“Yes, sir. Have you given any more thought to my suggestion, Ben? The one about those Green Berets back in Nebraska?”
“I’ve thought about them once or twice. It’s too much of a long shot. They’re not likely to be any better off by now than we are. We only took them two truckloads of MREs. They’re probably long dead.”
“I don’t think the MREs were the reason for our delivery,” Ford remarked.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning what did they need a defense network computer for… unless they intended on still being alive to use it when the sky cleared up enough to communicate with our defense satellites?”
Moriarty stared at him, reasoning it out. “A silo could hold a great deal of food. If someone had had time enough to prepare.”
“And it would be just like the Pentagon to lay an egg that would hatch years later… all in the name of being the last nation left standing.”
“Fine,” Moriarty decided. “We’ll send a patrol of trusted men back to Tinker for the silo schematics. The original blueprints will still be on file. When they get back we can begin working our way east, scavenging whatever we can along the way. And we’ll need to quietly inquire as to whether there are any demolitions men in the ranks… because if that wiseass Green Beret captain is still alive, he sure as hell isn’t going to open the goddamn door and give us back our MREs.”
Thirty-Nine
“So what was the problem?” Forrest asked, learning that Danzig and Vasquez had successfully unclogged one of the facility’s three commodes.
“White mice,” Danzig said. “The women are flushing their tampons down the toilets, and this old plumbing won’t take it. They’ll snag in there and clog the whole fucking system, so you have to tell them to stop. Tell them to bag the damn things and we’ll keep them in the cargo bay.”
“Something else I should have thought of. Thanks. I’ll be sure and tell them.”
The children were all in class, so Forrest was able to catch a number of women together in the cafeteria. Some of them were talking, others reading. A couple were arguing. About what, he didn’t really care to know.
“Excuse me, ladies.”
They all looked at him, waiting to hear what sort of law he was going to lay down now.
“Yes?” Erin said patiently.
“We need to not flush our feminine products down the toilets anymore,” he said as tactfully as he knew how. “The plumbing down here is very old, so the pipes are rusty inside and if we get another clog and can’t get to it…”
“Won’t be good,” somebody said.
“Won’t be good, right. So we’ll put bags in the bathrooms and store the trash in the cargo bay.”
“Message received.”
He went back down the hall and into one of the two common rooms where Melissa was sitting on the floor with a pad of paper and a pencil. “Hey, kiddo. Where the hell is everyone?”
“Some are in silo one listening to music,” she answered, her attention on her work. “Some are in the other room watching an R movie they don’t want the kids to see. One or two are bike riding, I think. And Veronica and Uncle Michael are in Medical talking to the doctors. One of Uncle Michael’s fillings fell out or something.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to figure out this code those people are transmitting,” she said, flipping through the pages of numbers Ulrich had written down. The transmissions only occurred about three times a week for half an hour or so and not necessarily on the same nights.
“You know about cryptography?” he asked, surprised.
“No, just some basic stuff Wayne told me, but I’ve been thinking these people probably agree when to talk again before they sign off at night, so I’m looking for patterns of numbers that appear only on certain days. Maybe if I can learn their codes for the days of the week, I can use that information as part of a cipher. Only, I haven’t found anything that matches yet and it’s pissing me— Oops!” She looked up at him, covering her mouth. “That slipped.”
“You’re grounded. No leaving the silo for a week.”
She smiled, enjoying having him as even a pseudo authority figure in her life. “It’s driving me nuts.”
“You do know there are literally millions of different algorithms, right?”
“Yeah, but Wayne thinks this one is pretty basic, and I don’t have anything else interesting to work on down here. It’s killing me not having the Internet. I miss my physics chats.”
“Physics chat rooms… you’re kidding me.”
“No. Why, does that sound stupid?”
“Hell, no. I just never heard of it. I guess there used to be a chat room for everything.”
“I can’t believe it’s all gone.”
“I know,” he said sympathetically. “Hey, before I forget… we’ve been having some trouble with hygiene products in the—”
“I know. Don’t flush my tampons down the toilet. I heard you guys in the hall.”
“You did, huh?”
“I hear everything that goes on in the hall. I even heard… never mind.”
“Never mind what?”
She leaned forward, trying to see. “Is anyone out there?”
Forrest double-checked. “No, it’s fine. What’d you hear?”
“I heard Oscar and Maria two the other night. They were in the kitchen when everyone else was asleep.”
“No, honey, you got it mixed up. Oscar’s wife is Maria one.”
“I know that,” she said. “He was in there with Maria two.”
Forrest’s Oh, shit! light began to blink. “You’re positive? They look and sound a lot alike.”
“I’m positive. I saw her coming back to bed after… you know. He was working the late shift in Launch Control.”
Forrest crouched down beside her. “So who was in the LC when they were in the kitchen?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but I don’t think anybody was.”
“When was this?”
“Few nights ago.”
“Don’t tell anyone else,” he said, standing up. “Let me know when you’ve cracked the code.”
Laddie suddenly came scrabbling around the corner into the room, soaking wet and full of suds, running and jumping all over Melissa and dripping water onto her pad.
“Laddie!” she shouted, holding the pad over her head.
“He’s down here!” Karen called down the hall as she came into the room laughing, her jeans wet from the waist down. “Sorry, honey. Somebody left the washroom door open.”
“That’s okay,” Melissa said, though it bothered her very much.
“I told you washing that dog’s more trouble than it’s worth,” Forrest said, chuckling.
Renee showed up and, with a great deal of effort, the two women wrangled Laddie out of the room and disappeared into the hall, laughing.
Forrest followed after them.
“Jack?” Melissa said.
He stopped. “Yeah?”
“Think you and Veronica will ever get married?”
“I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully. “Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “Just wondering.”
On his way back to Launch Control, Maria Vasquez stopped him. “I want to ask you about something, Jack.”
“What’s on your mind?” he asked, preparing himself to lie for Oscar.
“Do you think for Halloween we could turn one of the silos into a haunted house for the kids? Nothing gory. Just spooks and ghosts, maybe some witches.”
“You know, I don’t see why not,” he said with relief. “We’ll have to be careful about the lighting, though. We don’t want anyone falling on those stairs.”