The Alt Apocalypse: Books 1-3 Page 16

  “Copy that. Over.”

  “We will let you know when we are on our way,” said Victor. “Until then. Over.” He pushed back from the radio and clapped his hands together. “This is good. Now we need to finish formulating the route, pack our provisions, and get a good night’s sleep. We’ll leave in the morning.”

  “How far are we going?” asked Danny. Maggie was at his side but was lying down, her head resting on her paws.

  “Ten to twelve miles,” said Gilda. “It depends on the route.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Westwood,” said Gilda.

  “UCLA?”

  “Yes.” Gilda waved him to the table with the maps. There were chairs for all of them, and they sat together discussing their options.

  Their initial journey would invariably take them southeast along the Pacific Coast Highway. Danny would be retracing the route he’d taken to get to the villa. He told them he hadn’t encountered any obstacles or dangers on the PCH. Of course, it had been a month since he’d made the journey, he reminded them.

  From PCH there were several options they could employ to head north and east toward Westwood. Sunset Boulevard was a straight shot aside from a hairpin S curve that had them backtracking a bit near Rustic Creek. At the same spot they’d leave PCH and take Sunset, they had the option of shifting south and making a couple of turns to walk San Vicente Boulevard all the way to the Veterans Hospital west of the 405. From there they could take Wilshire onto campus. It was the shortest route at under ten miles.

  The longest option was to take PCH all the way to Santa Monica. At the pier, they could catch I-10 and take it to the 405 heading north until it hit Wilshire.

  The debate centered on whether surface streets or highways were the better option. There was likely less human traffic on the highways, but there was more exposure to the elements and potential threats.

  “I think we’re better off taking the shorter route,” said Victor. “It’s more of a straight line and helps us keep radio contact. Drifting farther south creates some problems, especially if we move south of the Wilshire corridor with all of its tall buildings.”

  Gilda listened intently, nodding as Victor made his point. Then she ran her fingers along the map in front of her, smoothing its creases, and sighed.

  “Okay,” she said. “That makes sense. I’m concerned about our exposure here, at the creek. Because we make this horseshoe turn, we give spotters, up on the ridge at its center, the chance to rat us out. It makes ambushing us a lot easier.”

  Ritz spoke for the first time since they’d sat around the table. He’d been leaning on it with his elbows but sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “What are you talking about when you say spotters and ambushes?” he asked. “That’s the first I’ve heard of any of it. I thought I was going in case somebody got injured from a fall or something like that. I didn’t think I was going to be a field medic.”

  Gilda shot Victor a glance and offered a barely perceptible nod.

  “We’ve been hearing chatter on the radio,” Victor said. “Nothing big, nothing concrete. But enough that it worries us. There might be small gangs of thieves, marauders maybe, who are jacking unsuspecting travelers.”

  Ritz’s eyes widened. He waved his hands in front of his face. “Whoa, that’s news. First that there are any people traveling in this at all, and second that there are organized gangs attacking them.”

  “Like I said,” offered Victor, “it’s chatter.”

  Ritz’s eyes narrowed, and he turned to Gilda. “Why are we going, then? Why do we need to get these kids if those risks exist? We’re fine with the people we have. We can make a go of it. Besides, Danny is not wrong when he says planning for the long term is ambitious at best.”

  Doc leaned in from his seat. He wasn’t going on the trip. They couldn’t risk losing their only physician if things went south. But he was integral to the planning of the excursion. “These…youngsters…need help. They are clearly…resilient…in that we’ve learned over the course of our…dialogue…they have established their own community on the Hill. They’ve pieced together their defenses, managed to feed and house themselves effectively, and create a sense of…social order. They each know their roles.”

  Gilda raised her hand to stop Doc’s dissertation. “We need smart people,” she said. “We need young people. And they need us. They’ll die up there if they stay exposed. You’re right, they may already be dying. So are we. Everybody is. That doesn’t mean we give up.”

