"Sure, Daria. Let me scrape that into the dust so that the archaeologists will know our last words." Jane was crankier than usual, having been searching for several hours in the near-dark with no end in sight.
"Tell me about this place we're looking for again?" she asked.
"In 1961, during the height of Cold War paranoia, Buck Conroy Senior founded the Conroy Shelter Company. The CSC designed blast and fallout shelters for both public and governmental use, but they never got much business until after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then, they made a brisk business of selling fallout shelters to the city of Lawndale -- nevermind that most of the cheaper ones would have collapsed when Baltimore took a hit."
"Right right, and the shelter we're looking for?"
"In '65, the city hall commissioned a command post-style blast/fallout shelter from CSC. It was kept hush-hush, half because it cost over 100 million and half because nobody outside of office would ever be using it. Of course, a year or two after it was completed word was leaked to the press, and the mayor at the time and his cronies were all kicked out in a special election. Over time, people just forgot about the shelter's existence, but it was all right there in the library."
A rat suddenly scurried across the path of their beams, and both girls screamed. Then, they looked at each other and shook their heads.
"Anyway, the rest of the story is obvious: CSC folds in the 70s, the USSR folds in the 80s, and here we are."
They stopped. They really were there. It was a large, round, steel door, the kind seen on bank vaults. To one side was a keypad.
"Well, it would be nice if we knew the code," Jane said.
Daria approached the keypad and punched in a few numbers. After a moment, a quiet rumble shook the teens as the door slowly opened for the first time in four decades.
"What was the code? How did you know it?" Jane asked.
"1776. I read it in the town records, on an invoice for the shelter."
Finally, after a minute, the vault door finished opening. A long steel corridor stretched before them into darkness.
"Ooh, creepy," Jane said with a smile, advancing forward.
"Damnit, Jane, wait!" Daria said, watching the flashlight's beam get smaller and smaller. "Damnit," she uttered again, following her friend.
As they walked down the corridor, fluorescent lights began flickering on above them. They turned off their flashlights and continued to a steel door at the end of the hallway, which retracted into the ceiling as they approached.
"Ooh!" Jane cried. "Neat, very Star Trek."
The doorway was perched at the top of the next room, with a steel staircase leading down to the floor. The wall opposite them was covered with a large political map of the planet -- it was clearly out of date, as it had the USSR on it. The side walls were lined with very large, very old computers. The floor of the room had several rows of desks, each with a telegraph transmitter and telephone in place. After the two descended the stairs, Daria approached and investigated one of the computers. She wasn't sure, but she thought it used punchcards.
"I think this was supposed to be the war room," Daria observed.
"Hey, let's call out for pizza!" Jane said, picking up a phone. "Humph, no dial tone," she said, a bit hurt.
Suddenly, one of the computers started up with the great whirring of fans and started to print something out. Daria and Jane approached to read the printout.
SECURE LINE TO WASHINGTON CUT OFF
PROBABILITY WASHINGTON DESTROYED 99.5
NUCLEAR ATTACK IMMINENT
SEALING ENTRANCE FOR 2 YEARS REQUIRED FOR FALLOUT TO DECAY TO NONLETHAL LEVELS
"Sealing?" Daria whispered.
"ENTRANCE!" Jane shouted.
The girls dashed back to the stairs, but already the low rumble alerted them to the shelter's closing. By the time they reached the thick steel vault door, it was barely open a crack; if Daria cared to, she could stick her hand in it and find out what a crushed hand felt like.
It sealed with a 'thud' of finality that made Daria and Jane's stomachs plummet to their boots. After a moment, the air circulators in the shelter kicked on, cycling out the stale air and bringing in processed air that felt cooler. That's how Daria explained why she was shivering, anyway.
She turned to Jane. "I suppose it's a bit late to say 'Touch nothing'."