Dinner was brought in and for half an hour the General asked how things were going in Moses Lake, especially curious about the federal response and the integration of National Guardsmen alongside local law enforcement. He seemed well briefed on the Columbia Basin Project plans, waiting for the day it made it out of the "dam courts." He chuckled as he said it and shared details that even Alice wasn't yet privy to on the reconstruction commission she was a part of.

The General – he insisted that she call him Henry – was affable enough, clearly having polished his general likability over the years of moving up through the ranks of the army. He had kind eyes, but behind them, Alice discerned a subtle tinge of resigned sadness. Fortunately, she did not sense was being evaluated– he had clearly made up his mind that she was capable of the task at hand that she had yet to be introduced to.

The other two men were quasi-civilians, though still in the employ of the U.S. Army. Dr. Sam Turtling was not a practicing medical doctor anymore, but had been studying the effects of the increased pollution in the NW air as a public health issue. He spoke in crisp-matter-of-fact sentences that made him the braniac in the room. He had clearly chosen his profession well, thought Harken, because he had no bedside manner whatsoever and she cringed at thinking of ever having to be treated by him as a patient.

Bill Cloving was a civil engineer with the US Army Corps of Engineers and carried himself seriously but friendly. She wondered how the Corps could spare any engineers at this time, since they were the primary government agency responsible for construction and maintenance of federal dams. He was much more genteel and didn't seem to have as much ego invested in his work as Turtling. Both were about her age and neither wore wedding bands, she saw at a glance. It's something she was starting to do more frequently over the past couple of years. The slightest tingle in her lower belly reminded her she was still a woman, even after all her loss

Just as they were finishing dinner, the hallway door opened abruptly and in stepped a 6' 2" man in army fatigues and steely look on his face. A scar on his temple was visible with his closely cropped hair. Alice judged him to be about 65, but even more battle weary looking than she felt. He stood to attention and saluted the general who simply said, "At ease Colonel Gray."

He closed the door behind him and introduced himself with a forced smile. "Mayor Harken, my name is Colonel Gray. It is a pleasure to meet you." The last sentence was added as a formality, Alice thought, because if she took Dr. Turtling for a cold fish, this guy was like a frozen fish stick. Suddenly, Alice wondered if her decision to work for the Army had been ill-considered. She managed a "pleased to meet you too," averting the intensity of his eyes.

"My apologies to you all for being late. We had a hold up in Umatilla that prevented me from getting here on time," said Col. Gray as he sat down.

"Anything to be considered about," asked General McIntosh with raised eyebrows.

"No sir. Nothing at all," replied Gray with a look that said, "We can talk about it later.".

"Good, we were just getting ready to dive into business" said the general, reaching for the coffee pot in the center of the table. "Anybody here need a little caffeine?" Everybody took a cup eagerly and when they'd all been served, Alice didn't wait for the general to start.

"OK, let's cut the crap Mac. Are you going to tell me what I just rode off into the sunset with no retirement party for?" She locked eyes with the general who, hearing her question, nearly spilled the drink of coffee he was just starting to slurp. The two scientists tensed up a little the room, having avoided conflict throughout their careers the best they could. Gray didn't flinch.

She'd used the tactic with federal and state officials over the past ten years to let them know that even if they were there to help her, Moses Lake was her town and she was in charge. Usually it worked and garnered her the respect that she wanted and only in a few cases did it backfire. She waited for his response.

The general set his coffee down gently and chuckled. "Mayor Harken –"

"You can call me Alice, Henry, no need to be formal here among friends right?" still trying to control the tone in the room.

"Alice then. Wellllll," he drawled in a Southern accent, "It's just that kind of chutzpah that caught our attention when we went looking for someone to be in charge of this thing. And I'm surprised it took half an hour to come out, based on your reputation."

Alice's face flushed a little. He'd politely called her bluff.

"Actually, of the six civil administrators I've appointed this year, I think I like you the most so far."

"Six administrators?" Alice asked.

"Yes, and those are just the ones in the Western U.S. that I have jurisdiction over."