  “We’ve been scanning the airwaves since the attack,” Victor said. “We’ve sought survivors who could clearly communicate with us. That meant they were close enough we could reach them with the antenna we raised post-attack.”

  “Post-attack?” asked Danny.

  “We had it ready to go,” Victor said. “But it was hidden beneath the rock. Part of the plan for this place, which truly began as the museum was being built in the 1950s, was protection from nuclear war. That was a big thing back then. An exposed antenna would have fried in the attack’s electromagnetic pulse. We kept it encased in the hillside. When we activated, we raised it.”

  “Good plan,” said Danny.

  “That said,” Victor continued, “we’ve known from day one we’d need more people. It’s why we let Ritz come. It’s why you’re here, Danny. You didn’t know it, but we’ve turned others away. Either they didn’t come in, or we examined them and released them back into the wild.”

  “This isn’t some spur-of-the-moment decision,” said Gilda. “It’s always been part of the plan. These kids are the best chance we have at getting the kind of people we want while providing us a relatively short trip to get them.”

  “Why not let them come on their own?” Ritz questioned. “That would eliminate our risk.”

  “We don’t want them picking up…stragglers…on the way,” said Doc. “Our screening of these students was…methodical. Victor asked and answered questions with my guidance and that of our sociologist. It was…carefully crafted.”

  “We also don’t want to give out our address,” said Gilda. “If they know it and something bad happens to them, the wrong people might show up at our door, and that creates a whole new set of problems.”

  “You want everyone to come,” said Danny. “But you don’t want just anyone to come.”

  Gilda pointed a trigger finger at Danny. “Exactly.”

  Danny understood that there was nothing sinister or conspiratorial about these people. They were smart. They were a little odd, yes, but they knew what they were doing, at least as far as what they wanted to carry out. They wanted to live with people who would help them survive as long as possible in an environment not conducive to survival. The risk to them was worth the potential gain.

  Gilda surveyed the group at the table. “Okay. Can we settle on a route?”

  The others nodded their agreement, and she traced her finger along the map, running it down PCH and then up San Vicente. It was the compromise that gave them better radio access without the danger of the switchback S curve on Sunset.

  “Now that we’ve gotten that settled, I’ve got a list of things we need to pack. I’ll split it up amongst you. Once you’ve got it, bring it back here. Betty will let you in the hub. We’ll depart first thing tomorrow.”

  She handed out hand-scribbled supply lists to Victor and Ritz. Victor was responsible for the electronics. Ritz was in charge of obtaining medical supplies.

  Danny held out his hand. “Do I get a list?”

  “You get me,” said Gilda, a glint in her eye. “We’re going to get the food.”

  ***

  The greenhouse rooms were remarkable. Danny hadn’t seen them before, aside from standing at the door of the outermost room where he’d first met Gilda. She had been tending to algae and he’d stopped to introduce himself. She hadn’t made the effort to stop her work, so he’d waved and went on his way.

  Now he was with her, aiding in the effort to take with the
m what they’d need on what Gilda thought might be as long as a four-day journey. They could make the ten miles in a day. Or it could be two. It depended on the ash fall and the wind.

  The room was carved from rock like the rest of the bunker complex, but unlike the soft sconce lighting in the rest of the OASIS, this one was bathed in bright sunlight-imitating grow lights. It was warmer and more humid in the space. Long, waist-high tables ran the length of the room and parallel to one another. Gilda stood between two of these long tables, examining fresh sprouts.

  “It’s an incredible thing, isn’t it?” she asked, her hands gloved in latex and flitting over a plot of greens. “This place?”

  Without lifting her head, she looked across the table at Danny, her eyes angled up at him. One eyebrow was raised.

  He nodded. “Yes,” he said, breathing the warm damp air. “It’s even more amazing they built this place without anyone knowing about it.”

