“Yeah, sure.” For some reason talking about movies after what he’d seen in the city yesterday annoyed Matt. “Where’s Trev?”
Lewis pointed vaguely towards the back of the bunker. “On patrol. Mayor Anderson asked us to watch the northern border. We were up early this morning finding a good patrol route and planning things out, which took us about four hours. Even though it means he’ll have to patrol longer today Trev asked for the four hours remaining in the shift, so I’d come on to do a full eight hour shift afterwards. It means he’ll basically be doing 16 hours, and I’m a bit worried about how he’ll hold up doing all that just after getting done with a 50 mile hike, but he was pretty insistent.”
“Wait, hold on,” Matt demanded incredulously. “You guys are trading off eight hour shifts? Officer Turner’s got a dozen men at the roadblock and half of them are sitting around!”
His friend shrugged. “Anderson’s sorting it out. He said it would only be a few days until he could set up a better patrol roster, a week at most.”
Matt thought about being sent home from the roadblock today and the vaguely promised future shifts if he was needed. He almost regretted volunteering there now, since it seemed like he could do much more good here. At least with three people they’d all be doing 8-hour shifts a day instead of trading off 16 hours. “Listen, I’m going to be doing shifts at the roadblock but I can help you patrol too. Tell Trev I’ll take the last shift tonight, and once I see the schedule for the roadblock I’ll fit in as many patrols out here as I can.”
Lewis nodded. “Thanks, that’s actually a huge relief. Come by around 8 and we can walk you along the patrol route before your shift starts. If you don’t have a flashlight I’ve got one for you, and it looks like you still have that pistol Trev got when Nelson tried to mug him.” He said that last with a nod at the gun at Matt’s hip. “You’ll probably also want to bring food and water, and dress warm.”
“Okay sure.” Matt hesitated, almost apologetically. “By the way, the town’s holding a potluck at 6. I don’t know if you want to cancel your shift or what, but…”
“I’m good,” his friend said, “but I’ll let Trev know.” He reached for his can of chili and took a bite. “So I guess that’s all settled. How about you? It sounds like you had an exciting day yesterday and I’d be interested to hear about it. The news can only tell you so much about what it’s like to be caught in up in the chaos.”
Matt shuddered. “I managed to get away before things got really bad.” He briefly described the riot at the store, the mugger on the sidewalk and defending himself with one of the dozens of cans of bear spray he’d dumped into his cart, curfew at the dorms, and the fires on the horizons. He also told his friend about meeting Sam and her help with the gas to get down to Aspen Hill, then asked if she could maybe come around to see the place sometime.
Lewis hesitated, looking reluctant. “You know I don’t like telling anyone about this place. Aside from my family you and your parents are pretty much the only ones who know exactly where it is. Everyone else just knows I live somewhere north of town.”
“She’s a good person,” Matt insisted. “You’ll like her.”
“I’m sure I will. There are a lot of good people in town but I still like to be cautious.” Lewis frowned thoughtfully, then sighed. “I guess if she ends up staying with you long term, which is probably going to happen since I don’t know what else she can do, she’ll pretty much be part of your family. If you decide she’s really trustworthy at that point of course she should know.” He abruptly grinned. “After all, I did invite you guys to a movie night.”
“It’d be my first underground movie,” Matt admitted, looking around the shed with its rounded walls. “I’ve already seen this place a few times but it’s still pretty impressive how you managed to bury it. Not sure what the point was, though: staying hidden from prying eyes?”
“Didn’t we ever tell you when you were helping us with it?” Lewis asked. Matt shook his head. “Putting it underground is for staying warm in the winter and cool in the summer, mostly. Although being hidden and less likely to draw attention is definitely a plus.”
That made Matt frown as he looked around again. “I can see that for the summer, maybe, like a cave being cooler than outside, but in the winter you’ve got the ground all around you constantly leeching heat out of this place. How is that better than a raised and insulated house?”
“Because a raised and insulated house isn’t really all that insulated. Just think of how fast it heats up or cools down when you turn off the heat or air conditioner. Underground the temperature stays fairly constant, going up a bit in the summer and down a bit in the winter but never too extreme. It also makes great insulation so the temperature change is slow when it does happen.”
Lewis stamped his foot on the carpeted wooden floor. “This place isn’t quite as ideal as true underground, since it has to be ventilated which lets cold or hot air in depending on the season. It’s also not buried quite deep enough to truly match ground temperature, which stays around 55 degrees fahrenheit year round. Still, it’s way better than a frame and wallboard house: no matter how cold it is outside the coldest this place has ever gotten is 40 degrees, and even on the hottest day of summer it’s always comfortably cool in here.”
His friend pointed at the large stove in the back corner and the stovepipe snaking its way along the ceiling to disappear upwards out of a hole near the front. “And we’ve also got the stove to heat the place up to something more comfortable than that, and with the underground insulation it doesn’t take nearly as much firewood to get the same results as heating a house like your parents’.”
Matt nodded slowly. “All right, I suppose that makes sense. But if this does so much better than normal houses for heating and cooling then why doesn’t everyone build houses like this?”
Lewis shrugged. “It’s a consequence of introducing modern heating and air conditioning into every household.”
He stared at his friend in complete befuddlement. What did that have to do with anything? “You’re going to have to explain that to me.”
“Think about it. Before heating and air conditioning were developed to the point that they could be installed in every home and run off the power or natural gas grid, people didn’t have easy solutions. In every region the world over people built houses suited to the climate, based on decades, centuries, or even millennia of human ingenuity and trial and error. Houses that were optimized for keeping the occupants warm in the winter and cool in the summer were necessary. Now the standard is framed houses of wallboard and plywood, poorly insulated and with big windows that are even harder to insulate, and everything aboveground. It’s no wonder they’re barely fit to live in now that the power and gas aren’t coming in. Which people will find out pretty quick as the weather turns colder. Even houses with wood stoves like yours won’t be quite as comfortable as their occupants hope.”
A good argument, but it still irked Matt that Lewis seemed to have had that speech prepared. “You just know everything, don’t you?”
His friend didn’t seem particularly insulted by the accusation as he took another bite of chili, chewed, and swallowed. “I try. The main problem most people have is shortsightedness, and with the introduction of easy heating and cooling everyone was quick to abandon all the past wisdom about climate appropriate houses for their regions in just a few decades, in favor of the ubiquitous frame houses that aren’t really suited to any climate but a perfectly temperate one without needing a lot of heating and cooling. I try to avoid being shortsighted.”