Wasteware 03

03: Keep the Magic

17:34.

"Point blank, we need to get that door working," Preston told Enrique Moltaban, head of the maintenance crew. He and Amaya were standing in the corridor by the open panels of the blast door, checking up on any progress Enrique and his crew had made.

They had removed more than just the panel Reeves had tossed aside earlier. An entire 12 feet worth of wall had been torn apart. Floodlights had been brought in for extra lighting, negating the rust color glow the standard lights cast. Three members of the maintenance crew were looking over large blueprints splayed out over the cement floor, and testing wires as the three spoke.

"I understand that, Sergeants, but there was a lot of damage done to this wiring. It appears most of it needs replacement, and possibly even some of the mechanisms to control the door. Most everything in there is dead. Anything plastic within the wall is melted." His dark brown eyes kept darting between the two as he spoke. Sweat was forming just under the ridge of his salt and peppered hair and his callused hands fidgeted with a pair of wire strippers.

"How long?" Amaya asked him bluntly as she silently wondered what made him so nervous. She checked her body language and glanced at Preston. Neither were posturing in a threatening manner.

He stuttered, "at least two days, Miss Reeves."

Preston did not hide his frustration at the answer. "Two days? We still have to clear out the rubble after that."

Enrique looked down at the floor, avoiding eye contact with both of them. He was still twirling the wire cutters over and over in his left hand, quicker than before.

"What is it, Enrique?" Amaya questioned.

Without looking up, he answered. "That's assuming we can get the door working again."

"Great curve ball there," Preston exclaimed, crossing his arms over his chest. The other three maintenance team members had stopped their discussions and were staring at them now. Amaya shot Preston a glare, urging him to hold his tongue. It was apparent these men had been worried about delivering this news. Admittedly, it was not the news or the time frame Amaya and Preston wanted to hear, but at least they were being honest.

“Enrique, I know your crew is going to do your best to get the door working as quickly as you can," Amaya told him, phrasing it slightly more as an order than a request. "Please keep us apprised of your progress."

His head lifted, seeming a little less nervous. "Of course, Miss Reeves.”

Preston and Amaya turned to walk down the corridor heading back into the heart of Carbon Block when she abruptly stopped and turned toward Enrique. "Do you know what caused this?"

"I can't think of a single thing that would have caused this type of damage that we wouldn't be aware of, ma'am," he replied, stuttering and once again averting his eyes.

Amaya noted that Enrique put too much emphasis on the last part of his statement. Her instinct told her that maybe he knew what caused the malfunctions. Still, until she had something more concrete to go on, she'd just have to file away that impression for a later time.

The interim plan was to get the door working again. Then a maintenance crew would head to the surface to inspect the blockage in the front of the door. Amaya would lead that team, which left her with a sense of excitement since that could be as soon as two days.

Reeves met up with Preston and Amaya just outside the mess hall and decided to join them for their nightly rations. Amaya particularly enjoyed these times when Reeves was just her dad. She had missed out on a lot of time with him when she was growing up. That he was also stationed here made getting shipped to the Block a bit more palatable when it first happened. These last few years, she was thankful for the time they got to make up.

"So what was it like out there, Dad?" she asked, walking next to him down the gray hallway, six black boots falling on the dull slate blue floor where a million steps had fallen.

"You saw it," was his brief reply.

"I know, but I saw it through a video screen. I want to know what it smelled like, tasted like. How did the sun feel?"

"You get to go out there soon enough," he responded, enjoying keeping his daughter in suspense. Preston let out a small laugh.

"Come on, Dad," Amaya protested. "That's at least two days away. Two days if those maintenance guys are worth as much as they say they are. It could be a week for all I know."

His smile grew. "Then you'll wait a week.”

"That's seven days too long." A sigh escaped her as they opened the door to the mess hall. The sounds of many conversations washed over them like a wave hitting a sandy beach, only it wasn't a calm wave. There was an enthusiasm and vigor to it, happy energy that had carried over from the night before.

It became clear that Amaya wasn't the only one who wanted her curiosity satiated. As they walked through the mess, people were stopping to ask Reeves all matter of questions. Was the air thick? Was it sweet or acidic? Hot or cold? Was there a breeze? Did you hear the sound of insects in the background? A million questions sitting on the lips of everyone who didn't smell the air today.

