arrays, radar, and environmental scanners. There is also a small crawl space that leads to the top for maintenance on these systems,” Fitch explained.

General Fitch led them out the wide mouth of the tunnel. There were easily a hundred men and women working on constructing what looked like a large hotel. The frame was mostly in place.

Fitch spoke, “I ordered this work to begin the day I got here, they’re moving at a decent speed. I’ll be at least tripling the number of workers on the underground complex, and we need places for them to stay. As soon as this is complete they’ll be starting an identical building next to it.”

Travers noticed that work was being done on the permanent helipads and the large lights that would make for safe night landings. Because she had previously flown helicopters for the Army this immediately caught her attention.

They returned to the tunnel and went about a third of the way down its massive length before stopping. There were large recessed double doors on either side. They went to the ones on the left. Cowan reached for the security door plate but before he could touch it, the doors parted.

“Since this is still in progress the security system hasn’t yet been activated,” Fitch said

They entered a long hall and saw that at two locations along the hall, there were large open doors that when shut would completely seal off the hall. The last doors at the end opened into a massive cavern. It was easily the size of four football fields and about fifty feet high.

“This will be one of the two primary sleep chambers. Across the tunnel is an identical room, there will be a second level, so you’ll have twice the floor space you see her, and it’s the same on the other side. One of the first things you two will do is get the rest of the team here. These need to be converted into atmosphere controlled chambers. I’ll have them putting in the second level in the next week. Then it’s up to our team to do the rest. Make sure that they know that any resources they need are already approved. Since these chambers are physically large enough, this will be where we start. The smaller areas down below for the command staff will have to wait until their areas are enlarged.”

They left the room that was to be designated primary sleep chamber one and went back into the main tunnel.

“I’d take you down to the main storage area, but there is too much activity going on there right now. Essentially, it’s just a massive chamber. It will be divided into different areas, for different categories of equipment. The computers will keep track of each item down there and in what area it’s stored. It will contain everything we think they’ll need in the future, building material, vehicles, computers, weapons and medical equipment. You name it we need to consider it,” the General said.

“There is an awful lot of planning here Matt, who all is going to be involved in all this? As we move forward, the ability to maintain this as a secret will quickly become impossible,” Cowan noted.

“I know, I have a meeting in DC about all this next week,” stated Fitch

He escorted them back to the elevator that they had initially used with Parker. This time Cowan noted that the palm scanner accepted his hand. “Good Afternoon Mr. Cowan.”

It is afternoon, Cowan thought. No wonder he was so hungry. When they exited the elevator he was heading straight for the Mess Hall, he remembered the smell of the pizza and that he decided, was where he would start this new adventure.