THE ARK

RJ Anderson returned to the Command Center, as she walked she thought about her situation. The answers were coming, but the more answers she had the more questions developed. She had to keep forcing the image of the frantic Fitzpatrick fighting to get free out of her mind.

RJ sat back down at the terminal and pulled up the status of the reactor. Everything was operational and radiation levels were within normal limits. Next, she pulled up the communications logs and listened to all incoming transmissions that had come in since they had gone to sleep.

Two weeks after the sleep began; Matt Fitch posted a status report. RJ viewed the report and was shocked at when she saw the Generals face. His hair was thinning and he looked extremely tired. “Hello RJ, Amy, Brad. I must assume that you’ve successfully completed your sleep if you’re hearing this message. The death toll is still rising rapidly. The hospitals are virtually useless to the sick. The transportation system has stopped altogether. There is a lot of anger in the media that more wasn’t done to help prevent this and to provide more shelters. Before the media stops broadcasting the President will announce that there is a group trained for the purpose of rebuilding and that they’re in a special shelter, and will begin their work as soon as the radiation levels reach normal levels. He won’t disclose your location or any other details. There is a problem however, our experts have reviewed the data and have determined that there is much more radioactive debris in the atmosphere than we anticipated; in fact, there is five times as much as our worst case scenarios predicted. This means that the radiation levels are much higher than expected, and conditions won’t be safe for your awakening for possibly forty to sixty years instead of the anticipated ten to twenty. I linked with your computers and have determined that technically this shouldn’t be a problem for you. it’s just much longer than we calculated and your equipment isn’t designed for use for that long of a time. The reserve supply of SF016 should be enough to allow you to make it all the way through.

I’ll update you as I get more information. Good luck.”

The second message was dated one month later. RJ played the message.

General Draper’s face came on the screen; RJ was shocked at what she saw. His hair was almost gone, and his face had a sickly gray look to it. “Hello RJ, I just wanted to give an update. I believe Matt told you that the President would let the country know that you’d be around after the radiation levels stabilized to help in the rebuilding process. That was message was sent out about two weeks ago. Since then everything has pretty much stopped. The last of the TV broadcasts went off the air a week ago. There is still some stuff on the shortwave radio but nothing official.”

RJ suddenly saw a drop of blood appear at the end of Draper’s nose, the nose was soon dripping. The General picked up a blood covered cloth and held it to his nose. “Sorry about that. Many of us are experiencing this. As I was saying, we still have contact with each of the emergency shelters. We’ve lost contact with all foreign governments. There are only two state governments that we still can communicate with.

“To the best of our knowledge, all hospitals are closed or abandoned. We’ve had to make brief trips out of this shelter to locate food and supplies, and because of that, we’re all sick. Two nights ago, it was Matt Fitch’s turn to go. He never returned.

“I know that the original plan was for you to make contact with each of the shelters upon awakening; the problem is that they each had enough supplies for twenty years. It looks like they’ll have run out of supplies twenty to forty years before you awaken and start looking for them. They’ll have had to leave their shelters many years before it was safe. I don’t know what you’ll find. I wish you luck.” With that, Draper signed off.

There were no other messages for almost twenty-two years. Then a face RJ had never seen before appeared on the view screen. The man appeared to be about fifty years old and had unnaturally pale skin. “I’m Greg Daniels I’m the site leader of shelter seventeen located in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Over the last twenty years, we’ve lost twenty percent of our shelter’s inhabitants to deaths from miscellaneous causes, or because they left the shelter on their own. In two cases, it was because the Senate voted to banish them because of crimes committed in the shelter. This has allowed the rest of us to lengthen our food reserves by about eighteen months. Even with that, we’re now down to a two-day food supply. In three days, we’ll have to head out and take our chances. Our instruments show that the radiation levels were heavier than expected. They have been decreasing at a much slower rate than we were expecting. When we leave here in three days, we’ll all be exposed to radiation levels that are still in the red zone. Good luck to you.”

There were messages from fourteen other shelters all with similar stories. All had found ways to extend their food supplies from two to ten years. Most were sending out foraging parties to look for food and bring it back. The more RJ listened the more depressed she became.

Eventually, she stopped listening to the messages and closed her eyes, and rested her head back.

