Dustfall, Book Five - What Lies Beneath by J. Thorn & Glynn James

Author:J. Thorn & Glynn James [Thorn, J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: post apocalyptic survival fiction
Publisher: Molten Universe Media
Published: 2019-01-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Katrina sat at the console, watching intently. The visual on the screen changed every five seconds, each slice of footage showing the interior of a small room or a view of the larger atrium, the mess hall beyond that, the library, or the exercise courtyard. She knew she could choose which of the hundreds of cameras to look through just by pressing a few keys on the numeric keypad, but it was easier to just watch.

For the first hour that the clan’s children had been inside their new home there had been obvious unease. Many of them had found a seat in the main atrium and sat around, looking confused and out of sorts until they were handed room keys. But once most of them had settled in their dormitories, found their beds and their own cabinets to store their personal items there was a significant change in their behavior, at least she thought. It was difficult to tell just by watching moving images.

She leaned forward and tapped the number 001 into the keypad and the screen switched from the image of a dormitory where two young women sat talking on their beds to the main atrium view. It was an almost overhead angle, though it showed most of the massive room clearly. The ceiling of the atrium was easily a hundred feet from the ground, and all the cameras up that high had been angled steeply downward.

“When do we get audio on this?” Katrina turned to an assistant seated a few feet away. The man was also watching the screens, making notes on a pad in front of him between the changing visuals.

“No news yet, ma’am. The systems were tested, and the cameras are fine, but there is still a problem with the routing. We’ve got people on it but some of the cabling is old and needs replacing.”

“Hmm.” Katrina sat back in her chair and sighed. It was unfortunate, but quite common. Many of the centuries old systems across the base, even those shielded from the outside world, were so old that they should have failed long ago. “And don’t tell me, we don’t have enough cabling in supplies?”

“Plenty of cabling, but not the correct gauge. We’ve got large supplies of electrical grade, but not audio or network grade.”

“And we can’t salvage some from somewhere?”

“Only some of the external cables in the city, maybe.”

Abernathy leaned over and stared into Katrina’s eyes. “We agreed they would not be touched.” The older man had been seated near the entrance during the whole process of welcoming the clan folk.

“I know.” Katrina folded her arms and leaned back in her chair but her eyes never left Abernathy. “And anyway, we can’t have our people out there in the city to fetch it. Not now at least. It’s too late for that.”

She rose and walked over to the large panel of glass at the far end of the observation room and looked though. The view was almost the same as that of

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