Chapter 4: A History

NORI'S POV

I go to the locker room, spray down my scrubs with disinfectant, and hang them up. The fabric is so wrinkled and lank it’s pathetic. It’s dark in here, but when you’re underground, it’s dark everywhere. We use sunlamps during the daylight hours on the med floor. I try to avoid day shifts for that reason. It’s not the same as basking in direct sunlight, a thing I don’t do, but it’s still uncomfortable.

Back in my own clothes, Balenciaga slacks and a belted Fendi vest, I ascend through the broken corridors that lead to the surface world. I can always tell when I’m close to emerging from our underground sanctuary since the rubble goes from small, fractured pieces to large boulders trapped in a fog of dust. The dust used to be part of the infrastructure, but the aliens’ weapons have pulverized the steel and concrete into a fine, clogging powder. I don’t like it. My enhanced senses feel suddenly muted, shutting me off from the world I’m used to.

The way through the debris is marked with red paint, showing us which boulders are the most stable to climb on. In the early days, troops came to help move some of the wreckage blocking the way to and from the bunker. It’d be easier if this chunk of ceiling wasn’t in the middle of the cleared space. The piece, with insulation still stuck to it in patches, is about my height and thirty times my weight. With a slight strain, I heave it up and out of my way.

I push the metal grate, once used to help gird the hospital’s thick walls, that disguises the entrance to our underground facilities. Unless you’re right on top of it, it’s impossible to discern from any other scrap of wasteland. I pull myself out of the unnatural darkness of the tunnel into night’s velvety embrace. I replace the grate and look at my clothes. Once I get home, they’re headed for the trash. It’s not like wearing designer fashions means anything anymore. I’m just wearing what I have, what I bought when money, prestige, and appearances held any significance. I’ve heard that the rich that are still alive have taken to burning money in pits to stay warm.

Around me is what remains of the city. All the buildings look like this, half toppled over but mostly turned to dust. This was the aliens’ first offensive. They showed up outside of every major city, surrounded it, and unleashed their long-range missiles. Nothing happened for those first three seconds, the military started to coordinate a response, and then the earth undulated like it was the ocean. It lifted up and down in waves, throwing items from people’s lives into the air. Cars, houses, and historic municipal buildings all looked like they were built upon a massive trampoline. When the ground settled, nothing was left. Every structure had been pulverized. The majority of the people were dead from the impact. Those that were lucky enough to be in basement offices or underground parking structures were trapped. Some died from thirst with no way out and nothing to do but wonder if the cracks in the walls meant the ceiling was going to crush them.

Some, a few really, survived. If they were male and even close to adulthood, they were drafted into the Earth Defense Multinational Unit. If they were female they were ordered to either become nurses or receive a different commission from the government to be completed while in hiding. These women, known now as “Subterranean Saras,” not only have to look after whatever community they’re responsible for but are charged with growing food, mixing medicines, purifying water, weaving fabric, transmitting communications, and everything else it takes to keep society away from total annihilation. It is on the bravery and commitment of the men that humanity depends. It is on the backs of and in the industrious hands of the women that it manages to stay alive at all.

I shake off these gordian thoughts. These are worries for humans. They are a different species, separate from my kind and my concerns. Plus, Weston is waiting. He gets testy if I don’t get back right away. Sometimes, I purposely find something to occupy me for an hour or two just to remind him he doesn’t get to have feelings about my choices.