The best she could tell there were several important questions that needed to be answered immediately. Why was she so sick, and would the others also be as sick as she? Was the old man actually Carter, and if so, why did he stay awake and what has he been doing? Most important, was anyone at all alive outside the mountain?

She decided to try something; she reached for the intercom switch and depressed the button that would broadcast on the entire engineering level. “Dale, this is RJ, can you hear me? I want to talk to you.”

RJ waited thirty seconds and tried again. “Dale, It looks like everything here is real good, but I need some information. Please talk to me.” This time she opened the transmitter on the intercom in the engineering hall. She listened and could hear movement, but no words.

“Dale I don’t want to leave you trapped in that hall. I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, but before I let you out I need to talk to you.”

Now she could hear a muttered voice, it seemed to be speaking but not clearly.

“Can you speak up Dale? I can’t hear you.”

There was more movement but then nothing but silence.

“Ok Dale, I’ve some things to do. I’ll be back in a while.”

It had reached the point where she would need assistance with any further work. However, there were a few things she needed to take care of first.

RJ went to the Mess Hall, heated up a frozen meal, and made some lemonade from concentrate powder and water. After eating her first meal in over half a century, she went to her quarters and took a long hot shower, and put on a clean jumpsuit. She transferred her weapon to the leg pocket on the new outfit and headed to the health center. She located a narrow gurney and some other supplies. She went to a computer terminal and accessed the medical databases. She reviewed the drug information that she had learned during her in-depth orientation to the sleep process.

She rolled the gurney out of the health center and to the sleep chamber that she had awakened from.

The plan had been for her to wake Brad Warren after determining that they were going to end the sleep. Now things changed and, she wanted someone who was more familiar with the sleep process first. She parked the gurney next to Amy Travers’ capsule. She went to the head of the controls and started inputting commands. Immediately the computer stopped the flow of SF016 into Amy’s vein and infused the three drugs used to ease the wake-up sequence. Next, the system shut off the special gasses that she was breathing and she was now getting pure oxygen from the mask.

RJ watched the display and saw Amy’s heart rate and breathing increase. When they had reached the recommended level, RJ decompressed the capsule and activated the mechanism that would open the cover. As soon as the capsule was open, RJ removed the urinary catheter and unplugged the EKG wires. Next, she lifted her friend onto the narrow gurney. She switched the mask for a standard oxygen mask and connected it to the oxygen tank that was clamped to the underside of the gurney.

RJ next disconnected the IV tubing that came from inside the capsule at the point where it connects to the catheter in Amy’s arm and plugged in the tubing from an IV that she had just set up and hung on the pole attached to the gurney, she secured the tubing with tape and opened the flow all the way. She was now infusing .9% saline and would run in the whole liter to help combat the dehydration that she suspected Amy would be suffering in the same way that she had. She injected some anti-nausea medication. This medication was one of the three drugs that were automatically infused during the wake-up sequence, but clearly, a second dose was needed.

RJ figured that the extra dose was needed either because of the length of time in the sleep capsule or because of the age of the drug. Either way, this should help Amy to recover more quickly.

RJ closed the capsule lid and rolled the gurney with her friend into the health center. Once there she parked in the Triage area and plugged the oxygen into the wall port to conserve what was in the portable tank.

She found a chair and pulled it up next to the gurney. Within a few minutes, Amy’s eyes were starting to flutter.

“Amy, wake up.”

It took a few minutes before Amy could open her eyes and focus clearly on her commander.

“I feel awful,” Amy finally said. She then tried to sit up and quickly fell back to the bed as a wave of nausea and dizziness struck her.

She looked at RJ with a look of panic on her face. “I shouldn’t be feeling like this.”

“Just lay still and rest, it’ll take some time to pass. You’re dehydrated, I’m giving you fluids and I also gave you something extra for the nausea,” RJ said with a smile. “You should’ve seen me, I didn’t have any extra fluids or meds and no one was there to help me through this. I passed out naked on the floor with my face in a pool of my own barf. You have it easy.”

“But we shouldn’t feel this sick, something went wrong,” Amy said with fear in her voice. RJ had to strain to hear her cracked whisper-like voice.