He continued, "Perhaps it would be better for our esteemed Dr. Turtling to explain the details. After all, I understand that you're an environmentalist and that might ease us into the realities of your assignment. Doctor, would you do the honors of explaining just what kind of predicament we find ourselves in?"

Turtling cleared his throat and opened up a manila folder in front of him, sliding a bound set of papers - at least 100 pages long - across the table to Alice.

"You can read about this in your spare time," he said dryly. "But the long and short of it is that the U.S. is on a rapid decline in air quality and the modeling that NOAA, the National -"

"Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I know what NOAA is and I even know how it's spelled. Continue," interrupted Alice.

Dr. Turtling resumed his sentence, visibly irritated, "`That NOAA has done for the next ten years says it's only going to get worse, much worse. In fact, the epidemic we've seen among children and teens here is already taking hold amongst the greater population and manifesting itself in more serious forms. I'm sure you have already seen that personally in Moses Lake," he said in an annoyingly pointed way.

Alice thought about how her mom had died last year to lung cancer at the same time as her aunt to the same disease. She assumed it must have just been a genetic disposition in the family – neither had smoked nor lived with people that had. She nodded slowly, "I suppose I have," not betraying her emotions or letting him know he'd landed a punch.

"In the next five to ten years, those who don't migrate elsewhere are going to see a devastation that nobody in our generation has experienced. The effects of this, once they take hold of in the human body, are a kind of lung disease – pneumoconiosis - that coal miners suffered from in the last century. Eventually this is going to kill off entire Northwest communities and it's not curable."

"Then why don't the Feds assist people with migration efforts north more quickly?" asked Alice.

"Well, as you can understand the Canadian government has been open to some immigration," started the General, "but their prime minister has communicated that the graciousness of his country only goes so far and there's talk of erecting a border fence just like we did on the Southern Border 20 years ago. They've got their own problems as the ice caps and tundras have melted."

"Alaska?" offered Alice.

"Sure, it's an option for the rugged individualists," said the Doctor. "The temperatures have moderated a little bit, but frankly it's all still so wild there that most people are content to stay in populated areas like Vancouver or Victoria, which are having difficulty with all the migrants. But even those cities are going to be affected by this within a decade," he said grimly.

"So, tell me about these "self-sustaining facilities" you've prepared. Are you planning to put us in a time capsule and bury us?" she asked the Doctor.

He wasn't sure if he was supposed to laugh or not and instead fumbled with his papers, looking down at the table when Bill cleared his throat rescuing him.

"Well, actually, you've come pretty close to hitting the nail on the head," he said, the sentence coming out more grimly than he probably intended. "But, we've learned some lessons from other facilities that have been up and running for a couple of years already so I think Ember is going to fare the best of all of them."

"Ember?" asked Harken. "Is that what you're calling this town?"

"Yes," said Bill sitting up straight with a little pride. "As one of the chief engineers of the facility, I was given the honor of naming it. I felt like we needed to name it with some hope and fire embers can be rekindled into flames, even though they appear to have died."

Alice looked at Dr. Cloving, who rolled his eyes ever so slightly. Well, now I know who the optimist is and who the pessimist in this group is, she thought.

Bill began to explain the former mining facility in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the range along the Idaho-Montana border not so far from where Lewis and Clark had first crossed into the Northwest Territory more than 200 years ago. "When the army did a full expedition, we found a grand cavern that rivaled that of Carlsbad in New Mexico. So, we quickly acquired the property through emin - "

At this, the general cleared his throat making it clear he was crossing a threshold of details that wasn't her business to know.

"Well," he resumed, "Other than building a sustainable infrastructure inside, we had few improvements to the cavern itself to make it stable, especially compared to some of the other labor intensive efforts around the nation."

"OK Bill that's good." The General cut him short again. Bill slightly glared at the general but kept his mouth shut. Alice could see some tension mounting and decided to take control again.

"So food production, energy, fresh air and water, sanitation…that's all taken care of?" she said, ticking off the most important things that came to her mind. She had grabbed a pen from the table and wrote some other things down that could wait.

