Chapter 7: Self-Sealing
A few hours later, after a grueling shift disposing of the militant bodies and helping the injured EDF personnel above, Malaya, Nakano and I made our way down to the basement of the facility. Unlike the other floors of the EDF headquarters building, the basement was not connected by turbolift,
"A self-collapsing tunnel?" Al stood at the point where the giant hole had been punched through the wall of the basement, examining the texture of the rock with a pair of spectacles. When Malaya, Nakano and I had arrived in the room he had been setting up his gear, a pair of seismographs, some monitors, and a kettle, of course. That man would go nowhere without his tea.
"That's what the commander called it. And I'd say he was pretty accurate in his analysis." Al replied. "The boring machine obviously put back in the original rock that it had left behind after depositing those militants, covering its trail by exactly replicating the rock that it had destroyed." He frowned. I knew that he enjoyed a good challenge, but this time he might have bitten off more than he could chew.
"But what's the purpose of a tunnel that reburies itself, besides cutting off reinforcements or making the militants more desperate?" Malaya asked. She stood behind me, with Commander Nakano.
"Well, it also made their attack untraceable. Whoever planned this must have known they couldn't have taken the building, or held it for very long, and just wanted to incur as many casualties as possible. Not having an escape route would be the ultimate cattle prod for any soldier." Al replied.
"So whoever our enemy mastermind is, he's playing Caesar while we're his gladiators."
"With the EDF headquarters building as his arena. Exactly." Malaya nodded.
"But, if these men came from the Sub-Mets, why were they not noticed, and why weren't more called up? Two hundred isn't that large of a number compared to the amount of servicemen and women in the building." Nakano added.
"That, Commander, is what we're going to find out. Al, after you're done here I want you to go down to the EDF Earth Shift lab and talk to the Seismologists there. Figure out if there's been any unusual seismic activity in this area over the past week or so. If so, then ask them to keep a look out for any more of the same magnitude elsewhere around the globe."
"Roger that chief. I'll be on my way after I finish my analyses."
"Malaya, Nakano, meet me back at the turbolifts in an hour. We're going back down to Sub-Kyoto to figure out what's going on with our facility."
"Where are you going Sam?"
"I need to go get something to drink." Malaya nodded, knowingly. The events of the past few hours had rattled me significantly, all I needed was some time alone.
"What'll it be Hun?" A young waitress, American with hair the color of spilt coffee stood behind the aluminum-alloy counter, a pad of paper in her left hand and a black pencil in her right.
"Just some water please ma'am. Don't rush." She nodded and turned back towards the vending machine, picking up a plastic cup on her way over.
"You military?" she asked, staring at the cup while the water poured into its smooth interior.
"No ma'am. IUA." I replied.
"What Sub-Met are you assigned to?"
"Sub-Kyoto." She turned back towards me, and I caught a flash of her nametag, but just the last three letters. "What's your name?" Seeing as she probably thought I was being a bit forward, I wasn't surprised when she stepped back slightly.
"Mariah Wilson. Why do you ask?" I thought the name through again. Wilson. Wilson. Where had I heard it before?
"Do you have a brother?"
"You mean Darren?"
"Darren! That's it!"
"You've seen him? I thought he had died of cancer."
"Yeah. So had the police." I muttered.
"What?"
"Mariah, I think Darren is alive but, at the same time, I'm not sure you're going to see him again."
"Why not? Was he put into one of them Deep Storage Facilities?"
"In a way, yes." She stood there broken. If I could've said anything truthful to cheer her up, I would have. But no words of encouragement came from my mouth, trembling as it was, watching the last vestige of hope be drained from her face. In a tragic way, she was beautiful. All I could muster was, "I'm sorry for your loss." In an instant, she disappeared from view, into what looked like the joint's kitchen. I sighed. If this was what we fighting for, I wasn't quite sure it worth all the trouble.