  A smile crept across Gilda’s face as she gently tamped the soil around one of the delicate plants. It told Danny he didn’t know the half of it.

  “Oh,” she said, “people knew. The various Getty interests paid a lot of people of lot of money to construct this marvel. No doubt. From the government pencil pushers who had to sign off on plans to the architects and engineers, there’s no telling how many people knew about this place and what it was intended to do. Drawing water from the ocean and funneling it under the PCH to the complex for power and consumption was incredibly controversial at the time.”

  “It would be now too, wouldn’t it?”

  Gilda looked past Danny, considering his point, and nodded.

  “And nobody said anything?”

  She slinked along the table and moved toward its end, which held a series of large aquariums filled with green-colored water. Above the tanks and angled off to their sides were orange lights. Gilda held her hand under one of the lights.

  “Of course they said something,” she said incredulously. “But this was during the Cold War, when everyone was building bunkers. Everybody was worried about nuclear war.”

  “But it’s a secret.”

  She shrugged. “All of those people are dead now, so they’re not talking. After a generation the idea of a bunker complex beneath the museum became urban legend, and then people forgot.”

  Danny walked along his aisle to stand across from Gilda. The green tanks were between them. “Algae?” he asked.

  Yes,” she said like a teacher acknowledging a correct answer. “Spirulina, more specifically. Great nutrients. Easy to grow, though we do have to use a different, warmer grow light on the tanks.”

  Gilda motioned to the orange light and then pointed vaguely to the cooler-colored overhead grow lights in the rest of the room. She picked up a plastic bottle, uncapped it, and shook a thin strip of paper into her hand. She recapped the bottle and dipped the strip into one of the tanks. “Testing the alkalinity,” she said. “Spirulina is pretty hardy. It can handle high alkaline content. But we like to know what we’ve got. We do use charcoal filters for the water we cycle through the tanks.”

  “It tastes okay,” Danny said. “I’ve had it with a few meals.”

  “It’s good to balance out the diet,” she said. “Takes the edge off the sugars we put in our body.”

  “It’s like a sludge,” he said.

  She chuckled. “Yeah, though its chemical structure is like a corkscrew. Similar to the design of the OASIS.”

  Danny noticed she was almost pretty when she laughed. The hard edge of her muscles relaxed and made her seem vulnerable.

  He ignored the speck of attraction and furrowed his brow. “Was that on purpose?”

  “No. Coincidence. Or divine. Take your pick.” She checked the strip against a chart on the side of the bottle. “All good,” she said and motioned for Danny to follow her through a doorway and into the next room.

  The setup was resemblant of the antechamber, absent the algae tanks. Sitting on the tables were large trays mounted on top of water tanks. Black plastic irrigation tubing ran from the tanks and into the trays. The chug and gurgle of air pumps resonated through the space.

  “We don’t have a lot of soil,” she said, referencing the table in front of her. “Whatever we can grow hydroponically, that’s what we do. Potatoes are perfect for this. I’m assuming you’ve eaten our potatoes.”

  “At every dinner,” said Danny. “And most lunches. When I have lunch.”

  “We like them because they provide fiber, potassium, protein, iron, and most importantly vitamin C. Come on this side. These trays should be ready for harvest. We’ll take what we can get and carry them with us on the trip.”

  Danny moved around the end of the table to join Gilda. She pulled up the side of the tray, revealing a bounty of palm-sized brown potatoes. She handed him a pair of scissors she’d been carrying, which Danny used to start cutting at the veiny tangle of roots. Her gloved hand touched his and lingered there for a moment.

  “Won’t this be heavy to carry?” he asked.

  Gilda held out a bag for him to drop in the potatoes and offered a smile. “We have some MREs. We’ll take those too. But having a few potatoes apiece is never a bad thing. It’s good for bartering too, if we get in trouble. You know the old saying?”

  Danny dropped a pair of spuds in the bag. “What’s that?”

