Secrets of Liberty Mountain (Final)

We emerged from the elevator and entered the underground cavern beneath the cabin a few minutes later. I followed Sheila through the maze of stalactites and stalagmites until we found ourselves traveling down a side tunnel to the entrance of a vast server farm hidden in an expansive underground cavern.

A massive sheet metal warehouse large enough to house a football field sprawled across to cave floor beneath the vaulted chamber. Endless rows of racks containing thousands of servers filled the windowless building with a maze-like labyrinth of alleyways and corridors. The dimly lit passages separating the walls of twinkling machines gave the structure a creepy supermarket appearance.

"This is Athenia, our digital version of the library at Alexandria. For ten years, we've been downloading knowledge," Sheila said as we walked toward the farm's control room located at the center of the complex.

"Let me introduce you to two of my favorite disciples, they're the guardians of learning," Sheila said as she rang the buzzer on lamp pole next to the center's armored door.

I shivered in the warmth of grotto's humid air and squinted into the shadows beyond the light. What a curious choice of words for a leader with no faith?

I chuckled as I read the sign over the entrance: "Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department." Somebody had a sense of humor.

Jennifer and Tammy greeted us with warm smiles. I got a chaste handshake from Tammy while two enthusiastic hugs smothered Sheila.

"Sky, meet Jennifer. She's our head of computers and communications," the Commander said as she gave the African lady a slightly sloppy smooch of sisterly affection. The many hugs and frequent kisses reinforced morel and mood the same way common affection synchronized immune systems. Everyone got what everyone had.

The center of the chief's attention was a beautiful black woman in her mid-thirties. She carried with her an air of grace and casual beauty, which radiated certain innocence from within a cloud of pheromones.

An electric spark of desire jolted our bodies like a live wire on a rainy day the instant our hands touched in greeting. Our eyes widened in mutual arousal as the charge passed from flesh to flesh, and our libidos merged in a chemical connection where none had existed before. We were each on the other's wavelength.

Our handshake lasted a few moments longer than necessary and ended with her thumb gently caressing the back of my hand as she gave it an extra affectionate squeeze. I gulped and shuddered as I looked into Jennifer's surprised and puzzled eyes staring back at me. She had felt the same thing I had.

Jennifer and her co-worker were each dressed in gray and tan overalls, which served as the Sisterhood's unofficial work uniform. The supervisor's zipper was open to her navel and offered an excellent view of two plump and well-rounded breasts. I fought against the urge to rest my head against her bosom and took note of the quarter dollar sized gold, ruby, and silver pin in the shape of a flaming torch held aloft in front of a gleaming silver lightning bolt instead.

"Like it?" the supervisor responded to my attention to her jewelry.

"Uh, er, yes," I stammered with an embarrassed grin. I had been caught dead to rights in the act of gawking. "What do these symbols mean?"

Flame and lightning symbols are potent icons. There was a message embedded in the enamel jewelry, and the supervisor held the key. Jennifer smiled, and her dark brown eyes sparkled as she answered my question. I think that she appreciated my inquiry.

"The flaming torch represents knowledge in service to civilization. It's also a reminder that the secret of the fire was stolen from the gods by Prometheus at great personal risk. The lightning bolt is symbolic of the sinister forces of chaos and war being held in check by wisdom and learning. We are the keepers of the flame," she proclaimed as Sheila and Tammy nodded in agreement.

We strode over to take seats around a rustic oak table in the glass-enclosed kitchenette while we talked. Jennifer, ever the thoughtful hostess, brewed a pot of coffee and set a tray of freshly baked coffee rolls out, compliments of the kitchen crew.

"How much fire have you managed to steal?"

I stirred more sugar than reasonable into my coffee cup and looked around at the banks of blinking computers twinkling like fireflies along the service pathways.

"Welcome to Athena's Operation Carbon Copy. She's downloaded about fifteen hundred terabytes of data over the last decade. It's a long haul. Satellite internet is as slow as molasses. Trying to download the web at three hundred megabytes per second, we might as well try to drain Lake Erie through a soda straw," Sheila chimed in.

"You've still got a shitload of information." I let a low whistle out as I tried to wrap my mind around the numbers.

