The Bachelor's Auction

Chapter Twenty

Lucas sat a little bleary eyed, pulling up video to see what had happened outside while he'd caught a few hours of sleep. He also had to review other video footage that he hadn't looked at since their arrival. Everyone had their assignments; the only thing to do now was to wait. Last night he'd walked everyone through a slideshow he'd created last year of the underground compound's defense system. He'd planned, of course, for an attack because that was what he did. Hopefully, that habit would pay off in the next hours or days.

He paused for a moment, examining footage of a weather style balloon that had floated by around 9 pm last night. He punched up the resolution to enhance the picture for more detail. There were several tiny HD cameras on the underside of the balloon. Moments later the balloon collapsed, plummeting to the ground and recovered by his security team. Charles probably didn't know that the security for this place was all his people, had been for years. His lips ticked up for that piece of luck. He looked for the report about whether the cameras had been transmitting or storing information for later retrieval. Ah, not yet transmitting though it was set to do so a few minutes after the balloon had been shot down. He gave a small fist pump on his knee, satisfied with thwarting Charles or maybe Dixon. Since the balloon was already in a jamming container when transmission time was reached, they would get nothing useful for the money spent.

He continued his musing as he fast-forwarded through video from the various cameras onsite. Everyone should now be familiar with the locations of the "safe compartment" areas in and near the old public spaces. They'd spent time practicing and memorizing how to enter and exit into secure zones placed to keep them safe in case of attack. Some cells could only hold one person, others two or three, and a few up to six people.

He'd taken Carrie back to review some of the safe cells a second time after the others had drifted off. After all, she was the bait, the one Charles was after. He wanted to watch her quickly locate, and enter the different kinds of cells. He needed to time her so he'd know how much delay, distraction, or assistance they'd have to provide to keep her alive and, if at all possible, unharmed.

All of their iris scans, fingerprints, palm prints, and blood samples were stored in the security system, allowing them to enter restricted zones. Without that data they would have received an electric shock, the intensity of which varied based on what the zone contained. Could he get Charles in a restricted zone without involving Carrie? Take care of the problem before it began? Probably not before it began, but it wasn't an option to dismiss, at least not yet.

At one a.m. a miniature radio plane had flown into Sector 6. It, too, was shot down and retrieved. This report indicated that no data retrieval devices were onboard. So he or  they were systematically testing the above ground security for entry. Well, it wasn't going to be easy for them unless he changed his mind. There were weaknesses, every system had some, but he didn't believe that Charles would fall for the obvious one. Charles wasn't likely to take the risks involved in subverting the others either. Dixon might, though. If it hadn't been for the training camp fiasco, he wouldn't have entertained that thought. Even thinking as little of Dixon as he now did, he couldn't quite believe he'd gone that far astray. Better to plan for the worst and hope for the best was the saying; he planned to heed it.

Charles had gotten one thing that he'd wanted; a location that wasn't on the list given him by Dixon. He'd probably guessed that some modifications had been made but couldn't know how extensive those had been. Even when the public had been allowed to tour the facility their access had been limited to less than 10% of what was underground. The underground atomic bunker built in the 1950s had been a draw for customers. Sandy's father had enlarged and reshaped the compound both above and below to provide safety for his family.