The day in the monitoring room had been quiet until the alarm sounded and the fear that Kate had flat-lined was voiced. The noise woke Diana who had slept off and one in that chamber since 2 am. She rose and crossed the room to the monitor as her husband, Joe, called the nurses and duty doctor in the infirmary to be sure that they had heard the alarm and were responding.
Diana brought the intensive care room into view on one of the monitors, transferring to her own laptop which sat on one end of the wall-length desk. After the emergency was over and Richard had left the room, she had expected him to storm in here and voice his anger to them. Both Joe and Diana were very close to their employer, Richard. When he didn't come, and Joe suggested he would go to him, Diana agreed.
Sitting in Joe's chair, she watched the screen; Kate weeping now. She wished she could comfort her and tell her that she believed that she was innocent in this. She had suffered amnesia, of that Diana felt sure. Amnesia was something Diana had studied in college some years back.
As Kate began to whisper aloud, Diana rewound it while keeping it still recording. Turning up the volume to hear what Kate had said, she listened...
"Of course we had secrets, Richard. You told me from the start you had secrets and that for every one of yours, I could keep one too. We agreed to allow each other to keep our secrets and enjoy our friendship online, and by writing letters. Yes, when you told me you had another secret you had to keep, I told you that I had added to mine. That was when my father left my mother... but we gave up telling each other about any new secrets. How old were we then? —I was fourteen, you must have been sixteen. We wrote a letter every month. I have a shoe-box filled with yours...
"Online, we focused on sharing verses and songs, and even prayer... we both told each other that we wanted to be friends forever."
Empathising with Kate and believing in her, she heard Kate relive the memory of her abduction and knew that this young woman was Kate even though she had not claimed to be her. It was Richard himself who had learned of her abduction. Who else could she be? No, in Diana's mind, she was Kate.
The secrets they had kept from each other... Diana knew what she must do. Stopping the replay, she paged Joe and discovered he had not found Richard. "He's likely gone walking in the forest," she said. "Please page him, right away Joe and have him come urgently to the M-R. He shouldn't have gone out without telling someone."
"Is Kate still stable?"
"Yes, but this is really important."
"Right. I'm paging him and I'm coming there now myself."
*****
Richard and Joe listened to the replay of Kate's discussion with herself. It seemed unbelievable to Richard and at first he thought she knew that they would record her words and that it was all fake. "Why else would she say all of this out loud?"
"Excuse me, Richard, but it's not loud. The volume is up as high as it can be because she's whispering most of it. She is doing what most amnesiacs do when they're recovering their memories. Speaking aloud helps them recall more accurately. It confirms their memories in a real way, rather than being thoughts. She'll likely do this for a long time yet without realising so."
"I agree with Richard, Diana," Joe said, "It's difficult to believe her... but then, you did do extensive study on that condition..."
"Let's go back to the beginning of her conversation with herself and listen again without scepticism. Think about what she's saying, Richard. Did you keep secrets from Kate? Did she keep secrets from you? If so and if she is NOT Kate, then how on earth can she know about any secrets? What about the letters, you never told us you shared actual written letters. How did you and her keep them secret? Where are they? If she knows this and the contents of the letters, you should have no doubts. Think about it while I check the monitors... I've been remiss, neglecting our duty..."
She stepped to the center of the desk, checking the screens, one by one as she went. Reaching the end of the room and looking up at the sky views, she sat and zoomed in on one screen, then another, shouting, "We've got sky traffic heading this way... we have just minutes!" Turning to the warning board, she pressed all of the buttons, one by one causing alarms and sirens to sound out.
"Helicopters?" Joe asked.
"No —bomber jets!"
"Is anyone outside?"
"No one is on the board here that they've gone out —even you, Richard didn't come here first. We'll leave the outer door for another minute..." She waited, counting down from sixty...
Diana pulled a lever down, then another and another. More alarms sounded as the bunker's lock-down system moved into effect.
"Go and get Kate; no I'll get her," Diana said, already on her way out of the monitoring room. "Open the lower doors, we'll have to evacuate. Let's hope everyone follows the protocol..."
"The patients, the children —do we really have to evacuate everyone?" Richard shouted above the noise.
"We've never been tested like this. What if they... yes, look, helicopters are already out there... they can land and try to enter out there."
Richard took off down the corridor at a run.
