“You look like you’re feeling better,” Matt said to her. His words sounded intimately sincere there in our tight group, like they were alone. Tater crossed his arms and sniffed loudly.
“I feel better. Thank you.”
He smiled down at her, and New York Josh cleared his throat. “Cut that shit out before I puke. Let’s go.”
At that moment, a bunch of doors on our hall opened, and people filed out. They all stopped when they saw us by the stairs. One guy even pulled out his gun and held it at his side. Remy sucked in a breath, and Rylen moved to stand in front of us.
Texas Harry stepped out and held up his hands. “We came during the night. Faced the Spanish Inquisition. Dog Balls gave us keys.” He waved his room key for good measure.
The group of guys made their way over, eyeing us with special attention on Remy and I. I guess when there were four men to every woman, that was going to be natural. As long as they kept their hands to themselves, everything would be fine. We did a quick round of introductions—everyone was military except Remy and I—and we made our way down the stairs into the basement to the tunnel. I was going to have a hard time keeping track of all these Sergeants and other ranks.
The tunnel seemed much shorter this time. Maybe because I wasn’t as dead on my feet. Speaking of feet, mine were painful with every step, and my muscles felt tight and shrunken. I didn’t dare complain, though. I wasn’t the only one walking stiffly.
“I wonder how much weight we’ve lost,” I whispered low to Remy when the door was in sight up ahead.
“I know,” she whispered back. “I’ve lost at least a bra size.”
“That’s a damn shame.” Texas Harry’s booming voice came from close behind us and we both jumped.
“Geez!” I hissed. “Do you have to overhear every embarrassing conversation we have?”
He chuckled. “Can’t help it if I’ve got good ears.”
“Or if you’re a nosy perv,” Remy said without anger, which made him chuckle harder.
Noise from the communal area spilled into the cave as we got closer. At least fifty faces, people eating and chatting, stopped to look at us as we entered. The scent of coffee wafted against my face and I grabbed Remy’s arm.
“Coffee! Oh, my God, Rem! Coffee!”
“Settle down,” she said. “You look like a crazy woman.”
Rylen laughed, and it was the first real laugh I’d heard from him. He met my eyes and his laughter faded into something like a moment of peace that changed to guilt as he looked away.
“Sorry,” he said in a low voice. “Feels wrong, you know? To laugh.”
“It’s not wrong,” I said, but I understood how he felt. Smiles and laughter clashed with the grieving. Hurting hearts did not easily welcome happiness.
A stream of people came out of the tunnel behind us, forcing us forward.
Tater led the way along the outskirts of the sitting area and cafeteria area to the large kitchen where trays were set out beside bowls of oatmeal with raisins, scrambled eggs likely made from powdered rations, and yes . . . a huge coffee urn. I didn’t see any cream, but there were packages of sugar with a sign that said One pack per day per person.
“Quit pushing,” Remy said as I bumped my tray against hers, but she was laughing at me as I finally got to the front and made my coffee. It was light brown, not dark like I used to require it, but I would deal.
We took our trays to an empty round table and each of us groaned and made scrunched faces as we sat. Everything hurt.
“No more marathons for me, guys,” I said.
Remy nodded. “In the freezing cold and snow.”
“With no food or water,” Matt added.
I closed my eyes, smelling my coffee before I took the first sip. Then I let the warmth touch my lips. Slightly sweet. Slightly bitter. Complete perfection.
“Do you seriously have tears in your eyes?” Tall Mark asked.
I opened my eyes and sure enough, they were watering.
“Just like Dad,” Tater said softly. We made eye contact, and his face fell. I blinked the moisture away.
“Well, I hope someday I find a girl who loves me as much as you love coffee,” Mark said, taking a sip of his and smiling.
“Hate to tell ya, man,” Texas Harry said, “But you’ll never make a chick feel that good.”
Mark let out a false guffaw then held his cup up to me across the table. I held mine up too. Then we all raised our cups.
