THE ARK

Two hours later RJ and Amy had successfully awakened Doctor Frank Cross, and while Amy was helping him get functional, RJ returned to the Command Center where she began testing and retesting electronic and mechanical systems. While there, she also reviewed computer logs.

As she was reading a maintenance report, the doors opened and Brad Warren stumbled in.

“Good morning Brad, you look like crap,” RJ said with a smile.

“That’s exactly how I feel, but at least I wasn’t passed out face first in my own puke,” he responded.

“I can’t believe Amy told you that! What else has she told you?” RJ asked.

“Let’s see, fifty-four years, seven deaths, Fitzpatrick trapped, good chance there will be no one is alive, and Carter is an old man locked in a hallway,” Brad said with a smile.

“That’s most of it, but I just learned something interesting. I looked at the equipment status and almost everything is operating on the primary systems, very few things are on backup and nothing is running on emergency reserve. I thought this was interesting and I looked at what it was that Fitzpatrick and Carter were awakened for and it was a critical failure in a cooling system that Carter repaired.

“At the time that Carter was awakened there were many systems that had failed to their backup systems and a few nonessential systems that had gone offline. All of those are fully functional now and on primary systems. For the last thirty years, Carter has been maintaining all the systems here.”

“That might explain why he stayed awake,” Brad said. “We need to talk to him.”

“That might be a problem. For the first twelve years or so that he was awake, he kept meticulous repair notes. For seven or eight years after that, the notes were there but much less complete. This change seems to have happened gradually over several years. Then all his notes started appearing in a language that I don’t recognize, I think it might be German. For the last three years, there are almost none and what notes they are, make no sense at all.”

“Is he going nuts?” Brad asked

“I think so, but who would be surprised, trapped alone for thirty years with no one to talk to and you can’t even go outside. The disturbing part is just before the change in his record keeping stopped there is a comment in the notes. It says ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to kill her, I just needed someone to talk to’.”

“Do you think he’s talking about Kelly Meyers?” Brad asked

“I suspect so, if you don’t know what you’re doing and you depressurize a capsule too quickly, you’d kill the occupant. After years alone, he became so desperate that he was willing to wake someone and he accidentally killed her. That finally pushed him over the edge.” As RJ spoke the two technicians, Abby and Nick entered the command center. They were using each other for support.

“Good morning,” RJ said with a cheery greeting. “The good news is I’ve been awake for six hours and am feeling almost normal, the bad news, is that the first two hours are really bad.”

“Thanks,” they said almost in unison.

“Take a seat and relax for a little while. When you’re feeling up to it I need one of you to finish checking all internal systems. I did all the sleep chambers except for the animal chamber and I need the other of you to begin checking all external sensors. Learn everything you can about outside conditions and graph out what the computers have been tracking outside while we’ve been asleep. Also, start monitoring for radio communications and see if you can hit any of the five satellites they put up there for us. I’m not too optimistic about them but see what happens.”

The satellites were designed for the sleepers and built with special radiation shielding. They were to use minimal power and orbit waiting for a signal from the Sleepers, at which time they would jettison the heavy radiation shielding and fully power up. They would be available for observation and communications. They were launched just 1 week before the comet passed the Earth.

“While you’re doing that, we’ll head down to the engineering level. Are you ready to move yet?” she asked Brad.

“Yeah, I should be Ok.” She helped him up and they slowly left the room.

At the health center, they acquired the same gurney that they had been using to remove sleepers from the capsules, as well as Dr. Stephen Cross.

They took the elevator to the lower level and saw that the door between the elevator and the rest of the corridor was closed.

“Good Afternoon Miss Anderson.” The computerized voice said and the door slid open.

Standing in the middle of the corridor looking at them was Dale Carter. His hair was long and gray, and his skin had an almost dead pale look to it. He was so thin that RJ almost wondered if he had eaten anything during the last thirty years. His eyes were wild and he seemed terrified.

As soon as he saw them, he ran to the far end of the corridor and curled into a ball in the corner.

Brad slowly approached with the other two behind him. “Dale, it’s me, Brad Warren.”

Carter started whimpering but would not look up at them.

Brad continued, “I bet it was lonely being here all by yourself for all that time. I understand you’ve been real busy taking care of everything while we were all sleeping.”

All three noticed Dale slowly nod his head at this comment.

“Why don’t you come upstairs with us, we want to thank you for all that you did,” RJ commented.

Dale started shaking his head almost violently when he heard this.

The three of them moved closer and they could see Dale become rigid.

Without warning he jumped to his feet and charged the group, there was an almost animal like growl coming from the man as he ran.

Brad and RJ grabbed him as he tried to force his way past them. It was clear to all three of them that Carter was not trying to hurt them, but instead to get away from them.

As they struggled in the hall, Dr. Cross rammed a needle into Carter’s leg and quickly pushed the plunger on the 3cc syringe that was attached to it. Carter yelled louder and the three of them succeeded in pushing Carter back to the far wall before retreating down the corridor. Dale Carter seemed satisfied that they were leaving and did not pursue his attempts to get past them.

They exited the corridor and closed the door behind them.

They were all out of breath. Brad spoke first. “What did you give him, Doc?”

