Grady's Awakening (18 page)

But Jim had already shot her equilibrium to hell.

“I think I understand. So does this mean you trust me now?”

He stepped closer, his subtle scent surrounding her, his warmth tempting. His eyes smoldered down at her as one of his brawny arms snaked around her middle and drew her right up against him.

“I’m getting there. Gina…” Her name was a whispered caress as his head dipped.

This kiss he claimed was one of mastery, of possession, but it was also the sweetest foray of exploration and tenderness she’d ever experienced. He seduced her with his lips, his tongue, his heat. She succumbed readily. No matter the chastising talk she’d had with herself deep in the night. This was not to be fought against. This was a force of nature.
He
was a force of nature. Inevitable and unwavering.

Only one other man had brought out such a response in her. She felt a pang of uneasiness as Jim lifted his head, ending their kiss. In that moment, the image of Grady’s handsome Alvian face appeared in her mind. He’d kissed her just this way, with the same tenderness, respect and ardor. He’d touched something hidden down deep inside where she hadn’t known it even existed. Jim touched off those same feelings and he unintentionally reminded her of Grady and all they’d shared.

“What?” Jim breathed the question as he searched her gaze.

Gina turned away. She couldn’t face this now. She couldn’t deal with these confusing, conflicting thoughts. How could she let Jim kiss her but think about Grady? And how could she think about Grady and still be attracted to Jim?

“We should go,” she said into the silence. She knew Jim was looking at her with questions in his eyes, but they were questions she couldn’t answer. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

She had no answers for him. Or for herself.

The conference room was full of people when she entered with Jim a few minutes later. The three men from the night before with there, eating breakfast with others she hadn’t yet met. All were male, but some of the newcomers didn’t have that same soldier swagger as Jim and his top lieutenants. They looked more like accountants. Rugged accountants, sure, but still with that scrawny, geeky look that only developed when you spent the majority of your life in an office behind a desk.

Jim led her to the small buffet that had been laid out on a side table. He passed her a plate and she filled it, surprised by the bounty of eggs, bacon and good fresh bread.

“You do all right for yourselves down here, don’t you?” She directed her question to Jim, but it was one of the newcomers who answered.

“This facility is very self-sufficient. We were able to adapt several areas to house livestock including chickens, hogs and even some cattle. The hydroponics areas only needed seeding, which we did in the first few days of settling our families here.” The man held out his hand for her to shake, using the other to adjust his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I’m Wallace Dexter. I was the lead scientist in this facility before the crystal bombardment started. You can call me Wally.”

“Gina Hanson,” she replied politely, shuffling her plate into one hand so she could shake with the other.

“I know.” The scientist grinned at her. “I watched you win gold at the Antwerp games. You were terrific.” His enthusiasm reminded her of the old days when people—fans really—had often stopped her on the street or in restaurants to say hello and ask for autographs or pictures. She’d never taken their adulation for granted but had always made time to talk with each and every one.

“Thank you, Wally. Antwerp was really the high point of my career, but that was a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” Pierre agreed, gallantly taking her plate and escorting her to a seat at the table. “She’s even better now. You should have seen her take on the boss last night. Gave him a real run for his money.”

Wally took a seat next to her, still smiling, while Jim sat quietly on her other side. Pierre went to his seat across the wide table after sending a teasing wink in her direction.

“I believe it,” Wally said, still enthusiastic. “Jim’s good, but very few could ever match what I saw in Antwerp.”

“Young Dex is almost as good as she was back then,” Jim offered, making Wally beam. Only then did Gina notice the young man sitting on Wally’s other side. They looked a lot alike.

“This is my son, Wallace Junior,” Wally introduced the younger man.

Where Wally was built like an accountant—or the scientist he actually was—his son was something altogether different. Wide shoulders and sleek muscles filled out his frame, and he had the eyes of a wolf—cunning and dangerous. He was a warrior. A young warrior, but someone to be reckoned with, she was sure.

“They call him Dex, short for our last name,” Wally continued, oblivious to the sizing up going on in both directions. “Because you can’t have two Wallys now, can you?” He laughed and Gina responded politely, smiling at the older Dexter.

“My dad’s told me about your bouts. I even saw some old DVDs he has of the Antwerp games. You were damned good, Ms. Hanson.” The young man was polite but not gushing the way his father had. He was more serious than his scientist dad. More serious and watchful. Very little got by this young man, Gina thought, and she respected him for his vigilance. The world was so different now. Without the protected environment of the underground facility, she doubted Wally Senior could have lasted this long.

She thanked Dex for the compliment and turned her attention to eating breakfast. The men were all halfway through, and she didn’t want to hold them up. Whatever required this many people to discuss had to be pretty important. Her curiosity was piqued, but she would bide her time until they got around to the reason they had all gathered together. She let the conversation flow around her, participating when she was asked a question and offering comments here and there.

Wally explained the history of the base while she ate. He was a gregarious sort of person who liked to talk and probably rarely met strangers. She didn’t mind at all. In fact, his openness was refreshing and also very helpful since Jim, like most warriors, was reticent. He wouldn’t talk much about himself, she knew, so Wally was a good source of information.

As breakfast wound down and the table began to clear of plates and utensils, they were replaced with large rolls of yellowed paper. They looked like rolls of schematics or some kind of engineering drawings, but she couldn’t tell much more until they were unrolled. Her curiosity was an annoying itch she hoped would be scratched soon.

When Jim cleared off his plate and turned to her, she was about ready to scream. She wanted to know what was in those rolls and patience had never been her strong suit.

