Under the Mountain Read online

  “Indigo is cool,” said the thin kid. “My name’s Roan. You like my band?”

  “Your band? Why aren’t you up on stage playing then?”

  “I don’t play; I’m their manager.” He stretched out the words as if to emphasize that any idiot should know that, then gave a wry smile from across the table.

  Oh, that explains everything, thought Luke, but remained silent, chewing. He was hungrier than he had thought.

  For a while, no one spoke as Social Dissonance’s exhilarating staccato beat drummed on. Everyone was listening and tapping feet or banging hands on the tables matching the rhythm. The crowd on the dance floor gyrated and swayed. Luke noticed a few people singing along; Social Dissonance might be new to Indigo, but they already had fans.

  When the band finished the song, the crowd clapped wildly in approval and Roan ran up to the stage and took the mic. “Aren’t they great?” he yelled.

  The kids in the club hooted and hollered their applause.

  “We’re going to take a short break, but we’ll be back in fifteen.” The crowd settled down as recorded music took over the speakers, quieter than the band had been by multiple decibels. Roan returned to Luke’s table.

  “I play the drums,” said Luke as Roan sat down.

  “So, you’re here to audition?”

  “No, man, just making conversation. I’m not great anyway.” Luke screwed up his face in a half-smile, half-frown and Roan laughed.

  “Not great at what?” asked a voice behind him.

  Luke turned to see Hayden Reese behind him. “Hey. Is it eleven already? Come, join us.” Two of the people at the table had left when the performance ended. Luke pushed one of the empty chairs with his foot toward Hayden.

  “Thanks. Not good at what?’ he asked again as he sat down.

  “Drums. I play, but not very well. Roan thought I wanted to join his band. Like that’s even a possibility. Social Dissonance is absolutely incredible!”

  “They are,” agreed Teagan, taking the last empty chair at the table. “My shift’s over. My feet are killing me – mind if I sit?”

  “Uh, no, please…” Luke could not figure out why he was having trouble speaking whenever she showed up. Mouthing off was his best talent and he was not shy, so why did she have this effect on him? His throat was dry and his tongue suddenly too big for his mouth.

  Luke leaned back in his chair and listened to the others at the table. Hayden gave his little sister a kiss on the cheek after she sat down and she punched him in the shoulder in response. Roan driveled on and on about his awesome band, and though they were good, Luke preferred to listen to their music than their bio’s. Still, the group seemed like a nice one and he was so happy to be with people his own age again that he mentally forgave Roan for his enormous ego.

  Soon the four band members came to the table and Roan got up. “Gotta’ run; catch ya’ll later. We have to strategize the next set.” He left as fast as his feet could propel him through the crowded club.

  “I should probably get going too. Doc’s probably worried.”

  “Where’s your domicile, Luke?” asked Hayden, taking a sip from his glass.

  Luke looked past him to Teagan and she gave him a small, crinkled smile. “Apartment 9C129. But I’ve got to go up to level six first thing tomorrow morning to register for school, so I won’t be there till later in the day.”

  “Oh, so you did come here for school, then?” asked Hayden. “I thought you were a research assistant. I assumed you’d finished school already.”

  “At sixteen? I wish!” laughed Luke. His grandmother had educated him and his sibs since he was four. She had been a college student, studying to be a teacher when the war happened, and she did not think learning could ever end. Luke had just assumed he would always be in school. Leaving the shelter was the first time he had been without instruction for more than a day. “Ms. Meisner said I had to sign up if I was going to stay here, and I’m thinking about doing that, assuming a few loose ends can be tied up.” Loose ends was a huge understatement, but Luke did not want to explain his life’s details to people he had just met.

  “Claudia Meisner?” asked Hayden, a tortured grin growing on his face.

  “You know her?”

  “Yeah, went to college with her. She was studying hospitality management and some of her classes overlapped my restaurant management courses. Nice girl, but follows the rules too blindly. She eats up President Harrison’s rhetoric hook, line, and sinker.”

  “What’s that mean?” asked Luke.

