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GROOM LAKE:
The sun is high above the Rocky Mountains when Alex and Derek reach the top of a barren hill and stop to drink some water. Below them is the infamous Area 51, with its two runways and a variety of structures on the sprawling base.
Alex takes several swallows and checks the time on his wristwatch. “It’s just past noon. Damn! It took us two hours longer than I thought it would.”
Derek screws the cap on his empty bottle and slides it into his backpack. “At least we made it. I thought everything would be hidden underground.”
“Some of the facilities are, but most of the research being conducted here dealt with aeronautics, and the aircraft were kept in those hangars.”
“Have you ever traveled to another world in your spaceship?”
“No, not yet, and I don’t want to. I have enough to deal with right here on our own world.”
“How come we didn’t need to climb barbed wire fences to get in?”
“If the base was still operational, we would have been stopped long before we got close. We need to get moving.”
They hurry down the side of the hill through tangled brush to the flat area of desert, and head across the runways. Alex leads Derek around the outside of the security checkpoint to the back of the building, hoping to find some kind of transportation. He finds two golf carts and slings his backpack to the ground. He climbs into the first one and turns the key. None of the instrument lights come on so he knows the batteries are dead. He looks at Derek. “Try the other one.”
Derek reaches inside the other cart and turns the key. “Nope. This one is dead, too.”
Alex climbs out, checks the power cord for the charger, and sees the thick layer of dust covering the solar panels. He looks around for some kind of cloth, but doesn’t find one. When Derek raises his arm to use his hand to wipe them clean, Alex stops him. “Let’s check inside the building before you get dirty. You may not be able to wash your hands for a while.”
Alex tries the handle on the back door and it opens, but the putrid odor escaping from inside reminds him of the burial pit at the hospital in Palmdale. He holds his breath and steps inside, but immediately steps out and closes the door. “We should be able to find something in one of the other buildings.”
“Where was that stink coming from?”
“It appears to be a makeshift church for people waiting to die.”
Derek sees a trash dumpster near the corner of the building and goes over to look inside. He reaches in and brings out an old newspaper, slides a few advertisement pages out from inside, and hands the rest of it to Alex while he wipes away the dust on the solar panels.
Alex notices the bold letters on the front page. “Hey, listen to this. It says this will be the last newspaper published by the Las Vegas Herald. It’s dated three months after the radiation hit the planet. According to this article, five point six billion people across the planet died in the first month, and they began burying the bodies in mass graves.”
“I wonder if Robert and Kristie had to watch everyone dying. Did you see their graves when you stopped at the ranch?”
“No, but I wasn’t looking for graves. I just wanted to find you.”
Once satisfied with his work, Derek tosses the newspaper to the ground and checks the inside of the golf cart. “This one is charging.”
Alex checks the dashboard on the other cart and the charge light is on. “Good job. My office is not too far from here. That’s where we’ll find the spare crystals.” He slings his backpack over his shoulders and walks up the street.
Derek tries looking into the hangars along one side, but the windows are covered with a reflective film and all he could see is his distorted image on the dust-covered panes. “You have an office?”
“Not really. It’s where all the normal people work. I have an apartment here on base.”
“Did you spend most of your time flying in your spaceship?”
“No, we only use it in emergency situations. We didn’t want the rest of the world to know about it.”
“So what else did you do for your job?”
“I helped with other projects all over the base. Most of them dealt with experimental aircraft, so it was a great job.” He stops at the main building. “This is it.”
Alex opens the door and steps inside. The light streaming in through the windows is dulled by a thick layer of dust coating the glass. He continues along the hallway to Holly’s office and steps inside to look around. Two plastic bags are stuffed with shredded paper, and the lockable file cabinets are open and empty. Evidently, she made sure no one else had access to her top-secret documents. Another thought occurs to him, and a knot forms in his stomach. If everyone else on the base became that paranoid, they might have secured the vault so no one else can get inside. “Damn,” he mutters. “Let’s go see if we can get into the vault where we store the power crystals.”
Alex hurries down the hallway to the large freight elevator and sees that the doors are open. He looks inside and the steel cables have been cut. He brings out his flashlight and aims it down the shaft, and sees the roofless cab at the bottom, one-hundred-feet below. He leans inside and his flashlight illuminates a black steel ladder mounted to the wall on his left. He leans back and looks at Derek. “We’ll have to climb down, but that’s not our biggest problem. That’s going to be getting into the vault to get the crystals.”
“Don’t you know the combination?”
“I do, but they might have changed it when everyone started dying. Let’s leave our backpacks here and go find a cutting torch to bring down with us, just in case they did. We should be able to find what we need in one of the maintenance buildings.”
***
The large steel tanks of oxygen and acetylene gas hang precariously on the end of a long nylon rope, as Alex and Derek lower them down the elevator shaft. They attached a large flashlight to the bottles so they can watch it descend to the platform at the bottom.
Alex readjusts his grip on the rope to let a knot go by, and it becomes stuck on the edge of the concrete floor. He kicks it free with his foot and lets the rope continue sliding through his gloved hands. A few moments later, a dull thud sound echoes up the shaft and the rope becomes slack. “It’s down.”
Derek grabs the rest of the rope and leans around the corner to the ladder. He tries tying it to one of the rungs, but can’t quite reach it. He changes hands, swings his leg around, and steps onto the ladder. When he grabs the rung with his free hand, he feels a greasy substance. His feet suddenly slide off the rung. “ALEX!” he screams as he falls through the air.
Alex is slinging the coiled hose with the regulator and cutting torch over his shoulder when he hears Derek’s scream. He spins around but Derek is gone. He tosses the hose to the floor and stares down into the shaft and sees Derek’s crumpled body illuminated by the flashlight at the bottom. “DEREK!” he screams.
When Derek doesn’t move, Alex swings his leg and arm around the corner to the ladder. When he tries to put his weight on the rung, his shoe slides off and he nearly topples over the edge. He manages to get back onto the concrete floor, and stares at the black grease coating his glove. “Damn!”
He slides his hand out, grabs the flashlight from his pocket, and aims it at the ladder. The black grease is nearly invisible on the black rungs, but it glistens in the light. He aims the flashlight further down the ladder and spots randomly scattered blotches of grease as far as he can see, and realizes when they cut the cable, it must have whipped around the inside of the shaft, spattering globules of grease as it fell.
He knows there is still a chance Derek is alive. He slides the glove back on and carefully steps back onto the ladder, slowly making his way down.
It seems to take forever to reach the bottom. He tosses the gloves off and feels Derek’s neck for a pulse. When he can’t find one, tears cloud his vision. His body jerks with his deep, silent sobs, then he sucks in a deep gasp of air. “NOOOO!” he roars.
After several moments, he reins in his emotions and stares at Derek’s body without really seeing it, lost in thought about all the good times they had spent together when he was young. He feels drained of energy, both physically and emotionally. He turns off the light and leans back against the wall.