The Wrong Guns

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

The ramp is pretty huge and already I know it's vital to the design of this place. Our footsteps echoing as we walk further into the darkness we activate motion sensors every step of the way. This thing probably connects to all nine buildings - that's my suspicion. Each building connected to it by the same side - right now, our left. The slope is steep enough to gain speed on a skateboard without the need of a kick. By the time we close in on the huge steel doors of building-two I hear life up ahead, coming from the other end of the tunnel.

"March." I make out the echoes of a female soldier. This place is huge for five-hundred people. Which I figure is a good thing though I think it's a number less than that. I squint my eyes as we walk by ignoring the doors of building-two, capsule hall, and could see now the motion sensors further down light the bodies marching in unison. Their footsteps come in gallops to my ears but they come at us at a steady pace. . . .

"What could they be thinking? Poor kids." I hear Clay.

"That we're some bad-ass mother-fuckers. That's what they're thinking." says Benson. He walks in the middle and since we're in a straight line I figured we probably look like some kind of super-heroes.

"They're staying in building-five, I think"

"Yea . . . that is where their staying . . . the students." whispers Kimberly from the other side of Benson, "Staff stay in building-two . . . three, I call the stadium . . . and I know four is mostly for storage." there was an obvious wait in our stride as Kimberly stopped speaking, "I've, never passed building-five." she looks over at the three of us.

Now I can make out faces in the body of students practicing how to behave like soldiers. A musky tension becomes more-and-more clear to be coming from their combined stress and anxiety.

The huge numbers, "0-3" sneaks up and comes up on our left side. It is the same door as building-two . . . the steel, parts-ways, sliding like abstract elevator doors. There are military officials waiting on the other side lined up against the walls and in the middle and waiting with open arms is Darwin . . . probably the only person smiling right now, welcoming us with falling arms, "Oh." he frowns. I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing and Eva turns into me covering her mouth, I had to laugh. We get a little something out of our system as we hide behind Benson.

The students, led by the female soldier, reach the door and our motion sensors merge as they stop at the entrance . . . resurrecting Darwin's enthusiasm. His cheeks and arms go up. The female soldier now stands in front of us with her back to us - like a traffic cone, redirecting the body of students through the large doorway, into building three.

Once they all marched inside we walk, following after the female soldier into a long hall with three doors on each side, leading up to a humongous set of double doors directly in front of us. The doors to our sides are typical and walking passed them I get the gist of them being classrooms - with their countless tables and long chalkboards . . . but approaching the gaping doorway, at the end, I can already tell those doors are heavy. Tall and similar to the entrances of fancy churches.

I spot Alsepth soon as I walk into the big room filled with hundreds of chairs finding owners. He stood watching everyone here and there from the platform . . . just enough to make him tall and heard and also gives the room a smell of sawdust, in between two tables. Each with five soldiers sitting down - hands folded. The lights in here shine high, like stadium lights. There are three on, but I can tell there must be dozen as not the whole place is lit. A light shines directly above our heads and another from each side - left and right. There is obviously so much more space in here than we could see under the lights. The walls around the place are smooth and angled like quarter-pipes . . . because of the huge entrance to the arena I notice it falls short of wrapping all the way around like a Nascar track. "Stadium," I remember Kimberly referring to this place as a stadium on our way over. All in all we only occupy about a fourth of the place to conduct this meeting.