Poison Paradise - Damned of the 2/19th

Training

Sarah looked at the other door, frowning as she stared at the words stenciled on the wall beside the door.

CIV SHELTER 9B
AUTH PERS ONLY
NBC PROOF
(TRNG SITE)
HOMETOWN, OK
SHLTR POP: 80
NO OVERSIGHT
NO LCL CNTRL
NO OUTSIDE COM
YOU ARE BEING GRADED

"What do you think this means?" Charlie asked, tapping on the stenciled letters.

Everyone gathered around, frowning, as they looked it over.

"Hometown, okay?" Richard guessed.

"Oklahoma," Don put forward. He looked around. "We think this was an island they did training on, right?"

Everyone nodded and murmured their assent.

"This might be some kind of training location? Maybe to teach leadership in a nuclear shelter?" Don guessed. "This is old Cold War stuff, so it could be training these guys to survive and recover after a nuclear war."

"Then we need to be very careful," Sarah said.

"I'm not going any further," Lori said, her voice quavering slightly. "It sounds like this place is dangerous, I'm not sure we should be in here."

Renee scoffed. "It's not dangerous in and of itself, but it's dangerous if we wander around acting like idiots. The first thing we need to do," she tapped the stenciled words on the wall. "Is to pay attention to these signs."

"Which might as well be written in Egyptian Hieroglyphics," Richard said, shaking his head. "I mean, some of it is English, and it's put together like words, but what the hell does it mean."

Sarah turned to Richard as Renee opened her mouth. "Which part doesn't make sense?" she asked.

"Any of it," Richard said, throwing his hands up. He pointed at the military door. "Neither set seems to make sense."

Sarah shook her head. "It makes sense if you realize they designed the letter groupings to have a certain shape that is quickly and easily identifiable at a glance," she reached out and put her hand on the stencil. "This tells us that the shelter, the whole town, is based on a town in Oklahoma that they decided to use as training for nuclear warfare. The shelter holds 40 people for civilians and that the military guys training in this part are being observed, which means teachers and graders."

She turned. "The military part is probably a lot bigger," she chewed her lip for a moment. "The last time this was used was 1985, over ten years ago, but if nothing else," she held her arms out, her hands raised toward the vent in the ceiling. "It's warm in here. We aren't going to freeze to death."

"Well, shall I see if I can open it?" Renee asked.

Sarah handed the baby off to Lori. The baby didn't object, just patted Lori's shoulder without opening her eyes. Sarah looked up at the concrete ceiling, then at the walls, then closed her eyes and estimated the number of steps they'd stepped down.

Forty-three steps. Average step height for America is seven point five, because as little as a half inch can throw off a lifetime of muscle memory. Twenty-six point seven five, say twenty-five feet total depth. The town would need to be built at least twelve feet above sea level so water at high tide and sewage lines aren't flooded by tides. Add in a few feet for a comfort zone, take into account that the water from the ocean is currently storm driven so is higher than high tide.

Sarah could practically smell the dry dusty musty smell of the classroom, almost feel the paper of her textbook, and taste the orange slushie she always had before civic planning class.

"Be careful. We're below the ocean level. It might be flooded," Sarah said. "Not by much, maybe five or ten feet, but still, we might open a door and get greeted by a wave of salt-water," she turned to Lori. "You stay here with Don."