“Cheers new guys,” said a husky female voice from behind me. “And girls.”
We turned our faces up to the tall, slender girl we’d seen when we came in last night. Her stance and expression were all badass, from the oversized T-shirt knotted in the back, down to the camo pants slung low on her hips. Her blond bangs angled across her face, coming to a point beneath her opposite jaw. She looked straight at Rylen.
“We meet again, airman Fite. Sleep well?” We meet again? Wait, they knew each other? Something ugly clenched deep in my belly. Remy cast me a look, like she was curious too.
Ry’s expression remained unfazed as he set down his glass of water and nodded. She gave a tight smile. “Good.” Then she looked over our group. “I’m First Lieutenant Linette Thompson. Finish up. I’ll be giving you your jobs.”
“Sure thing, officer,” Texas Harry said. He grinned, but she didn’t smile back. She just stood there while we quickly finished our breakfasts, which, by the way, tasted amazing and I wished we’d had time to savor it. I didn’t appreciate having this officer breathing down our necks, but the others took it in stride. I guess being in the Army gave people a higher threshold for annoyances. Or taught them to fake it really well.
We took our trays into the kitchen where an older man and woman took them and washed them, using a tag-team effort. Linette turned and looked down at Remy.
“Bio background, right? You’re needed in the greenhouse, which is after-dark work. You’ll report Monday through Saturday at twenty-one-hundred.”
Remy shot me a look of panic, I assumed at the military time.
“Nine at night,” I explained, and she relaxed.
Linette looked annoyed by the disruption. “You’ll need to learn military time by the end of the day, civvy or not.”
I didn’t care for her rude tone and apparent disdain for civilians, but Remy quickly nodded and said, “Okay. So, food production, then?”
“Affirmative.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. Did she really need to lay it on so thick with the lingo?
She turned to Matt. “You’ll be in the Comm room.” Matt clicked his feet together and saluted. “At ease. No need to salute in here. Sergeants Depaul, Harris, and Tate?”
New York Josh, Texas Harry, and Tater stepped forward.
“You’ll all be trained for perimeter guard duty. You’ll rotate between day and night shifts. Sergeant Mahalchick you’re on watchman duty.” They all nodded. She turned to me, all seriousness. “You’ll be with Captain Ward in the med unit. He’s our only doc on the premises. Actually, he’s a dentist. Thankfully we don’t have many med emergencies.” Several of the guys chuckled.
“Airman Fite.” Rylen’s hands were clasped in front, his feet apart as he watched her. “Based on your background, you’re needed for top secret work with Dog Balls.”
His expression never changed as he heard this and gave a single nod, but the rest of us got wide eyes. Top secret? It seemed like there should be no more secrets with how things were going these days. What could they possibly be doing? Was it dangerous? Well, that was a useless thought—of course it was dangerous.
“Any questions?” She eyed us. When nobody said anything, she turned and walked away.
“You know her?” I whispered to Rylen.
He shook his head. “She questioned me yesterday.”
She was his questioner when we arrived? The thought of them alone in a small room together, her in a power position over him, made me uncomfortable. I crossed my arms over my ches
t so he couldn’t see me making fists. I knew I was being jealous, though there was no reason for it. I needed to stop.
“Whelp,” Texas Harry said with a stretch. “See y’all on the flipside.” Josh shot us a peace sign, tapping it to his chest. Tater saved his last glance for Remy before they left us. She looked at me, confused. He’d been hot and cold with her for days.
“You know where to go?” Rylen asked me.
I did. “I remember passing the med room in the main hall yesterday.”
“All right then.”
He started to walk away, and I quickly said, “Ry . . . be careful.”
“Always am.” He rewarded me with a soft look before going.