"Not as much as you think. The entire Library of Congress is around ten petabytes, or ten thousand terabytes if you prefer; enough to fill five thousand servers. We can't power that many machines. We download and dead store the data to get around the limitations of our electrical supply," Tammy explained between sips of Colombian java.

"Dead store?" I asked. I had never heard the term before.

"Yeah, dead storage is what we call filling a solid-state or mechanical hard drive. We index the contents, unplug the drive, and keep it on a shelf for future use. It's a bit awkward, but it works," Tammy said with a laugh.

"I thought you didn't trust computers, yet the Society has invested a significant amount of resources in computer technology? What's the point? None of this stuff is going to help you survive the day everything goes to Hell in a handbasket." I gazed around the facility and shook my head in bewilderment.

"True. Computerized records won't be of much use in the short term. What we're doing here is for the long haul," Sheila said as she poured herself another cup of coffee.

The blank expression on my face told Sheila that I wasn't getting it. The link between computer files and survival eluded me.

"Civilizations rise and fall on the tide of history. Much of the accumulated wisdom of people is lost, destroyed, or fragmented when they collapse." She tapped her finger on the tabletop for emphasis. "The more infrastructure required to sustain the knowledge, the greater the waste. Humankind's scientific advancement ground to a halt before it went into reverse when the Roman Empire crashed and burned. The ensuing dark ages lasted more than a thousand years." Her eyes misted over at the memory of lost wisdom.

"Do you think that it will be that bad?"

I took a sip of my coffee and studied the three women. I didn't know if I was in the presence of sainthood or bat-shit crazy. These gals had spent the last fifteen years chasing a dream down a rabbit hole.

"I don't know when, how, or why everything will go to Hell, but I know that it will happen sooner rather than later. The fabric of Society is woven too thin, and the threads are too weak and frayed to withstand a major calamity." Sheila's fingers traced circles around the salt and pepper shakers as she spoke.

"The whole tapestry will come unraveled if we lose one strand in the web of society," Tammy gave voice to Sheila's thoughts.

"A Single Point Failure will send everything tumbling to the ground. Coronal mass ejections hitting the earth in 1859 and 1921 damaged telegraph communication systems but had little long-term effects. It would bring civilization to its knees if it happened today. We are dependent on the grid, electronic communications, the internet, and computers for survival." Sheila finished her coffee and set the empty cup by the sink.

"The simple truth is this, we are our brother's and sister's keepers, whether we want to be or not. We need one another to survive. We are tribal creatures. It's in our DNA," she said as she rinsed her hands and wiped them on the legs of her jeans.

"Will this project be enough to prevent a new dark age?" I rubbed the back of my neck and fingered my necklace as I glanced at the clock on the wall.

"No, it won't," Sheila shook her head. "Nothing we do here will stop the night from falling." She looked like she was about to burst into tears of despair.

"Then why bother? What's the point?"

"Nothing we do here will prevent the sun from setting, but we can hasten the dawn. We'll need this knowledge to rebuild and recover." The Sisterhood's leader gave the array of lights her nod of approval.

"What kind of data have you been downloading?" I asked as I glanced around at the rows of flickering machines.

"Just about everything we can get our hands-on. Technical manuals, research papers, instructional videos, hard science, farming, metalworking, philosophy, mathematics, animal husbandry. We are replicating and condensing the sum of all human knowledge essential to survival."

Sheila brushed several strands of unruly hair from her eyes and led me out of the warehouse and into the main chamber within the underground complex of caverns. We took a seat on a cozy bench overlooking the misty lake of hot water fed by geothermal springs. Nearly lost in clouds of steam were the turbines and generators humming away as they converted the power of heat into electricity.

"Forgive me, but I'm skeptical. Do you think that your digital reference library will shorten a new Dark Age?"

I tossed a pebble into the water and watched the ripples spread across the surface of the pond. What value will the wisdom of the ages be to a starving family trying to survive a famine in a world filled with desperate starving neighbors?

"No. The best we can do is to keep the flame alive. Maybe then the night will not be so long or dark." Sheila's pebble splashed into the pond next to mine. "We've forgotten how to be self-sufficient. Do you know how to feed yourself and your family when the supermarket shelves are empty?"