“Yeah, something went wrong. We slept much longer than planned. You once told me that the longer someone slept the worse they would feel.”

RJ stepped away and returned with a paper cup half full of water. “Just drink a little; I don’t want to deal with you puking.”

“Thanks, I feel like I slept two hundred years. How long was it?”

RJ noticed the dramatic improvement in her voice following the few sips of water.

“We were out for fifty-four years,” RJ explained. “There are still many unanswered questions, but it seems that the radiation was more intense than estimated.”

“I can’t believe that the equipment is still all functional after this much time. How many sleepers did we lose?” Travers asked.

“It seems we lost six or seven of the sleepers,” RJ said.

“Wow, I expected to lose more than that with the twenty-year sleep. I know that sounds bad, but really it’s very good. How did the animals do?”

“I haven’t checked on them yet,” RJ admitted.

The bag of IV fluids was almost out so RJ shut off the flow and got the tape and gauze pads so that she could remove the IV catheter from her friend’s arm.

Once the catheter was out and the small bandage in place Amy tried to sit up again. There was mild dizziness and nausea, but it seemed bearable.

RJ helped her to her feet and Amy immediately grabbed the side of the gurney for support. They worked together to get Amy dressed, and she then sat on the side of the gurney for a minute before standing again.

“It will take you a few minutes to start feeling better. The more I moved around the quicker things improved,” RJ explained.

“Where is Brad?”

“Considering the problems with waking up from the sleep I figured it would be best to change plans and wake you first.”

“Makes sense.”

Amy moved to the wall and using it for support she made her way to the sink, where she splashed cold water on her face a few times and rinsed her mouth out, spitting the water into the sink.

“Feel better?” RJ asked.

“A little, but still sick.”

“Yeah, it took me over an hour before I no longer wanted to barf. Think you can walk?”

“Yeah, where to?”

“Let’s go to the command center you can sit for a while and we can go over some stuff,” RJ instructed.

Using RJ’s arm for support Amy walked to the control room. When she got there, she quickly sat a terminal and closed her eyes for several minutes.

“You ok?” RJ asked as she sat against the console.

“Yeah, it’s getting better.” As Amy talked, she noticed the weapon in RJ’s leg pocket. “Why the gun?”

“When I first woke and stumbled in here there was someone in here already.”

“No way! Who was it?” Amy asked a little nervous.

“It was an old man, he looked terrible. I only got a brief look at him. I now suspect it’s Carter.”

“Dale Carter?”

“Yeah, there was a reactor issue twenty-nine years ago and he was awakened by the computers since Fitzpatrick was unable to open his capsule. Apparently, Carter never returned to his capsule. I’ve checked and there is no sign that anyone has gained access to the Mountain,” RJ explained

“Where is he now?” Amy asked as she began punching commands into the computer keyboard.

“I have him trapped in the engineering hall. All doors are locked. He won’t answer the intercom but I can hear him moving around.”

“What about Fitzpatrick?”

“Dead in his capsule. Looks like he fought to get out but there was some kind of door failure,” RJ explained.

“As freaked out as he was when we put him in there, if he was trapped there he probably had a heart attack,” Amy surmised.

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“What’s our next step?”

“As soon as you’re feeling up to it we need to wake a few more people so we can get started. Do you have any ideas that will help ease the effects of the wake-up?” RJ inquired.

“Yes, I’ve already changed the global settings in all sleep chambers for fluid administration. Gradually over the next twenty-four hours, all sleepers will get an extra liter of fluid, except for those on the command center staff. They’re getting theirs much quicker, they should be rehydrated in an hour, and the medication doses for the wake-up sequence have been modified to hopefully keep everyone from feeling as poorly as we did,” Travers said, as she continued her work at the keyboard.

“Good, I want Brad and the Command Center staff awakened first followed by a few people from security and our final reactor engineer. We need to find out what Carter has been doing for thirty years.”

“Ok RJ, but I’ll be waking one of the physicians next. I don’t want to be bringing anyone out and running into problems that I can’t handle. Is that Ok with you?” Amy asked.

RJ thought about it for a moment before answering, “Yeah, but I want to get moving on this. I’ll get you some food. That made me feel better quickly and as soon as you’re up to it we’ll awaken your doctor.”

Chapter 38