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One Last Dream
6. The 52nd Floor

6. The 52nd Floor

John found a broken metal folding chair amongst the rubbish at the bottom of the staircase and wedged it under the door handle. He peered cautiously out the small window.

“You see anything?” the girl asked, trying to crane her neck over his shoulder, but his suit was too big.

“Nope, I think… whatever it was I think it either went off on one of the lower floors or…maybe it went the other way.” John said cautiously. He looked at her, “You said it had a lot of legs?”

“I’m not totally sure,” the girl responded, “It ran by really fast.”

“Well, we’d better keep moving just in case.” said John.

Fear pumped adrenaline into their legs allowing them to scale the first few floors, but soon their strength flagged as fatigue set in. The staircase here was more narrow and steep causing them to need to rest frequently on every other floor. The girl noticed that as they ascended, the floors became more and more ornate with more wide open room and less… rooms. Most of the floors were silent and they did not encounter anyone else, but the girl thought she could perhaps hear a bump once or twice behind the closed doors when they sprawled on the carpeted hallway floors to rest.

“We… should…” said Emily, panting for breath before sitting down on one of the steps in a heap. “I'm getting really tired.”

John nodded. “We’re on the 19th floor, I think we should stop for the day and pick this up tomorrow.

They decided to aim for the rooms at the very edges of the floor so they could get a better look out at the city from the corner view windows. These suites were much larger and had a giant window that spanned two walls giving it an almost panoramic view of the Northern tower and the rest of the city. There were two on each end of the floor so Emily and John took one and the girl took the other. Before they went their separate ways for the night, they did invite the girl over for some dinner (with creme filled cookies for dessert of course), and the girl saw that they had, oddly enough, set up the biohazard tent inside the room. Afterwards, they watched as the sun went down over the horizon casting a pleasant warm pink glow over them, and they chatted about the days before the nanomachine terror. The girl showed them her kinetically powered phone charger so they took turns playing music on their phones while they talked. Soon the stars began twinkling through the dark canvas of the heavens.

John taught the girl some card games though apparently it was not the girl’s forte. He also seemed very interested in the coin she had and kept asking her to flip the coin or he would flip it. She guessed right 21/23 times. Then Emily asked her about her dreams while John took notes and consulted some of his books. The girl didn’t remember much, but she did the best she could. She told them about the big metal machine rolling through the ice lands as well as the offshore rig out at sea.

After this moment of rest, they took inventory and explored the commodities and functions (or lack thereof) of the rooms. It seemed there was a water tower at the top of the building (“The building must have been built quite some time ago”, commented John) so they managed to get some running water, though it was quite cold so they threw one water activated heat pack in to make a bath for the girl. John and Emily did not follow, however, and were cryptic about how they cleaned themselves. They eventually, despite her protests, made the girl return to her room alone for the night.

The girl kept the blinds open all the way so the moon and stars could shine in through the wide angle window of the room. She stayed on the luxurious living room couch that night, dragging the down feather covers and a soft plush pillow over from the master bedroom. She laid down and tilted her head back to gaze at the fat moon hanging in the sky (not quite yet a full one though). She tried to quell the thought that any moment a multi-legged fleshy thing could burst in through the door and grab her. Thankfully her body was tired and her energy spent, muscles softened by the hot bath. Soon after, her eyelids drooped shut as she snuggled into the covers.

Once more the waves of warm slumber washed over her and she descended step by step into deep sleep.

Down… down… down… she went.

She found herself standing in an ornate elevator. It glided smoothly downward before coming to a gentle halt on the 52nd floor. It said “52” but it was actually the 50th floor because of superstitions about the number “4” the massive underground bunker did not have floors “4” and “44”. This floor was the most massive yet also the one with most restricted access as it was home to the massive underground gardens meant to be able to feed a population of 5000 people indefinitely.

Currently there were only around 2000 inhabitants but the architects had wanted to leave a margin of error in case there were unplanned complications or in case of population expansion. So far, 3 months since the Rust had washed over them, things had been going as planned. The bright artificial light grew various crops including rice, daikon turnips, and bok choy. They were powered by geothermal energy from the Earth’s crust which heated boiler nodes located at five key locations down on the 52nd floor.

When the elevator doors opened she stepped out sharply, boot heels clicking on the concrete floors, then the soft dirt. As she walked through the gardens she took reports from the various supervisors in charge of each plot. The main crop, rice, was always first.

“Inspector Chen.” another woman approached and saluted her.

“At ease, Captain Yang. How are the seedlings?”

“Well they are not quite seedlings anymore, but we’re on track to produce around 20000 kilograms this harvest.” the supervisor answered.