Remy grasped my arm and whispered, “Can you teach me the time thing before you leave?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s basically a twenty-four hour system instead of twelve and twelve. For morning hours you turn them into hundreds instead of saying o’clock. Like, one in the morning is oh-one-hundred. Then, instead of starting back over after noon, you keep counting past twelve. So 1:00 PM is thirteen hundred. 2:00 is fourteen hundred. If it’s 3:30 you say fifteen-thirty, and so on.” I had no idea if I was making sense. I’d never had to explain it to anyone before.
“Oh.” She looked relieved. “That’s not so hard.”
I nodded. “You okay?”
She was still a little paler than normal with bags under her eyes. I knew her energy had to be low. The infection was still in her system. When I peeked over her shoulder I noticed that three whole tables of guys were watching us. I let out a small sigh.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Don’t worry about me. Have fun with the dentist.”
“Rest when you can,” I said. “And don’t feel like you have to play nice with any of these guys if they start to hassle you.”
She turned to see who I was talking about and quickly whipped her head back to me with huge eyes, hissing, “They’re all staring!”
“I know,” I said. “Please, just ignore them. Be a bitch if you have to.”
I walked with her back to the kitchen so she could introduce herself to the people in charge of food production, and then I headed to the med clinic. It was two doors down from the room where I’d been questioned, but this room was bigger and had more cabinets.
A thirty-something man with an Army buzz and a white lab coat over jeans peered at me through round spectacles. He wasn’t big, but he looked soft in the middle, like he hadn’t done PT—physical training—in too long.
“Miss Tate?”
“Yes, Amber Tate.” I stuck out my hand and we shook.
“Captain Jerry Ward.” He sighed and looked around. “It’s not too busy around here, but it’ll be nice not to have to be on call twenty-four-seven.”
“What kind of stuff do you see?” I asked.
“Occasional sprains and strains when the guys horseplay. We had one broken arm, which was a joy, let me tell you.” He looked grim. “Never had to reset a bone before. Hope I never have to again.” I tried not to smile. Bones were awesome. I’d seen plenty reset.
“I have experience with that kind of stuff.” I gave him a bit of my background information and his shoulders seemed to relax with relief as I spoke. It had to be stressful to be expected to do things you’d never been trained to do.
“Most of the women here are on birth control,” he said. “And all our meds are kept locked up. We have a limited supply.” He pointed to a single cabinet with a padlock. “This place is sanitized regularly, but if some sort of bug were to come through here, we’d be wiped out. I’m hoping they’ll send a mission team next month to raid pharmacies between here and Salt Lake City.”
If they weren’t raided already, I thought.
He showed me where all of the supplies were and where he kept track of all of his visits. They weren’t bothering with electronic records.
“How’s the girl you came in with yesterday?” he asked. “Miss Haines?”
“Yes, Remy Haines. She’s much better, but she should probably still be in bed.” After yesterday’s hike, we should have all still been in bed.
He sighed. “No rest for the weary anymore.”
We sat there quietly for a while. It was strange to have downtime while at work. But as sore as I was, I shouldn’t complain about a chance to just sit.
“Were you stationed here at Dugway when everything happened?” I asked.
His head bobbed as his eyes went somewhere far off. “Yes. There, um, had been some issues on base in the months prior, things that in retrospect should have had us all on guard, but we assumed human error.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Dugway is, was, a chemical and biological testing facility. There were rumors of samples going missing, being misplaced during placement transfers. And then we heard the rumors were false, that it was simple miscalculation and poor record keeping. But those rare strands ended up in water sources all over the country.” He looked at me, and I felt the weight of his words as he continued.
“I got lucky. On the day all officers had been called in, First Sergeant was at my office getting his teeth cleaned. We were ordered to come straight to the Officer Unit. It was the day before D.C. was bombed. As a dentist I’m not privy to the intel of other officers, but First Sergeant worked alongside officers doing top secret clearance. You should have seen his eyes when I got that call, like it was something he’d been waiting for but hoped would never come. His face was enough to make me ignore orders and go with him, and we snagged a couple other officers on our way underground, but it was chaos. Comm shut down that day after the announcement. We couldn’t even call our families.
