So, here she was in a room full of men who looked at her as if she didn’t belong. Well, fuck them! She wasn’t here for them. Her people needed her.
“What did I miss?” Heather asked Lt. Colonel James. She’d met him a few times and knew him to be a good man, someone she could trust to be honest.
“Nothing; we were waiting until everyone arrived. Let’s get started, then. We’re here today to discuss a transition of sorts. The Drastans have been instrumental in providing much-needed medical care and supplies. Now, it’s time that the government of Earth—the people of Earth—begin to rebuild. We hope to convince the tribes to relocate to the domes.”
Heather shook her head. “That’s not going to happen.”
Dome Leader Mitchell frowned at her. “Why the hell not?”
She glared back at the balding ex-general. He was one of the five dome leaders who had been brought in for the meeting. She’d had several run-ins with him; he expected everyone to fall in line with his way of thinking, without question. She wasn’t going to put up with that. She’d learned the hard way dealing with her ex-husband that she couldn’t show that kind of weakness.
“You dome leaders are the ones who turned the rest of us away, throwing us out like garbage. We don’t trust you, and we certainly won’t be leaving the only home we’ve known for the past six years to live where you tell us to live. We have every right to decide our own fate.”
“Then what do your people want to do?”
Many of tribes’ people had been turned away from the domes and just barely managed to get to safety in the subway. The domes were run like military compounds; they hadn’t made any attempt to search for survivors outside the domes who might need their help until the Drastans had shown up. Before the tribes were discovered, they had to search the tunnels for areas where the city had stockpiled canned food, dry goods, and other supplies in case of a disaster. Now the dome leaders were offering shelter and supplies, but it was still hard for her people to trust their intentions.
Heather took a steady breath. “We want to open up the subway systems to do more than provide transportation from the tribes to the domes. We want to expand the system city-wide, then state-wide and eventually across the country. Other countries that have the same capability will be able to do the same. Eventually we could conduct trade with other countries again.”
“That would be an enormous undertaking. What of the tribes?” Lt. Colonel James asked. It was clear to her that he was interested in what she was saying. The lt. colonel was one of the few dome leaders who understood a little more about the tribes and how they worked. His oldest daughter, Maggie, had been separated from her family and survived in the tunnels. They were reunited a year ago, and she was happily mated to the commander’s son Liam. The lt. colonel also had a younger daughter, Rachel, who was mated to the commander’s youngest son. In fact, all the Estro men except for the commander were mated to human women.
“I understand that. We want to build a full underground city with apartments, fresh markets and small businesses. We don’t want to be reliant on the domes and the government for everything; we want to contribute to rebuilding our world and the economy.”
The representatives looked around at each other, surprised at what she was proposing. She knew this was much more than what they had planned on doing. To connect city to city would be a great undertaking in itself.
The people in the domes were specifically chosen from the best of teachers, scientists, and artists, as well as the military, who ran the domes. Since there was no money there was no banking but the government allotted each of the dome citizens credits which they used to purchase what they needed. Money had become less important than the need to find food. The tribes had to trade for what they needed. The domes had markets, apartments, and businesses, so they were flourishing. They even had schoolrooms for their children. Heather wanted that for her people, too.
She couldn’t help but glance over at Devlon. He was rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger, giving her suggestion serious thought. Their eyes locked, and she felt her heartbeat race. How did he make her feel like a teenager again?
Lt. Colonel James addressed Devlon. “What do you think, Commander?”
“It will take possibly two years, just in this country, to get most of your tunnels set up and your underground cities established. But it could work. If it’s successful, other countries will be able to follow your example. You would be able to travel dome-to-dome using the subway system instead of going above ground. That offers you more protection from radiation.”
“This is a crazy plan. She wants markets! Like they can grow anything down there,” Mitchell complained.
“You have greenhouses with small gardens in the domes. There’s no reason something similar can’t be built in the subways. In fact, we’re already building a greenhouse in my daughter-in-law’s old tribe, along with UV lighting and a few small housing apartments. It took two months to complete building the housing for thirty people, but they have heating, air conditioning, electricity, and running water.”
Heather fought to keep from showing her excitement. She needed to stay cool and calm. Could her tribe have the same?
“This sounds time-consuming and expensive,” Mitchell said dismissively. Thankfully, no one was paying attention to him.
Lt. Colonel James asked, “Commander, if it took one month to complete the new construction, how long would it take you to build similar structures for the rest of the tribes in this city?”
“How many tribes are there?”
Heather answered him. “I only know of fifteen tribes found in the United States with survivors. Not every city or country had the subway infrastructure. There may have been survivors that took to caves but the chances of them surviving without the supplies that the domes or the subways have are low. There may be many other subway survivors we don’t know about that have been separated from the main tunnels.”
The representative for the United Kingdom spoke up. “We just recently discovered survivors in our own subway systems. They are going to need radiation treatment and supplies before any building can begin.”
Devlon looked around the table. “Let me know how many of you have found survivors in the subways and I will send my people to begin the treatments.”
“Thank you, Commander Devlon.” The woman from the United Kingdom smiled at him.
Heather felt a little jealousy at the interest he was getting from the other women in the room. She needed to stop thinking about it and get back to work.
She cleared her throat. “So for just our own country, we have fifteen tribes that need to be connected to a nearby dome. It took one month to build up one tribe, so that’s fourteen more months possibly twenty-four.”
Devlon nodded. “Yes, as long as we don’t encounter any delays.”