It made sense why Reeves didn't divulge his experience to Amaya. He wasn't being mean or difficult, but if he told her all of the details, it would ruin the magic.

She left her dad to answer the questions of the masses and grabbed dinner. Or what passed for it these days. A government-issued ration meant to maintain freshness for half a century was not meant to be a culinary masterpiece. Amaya chose a spring mix powdered soup and a nutrition bar as her evening meal. She sat back, drinking the soup from a cup while the sec team conversed about what the scientist had found. Well, what the team thought they had found.

They also talked about what might have occurred in the days following Cloud Cover. Something had taken down the buildings, but it couldn't have been a nuke. The shockwave would have taken out more of the town. ICBMs could explain the damage, but the Block was hidden in a nondescript town in American suburbia. The Blocks were rarely placed near major cities and shouldn't have been targeted.

They theorized that whoever pressed "the button" knew about the other Blocks and sent missiles their way. But that led to a series of other questions. Suppose the unknown combatant knew about the Blocks. In that case, they must have known Carbon Block was a military fallout shelter in addition to a biological research center. You could drop a nuke right on top of the facility, and it would withstand it, at least theoretically. Hence, ICBMs had no chance of causing any damage. It didn't make sense, and by the end of dinner, Amaya and her friends resolved that it would likely always remain a mystery.

That didn't stop Amaya's brain from chewing on those questions as she left the mess hall in Theta Zone, the topmost level of the Block. Those thoughts carried her to her room one level down in Eta Zone as she made a quick pit stop to grab her journal. As she was there, Amaya slid her ID into her security terminal and then typed in Jace Anderson's name. It showed that his security card had last swiped into the mouse lab, one floor down. She returned to the elevator, flipping through the pages of the leather-bound journal as she waited for the cart. She happened upon the entry she made the day after Jace and her met.

Dad finally had enough. Despite Dr. Griffith's diagnosis of depression, he still had the nerve to call me lazy and undisciplined.

In front of the entire fucking squad.

He was so pissed I was late for the morning brief again that I got the full force of his hammer.

50lb backpack on; I spent 5 hours running laps around Theta Zone. I might have been embarrassed if I hadn't been so pissed off. I can't count the number of times I ran right past the open doors of the mess and the eyes on all those milquetoast white coats turned towards me.

As if that wasn’t enough, he parades the entire squad to lunch to relieve me of my pack.

Boyer had a grin on his face the size of the moon. How I wanted to put my fist through it. I think Commander Reeves even expected me to sit with them. No way. In fact, I don't think it was physically possible for me to get farther away from them and still be in the mess.

I was slowly trying to get some water down, and this scientist brought his lunch and sat at my table. Then, asked me, "Are you finally done?"

I was too tired for a witty comeback. I wanted nothing more than to go straight to my room, but I wasn't giving my father or the squad the satisfaction. I might have been down, but not for the count.

The scientist went on to tell me about being dehydrated and drinking water.

No shit.

At least he didn't pressure me into a conversation. I had no idea why he was sitting with me, a little pissed at myself that I didn't have the mental fortitude at the time to ask him. I'm definitely out of shape. Eight months ago and 5 hours with that pack in an air-conditioned hallway would have seemed a luxury vacation. I need to step up my PT.

I finally did get enough brainpower back to ask him who he was. Jace Anderson, he told me. Dr. Jace Anderson, specializing in infectious diseases. He knew who I was. Said he was surprised I wasn't eating with the squad.

I didn't like them very much then, and Gibbs gave me even more reason for the bad taste in my mouth. He brought the bag back. Said I could take it back to the supply when I was done "enjoying my lunch date."

Real cute, Josh. I'll remember that.

Jace came with me, trying to help. I half hoped someone would see him down there with me. I'd catch hell for it, but I was itching for a fight.

The good doctor wanted to take me to the infirmary for fluids and pain meds. No way did I want that showing up in tomorrow's report. He wouldn't let me be, though, and after getting me to my room, he brought me tea, pills, and a pain patch for my back. I was in bed and halfway to dreamland before he was gone. I think he kissed my forehead.

Strange.

Creepy and fucking strange.

Amaya walked back into the elevator as the doors slid open, laughing at herself. Because of how much training she had, how much death she had seen, and how much testosterone Amaya grew up around, she never learned how to be a hopelessly romantic female. Here was a handsome stranger coming to her rescue, and all she could say about it was strange. To be fair, it objectively was.

