Grunt Work

The elevator door opened and we stepped onto the transportation yard. At least it is called a yard though we are still two levels below the surface. Six trucks were lined up in convoy formation. There were 48 of us on this trek, the largest I had been on. Without speaking we walked to our assigned trucks and waited for the transport guys to load us aboard. Once I had wanted to work up here in what I considered “fresh” air, but after one visit and a few hours of breathing the toxins they take in every day I was happy to stay below and suck on recycled air.

The corporate logos on the trucks had faded long ago. The corporation that we now rely on for survival was one of many that helped build the underground Condos. Nathan’s Comet had proved that government alone was not up to the task of surviving an extinction event so they turned to the world of money and finance. I was only six years old when my mother and I went into Condo Three. Weeks later Nathan’s remains hit the atmosphere and killed the world above. Ten years later I was one of the grunters sent topside each week to salvage whatever materials that could be processed and reworked for the Condo.

I took a seat near the front. This was my 12th trip to the surface, and I think it had been fixed to be my last. Thurman, our section manager, offered to make me a supervisor. This came with various perks, but the promotion did not include my mother. I couldn’t leave her to fend for herself so I said no and promptly found myself isolated and on the flip side of the corporate ladder. I was officially persona non grata and the lack of greetings from my follow grunters proved the word had spread. I was bad news and nobody was willing to risk it to be associated with me.

The engines rumbled and before long the convoy moved up the ramp. The gray light of outside filtered in through the slotted windows as the trucks emerged onto the surface. Usually the convoy turned left toward the old stadium. Today we went right. I heard murmuring as the other grunters expressed their dissatisfaction at the change. I didn’t really care. The surface was not the Condo and that was enough for me. I leaned back and closed my eyes. I wasn’t one to stress over something I couldn’t control.

After an hour, or it might have been five minutes, the trucks slowed then stopped. The doors opened. I pulled my U/V goggles down to cover my eyes. The sky was a darkened gray but the old protections from the U/V and gamma rays were no longer there. Even at a perpetual twilight you could go blind without eye protection.

I approached Desi, my section supervisor, for my assignment and map.

He shook his head and turned away from me. I noticed other teams forming but no one looked in my direction.

I was on my own today.

I went to the supply truck and grabbed my gear. Even my equipment had suffered the long reach of the corporation. My salvage bag had somehow shrunk in size with a large hole in the bottom of the bag. My oxygen mask had a crack in its screen, my two 32-ounce water bottles were now 11 ounces with a hole in one of them, and my compass was cracked right down the middle. I tossed the bag and leaking bottle back in the supply truck. I tucked the compass and bottle into a cargo pocket and attached my mask to my belt. I walked up to the front of the first truck and took a look around. Since I was lone man out no reason not to get started.

The area had been a combination of apartments, hotels and businesses. At first it was hard to tell what was what. The buildings looked like they had been picked up and dropped numerous times. A layer of gray ash covered the ground. A single pole in the distance stood in the center of what used to be a parking lot. The letter C was painted on to the top of it. Further down were wrecks of vehicles piled on top of each other.

In the far distance a tower poked above the horizon. That was my destination. I looked behind me. The teams were still in their huddles. I stepped off and got going.

The old street wasn’t bad at first. I could feel the asphalt under my feet. The debris had been pushed to the sides. It wasn’t exactly a clear path, but clear enough. Bones were interspersed with the rubble. I didn’t bother wondering if they were animal or human. Two blocks in I came across an intact toilet sitting in the middle of street. I checked the water tank for salvage. One massive dead rat. I pulled it out and left it on the street. I managed to salvage the handle arm with chain, flapper, float and float arm, and the fill valve. It may not seem like much but plumbing parts are worth a small fortune. I stashed the parts in my various pockets and moved on.

Further on the street became cluttered with debris. I tried to think of it as the detritus of the surrounding buildings but I knew there were also organic things mixed in. I came across a wooden desk half buried in the rubble and tagged it for later pickup. Wood was at a premium in the Condo and this find would go a long way to get me back in good standing with the corporation.