  “It’s an expression. I think it comes from fishing, way back when. Means a person accepts wholesale and uncritically an idea or set of beliefs. That’s what Claudia does.” Hayden was thoughtful a moment, and Luke did not interrupt him. He had little to no knowledge of how things worked at Mt. Weather, and if their guide accepted what their president said, unconditionally, well, Luke was not sure why that might be a bad thing. Wouldn’t the president of the country tell the people the truth?

  “How did you meet her?” Hayden finally continued.

  “She was our guide when our plane landed. We flew in from West Point this morning, and I am assisting a researcher, Dr. Rosario… but I guess I still have to sign up for classes. Vacation’s over,” he sighed.

  * * *

  Isabella

  The HSPC rolled silently down the battered highway. No one spoke; not prisoner, not soldier. Locked in the rumbling machine, Isabella feverishly idled away the time by twisting and twirling a lock of her hair until the strands knotted and tangled beyond repair.

  Malcolm leaned in to his wife and gently took her hand away from her hair. He kissed her fingertips, and then placed her hand in her lap.

  Isabella appreciated that Malcolm knew her well enough now that he could sense her nerves. Of course, the nervous habit she had had since childhood did give it away. She leaned her head closer to his and whispered, “I’m not sure if the soldiers believed the prisoners were trying to come to their aid, or maybe only Daphne believed us. I think she might be coming around. Maybe she still doesn’t like our new humans, but at least she is starting to see them as beings with a brain.”

  New humans was the term Isabella had coined to refer to mutants, a derogatory term she abhorred. It was not their fault their ancestors got stuck Outside when the Terror War struck. They were lucky those ancestors survived, and for that luck they were now treated as sub-human, like animals.

  Malcolm replied quietly, so only Isabella could hear. “Maybe. But I don’t have a clue what good it will do. Once we get to Mt. Weather, we will become slaves. They won’t even give us protective equipment to do the deadliest work in the world. The only thing they’ll give us is a lethal dose of radiation.”

  And an early grave, thought Isabella.

  Corporal Noble announced, “Get some sleep folks. We’ll be at Mt. Weather in the morning.”

  “Like sleep is even a possibility,” whispered Malcolm. He repositioned his sleeping daughter, Shia, on his lap and held Isabella’s hand.

  August 15, 2101

  Chapter Six

  Luke

  Teagan was slumped against the door as Luke left the school office, and he could see her shoulders were drooped and her eyes closed. Was she asleep?

  “You okay?” asked Luke in concern.

  Startled, she stood up straight and flashed her bright eyes at him. “Just taking a cat nap. You know, up late last night.”

  “Um, not that I’m, like, um, not glad to see you,” he stammered, “but why are you here?” Maybe he had left something at the club the night before and she was here to return it. Stupid thought. He did not have any possessions to lose.

  “To see you, stupid. You said you’d be here and I thought a public place was better than showing up at your domi.” Her smile penetrated Luke to the bone, burning into him like the noonday Outside sun.

  “Um….” Oh, great response, stupid. Like she said.

  Teagan returned his mumble with so
mething a bit more coherent. “Luke, you’ve been Outside! Call me weird, but I wanted to see more of you. Can we meet up after you’re done with the placement exam?”

  “Um…” Okay, dummy, this is it. Find some words or kiss this girl goodbye! “Okay.” Oh, great. That was so much better!

  “Great! Say back here at noon? We can get some lunch and I’ll show you around. I bet you’re dying for the real tour.”

  Without another word, Teagan vanished down the hallway, leaving Luke once again wondering about the sanity of girls. What on earth could interest her about him? If he could find the brain cells to make rational sentences, perhaps he would find out. First, he needed to deal with school, like it or not.

  He entered the high school administration office and introduced himself to the ancient schoolmarm at the desk. She had a thin, lipless mouth, made for frowning. Once she handed him a packet of paperwork, he spent the next three hours slumped over an old-fashioned student desk, filling out forms, answering questions about his education, and taking tests in literature, math, history, and science. By noon his brain hurt, his neck muscles spasmed uncontrollably, and his stomach rumbled louder than an airplane’s engine.