"Like Bill said," started the General, "we've been through this before not just with these cities but with other military complexes like Crystal Mountain in Wyoming. It's not a secret," he emphasized, "that NORAD has been living under a mountain since the 1960's. A lot of the technology to make these places habitable frankly isn't all that revolutionary."

"Yes," interjected Bill excitedly grabbing the conversation back to talk about what clearly was his domain. "Again, fortunately for us there is a mountain-fed underground aquifer that flows through the caves. It's clean, purer than most city water supplies, and flows year round, even over the past decade. At the elevation of the mountains sitting above Ember, there's snow all twelve months of the year and the city is located a mile underneath that."

"A mile?" she exclaimed. Alice let out a low whistle.

"A small hydro-electric facility has been set up inside the cavern - nothing as big any of the Columbia dams mind you - that should more than adequately cover the needs of the city. In fact, we have had to find ways to cut back on how much energy it produces for the size of city it will sustain. Simply put, Ember will never have an electrical problem."

Bill went on to explain hydroponic food production, sanitation, air filtration, building design, and other technical measures they had taken that answered nearly all the things Alice had written down. The doctor told her of the medical facilities they had installed and that another medical doctor would be part of the team, as a back up and for training purposes. The General explained the modified martial law that would be in effect, which kept most principles of U.S. democracy intact. She was satisfied.

"Well, gentlemen, I'm impressed you found a hole that is deep enough to bury us in. I hope you'll leave some coordinates for people to find us when the time is right. My husband did plenty of geo-caching when he was alive and even when had the coordinates couldn't always find the Tupperware hidden in the woods using your multi-million dollar satellites. Just don't forget about us."

The general chuckled. Bill smiled knowingly. Dr. Turtling had no idea what she was talking about. And when Col. Gray's voice piped in next to her, Alice jumped, because in the entire 60 minutes they had been talking she'd really only heard make his introductions and apology for being being tardy.

"Actually Mayor Harken - and please don't ask me to call you Alice - we're going in with you. That is, Mr. Cloving, Dr. Turtling and myself. General McIntosh will staying topside to monitor the health of the Western U.S. facilities."

Oh great, thought Alice. Just what I wanted to deal with in my retirement: being buried alive with "Dr. Coldblood" and "Col. Graystone." She stopped herself from making up a nickname in her mind for Bill, because actually of the three, she liked him the most because he exuded the most hope for the whole endeavor.

"And just what is your assignment in this whole miserable affair, Col. Gray?" It was a little cold, but she wanted to let him know that she could stick with formalities too. "Am I your subordinate or are you mine?"

Col. Gray paused before answering and then said carefully. "Actually, it is my hope that we will lead together in partnership. This is a military operation, may I remind you. But we recognize the need for civilian leadership for those who are used to a 'softer' form of authority. My squadron will provide what minimal security needs there are, but it won't be much considering the population that will establish our fine city. My men and women will mainly attend to infrastructure maintenance and construction projects. Most of them have a trade: electricians, plumbers, builders, etc. I will also be the liaison to the high command although our communication with the outside world will be kept to a minimum and for emergency purposes only.

"So, to answer your question, you can speak softly to the people and I'll carry the big stick. We'll do the heavy lifting and you can do the easy work," he said, ever so satisfied with his answer.

He didn't really answer her question, she thought, but she understood her situation. This was not your regular city being incorporated under the U.S. constitution or some state's laws – heck, she didn't even ask if they were going to be in Idaho or Montana so it's not like jurisdictions were going to matter. Clearly, this operation would be run like a military base except populated with non-military personnel. Nevertheless, she knew they wouldn't have asked a civilian to lead the people if they didn't need someone with her skill set.

"And what of the population base. Who do we get to lead together, sergeant?" she asked, changing the topic to safer territory.

"In addition to my squadron and the administration of half of dozen, it will be 100 citizens from Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington, 50% of each gender, all of them single, all of them 60 years or older. All in good health and without any detectable lung issues. They also have been selected based on previous work experience to lend a hand. But their main assignment will be "parenting" with a randomly assigned member of the opposite gender to a pair of foster infants from around the region. These are babies that have been kept in isolation from outside pollutants their entire lives, mostly outside the region. This will minimize the amount of exposure they've had to the smoke and should result in longer lives."