*****
Enveloped in a bed-blanket, Kate found herself carried by Diana to an elevator. At the same time, explosions sounded out. Crouching with Kate in her arms, Diana said, "The elevator should return soon. We haven't been attacked like this before so we'll soon know if three floors below is deep enough, that is, if we can return back here later on.
Deeply alarmed, Kate closed her eyes as the explosions seemed louder. "Are we safe here?" she asked.
"As long as the lights in the corridor are still on, and the elevator is working, it means our generator is functioning and all is well. The worst that can happen should be that the outside entry to this bunker will be destroyed and covered over. But that will prevent their entry." She squeezed Kate's hand and said, "Just ask as many questions as come to your head, Kate. It this will take my mind and yours, off the danger..."
"The danger?"
"Ask me a question..."
Kate swallowed, trying to think of a relevant question when her heart was pacing too fast...
"Kate..."
She asked the most obvious question, "Is there a way out of here, down the elevator?"
"Yes, but it's a long journey. About four hours, then we arrive at another bunker, a long way away."
"Four hours in the elevator?"
"No, we take a tunnel ride."
"Then, another bunker?"
"Yes, one where we'll be really safe... unless, somehow, there's someone here, among us, that has some kind of tracker. Perhaps one of the children do."
"A tracker? I hope they didn't put something like that in me..." She tried to think back, there were memories, but they were not good memories. She asked the first question that came to her mind, "Where do the children come from?"
"All over. We rescue them from all kinds of situations; orphaned refugees, child slavery, bombed villages."
"That's why you have all the secrecy, the guards... I remember Richard telling me that he helped in international missions." She was about to ask another question but half-a-dozen other workers joined them, waiting for the elevator to return.
"I've said enough about that," Kate spoke quietly, then added, "Look, the light's on —the elevator's here.
"The door's opening,"
When the elevator was to capacity, a guard pressed the down button and down, down, down, they flew. It seemed to go on forever...
At the bottom of the elevator there was a long tunnel, lit up for a long distance then there was darkness. A row of small box-like cars were moving off one at a time. As soon as one went, another moved in place and eight people entered it before the door was closed and it too, shot off along the tracks and into darkness.
"How many carts are there?" Kate asked.
"There's around two dozen. We call them box-cars, though they don't have steering wheels. The controller is at the other end, and controls them from a monitoring board. They travel so fast that there has to be a minimum a mile between each box car..."
"Why?"
"Safety reasons. Look, here, it's our turn now."
Diana helped Kate into the small carriage-like box-car. Eight individual padded seats with seat belts soon filled with passengers; three nurses, two guards and a domestic maid travelled with them. Tucking the bed-rug around Kate, Diana sat beside her.
The car was soon mobile. A faint whistling sound was the only noise.
"Question?" Diana whispered.
"Whereabouts is the other end?" Kate asked.
"As I said, it's a bunker..."
"What country are we in?"
"Not able to divulge that, Kate, sorry."
"Is it in a forest?"
"No, it's a desert."
"A bunker in a desert?" Kate laughed, but it was from nervousness, not because it was funny. She swallowed, feeling small not knowing to where on earth she'd been abducted, and for the past few weeks, to where in the world she'd been moved. It certainly was not in the USA.
"It's remote, therefore it's the safest place for us to be. And it's closer to your homeland as well, Kate, much closer. But, you'll never guess the name of area of desert..."
"No, I expect not... what is it?"
"Have a few guesses, it will help fill in the time."
"Oh, how about, Desert Bunker?"
"You can do better than that, surely."
"How about a clue?"
"You already have one, it's surrounded by sand.
"So like, it's in a very dry place, perhaps, as I have no clue at all where I've been, how can I know where we are going to?"
"All right.
"It's called, 'No Land Man, in No Man's Land'. There is absolutely no human life there, anywhere."
"No, you wouldn't expect any man to be there, not with landmines," a voice from behind joined the conversation and soon the discussion was taken over by other passengers.
The whistle of the box-car, the gentle rocking, the feeling of motion and the darkness, combined to cause Kate to drift off with thoughts of no land men in a no man's land... I've been a kind of no land man, a no land girl, still yet a teenager but at the end of my teens; lost in no man's land; it's been dreadful, this coming bunker can't be worse than having lost my memory...
I prayed that I would get it back, at least, I think I prayed, I can't remember... I should always remember to pray. She smiled, feeling strangely safe; she had her memory back, well, most of my memory, I do feel I have more to remember. She remembered times she had prayed and God had answered. Thank you God, at least You know all about me. There aren't any surprises for you; but for me, they're happening all the time...