I shook my head as she searched my eyes for the answer. I was at the mercy of the food chain.

"We humans have been living off the land since we swung down from the trees. We've done it before, and we can do it again. Beyond culture and history, our primary focus has been in recording and cataloging the lost arts of survival." Sheila shifted on the bench as she warmed to her subject.

"It's one thing to build a cathedral of wisdom, Boss. It's another to keep the barbarians at bay. How are you going to protect all this?" I stood and waved my arms at the infinite cavern and all that lay in the darkness beyond.

"I don't know. We can't do it alone. We'll need to evolve and grow," the Commander said as she rested her hand on my shoulder.

"We need to talk, Sheila." I took her hand from my shoulder and held it in mine as I turned my body to face her. "I love your dream; it's as noble as shit, but I have serious problems with your plans and our future."

I gently held her hand as Sheila's eyes widened in puzzled concern. I sensed her trying to pull away.

"No, it's nothing like that." I placed my hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. "I'm with you and the Society all the way. You have my promise; I'll do whatever I must to help us survive..." I paused and took a deep breath. "Do you want to hear my main concern?" I gently massaged her shoulder and collarbone as I gave comfort to her fears.

"Look, we're off duty for the next..." Sheila paused as she glanced at her wristwatch, frowned, and shook her head. "Forget it. We're taking a busman's holiday. Speak truthfully so that I may better know your mind." Sheila grinned, as she inserted the Society's words of permission to speak unpleasant truths and raise unwanted questions.

"Okay, let's assume the best about the worst; everything hits the fan, and your plans are wildly successful. Liberty Mountain survives the apocalypse without a scratch." I studied Sheila's eyes and caught the ghost of a smile as she thought of success. "What comes next? On the day after the world ends and it's just us. How are thirty-seven women and one old man going to hold this valley against a hostile and desperate multitude?"

Her ghost smile died for a moment before returning as fear flashed in her eyes.

"Don't worry. I have faith," she whispered.

Chapter 31

The days melted into weeks and the weeks flowed into months as winter searched for spring. For the first couple dozen wake-ups, I started each morning with the unreal feeling that I was at the bottom of a rabbit hole. By the end of the second month, the sense of strangeness decreased, and I was able to open my eyes without breaking into a cold sweat. I was still on the wrong side of the looking glass, but Wonderland had become my home.

I didn't make a journey to Liberty Mountain to search out a place to hunker down and wait for the world to end. I'd never been a prepper and thought the Sisterhood's obsession with survivalism and their belief in the coming apocalypse to be a weird way to spend a life.

"My boss is a brilliant woman; too bad she is wasting her life up here in the mountains," I said to Darlene one morning over a cup of coffee.

"What do you mean, 'wasted'?" Darlene paused mid-sip and frowned at me.

"You know, wasted, as in unproductive. Sheila's got so much talent, 'tis a pity she's throwing it all away," I noted between sips of Colombian nectar.

"Why? Would it be better if we worked in underground missile silos waiting for the command to exterminate all life?" Darlene tilted her head to one side and gave me one of her strange smiles.

"If the world never goes to Hell in a handbasket, they'll have squandered their lives," I sputtered lamely under my partner's steady gaze.

"If it doesn't, then we'll have spent our lives as free women doing what we love in the company of friends in one of the most beautiful places on earth." Darlene pointed out the window. "Shitloads better than working a dead-end job with no future, don't ya think? Now hurry up, or you'll be late to work."

Darlene leaned over and kissed me and sent me on my way with a smack on my ass. I forced myself to admit it, maybe she was right. Who was I to judge? Their lives were no more "wasted" than nuns cloistered away in convents or monks locked away in endless prayer.

Life with the clan didn't turn out to be anything like the long and glorious vacation I had hoped it would be. Rather than living a life of leisure, I found myself laboring harder than ever before. Herodian, an ancient Roman historian, once asked a Roman slave how he spent his days. The slave was reported to have replied, "Sometimes I do what I want, but most of the time, I do what I must." Amen brother. You and I are kindred spirits.

The Sisterhood never had a problem with boredom. Everyone, including me, held at least one second job in addition to our primary duties. If that weren't enough to eat up spare time, they'd also assigned me to be a drone operator and rifleman. My to-do list was longer than my day.

