THE ARK

Day 820

Lieutenant Parker pulled up to the helicopter landing pad and stepped out of his Humvee. It was a cool morning and it felt good to be out here.

He was quickly aware of the sound of the approaching helicopter. He got back in the Humvee and shut the windows. The top was in place and he wanted to keep the dirt that the chopper would kick up out of his vehicle.

RJ Anderson stepped out of the UH-60 Black Hawk and went to the Humvee that was waiting.

“Ma’am, I’m Lieutenant Parker. I was sent to bring you to the facility.”

Parker took her overnight bag, placed it in the vehicle, and climbed into the driver’s side.

RJ was aware of all the activity going on. There were men and vehicles all over. They headed away from the temporary chopper pad, and towards the base of the mountain.

“Things look quite busy here,” RJ added.

“Yes Ma’am, ever since General Fitch took over. Within three weeks of his getting here, they tripled the number of people working here. This continues night and day.”

“It seems to be a long drive from the chopper pad to the facility,” RJ noted.

“True, but that pad is temporary; there will be several permanent ones near the west tunnel entrance. Unfortunately, they won’t be available until most of the construction is done.”

“What kind of security do you have here, I haven’t seen any guards.”

Parker responded, “There is a perimeter fence one mile out. Your aircraft didn’t start descending until you had cleared it. There are two gates manned round the clock. There are guard and dog patrols inside the perimeter. The rumor I heard is that the orders are to shoot anyone who breaches the perimeter. There are also more guards by the tunnel entrance.”

They parked in the main tunnel and took the elevator to the Command Center.

As they entered, they saw General Fitch sitting at a desk in the back office working on a computer.

“Sir, Doctor Anderson is here,” Parker said

Fitch stood up and held out his right hand. “Glad you’re here RJ.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Feel free to call me Matt, you aren’t military anymore.”

“Ok, Matt. Are things always this hectic around here?”

“Yea, this is about normal. I’ve been here about three months and if anything, things are getting more and more crazy.”

As they spoke, she was looking over the setup. The command center measured about twenty-five feet square, and there were computer monitors everywhere. There were four seats around a large central console. Each station at the console looked identical.

One of the stations seemed to be configured for communications and monitoring external environmental factors. The second seemed to monitor internal systems, including the reactor. The third was for monitoring the sleep chambers. She was unable to determine the exact purpose of the fourth station.

“Well RJ, are you ready for the grand tour?”

“Sure, let’s get started.”

As they stepped into the hall, RJ was immediately aware of the heavy dust in the air.

“Keep in mind that when this complex was first built there was going to be about eight hundred people working here. Now we’ll have ten thousand living here. Over the last three months, we’ve been enlarging everything. Our Health Center is now twenty times larger than it was just three months ago. The mess hall is fifteen times larger, and we’ve added a second level which will be for food storage. There are several warehouse size freezers, all with multiple redundant systems. There will be enough food for your team for about two years.”

As Fitch continued the tour, RJ was impressed with the amount of work that had been accomplished in such a short amount of time.

After running her through the reactor room, Fitch showed her the manufacturing facility that had recently been added. “You’ll be given every conceivable piece of equipment, but things will be needed later that weren’t considered and parts will fail. This area was just recently completed. Your team should be able to fabricate almost anything you need.”

“It seems like you’re really considering everything,” RJ commented with a smile.

“We have tried to, but I suspect you’ll be awake less than a week when you think of the first thing that was overlooked.”

They took the elevator up to the main tunnel and went down the corridor that leads to Main Sleep Chamber One. Upon reaching the chamber, that was basically a large pressurized room, they stepped through the large open door. RJ noticed that not only was the room much larger than she had expected, but the walls were all stainless steel. There were several workers on scissor lifts working on plumbing and ductwork at the ceiling. There was a set of stairs that led to a second level.

Cowan and Travers were in the middle of the room looking at a set of blueprints. The General approached and Cowan looked up, “Morning Matt,” was all Cowan said

“James, Amy, I want you to meet RJ Anderson.” Cowan nodded and smiled. Amy gave a friendly wave.

“As soon as we have this facility completely operational, RJ will assume command of it,” Fitch explained

“Has anyone explained the sleep process to you yet?” Cowan asked.

“Over the last week, I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading all the reports that have been filed. I have a basic idea how it all works.”

“Good. Let me show you around then,” Cowan said.

The two of them walked off while Captain Travers and General Fitch went over some changes to a set of blueprints.

“There will be row after row of special beds in this room, actually twenty-five hundred here and the same number upstairs. There is also an identical room across the main tunnel. That room will be run the same. Currently, it’s about two weeks behind this room in construction. There are two separate chambers below, on the main floor. They’re much smaller and will hold only the team that will first wake up. As you can see above us, they’re finishing up the piping that will supply breathing gas, SF016, and the wake-up medications. The tanks that contain the SF016 are up in the highest point of the mountain. Gravity draws it down as needed, and there is a computer that monitors for leaks. The system will immediately awaken the on-call technician if one develops. We’ve been unable to agree on exactly how much SF016 will be needed for ten thousand plus sleepers for twenty years since everyone metabolizes it at a slightly different rate. So we took our best guess and then tripled the amount. All the other systems here will give out long before you ever run out of SF016.