My stomach dropped. I looked at the ring on his finger. “Your wife?”
He swallowed hard. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come belowground with Top. I would have gone straight home instead. Because those officers never made it back from that call. None of us knows where they took them or what happened. After two days belowground, some of us were panicking for our families, as you can imagine, so they let us out at dark for recon. The entire base was deserted. Every vial of chemical warfare was missing. All of the family housing had been evacuated. My wife and two sons, gone.” His eyes were wet, and so were mine. “I don’t know if they were taken, or if they left to find safety somewhere else, but none of us down here got to say good-bye to our families.”
My throat constricted. After what I’d seen aboveground, I knew the likely fate of his family. I rubbed my palms down my jeans, trying to pull myself together.
I thought about the missing deadly strands prior to the attacks. “So, we were infiltrated by DRI long before this happened?”
He pressed his lips together. “How much has First Sergeant told you?”
“Nothing,” I admitted.
He drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. “Then I suppose I shouldn’t say anything more.”
Frustration rose up. “We’re all in this together, we should all know what’s going on.”
His face remained strained. “It’s . . . complicated. It’s a lot to take in.”
I stood to face him. “I can handle it.”
His eyes fluttered away from mine. “You’ll find out the details soon enough. All I can say is yes. Yes, the DRI infiltrated the U.S. military long before the attacks happened. And nothing is what is seems, Miss Tate.”
His eyes were spooked when he looked back at me, sending an icy finger trailing down my spine. What kind of intel could put that kind of haunted look into a man’s eyes? Suddenly, I wasn’t in such a hurry to find out after all.
We were all tired at dinner, stuffing spaghetti into our mouths. I could hardly appreciate how good it was because my body revolted against the idea of not being vertical. I was about to fall asleep in my food like a baby in a high chair.
Remy was the most upright one at the table. I was happy to hear they’d sent her back to the room after breakfast to rest until her shift tonight. And apparently for
her job she only had to work nine to midnight. She was told to help where she saw a need during the day, cleaning and whatnot.
For the first time in many days, I felt fully satisfied, like my body finally had the sustenance it needed for normal survival. Gratitude rushed through me. I never wanted to take my meals for granted again. I heaved a sigh and sat back heavily.
Rylen had been zoned out all through dinner. I wondered what he saw in his over-working mind at that moment.
“Hey, Rem,” Matt said. “Want me to walk you to your shift tonight? I can hang out here ‘till you’re done and walk you back.” He pointed to the hangout space with loveseats and chairs. Remy began to smile until Tater cut in, his voice harsh.
“I’m taking her.”
Remy’s eyebrows came together. “You are? Why? So you can make a point of ignoring me more than you already do?”
Matt and the rest of us looked down at our plates or to the side, anywhere but at them.
“Never mind then,” Tater said, standing and grabbing his tray.
Her face pulled with guilt as he strode away. “Nobody needs to walk me. It’s safe here.”
“Well,” Matt said with a shrug. “I’ll be out here anyway, so just holler if you need me. My shift is at one o’clock.”
She fiddled with her fork. “Oh-one-hundred?”
He held out his fist, and she bumped it. Tension still filled the table in Tater’s absence. I wanted to follow him and talk to him, but he was already gone. I looked at Rylen, whose lips were pressed in a tight line.
“Do you think he’s okay?” I whispered.
He shook his head. Yeah, dumb question. Negativity practically radiated off him all the time now. Remy scooted closer to me.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that to him, but it’s frustrating. One minute he’s acting like he cares, and the next minute it’s like he’s a complete stranger and wants nothing to do with me.”
“I know,” I told her. “He just needs time, I guess.” But I wondered if time would even help. It killed me to think Tater might always be like this now, his emotions in upheaval, scared to get too close to Remy, but not wanting anyone else to get close either.