The ground changed and I found myself walking on old wrecks that had been pressed flat. There must have been thousands of old wrecks compressed together to form the small hill I climbed. The ground was not sturdy but I didn’t feel as though I would fall. I came to a large circular void near the top that dropped down about twenty feet. I didn’t see anything worthy of salvage so I kept going down the other side.

The bottom of the hill was nearly identical to the other side. The rubble had been pushed to the sides and the road opened into a clear path, even smoother than the other side. I stepped down and felt my foot give way on a long thin metal pole buried under the ash. I got my balance before falling on my face and checked my find. It was an old street marker complete with metal sign. Williamsburg Avenue. I dug around the pole and sign and freed it from its dusty grave. I found a second intact pole and sign underneath. This sign read 23rd Ave. Both poles were ten feet long. These were rare enough that one would have put me back in good standing. Together they would earn me a bonus.

I drug both to the center of the street and tagged them.

The tower was close. From here I could see it was the bell tower of a still standing church. I stayed on the street for the rest of the block then carefully made my way over the piled up rubbish until I was standing before the large wooden doors of the entryway. There was surprising little damage. The stained glass windows on both sides of the doorway were still intact, and from what I could see of the rest of the church there were no broken windows or collapsed walls.

The front doors were jammed into the frame. A quick search revealed an unlocked door around the side. I pulled on my mask and checked the emergency oxygen bottle in my cargo pocket. The mask should be enough but the bottle gave me a backup of 15 minutes of clean air.

There was the sound of voices carried by the wind and I figured I had roughly an hour before the point team made it this far. Since this was a new area, they would be moving slowly, searching for those unexpected finds and doing the grunt work that we were named after.

There was little light inside and I took my headlamp from a pocket, switched it on and wrapped it around the top of my mask. I was inside a small room that felt like a closet. A door on the inside wall hung loose on its top hinge and gave me a path inside. This led to a hallway.

The light from my headlamp was almost lost in the dust my movement stirred up. The paintings on the walls reflected this was part of a school. I went left and passed six open doorways that opened into classrooms complete with wooden tables and desks. The wood in any one of the rooms would be enough for me to move up in the corporation but it was the books on the shelves along the walls that were the real prize. Paper books, especially books printed before Nathan was a rare commodity and the corporation would pay a hefty bounty for one. The number of books here would not only make me rich but make every grunter on this detail set for life.

I continued down the hallway, being careful not to stir up too much dust. The hallway opened into a larger room filled with more wooden tables, wooden chairs and book cases that filled half the room. I carefully ran my hand over a few of the books. Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Animal Farm, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, Where is Joe Merchant?

A side door led me into another room with more bookcases stacked floor to ceiling. These books ran the gauntlet from engineering to science to political theory to philosophy. Some of the books I had read in their electronic form back at the Condo. I never imagined I would actually see an original paper copy. There were even books I recognized from the quarantine list, books deemed so subversive to the corporation it was a banishment offense to even think about them.

I picked up a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that had fallen to the floor and noticed a small handle set flush into the floor. I gave the handle a yank and half the floor came up it. There must have been a counterweight since the floor, including the two bookcases along the sides, rose straight up off the floor. The tops of the bookcases disappeared into the ceiling above. I looked into an opening roughly five feet wide and four feet high. A wooden staircase led downward. I wasn’t able to see much with the dust I had stirred up but I ducked my head and carefully felt for each step.

The stairs went down ten feet and ended on a concrete floor of a basement that stretched the entire building. Other than the support columns made of brick and cement and a thick layer of dust the basement was empty. I walked to the far wall that was boarded up. There was a click and the plywood wall was sucked up into the ceiling leaving a shiny metal wall with a screen and scanner mounted into it.

Bio-sensors caused the screen and scanner to light up as I approached. The scanner pulsed with a greenish glow and letters in red popped up on the screen: PLACE PALM ON SCANNER.

I had learned about bomb shelters during basic grunter orientation but had never actually seen one. Nor did I know anyone who had. The words on the screen vanished then popped up again: PLACE PALM ON SCANNER.

I slipped the glove off my left hand and placed it on the scanner. There was a feeling of warmth as it scanned my hand and then I felt a prick of pain on my index finger. I yanked my hand off the scanner and saw a small red dot starting to blossom on the bottom of my finger.