“That’s good. That should be enough to feed twice our current population for 1 year, keep up the good work.” the girl answered. “Are there any problems with the workers?”

“Not too much,” Captain Yang responded, “One or two of the men aren’t used to menial work… rich family background you see. They complain a bit but do well enough when pushed.”

The girl looked at the woman for a short moment then gave her a bit of a smile, “Should I arrange an interview with them? Workplace disagreements should be resolved quickly.”

The woman blinked at her for a moment, then her eyes widened as the words sunk in, “Oh! Oh no! No need, I'm sure the problem can be resolved internally.”

“I trust in your judgment,” the girl responded, “Remember though, that the future of humanity is at stake here, we cannot take any chances. Feel free to reach out to me should you deem it necessary.”

“Yes, of course Inspector,” said Captain Yang, trying to power through her fear. “I will take responsibility for them, if needed.”

“As you should.” the girl responded, “Well then, as you were Captain.” The girl gave her a quick nod and dismissed her, checking a few things off her tablet before moving onto the next site.

Yahuei Chen, a generic name for a generic girl. Since she was a child, she had been satisfied with being one of many, living out an ordinary life. She was quite fine with her simple friends and experiencing ordinary boring life because it was easy for her. Why strive for more when she was comfortable with what she had? But alas life had other plans for her. It started when she took the National Elementary Exam. Her overall scores were perfectly ordinary but due to an error, a National Doctorate Exam question had found its way in, and she had gotten it correct perfectly.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

When it was found out that the error had been made, the officials had gotten curious. They made a list of all the children who had gotten it right and interviewed them. At first the interviewers could not find anything exciting about Yahuei, she was as ordinary as could be. But she made a mistake when chatting with the interviewers. Young Yahuei had gotten a little too ahead of herself trying to be likable and ordinary.

One of the interviewers had mentioned that he had a daughter like her, yet later on in conversation she had alluded to both his children: son and daughter despite him never mentioning his son. She had also correctly estimated their ages, the son was a teenager and the daughter around her age from context clues including a brief text message reflected off his glasses that showed simply “I’ve got soccer practice today, be home at 1800”. Elementary school ended earlier at 15:00, after-school activities were one to two hours at most so an elementary school child would have been done by 17:00 latest. A rather simple deduction, but for a child, this was highly irregular.

Of course the interviewer merely assumed he had mentioned it at some point and thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until later review of the recordings that this was discovered. Further review showed that this small child had a knack for shifting conversations in the directions she wanted with the selective use of words. Another child might go on and on about this and that, but she was snappy. She made her point across quickly while redirecting the conversation.

This led this ordinary child on a rather ambitious track. The girl did not sense anything was wrong with her parents “moving jobs” requiring her to transfer to tougher and tougher schools. She did “average” in all of them, but a high schooler doing “average” in doctorate level classes was telling to say the least. She eventually caught on when she outpaced even her most brilliant peers and there was no choice but to place her with older classmates. She was the exact middle of her class every year with only minor variations, truly average indeed. Yahuei ended up becoming an attending physician at the age of 22 years old. Truth be told she would have gotten the degree earlier but at the time there were laws in place limiting the number of credits one could take per semester which in turn delayed her post-graduate training.

When the Rust came for them, wriggling and wailing, she found herself on the list of potential candidates to be sent to the colonies. But alas she did not have the proper connections at the time and had not displayed any special abilities… yet. It wasn’t until she was buried well underground with a couple multibillionaires and their extended families along with their servants’ extended families that she began having strange dreams about a young girl in the United Americas. Of course she dismissed these at first but as a doctor herself, she noticed the signs. Recurring dreams, extraordinary luck with small physical objects, keen ability to sense others feelings beyond ordinary perception… she finally confirmed it herself with the aptly named “Ball Tube Test '' or BTT when she was able to move the ping-pong ball dropped down the forked tube in the direction she intended (left or right) 19/20 times.

No one knew that she was gifted except for herself, however. Her goal was to be in a position that increased her survival so she did not want to be perceived as a threat to the ruling party nor did she want to be too far up the ladder in case of a rebellion. Unfortunately for her, the ruling party noted her abilities and promoted her to Chief Inspector within a month of the event officially known as “Taking Sanctuary”, though some of the lower class workers had begun referring to it as “The Great Burial”. She proved adept at the task, when one of the thermal engineers in charge of a critical component at the power plants had gotten a serious injury, she was able to step in and take charge until a suitable replacement could be trained. She was no expert, but she took it upon herself to know enough about each part of the bunker that the experts respected her decisions.