  If Teagan did not show up, he was sure he would just keel over and die on the spot.

  * * *

  Malcolm

  “Sergeant, can you feed the forward Spec view to the monitors, please?” asked Corporal Noble, keying her lapel mic.

  A moment later, all four television monitors changed to the exterior view of the traveling HSPC. A granite mountain loomed ahead of the vehicle, with a 40 cylindrical tunnel portal at its western base. Their vehicle rolled slowly, inescapably, down a ramp toward it until the concrete tunnel swallowed the HSPC, its prisoners, and military occupants in one gulp.

  As they began to descend farther into the mountain, Isabella grasped Malcolm’s hand and gripped tightly. “It’s so far down. My own enclave wasn’t anything like this.” Malcolm could hear the fear in her voice.

  Every prisoner’s eye was on the monitors. One hundred yards into their descent, they reached a solid concrete wall. The vehicle stopped, waited, and then the concrete plug that separated the Outside from the facility slid open, sideways. The plug was over 30 feet thick. The HSPC rolled through the entrance and then down the well-lit tunnel. The angle of descent was not particularly steep so it was difficult for Malcolm to determine how far down they had traveled. Eventually they reached a solid steel wall.

  “That is the blast valve. It will protect against a nuclear explosion detonated directly above it. Nothing can penetrate that,” explained Daphne Noble.

  None of the other soldiers spoke to the prisoners and Malcolm was glad that at least Daphne took the time to give them information. The female soldier obviously had no love for mutants, but her small gestures proved that she did not hate them either.

  “How long ago was this place built?” asked Malcolm. His eyes were riveted to the monitor.

  “Over 140 years ago. I think it was the 1960’s,” answered Daphne. “They installed two other entrances on the northern and southern sides a couple decades ago. Those don’t have blast valves, since they were put in after the war. We no longer have dangerous enemy governments ready to attack us with nuclear blasts. These days our only concern is to keep out the radiation and poison. Most people enter Mt. Weather from the other entrances. Those are simple airlocks only 20 or so feet below ground. The north entrance is where our landing strip is, and has a parking lot for visitor’s vehicles.”

  Isabella interrupted Daphne’s monologue. “Then why are we being brought in through this entrance?”

  “Prisoners are always brought in through the Portal.” Daphne smiled apologetically.

  “I see,” said Isabella. It seemed far too secure for a simple transport – almost overkill.

  Isabella gave a small nod to Malcolm, and he understood her unsaid comment. The military was showing the slaves that there was no escape from Mt. Weather, but Malcolm had no idea why Daphne just clued them in to that secret.

  The Spec rolled silently down into the bowels of the facility, until finally it came to a jarring halt. Daphne Noble stood up, but did not don a chem-rad suit this time because they were within a safe environment; environmentally safe for the people – anything but safe for the prisoners.

  Daphne overrode the HSPCs airlock, opening both inner and outer doors at once to allow all the prisoners to leave the vehicle in an orderly fashion. Once outside, other uniformed guards herded them like sheep to a bank of elevators. Each guard took a dozen prisoners into one of four elevators and keyed a code into its control panel. The lift began its descent to level ten where they entered an outer room that split into two brightly lit, wide hallways with prison cells along each side. They marched Malcolm, Isabella, and the others down the right-hand side of the hall following the guards past cell after cell. The long hallway ahead of them revealed dozens of cells, housing hundreds of prisoners in a never-ending row of small, barred, concrete rooms.

  They split up family units. A guard pushed eight prisoners into the first empty cell, including Andra. Forcibly separated from the rest of them, the little girl wept loudly. Shia screamed as if someone were murdering her when a guard pushed Malcolm and Clay into a crowded cell without her. She clung to Isabella’s hand as the guards continued down the cellblock farther and farther from him and Clay.

  “Isabella, where are they taking you?” cried Malcolm, beating the bars with his large fists. “I want my wife back. I want my daughters back!” He bellowed to the guards, whose retreating backs ignored his pleas.