The elevator lurched to a halt, bringing Amaya back to the present.

Seven doors down on the left from the lift was the mouse lab where Jace was most often. She peeked in the glass window and saw the familiar silhouette of his body near one of the tables. Amaya tapped lightly on the glass. Jace turned around and looked up at her. She could see her reflection in his wire-rimmed glasses. She waved as he motioned for her to come in.

She opened the door, and the smell of bleach and sterility, which tried to mask the underlying scent of mouse feces, hit her. Jace said you got used to it, but apparently, Amaya didn't go down there enough because she still scrunched her nose at the smell.

"Hi," Amaya said in a half-whisper, sitting next to Jace at a table where he was going over blood results. She noticed the BUN and CREAT levels were elevated.

"Hey, exciting day, huh?" he asked as he looked at another set of blood results. This one, too, showed the same pattern of elevated chemistries.

"Not too bad. Better than my normal duties of walking the grid and taking inventory of the armory for the millionth time," Amaya responded.

"What did you find up there? Or is it classified?" He said half as a joke. Not much was classified these days, but Jace always asked Amaya about things that still were. On more occasions than Amaya could count, he asked about Cloud Cover and the extent of the operations of Project Element.

"Nothing much, actually. You probably know more about what was found than I do," Amaya said matter of factly.

He smiled at her with the same look on his face when he had been planning something. "Oh, I know there is more to tell than that, and I want to hear all about it. Help me run some blood work so I can get out of here, and we can talk."

Amaya returned his smile with one of her own. She had grown to enjoy helping him in the lab when she could. The environment was so completely different from what she was used to. Her only working experience had been with the armed services, first in the war zone of the Middle East before being assigned to the Block. The lab was safe and relaxing; and since it wasn't work, she considered it fun.

It was pretty easy too. Jace would bring her blood samples, and she'd put them in the centrifuge for 5 minutes. Once they were spun down, she drew out the serum with a pipette. After inputting slides into the chemistry machine, she'd add the sample and, 5 minutes later, had blood results in hand to give Jace.

Jace, a natural teacher, had started explaining the results, and Amaya surprisingly picked up on quite a bit. The two samples she ran today also came back with elevated BUN and Creatinine levels. So naturally, Jace wasn't happy to see these.

"What's with all the kidney failure today?" she asked.

He looked at her and smiled proudly at his pupil's deduction. "The treatment I had been developing to help them with low-level radiation sickness is causing their kidneys to fail. I think it's causing cysts in the kidneys, to be exact. Once a couple of them die, we'll do a necropsy to find out."

"That sounds messy," she responded.

"Don't worry, that's not for us to deal with now. Why don't we head up to the mess hall, and you can tell me all about today?"

They did just that. Amaya enjoyed a glass of warm tea while Jace ate his dinner. Amaya was telling Jace about the melted plastic when her gaze wandered down to his fingers cutting his pre-packaged steak patty.

His delicate fingers, she thought, and felt her face flush. Her comment earlier had been merely a tactic to get the team off her and back on track. Jace and Amaya were nothing more than good friends. However, the fact that she was blushing as she sat there with him, remembering the comment, made her think that maybe part of her wanted it to be something more than that.

"What?" he asked.

She raised an eyebrow at him questioningly.

"You were telling me about how the switch to override the door was melted, and now your face is flushed," he said, looking at her, an expression of perplexity across his face.

"You are too fucking perceptive, Jace," she said. Then, as deadpan as giving a report to her commanding officer, she relayed the radio conversation that had made her blush. When she was done, his cheeks were as red as tomato soup.

She felt mortified at his reaction and immediately apologized, "I'm sorry about it. It's just that I knew it would get them to shut up."

In the years when a woman is learning about love and lust for the first time, Amaya was surrounded by testosterone-filled men. The type of men who were very direct about what they had in mind. The closest thing she had to a normal relationship was with Preston before they both found themselves at the block. And it was only normal if your definition of that was a love born on the battlefield. Playing coy was not in her playbook.

"You don't have to apologize about it. I understand," Jace grabbed Amaya's hand to comfort both of their feelings of embarrassment. Jace might have been perceptive, but so was Amaya, and any wonder she had about how Jace felt about her was erased by that gesture. His pulse pounding in his wrist as her fingers brushed it told her everything she needed to know, and a sly smile crept onto her face.