“It was Ativan, we now wait fifteen minutes and he’ll be more cooperative.”

“Fine with me,” RJ agreed.

Fifteen minutes later, they re-entered the corridor and found Dale sitting in the corner. He did not react as they approached and put up minimal resistance as they moved him to the gurney. They wheeled him to the health center, and placed him in a standard bed in the triage area and applied leather restraints to keep him from being able to fight or get up.

RJ and Brad returned to the command center, the staff was still busy completing their tasks.

“What have you got so far?” RJ asked them.

“Well, so far I can tell you that animal losses are somewhat higher than human. It looks like we lost ten percent of the chickens and three percent of the pigs. We lost less than one percent of the cows, however. All systems down there are working fine. Actually, it looks like all the systems in the whole Mountain are doing quite well,” Abby explained.

As she spoke, there was a beeping from the internal communications system. Nick answered the call and listened in his headset.

“Miss Anderson, reactor room on the intercom for you.”

“This is Anderson.”

“RJ this is Dan Waterman in the reactor room. I don’t know what all Carter has done, there have been some unusual repairs made. I’m not saying they were the wrong things to do; I haven’t had an opportunity to review his notes. At this point, we’re doing fine here. It will take a while to understand what all has been done.”

“Ok, one of your trainees will be awakened later tonight, or in the morning. Let me know what all you find.”

“Thanks, RJ. Is there a chance of my talking to Carter? It might make things here easier to understand.”

“He’s heavily sedated now. I tried to talk to him earlier and he wasn’t able to converse. I’ll let medical know you need some time with him as soon as he’s ready.”

“Thanks.”

Waterman clicked off and RJ looked at Brad. “I need you to get one or two people to help you and conduct a room by room visual inspection of this entire facility, who knows what all Carter has done over the last thirty years.

“Good idea. I’ll let you know what I find,” Brad said as he headed for the door.

“Ok, what else have you two found?” RJ asked the team at the consoles.

“Outside temperature is seventy-nine degrees, which is within normal for this time of year. Humidity is thirty-four percent; sun position matches up with the date and time that the computers are showing. Radiation is still present currently about seventy-five roentgens, not great but just within our safety limit.

Looking back over the past fifty years of data, there are no signs of significant climatic changes. Radiation levels apparently peaked at about twenty-five hundred roentgens, that’s fifty percent more than anticipated, about six months after the comet passed, and they’ve been slowly, but steadily descending ever since ” Nick said.

Abby added, “Sixty percent of the external cameras are operational, but there is a large blind spot along the northern perimeter where five cameras are down. It looks like the external buildings are in fairly good shape; they need some work but not too much.” “Also, Miss Anderson,” she continued. “All radio frequencies are negative. We’re continuing to scan the entire spectrum, but nothing. We aren’t transmitting, just listening at this time. Also, I’ve sent the wake-up code to the satellites repeatedly and so far I’m not getting much. Number four sent the expected response, but it was very weak since then there has been nothing.”

“Ok, keep monitoring and working on the satellites. Start transmitting our preplanned message first thing in the morning,” RJ instructed.

“One other thing, I was reviewing computer logs from during the sleep period. Things were very quiet for the first twenty-five years, and then there was a sudden increase in activity. It seems Mr. Carter made heavy use of the computers for many years. I don’t have all the details yet, but he used them to learn how to repair everything from the facilities computers to air conditioning.

“It also looks like he taught himself medicine and learned six foreign languages. During the last six years or so his computer usage significantly declined and he hasn’t touched them at all in the last year.”

“Good that helps, please get me a complete breakdown of what all he worked on during the years,” RJ instructed.

About that time, Brad Warren returned. When he entered, he pulled up a chair and dropped into it. “All I did was take a leisurely walk around this place, and I feel like I ran ten miles. I hope this clears up soon.”

RJ smiled as she wheeled her chair over. “Find anything interesting?”

“Whole place smells a bit musty, but structurally we’re in great shape. In most places, it looks as if nothing has been disturbed. Carter was down in the pit some. You can see where he opened stuff to get tools and spare parts for his maintenance work. He obviously got bored too. He didn’t do much damage but he got into some stuff, don’t know what all he did. Strangest thing is there is a Humvee completely disassembled. Not beaten up, just neatly taken apart.”

“That’s weird!” RJ commented. “But I guess if you have to kill thirty years, you have to entertain yourself somehow. Did he mess with anything else?”

“Two of the pigs and five chickens were removed from the animal chamber. I also found bloodstains back in the main kitchen by the Mess Hall. I think he butchered and ate them. Other than that not much else was disturbed, it looks like he got into stuff but put it back later.”

“What’s left of our food supply?”

“It looks like he was trying to be careful with how much he ate. He made a dent in the food supplies, but it’s a very small dent,” Brad Warren explained.

“Good, from what I can tell, if Carter hadn’t stayed awake and dealt with the issues he did, many of us would’ve been awakened repeatedly to deal with different issues. He really made a big difference in how everything came together,” RJ said

“He worked for thirty years to make sure we made it through and now when we finally wake-up he’s completely out of his mind,” Brad commented while shaking his head.