When Major Ka-markla awoke, about a quarter hour before sunrise, Heather was already up, stretching and doing some simple dance steps in an open area of the concrete floor. Sergeant Ta-nibon continued his adventures in dreamland.
“Hi,
Lisa.”
“Hi, kid. You’ll do just fine in a military facility if you’re used to getting up before the sun.”
“I
don’t
always get up this early, but I want to peek at every inch of this place before Sam gets here.”
The major raised her eyebrows. “You mean General Bo-seklin? I’m not sure he’ll let you use his first name.”
“Then he can’t call me Heather, can he?”
The major chuckled, and a moment later the sergeant began stirring.
“Good morning, Ben!” Heather said, still prancing about.
“Did I miss the bombs and bull dozers?”
“Yeah. They were very quiet bombs and bull dozers. Lisa and I are gonna creep around. There’s cold pizza.”
“No
coffee?”
“Major Ma-soran promised to have something brought in,” Lisa remembered, combing her hair, “but no idea when.”
“I think she’ll be up early, making arrangements and stuff,” Ben speculated while tucking in his shirt. “I saw a sparkle in her eyes last night that I’ve never
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 27
seen before.”
Lisa, opening a can of juice, nodded. “You might be right. I think Heather touched their hearts with all her talk about this place becoming important.”
“That wasn’t just talk, you know,” the girl said while stretching her calf muscles.
Heather grabbed a note pad and pencil. The two females started at the stairs and went clockwise around the building. Ben wanted to stay near the radio, especially since the first arrival would probably bring coffee.
“This area beside the stairs is supposed to be the office,” Lisa explained.
“Major Ma-soran’s desk . . . Colonel Ba-kerga’s desk. But it’s so ill-defined that it’s almost impossible to keep safe-house guests out.”
Heather started sketching. “How about a counter across here, in line with the wall on the other side of the stairs? Some nice, varnished wood.”
Lisa looked at the sketch. “I like that. The fax machine and the mailbox could go on it.”
“Yeah. What’s this?”
“Staff toilet room, and here in the corner is the general’s office.”
“Hmm . . . he just needs some nicer furniture,” Heather said while standing in the doorway, sketching. “I have a hunch he likes to entertain visitors.”
“He might, if the place wasn’t so ugly.”
Heather snickered and Lisa smiled.
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 28
“This
door?”
“Kitchen, but let’s go in through the dining room.”
After stepping through the wide doorway, Heather frowned at the dingy little stove, apartment-size refrigerator, and wobbly metal shelving with nothing but a few spice canisters. She sketched as she wandered. “Roomy, but it needs professional equipment if any cook is gonna be happy here.”
“Military people work wherever they’re assigned.”
“When we get done with this place,” Heather boasted, turning her attention to the dining room, “people will be begging to work here!”
“Except . . . few of them will have the necessary clearance.”
“Oh yeah, that. Hopefully there’s a cook somewhere with top-secret-umbra who can make a decent pizza.”
Lisa laughed and followed Heather out.
“World’s smallest laundry room,” the girl mumbled after poking her head in and making a quick sketch. “I like how this wall separates the big room from this corridor — makes it more private back here.” She quickly paced off the width. “Eight feet. Enough for some comfy chairs and little tables for people who don’t wanna schmooze in the dining room.”
The major smiled.
“And these are the sleeping rooms,” Heather said in recognition.
“This small one holds two single roommates or one couple,” the major explained
Heather
sketched.
“It’s so strange watching you work. I have a niece who’s seven, and she’s very bright, but just barely beginning to write a few simple words, and can only draw stick figures.”
Heather raised her eyebrows. “There’s a clinical term for it, you know.”
Lisa shook her head slightly.
“Age-inappropriate
behavior.”
Both females burst into laughter as they entered the other sleeping room.
“When we get a family, we put them in here.”
“So . . . they eat in the dining room . . . hang out in the big room . . . and just sleep in here?”
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 29
“Mostly. Also, there’s a recreation room in the southwest corner, with a little open-air patio.”
“Cool,” Heather mumbled, finishing her sketch. “We could put a couch and a little desk in here if we move the bedding cabinet into the corridor. And I’m beginning to see dusty green walls and light blue tie-back curtains.”