Like everyone else, I worked the equivalent of two full-time jobs. My typical workday included eight to twelve hours as Sheila's shadow and another five to seven hours working in the kitchen or the gardens in the cavern beneath Liberty Mountain. In my free time (ha!), I tried to learn how to fly the drone I was supposed to operate.

Occasionally, to catch-up on the political bullshit back home, I took a shift at the communications center. Scores of live global news channels streaming in via satellite were the Sisterhood's window on the world and an endless source of news and entertainment.

The easy-going routine of the Colony shattered like glass the day warnings of incoming ballistic missile attacks swarmed across the globe. Hawaii issued its alert with a tagline made necessary by its 2018 fuck-up. "This is absolutely not a drill. This is the real thing,"

Two minutes and twenty-two seconds passed before the Alaskan Tsunami Early Warning system was pressed into service to deliver an identical message. ICBMs were inbound and headed to the land of the midnight sun.

Within minutes, the amphitheater of the multimedia center transformed itself into a situation room as every member of the Sisterhood took up their duty stations monitoring and sampling global reaction and back-channel shortwave transmissions. The flurry of activity crawled to a stop as we watched in growing horror as civil defense commands in Australia, Japan, and Canada echoed similar warnings to their citizens.

"Oh my fucking word, it's happening."

Sheila's face went ashen as tears welled up in her eyes and cascaded down her cheeks. She gripped my arm to steady herself as she fought against gravity and despair.

The center's control officer had activated a digital timer when the first alarm sounded. Positioned high above the banks of television screens displaying all the major network feeds from around the world, the doomsday clock was crossing over to the other side of midnight. Assuming the elapsed time since the commencement of the "event" was correct, we were less than ten minutes away from the start of the Third World War.

In a matter of moments, the wall of monitors in the media center went from a collage of random images to a pulsating pattern of flashing news bulletins. The wall of monitors filled with talking heads as one nation after another raised the alarm of Armageddon's approach.

Like a bystander watching someone jump from a burning high rise, I rode a wave of terror, and my gut turned to jelly as I waited for the inevitable splat! I braced myself against Sheila, and we clung to each other for mutual support.

As the digital clock flicked to 00:10:00, Hawaii announced, "Oops, Sorry. False Alarm." Several seconds later, Alaska recalled its alarm without explanation, and within a minute, kangaroo-land and our neighbors to the north both canceled their warnings. Japan, the only country to experience a nuclear attack, took another forty-five seconds to kill their doomsday message.

Mankind had been playing Russian Roulette with nuclear war for decades, and the hammer had finally fallen on a live round. Dumb luck or the hand of fate intervened. The bullet in the chamber was a dud.

After monitoring the situation for another hour, Sheila declared a Colony-wide stand-down and a day of thanksgiving. No doubt to allow her and everyone else a chance to decompress and find a clean change of underwear.

"Job well done. Fall out, liberty for all until eleven-hundred hours tomorrow," the leader commanded as she dismissed the women from duty.

When I turned to leave, Sheila's hand grabbed my shirt sleeve. "Not so fast. I'm still on duty, and so are you. There is a meeting we must attend. Follow me," she instructed as she led me to a small conference room at the rear of the amphitheater.

When we entered the meeting room, we found four of the five women from the executive committee already seated in the padded leather chairs around the conference table. Martha, my boss from the kitchen, played bartender, and filled glass goblets with generous servings of the Sisterhood's delicious brandy.

The meeting, if you could call it that, was more of a group funk stuck at the intersection of "What" and "The Fuck." No one said a word as we sat in silence. I settled into the contours of my leather chair and took long slow sips of the golden brew. Brandy is the distilled version of Chicken Soup for the Soul, and it was soon working its magic as a peaceful amber glow tinted the atmosphere of the room. Brandy pushed my unspoken thoughts past my lips before I had a chance to silence them.

"What the fuck just happened?"

"What do you think happened?" Sheila asked she tilted her chair back and crossed her feet on the table.

I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. I took a deep breath I tried again. "I think we got a warning shot between the eyes. We are so not ready for this ..."