Survival

Chapter 15 A Whole New World

Edward crawled out of an actual bed, which he thought he just might have dreamed up in a post-traumatic haze. It was real, just like the cool floor beneath his padded slippers and the functioning lights. In his very own bathroom, he had his first shower in weeks and a good shave. The image in the mirror rejoiced in his re-entry into the civilized world. 

After putting on a pair of brown slacks and a t-shirt that had been left in his new mid-sized apartment, he set off for his first day of work in the mysterious underground society. Williams and Ruiz had been reassigned to separate departments. Essentially, his life was shaping up to look just like it did pre-disaster, trending towards a solo existence.

An escort stood outside his door who was about as interesting as a doormat. He had thin black hair and wore an expression comparable to Olivia's on an average day. Edward couldn't help but notice the eerie lack of life in the hall. The only sets of eyes he came across were those of the tracking security cameras. They walked down the corridor in relative silence until they reached a large set of green doors that led to a stairwell. 

Two floors later, they walked down a nearly identical corridor until they reached a room with three vertically aligned window panes that revealed a room stocked full of bins. There were five computers and walls of storage parts on gray metal shelves. The escort handed him a swipe card with his post-skydiving photo sprawled across its glossy surface. Edward swiped it so he could step inside and begin failing at whatever it was they wanted him to do here.   

His eyes kept scanning through the organized shelving units. This area where he was expected to work was stunning to be quite frank. Edward had no idea how a place like this could exist parallel to the abysmal world outside. The lab was clean, crisp and held organized bins of electronics parts all labelled by some meticulous human being. Or machine? He hadn't been here long enough to know what the world had evolved into. A graying man likely in his early fifties stood in front of him, rummaging through a box of hard drives on the large wooden worktable. His eyes rose when Edward entered the room and his hands stilled.

"Mr. Drest, welcome. Please make yourself at home," the man said.

Edward's eyes darted around the room before he pulled up a stool beside the man. He grabbed an old Seagate hard drive and a screwdriver to remove the screws and bumper. There was a little damage to the interior so he began to carefully extract the salvageable materials with the tools sitting beside the man. Maybe looking busy would be enough to fit in around here.

Once he had finished, the older man's eyes were still on him and they twinkled with curiosity. Edward met his gaze with a look of confusion. Didn't he have other things to occupy his time that didn't involve staring at the new guy? There was no way to be subtle about it as they were the only two working here.

"Am I doing something wrong?" Edward asked.

"No," the man started, eyes still shining with interest. "It's rare to find someone who just dives into things without a plan or idea."

"I've always been that way, keeping my hands busy in one way or another. Some people call it fidgeting."

The man nodded. "It's refreshing. I'm Nate, Nate Hues."

"Edward Drest, new recruit, fresh out the 'copter."

Nate laughed as he looked through the parts Edward had extracted. "How about we get started on our first task today," he said as he dug out another hard drive from the bin.

They were trying to find replacement parts for a system that had shut down in the medical unit last week. The computers were down and unable to process blood-work and patient files. It seemed silly of them to rely on digital copies of healthcare records, but he wasn't here to be a game changer on his first day. He wondered if these people were just that arrogant to assume their system was less hackable than the previous society's or if they were just too blind to see the error of their ways.

By the time lunch rolled around, they had begun replacing the hard drive in the burnt out computer and were working on extracting as much data as they could from the old one, while accessing the mainframe that had been developed in this underground network. It was shocking and impressive how they could send signals in this mountain-bound environment.

Nate took Edward out to the cafeteria where communal meals were served. It felt like he was back in high school, standing in line to be stuck eating the same crap as every other person around off an obnoxiously orange plastic tray. They could advance in some ways, but this archaic ritual continued.

"Of all the things to keep, they chose the cafeteria," Edward muttered.

"We don't have the resources to allow each person to cook for themselves each day. This method ensures that we minimize the food waste situation by using food up following an efficient schedule and utilizing any and all scraps for other purposes."

"I don't see any animals around to feed the scraps to."

"Some becomes compost; other waste can be converted into bio-fuel. The whole colony is designed to be as efficient as possible," Nate said.

"Colony?" Edward asked with amusement twinkling in his eyes. "Are we ants, or the early Europeans? Don't we all remember how that turned out for them?"

Nate gave him a weak smile. "We're just a group of well-meaning people trying to start a new society together after the collapse of the former."   

Curiosity burned since this was far too much infrastructure to be put in place in a mere month or so. "How long have you been down here?"

"I've been working on getting the system up and running since before the disaster. I was here when the whole society collapsed."

"That's convenient," Edward said. His answer had a pretty similar vibe to the one he had gotten from Olivia. Nate was one of the elite preselected members of this colony. Edward knew he wasn't an afterthought, but he wasn't important enough to be here for the initial stages either.

"It would have been if my daughter wasn't out in the storm while I was in here."

Edward's eyes widened and he was afraid to ask how she faired. He didn't have kids, but he knew how it felt to have his little nephew presumed dead after this whole ordeal.

"I'm sorry," Edward said, figuring it was rude to be silent.

"She's fine. They retrieved her mid-storm."

Then why didn't she have to go to boot camp like he did? The whole training was another strange factor in this colony. What purpose did that serve other than to exhaust him and make sure he wouldn't be a physical threat? They let all three men in regardless of their abilities as athletes or shooters.

"Are there a lot of families here?" Edward asked.

"No, at this point, people were selected for their skills and it was unlikely that a whole family qualified."

"Your daughter must be talented then."

"No," Nate replied simply. "I'm just a better negotiator than the rest."

Edward tried not to look too intrigued while he tried to figure out what kind of leverage Nate could have in a place like this. It was also a mystery why he was being so accommodating and nice to him.