"Why single seniors and infants and nobody in between?"

"Well, this is one of the lessons we learned from our first couple of underground settlements," said General McIntosh. "Communication to the topside indicated that when people came in knowing each other and having a history of relationship together that it actually made it harder to forget the world they came from and build a new life. We'd like, to some degree, for the babies to grow up not thinking about the world above them until it is safe to emerge and that could be a generation or two."

So, this is to be a tomb and a social engineering experiment, all wrapped up together, thought Alice. How convenient.

"Not only that," Col. Gray continued, "There will be no communication to the outside world or Internet access coming in. Cell phones will be of no use so will be prohibited. We'll be dialing back communication technology to the 1980's which will completely suffice for this generation."

Harrumphing silently as if only younger people below used technology, she swiveled in her chair towards the man in charge. "General, you told me in my letter that I got to choose three trusted administrators. Do I still get them since we've had a 'history of relationship' together already?"

The General smiled, "Yes, we'll keep our promise to you there. You have to have some people you can trust to help establish some civil order and we didn't stick precisely with the 60 year old requirement for civil servants and Col. Gray's men. As the older generation passes on, we recognize the need for some still able bodied people to run the place for a while and provide some continuity before handing it off to the next generation. We can't risk leaving the success of this whole endeavor in the hands of teenagers."

She nodded, agreeing to the logic. So, that meant her three made the cut. Roger Noam, who would have no need of practicing politics, would be her able numbers man. Joseph Munk would be the head of public works: Alice was very glad to have put him on the list considering the situation they were entering into. His wife had died just the prior year and she felt sorry for him to be alone in Moses Lake without her. Susie Humboldt, the human relations director that Mayor Evans had pointed Alice to for a job, had definitely proven herself trustworthy over the years, capably managing the personnel crisis the same weekend that Daniel and- she broke the thought off.

"We've complemented Noam, Munk and Humboldt with a few more capable people that match you'll get along fine with."

She nodded and took her glasses off, involuntarily rubbing her temples. The day was starting to wear on her. She gathered her thoughts. "One last question, when do we depart for Ember and when do the new 'citizens' arrive?"

"Tomorrow," answered General McIntosh. "We'll leave at 2000 hours after dinner. Civvies are still arriving today by train and bus you will have a chance to greet them tomorrow before we depart. it's only a two or three hour trip.

"The second stage of the trip into Ember will take the better part of the evening down to a landing where you'll rest overnight. Then through the tunnels to the city itself. By Monday morning, you'll be in charge of your own city again," he said, as if that were some consolation. "Get your rest tonight. Tomorrow will be a helluva long day."

"Very well then. Gentlemen, thanks for everything, I am definitely ready to turn in for the night."

The men stood up and said their goodbyes and Col. Gray opened the door for Alice. Staff Sergeant Quilliam had been standing guard and saluted the Colonel. He didn't ask any questions as he led Alice to her quarters for the night. She thanked him, not knowing if she'd see him tomorrow. Looking around the Spartan apartment, saw her luggage had already been placed here; it looked comfortable enough for a single night with her own bathroom and shower. As she unwound with a loooong hot shower, not knowing whether she would ever get one again in her life, all of the day's emotions she had held at bay came tumbling out in heaves and sobs.

Setting her head on the pillow she thought about all that she had heard over the past few hours. Her mind was dizzying with all the facts, still unknowns and possibilities about Ember. What bothered her most was the idea of descending into a cave, grave, whatever, one mile under a mountain and nobody that she knew or loved would ever know what became of her. Even with no husband or heirs, the thought of her just disappearing off the face of the earth was unsettling, no matter what story the DOD would concoct on her behalf. Undoubtedly the most original thing they would probably come up with would be that her medical treatment had failed and she suddenly died. As she drifted off to sleep all she could think about was how much easier this would be if she still had Daniel.