“Wow. I hope you can talk the general into spending all that money.”
“I know I can.”
“This is our little clinic. Doc comes over from the air base when we get safe-house people. Has it’s own toilet room.”
Heather peeked around and sketched. “Mmm, nice big bath tub.”
“And we can go straight though this door into your favorite room . . .”
“Eeew. The dreaded conference room.”
Lisa laughed. “Let’s hurry straight across.”
Although the recreation room was currently jail-cell gray like everything else, and contained only an old tumbling mat and a couple of dead potted plants on the patio, Heather’s eyes lit up when she stepped in.
“You see something, don’t you?” Lisa asked.
“Yep,” the girl said, concentrating on her sketch.
When they returned to the outer office where the sergeant was pacing, Major Ka-markla declared she was having cold pizza for breakfast, and asked Sergeant Ta-nibon to show Heather the lower levels.
“You’re not worried about me being alone with the little girl in the bomb shelter?” the sergeant inquired with a half-smile.
The major looked at them both. “I think you’re tough enough for the job, Sergeant. Let me know if she’s too hard on you.”
Heather snickered as the pair headed for the stairs and the major started opening pizza boxes.
“Lisa already told me I can’t flirt with the staff,” Heather shared when they got to the garage level.
Ben laughed. “You’ve seen the inspection room . . .”
“Let me make a quick sketch. So you put dangerous stuff like guns in the
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 30
locked cabinet, and other junk on the shelves.”
“Yeah. Sometimes safe-house people arrive with all their family heirlooms
. . . dishes . . . you wouldn’t believe what else.”
“I’ve known for a while that I had to be ready to go, so I kept my little bag packed, and when the gray van pulled up, I just popped in my music.”
“I’m sorry you had to leave your home,” he said as they crossed the corridor and stepped into the other small room. “Guard room. Radio.
Munitions cabinet. Boring.”
“It needs a nice couch, soft lighting, books and magazines . . .”
“I’m not holding my breath!”
“You’ll
see.”
They stepped into the echoey garage. Ben explained the yellow and red lines on the floor, and that parking beside any red line would get your car towed away and crushed into a little cube before they yelled at you.
Heather laughed as she strolled and sketched. “Except the blind transports.”
“Yeah. Only those can park in the middle.”
“Plenty of fire hoses. We need to take this ladder upstairs so I can peek in the ceiling.”
“That’ll be up to Major Ma-soran.”
“It’s only an eight-foot ladder. I could dance on the top of it!”
Ben laughed, but said no more on the subject as they went back inside.
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 31
Heather lurked down the next stairway like a pirate entering her treasure cave. “Har, har, matie!”
Concrete changed to smooth stone. They turned a corner, crept through a steel door, and smooth stone changed to rough stone. As they descended more steps, the ceiling became lower, forcing the sergeant to hunch over.
Another steel door creaked as it was opened. “Multiple doors in case of bombs or fallout,” Ben explained.
“Way cool, a little tiny bunk room.”
“It’s an isolation room in case someone’s sick.”
“Porta-potty room . . .” Heather identified as she began her sketch.
“Drain in the floor, so it’s also the shower, if there’s water to spare.”
They wandered into the largest room of the bomb shelter, the same size as the general’s office but crammed with ten bunk beds, a table where six could eat if they sat close, a bench stacked with boxes of supplies, and two water barrels.
“I guess ugly is okay down here.”
“Yeah. I hope we never have to use it. You know, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know.”
She said no more on the subject.
Ben got knee pads, they strapped them on and crawled, side by side, about a hundred feet along the emergency escape and ventilation tunnel, passing
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 32
three doors.
“The doors are like air locks for when there’s fallout,” Ben explained, “but we normally leave them open to keep the place fresh and dry. Here’s the end.
It’s a weedy ditch behind the building.”
Heather examined the window screen, tight-fitting to keep bugs out, and the grill of thick steel bars. “Fallout is just dust, right? Pure air can’t become radioactive.”
“Right. If you have enough dirt or rock between you and the outside, and can keep the dust out, you’re good.”
They crawled back to the bomb shelter, Heather sketched a little more, and they ascended to the garage level just as the first radio call came in.