  * * *

  Isabella

  Isabella wept silent tears, hearing Malcolm’s screams behind her as rifle points prodded her, Shia, and Kalla into a cell three units farther down the long hall, where the steel bars crashed shut behind them. Leaning her back against the wall, she slid down slowly, and all her energy drained away, until she slumped motionless on the floor. Shia dropped into her lap and curled into a sobbing ball of tears. Isabella looked up at Kalla, who stood above them, silent and with dry eyes. The younger girl was more prone to anger than tears. Her eyes glared with rage and her jaw clenched, along with her fists, as she turned away from Isabella and began pacing the room like a restless animal.

  * * *

  Luke

  “Hey schoolboy!” greeted Teagan as Luke stepped into the hallway just after twelve o’clock. “Tests go okay?” Teagan looked much more awake than she had that morning. She had pulled her hair into a ponytail and was wearing make-up, although not much of it. Her face glowed and she smelled good. Luke felt his skin tingle just looking at her.

  “Ah, yeah. Old lady schoolmarm will send over my schedule as soon as she reviews the tests. I don’t really care anyway. It’s not like I’m staying here till graduation.” Wow, he had actually strung more than three words together! Luke was proud of himself.

  “Well, before you leave Mt. Weather, I think you should fully enjoy all of its beauty and entertaining delights,” said Teagan so sarcastically that Luke wondered what she really had in mind. “Should we start at the top?”

  “How about the bottom?” asked Luke, as a sly grin slowly spread across his face. “What’s on level ten?”

  “Oh, you are an interesting kid, aren’t you? Everyone who pays attention knows what’s down there. You can guess, can’t you?” she said with a wry smile. Her eyes twinkled with mischief.

  No, it was not mischief, Luke decided. It was somehow more conspiratorial than mere misbehavior.

  “Mutants, right?” he asked expectantly.

  She nodded.

  “I knew it! I asked Ms. Meisner, but she wouldn’t confirm it. Are they really captives?” Luke’s excitement changed to dread when he thought how his cousin-sister might wind up in a jail cell.

  “Yes, they are. But you’ve been Outside! You must have seen mutants. Why are you so interested in the ones down in the dungeon? No one cares about them…” her voice trailed off,
as if she was expecting him to argue with her.

  “I think you do. I think you and all your friends from Indigo care about them; the band manager, Roan, especially.” Luke’s stare dared her to deny the charge, but she could not.

  “Alright, I’ll take you there, but it’s going to take some planning. No one just takes the lift to level ten. You need an access code. We’ll need the help of some of my friends.”

  The lyrics from one of the songs from last night ran through his head.

  Do you feel superior,

  When they die instead of you?

  Do you feel superior,

  When you force them to be crew?

  Do you, do you, do you?

  Do you feel superior,

  [Bass: Boom! Boom! Boom!]

  When you make them die for you!

  “So, I’m right then? Your friends last night… Social Dissonance is more than just a band, isn’t it? You guys are doing something… something about the mutants.” Luke stared into the older girl’s eyes, but she did not even blink.

  “All in good time, Luke. First, I’m starved. Pizza or hot dogs?” she asked as she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the lift, punching the concourse level icon as the door slid closed.

  “Sorry?”

  “What’s your favorite food?” she clarified.

  In the small elevator, her feminine scent was even more intoxicating, and Luke already had enough trouble making sentences around this girl without that added hurdle for his nerves to handle.

  “Whatever you want is fine,” replied Luke, preferring his ignorance of local foods not to embarrass him. He felt like an unsophisticated rube in this city.

  “You are either a very brave boy, or incredibly stupid. Either way, I promise not to torture you with anything too strange. You’re not the first isolated shelter kid I’ve met. I have a favorite place. It’s a bit off the beaten path, but I think you’ll like it.” Teagan’s smile enthralled Luke. He would follow her to the ends of the earth itself. Level ten at the bottom of Mt. Weather was the end of the Earth, in a way.