  “Give a man a French fry and you feed him for a day,” she said, peeling back the other corner of the tray. “Give him a potato and feed him for a lifetime.”

  Danny smirked and cut. “I don’t think that’s the saying.”

  “It’s a joke,” Gilda said dryly. “I do have a sense of humor.”

  Danny plucked another potato and dropped it into the bag. He raised his eyebrows in doubt and smirked again.

  “This is gonna be a fun little quest, isn’t it?” she said.

  Danny sighed, realizing he was the one without the sense of humor. He knew that among all the infinite words Gilda could use to describe their rescue mission, of all the descriptive adjectives she could likely conjure, fun was the least accurate.

  “I don’t know about fun,” he said.

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “I know,” he said, cutting another potato from its lifeline.

  Gilda sighed. “What’s with you, Danny Correa? What’s your story? Why so serious?”

  Now that was funny, and Danny laughed. “That story is way too long to tell you.”

  “We’ve got eternity.”

  Danny looked up from the underside of the tray and noticed Gilda’s sharp features had softened. Instead of the tight expression she’d worn since he’d seen her in the hub, there was a hint of sympathy. Her eyes were narrow with concern, searching his. Instead of her mouth being pressed into a tight, flat line, her teeth pressed against her lower lip expectantly.

  He stared at her for a beat past comfortable, and a wave of warbling heat coursed through his body. She blinked her ice blue eyes, glanced at the bag, and swallowed. Maybe she’d felt it too. She used one hand to check the bun at the apex of her head. Then clearing her throat, she shook the bag open again. The potatoes thumped together in the bottom.

  “Maybe later,” Danny said.

  “I didn’t take you for the strong, silent type,” she said, looking at the bag in her hands.

  Danny laughed again. “I’m not strong. And I’m not used to talking to anyone but Maggie.”

  Gilda lifted her head, a mischievous smile revealing her bright white teeth. “You ask a lot of questions though.”

  He twisted the last of the potatoes free of its home then tossed it into the bag. His hand accidentally grazed hers, and they looked at each other. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched a woman, even accidentally.

  That wasn’t true. He remembered the last time he’d touched his ex. He’d replayed it in his mind over and again. He’d paused it, rewound it, tried to find clues. He never could. There were none. Not until she’d announced she was gone and
there was another man, stronger, more articulate, richer, better than him.

  “I have a lot of questions,” he said. “I just don’t have any answers.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “Maybe you’ll get used to talking to me. I wouldn’t mind.”

  Danny took a step back. “Maybe. I wouldn’t mind that either.”

  Gilda cleared her throat again and blinked herself from what Danny wondered might be a trance. She looped the top of the bag into a knot and traded it for the scissors. “We should get going. We’ve got to hit the dry pantry and pack our bags. We have a lot to do before tomorrow.”

  Danny slung the bag over his shoulder and followed her back into the relative chill of the stone corkscrew. He watched her hips swing as she walked and traced the curve of her hips into the narrow of her waist. His heart fluttered.

  “Are you watching me walk?” Gilda asked without turning around. “I can feel it.”

  Danny spluttered, unable to say anything intelligible. He switched the bag from one shoulder to the other and cast his eyes at the floor ahead of his feet. His face and neck suddenly felt hot.

  She glanced over her shoulder, smiling. Danny looked up and noticed a dimple in her cheek he hadn’t seen before.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “But I get to walk behind you at some point. Fair is fair.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Saturday, August 9, 2025

  DAY FORTY-NINE

  Bel Air, Los Angeles, California

  Clint was having trouble catching his breath. His throat ached, and his heart pounded against his chest. He pulled the bottom of his shirt up to his face and wiped his mouth, lingering at the corners. He exhaled, trying to slow his pulse from his most recent coughing fit, and stared at the thin smear of red on the shirt. He ran his tongue across the roof of his mouth and over his teeth, tasting the now familiar coppery residue of blood.