Kilo-61 (Damned of the 2/19th Book 19)- Ongoing

The Egg

Entrance Area
Site Lima-One-Nine-Echo-Three
Bighorn National Forest
Central Wyoming
United States of America
6 April, 2002
1510 Hours

The water finally cut out and Kincaid hit the wipers out of habit as I got out of the vehicle and shambled over to the keypad next to the massive door that prevented us from going any further. There was peeling paint on the door, most of it torn off by the water. I flipped the plastic cover up, then punched in the maintenance code.

"WARNING! PRIMARY VEHICLE READY AREA ACCESS DETECTED!" The woman bellowed. It had the weird reverb that taking a normal volume recording and cranking it up to thunderous levels.

I put my hand on the wall and could feel the cylinder thumping heavily. The system was flashing "WAIT" and "PLEASE", alternating them. My brain went through the heavy electronics design that was needed to produce that effect with hardware that could handle a 450W EMP burst. I was down to  the thickness of the traces that would be needed and whether it would be safer to use copper or tin when the door's LED readout flashed "OPENING" at me.

Again, the door dropped down, losing my personal bet again. Beyond it was a vaulted room, a steel grate big enough to hold, side by side, two semi-trucks with a trailer hooked up to them at the far end. On right right were fuel pumps, on the left a tool bench and the racks, with the tools vacuum packed and waiting. The grate was marked with yellow paint in case you somehow missed it, and "DANGER! ACCESS LIFT" stenciled above it. There were no other exits from the room.

I walked in, dragging my left leg slightly and slumping. It was easy, and made me look like an easier target to anyone who was watching through the camera that was making slow sweeps on the interior. I doubted that anything but the dog-brain AI was watching, but any edge was an edge I'd take.

Donaldson hopped out of the Gypsy Wagon and began making sure all the vehicles were moved out of the center. The room was massive enough that even parking the vehicles two double-arm intervals apart from one another took up less than a quarter of the room. I was checking the power to the control box on the grate when Donaldson and Vollman walked up.

"This is... not what I expected," Vollman admitted, looking a bit nervous.

"Claustrophobic?" I asked him.

He shook his head, sweat appearing on his forehead, "Not that I was aware of before."

"Harden up, buttercup, we've gotta go down," I told him, hefting the control box. "This is a Zulu-ID bunker."

"I don't understand what that means," He said, looking up at the ceiling.

"Don't think about the millions of tons of solid rock over your head that has been weathered and slowly cracked by tidal forces for millions of years," Heather said, slapping him on the back.

I wagged a finger at her, "He'd be justified in shooting you in the gootch for that line," I told her.

She blew him a kiss, "Sorry."

He just nodded.

The others were slowly walking over as I looked at Donaldson, "We're going to move the vehicles down into Ready Storage once we're sure we have the site secured," He told me. I just nodded as everyone else gathered up, the LT Colonel moving up beside Donaldson and cooly appraising the surroundings.

"Prepare the men for descent, Major," The LT Colonel said.

"Ready up, defensive positions," Donaldson snapped.

"First squad, left side and front."

"Second squad, right side and rear."

Everyone E-4 and below shifted so that they were down on one knee at the edge. The E-5 grabbed the LT's arm and pulled her down, moving in front of her, the E-6 repeated it with the Colonel. The SEALs all paused for a second before grouping around the officers and the four suits. Someone tugged on Donaldson but he just looked at them mildly.