The functions of the bunker were easy for her to grasp, but people were not. She herself was excellent at communicating to those around her, but the heads of the various sectors were not always the best. And there was limited talent to choose from. The captain of the rice plantations, Captain Yang, was definitely intelligent, but she was too nice. She did not have enough of an aura of solid authority and preferred to use charm and friendship to lead. However, when push comes to shove, an iron hand was often needed, you could not be lenient on the spoiled and selfish. Constantly giving them 2nd, 3rd, 4th chances only undermined your authority. But she was the best they had, someone more strict without proper knowledge would only cause disgruntled workers and further problems down the line. Which appeared to be the case with the current Captain of the Southern Thermal Plant.

She finished her inspection of the agricultural district and headed toward the Thermal Plants. Southern one first, best to get the difficult ones out of the way. She hailed a vehicle to bring her down through the tunnels. They were, in fact, still drilling in different locations on the floors above. They had subterranean rivers to access water, but they continued to expand in case they needed backup space or more resources. The massive excavation vehicles ran on nuclear power, which while long lasting would only last for around 50 years maximum after which they would need to use something else.

She arrived at the plant and began to feel the heat emanating from the giant concrete structure. The structure itself extended down far below floor 52 to reach geothermal wells where water heated by the earth’s crust created high pressure steam which turned turbines to generate power. She saluted a guard near the entrance to the structure then went in. She was immediately struck by a wave of hot air. She took a short moment to soak it in, acclimating herself to it, while she watched various engineers take readings off pressure valves on the various pipes snaking through the interior. A group of workers strolled by holding various maintenance tools and parts.

The girl took the elevators up to the Captain’s office. The top was only minimally cooler, but enough to make a difference. She knocked on the heavy metal door.

“Ah, Inspector Chen, come in.” came a gruff voice from inside. She opened the door and stepped into a minimal office of concrete and metal. The table at which a tan lean asian man sat was made of metal with one lamp and a desktop computer. To the immediate left of her was a heavy work uniform hanging from an open locker with a hefty box of tools on the ground. The man’s thin face had a rather stern look, though it softened when she entered, its finely groomed thin mustache turning up in a smile as his eyebrows arched in a polite greeting.

“The fact that you’re here so early means everything else is going smoothly I presume?” he said as he stood up from his chair to give her a salute.

“Well enough, Captain Zheng.” she gave him a thin smile. “How are things doing here?”

“Everything is well enough in order, we’ve shut down turbine 4 for maintenance.” he grimaced a bit. “That’s always a tough one, just because of the psychological factor.”

“But things are going well?”

“Yes, right on schedule. The engineers know what happens if they refuse an order.” Captain Zheng gave her a self-satisfied look. “You know as well as I do the stakes here, without proper discipline the survival of this community, no perhaps the rest of humanity, could be at stake here. In fact this morning I had to discipline a man for being late repeatedly.”

Something made the girl ask further, “Why was he late so much?”

“Well, his wife is sick and he needed to take care of his children. But letting him go free would set a bad example.”

“Naturally” she said, though he did not appear to notice the sarcasm in her voice. “What did disciplining him entail?”

“Nothing much, just 5 lashes.” the man responded with a wave of his hand.

“You gave a man 5 lashes for taking care of his wife and kids?” the girl asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Hey, that's half the normal punishment. For three consecutive tardies, especially 30 minutes late, its 10 lashes normally.” He said quickly gesturing with his pointer finger, “He’s been late every day of the week, I’ve been lenient enough!”

“Is five lashes going to cure his wife or help cook breakfast for his kids?” she asked pointedly, “That hardly solves the problem does it?”

Captain Zhao grew defensive, “I run a tight ship, Inspector. If I don’t discipline him, it won’t be fair for the others. I’m strict, but fair. There's a reason my generator has the least accidents out of the five.” He’s right there, at least there was that.

She sighed, “Just make sure you don’t push too hard at the wrong time. We wouldn’t want a strike on our hands.”

The man blustered, “What kind of shortsighted fools would strike at a time like this? When the future of humanity is at stake?

“Well anger and frustration makes people shortsighted.” She sighed. “Try to be more understanding next time. Maybe you should’ve given him some time off, or if you’re short handed, assign someone to help him out. There are caretakers you can pull.” She gave him a sharp look as he was about to form a rebuttal, “And don’t say that isn’t your job, we do everything we can to keep things running smoothly.”

“Yes, Inspector.” he responded with a scowl. “I understand.”

“Good.” she gave him a smile. “But otherwise, keep up the good work. Your results are good.” I wouldn’t want to have to replace you. “Let’s meet again in three days.”

He sensed that she was finished with the conversation and brought his hand up to salute. “Of course, Inspector Chen.”

She returned his salute and departed.