The screen changed: ACCESS GRANTED.

A door-sized piece of metal slid up into the ceiling leaving a black void. I took a step forward and dimly lit orange arrows in the floor pointed the way. Stepping past the doorway I was not surprised when the metal door closed behind me. Wherever I was the construction was now a hybrid of solid metal, set concrete and hard stone.

I followed the passage until it came to a stop at a junction. Green arrows went left and the same orange-colored arrows went right.

I went left.

The passageway led to a series of storage rooms, each filled with enough food and supplies to last for years. One room had four massive tanks and it wasn’t until I heard the faint rushing sound of water that I realized the place had been built near an underground river and these tanks were large water filters. I made a guess that the power source was hydroelectric.

I went back and followed the orange arrows. Other doors led to other passages with various sized rooms ranging from your typical one-bedroom apartment to massive dormitories filled with bunk beds. This complex could easily house a hundred people, probably more.

I found him in the control room. There wasn’t a sign that said control room, but it was the only room I had seen filled with computers and electronic equipment. He was sitting in an office chair, his feet propped up on the desk, ankles crossed. Sandals were on his feet. His hands were cupped together in his lap. He was wearing a blue T-shirt with faded khaki cargo shorts. He looked like a mummified surfer.

There was no sign of how he died. It looked like he had leaned back and gone to sleep. The crack in the mask was starting to bug me and I slipped it off. The air was dry and musty but breathable. There was a watch around his left wrist. Something inside me told me to take it. It had a stretchable band that was a little loose and it slipped right off. There was an engraving on the inside: IMB.

I was starting to worry about the time (the watch did not work) and I turned to go. Something sparkled around his neck. It was a gold chain. Carefully I slipped my hands around the chain and found the catch at the back of his neck. I pulled the chain around and up and a heart-shaped locket emerged from within his shirt. I rubbed off the bit of grime that stuck to it and carefully worked the latch. Inside were two pictures. There was a black and white photo of a very young and very beautiful woman and another faded color photo of a smiling couple. The images hit me hard and for a moment I felt unsteady on my feet. Then the initials on the watch came to mind and I had a sense of clarity like never before.

Time to go. I tucked the chain and locket deep into my pocket and ran toward the exit. The door opened as I approached it. I was up the steps and back in the library before I remembered to put my mask back on.

I ran through the library and down the hall. I burst out of the last door and dropped to my knees. Out on the street I saw grunters moving in and out of the crushed buildings on the other side. I lifted my head and saw Desi standing in the center of the street. He gave me a thumb up.

To keep up appearances I stood and closed the door. I grabbed a roll of orange tape from a cargo pocket and stripped off two pieces. I made an orange X on the door. I carefully made my way to the front of the building and placed another orange X on the front doors.

“Bad?” Desi asked.

I shook my head.

“Ya done good kiddo,” he said. Desi slapped me on the back as I passed.

The orange X meant that the building was contaminated with the dead. It was my way of insuring no one else went in there. The other grunters watched as I went to my earlier finds and lifted the ends of the metal poles to my shoulders. Dragging them behind me I headed back to the trucks.

I helped the transport guys load the haul wagon. There was the usual collection: a few other metal poles; some hard wood pieces from bed frames and old chests; my wooden desk; a brass fixture; a couple of old silverware sets. I tried to remain calm and unhurried. The chain, locket and watch were burning a hole in my pocket but I couldn’t do anything about it now and I didn’t want to bring them out in the open in fear someone else would see.

The last team finally staggered back. We finished loading the haul trailer and we headed for home. At the Condo I logged my finds and got the written estimate of my share. Normally I would have been excited at such an amount but right now only one thing mattered, getting back to my mother. We lived at the back end of Barracks 5 on D-Level. It may not sound like much but we did have one of the larger cubicles. We had pre-fabricated walls instead of blankets and there was enough room for two cots, a wooden water basin and a small table. Mom was cutting vegetables and had a pot of water boiling on the hot plate.

“Mom,” I said taking the locket and watch out of my pocket. I opened the locket to reveal the photos. “I think I found Dad.”