“Now.” Jim resumed his seat. “As to the reason we’ve all gathered here.” He looked directly at her. “We’ve known about the other NORAD locations for some time. As you just learned, a lot of the personnel who had been stationed here, stayed here, bringing their families to live in safety. As a result, most of the knowledge about the systems and capabilities of this facility has been retained. For instance, your map confirmed old maps we already had indicating the locations of sister facilities—both hidden and known. What we didn’t know was which ones survived the cataclysm and which ones might house human survivors.”

“We’ve been working on clearing the tunnels for a long time,” Wally put in.

“Tunnels?” Gina asked, intrigued.

Jim signaled for the rolled drawings, opening them up when they slid across the table to him. Gina took a minute to try and figure out what she was looking at.

“This is a drawing of one of the lower levels of this installation. This is what we call the transit level.” Wally sounded excited as he shared his knowledge. “In the old days, there were a couple of tunnels leading from here, through the mountains to the north, south and west. None of the tunnel engineers survived, but the commanding officer, General Yeager, told me about them. They were made to house maglev pods that were used occasionally to shuttle the higher-ups from facility to facility covertly. There’s one tunnel in particular that I think leads to the Canadian installation. We’ve explored most of the tunnels for some distance past the blast doors and that one is the clearest.”

“Are you saying there’s some kind of subway that will lead you right to the Canadian site?” Gina was amazed by the thought, but then, NORAD had been a very well funded government program designed to protect the North American continent from things like intercontinental ballistic missiles. It shouldn’t have surprised her that they could build something like this. And it could come in darn handy, if it still worked.

“Better than a subway.” Wally sat forward in his chair. “It’s maglev—magnetic levitation. The system uses electricity to create a magnetic field. The car, or pod, doesn’t actually touch the rails. It floats above. There’s no friction, so the speeds it can reach are dramatic. In the old days, when the system was being maintained on a regular basis, the hundreds of miles between here and the Canadian facility could be traveled in a matter of hours.”

“That’s remarkable,” Gina was both pleased and amazed by the idea that the system might still be usable in some fashion. “Does this maglev thing still work?”

“I’ve had it powered up a number of times, and it’s functional to the point we’ve been able to explore. I would advise caution however, beyond the scouted area. There may be obstructions on or near the rails that we don’t know about. You could still use it, at reduced speeds, as long as you watch ahead for obstructions. There are lights in the tunnel and lights on the pods, so even if the tunnel lights no longer work in sections, the pod lighting is independent and will still allow you to see for some distance.”

She turned to look at Jim. “He makes it sound like we’re going somewhere.”

“That’s because we are.” Jim grinned at her, and her tummy did a little flip. “We talked it over last night and decided we should try to make contact with our neighbors to the north. If anybody’s living there, we should see if they want to open up communications. At the very least, we could share information.”

Gina felt hope take hold and expand in her chest. This was going to work. They were going to take a chance on making contact. It was the first step in the plan the Patriarch had laid out for her. She might yet succeed in her mission and humanity might have a fighting chance after all.

“We’ve explored up to this point and the tracks are sound.” Wally flipped through the large drawings until he reached a section of tunnel that looked a lot like all the other sections of tunnel that preceded it to her untrained eye. “That should give you a good few hundred miles or so of fast coasting. After that, you’ll have to take it slower.”

Jim took hold of the pile of drawings and flipped to the beginning. “Each section of track, as I understand it, is powered separately. We’ll have to get out and flip a switch every once in a while, right?” He brought the scientist back to the beginning with ease, and Gina realized he’d probably done this before.

But Wally’s enthusiasm was undimmed as he explained. Jim had been so diplomatic in his choice of words that he hadn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. Gina was pleased to see the brash young man she remembered had been tempered by time.

“Yes. There are certain points, here…” he pointed to a spot on one of the early drawings where the tunnel took a sharp turn, “…and here. You’ll have to apply brakes at a predetermined point. There’s actually a switch on the rail that will trigger it for you if you’re on automatic, but it’d be safer if you drove manually since these rails are old and we’ve only been up this far once before.”

“What do we do then?” Gina was curious about the system and wanted to be sure she knew as much as she could about it before they set off into the unknown.

“There are power grids that will allow you to power down the previous section of track and power up the next section. You’ll have to have both powered up for a short time as you coax the pod onto the new set of rails. I think they designed it this way to conserve energy by powering a section at a time. This is a long line of track and the mountains above dictate the shape of the tunnel in some spots. It creates sharp angles that are impossible to glide around at speed. By having to stop and manually turn the vehicle, it adds time to the trip but also a factor of safety to the journey. Of course, the generals and other bigwigs who used this system in the past had aides with them who did the grunt work. In this case, you’ll have to do it yourselves. I suggest one gets out and sees to the power grid while the other maneuvers the pod.”

The scientist babbled on about technical specifications and exactly how to work the apparatus, but one thing was clear to Gina as she listened with one ear. She was going with Jim. Alone. Nobody else would be accompanying them on this excursion. She didn’t know what that meant. Did Jim want to use caution when approaching the Canadian encampment? If so, she thought it was prudent, but she also thought they could take at least one or two of his men with them.

She wasn’t sure why he was making this a solo trip for just the two of them, but then, she hadn’t expected to be able to make the journey in just a matter of a few days either. She’d fully expected to have to go over land—by foot, if necessary—evading Alvian patrols all the way. This maglev tunnel would save an incredible amount of time and if it really worked, it might open up yet another secret road of communication and even transportation between the human encampments. This could be a real breakthrough for human freedom.