All the waste removal plumbing will be in the space under this floor.”

You can see that there is a backup source for everything. If there is a problem with the SF016 lines, there is a secondary source. That’s the same for everything,” Cowan explained.

“If all body processes are stopped then why’s waste removal a concern?” RJ asked.

“Actually, the body processes aren’t stopped, just dramatically slowed down. With the continual infusion of SF016, which contains water and nutrients among many other things, there is still the need for waste removal. The urine output for a sleeper is on the average the same in one year as it would be in a day if they weren’t sleeping.”

RJ was very impressed. There were pipes and conduits all over the ceiling, but they were extremely well organized, they were even color-coded.

“I read in one of your reports that approximately ten percent of the sleepers in the tests have had to be sedated. Is this because of a side effect of the SF016?” RJ asked.

James smiled as he answered, “No, in almost all the earlier tests the sleepers have been in the individual capsules. There isn’t much room in them and most people feel quite claustrophobic, some have had a tougher time than others and needed to be sedated. For your team, there will be very few individual capsules. Most will be in large open chambers like this. You can think of this room as the same thing as an individual capsule that is huge and has five thousand sleepers in it. The only people that will need the individual or small group capsules will be those people that may be required to wake up individually to make repairs, deal with emergencies or confirm that it’s in fact time to wake the others.”

“That makes sense; I’ve another question if you’ve time.” “Actually I have a little over two years,” Cowan said with a smile.

RJ chuckled at his dark sense of humor and continued. “There is something else that I don’t understand. I’ve read about studies that have proven that long term immobility actually speeds up the aging of bones and muscles.”

James smiled and explained. “That’s quite true; there have been several studies over the past few decades. There was one in 1966. It showed that three weeks of immobility actually aged the bones and muscles by as much as twenty years. That is one of the reasons why we’ve been working for so long on what’s now SF016. Putting someone to sleep was the easy part, but stopping the aging process and keeping muscles from starting to atrophy was the challenge. SF016 not a single drug, but is a mix of thirteen different compounds that work together with the breathing gas to create the complete sleep effect.”

“This is very impressive but I won’t pretend to completely understand it,” RJ admitted.

“I understand. The important part is that it’s working well and our progress here is moving faster than any of us had even hoped,” James explained.

“How long until this chamber is complete?” RJ asked.

“There is another nine months of work at least. We’ve lots of testing to do. Also, the systems for monitoring the sleepers aren’t installed yet. The chamber across the hall will be about a month behind this one by then. Then we’ll have to do the smaller chambers upstairs. In addition, we were just told that there was to be a sleeper chamber for livestock down in the pit. They just started tunneling that one out. Half my technical staff has returned to our facility in Arizona to do testing of the sleep process on animals. If we aren’t careful this place could turn into the next Noah’s Ark.”

RJ could see the frustration on the man’s face. She decided to change the topic. “What’s the pit?”

“Come on, I’ll show you. They walked out to the main tunnel and turned left. A short distance down the tunnel they came to the massive opening in the floor. Cowan walked to a palm reader and placed his hand firmly on its surface, “Good Morning Mr. Cowan, the elevator is rising” said the mechanical voice.

It was almost a full minute before the large platform had risen flush with the roadway in the tunnel.

“Step on the platform,” Cowan said and RJ stepped on. Cowan placed his palm on the reader again. “Good Morning Mr. Cowan, the elevator is descending.”

Cowan stepped onto the platform as it began its slow descent into the pit.

“There will also be a normal elevator; it’s supposed to be operational in a few weeks,” he explained.

RJ nodded.

The descent was quite slow, but when they finally reached the bottom, RJ was amazed at the size of the area. It was easily twenty times the size of a football field. The ceilings had to be close to fifty feet from the floor. Most of the area was finished. The steel walls and floors were in place and the lights were mostly hung. Behind them, there was a group of men carving a new tunnel off the back of the room.

“This massive room will be partitioned off once it’s determined what all will be kept down here,” Cowan explained.

“Looks good, is that where the animal chambers will be?” RJ asked pointing to the tunnel under construction.

“Yes, it’ll be about the size of one of the large chambers upstairs, but just one level.” They stepped aboard the platform and it began to rise.

RJ returned to the command center and found Fitch.

“How long will you be with us RJ?” the General asked.

“Tomorrow evening I head back to Washington. I’ll be working with General Draper on team selection and training. I’ll be spending most of my time on that. I’ll stop out here every few weeks to see how things are going and to provide any insight that I’ve gotten.”