As Patrick repeatedly slammed a small chunk of the wall against the metal, the clanks echoed between the crumbled concrete barriers on either side of the hatch. After a series of futile attempts, he lifted the stone above his head with a grunt then forcefully threw it at the door. The concrete was no match and only added to the many dents before pulverizing on impact. The door's design didn't allow for a knob or lever, so he slid his gloved fingers along the edge of the slab then groaned as he attempted to lift it from its fastens, but to no avail.

"What the hell's going on?" He kicked the metal slab. "Open the door, goddamnit! Open..." he kicked, "the..." another kick, "fucking door!"

I turned away, his heavy breaths flooding my ears. I'd never known how difficult it was to watch a man come to terms with dying, and watching him struggle produced an unbearable ache in my chest.

I dropped the brass bells into the dirt and pushed sand over them with the edge of my boot. The angelic sound of their jingle reverberated in my ears, bringing memories of Connor and his bright smile to mind. The feeling was similar to the moment I had looked in Connor's innocent eyes and said my final farewell. Light shined around me, stealing my attention, and I turned.

"You said something about pissing off someone?" He lowered his light. "What have I done? I don't understand. Whatever I did, I'm sorry. I apologize. I—I—"

"It's not me, Patrick." I moved closer to rest my hand on his shoulder and peer into his eyes. "I have as much control over that door as I had in the decision to send us out here. I'm sorry."

"What did I do? What did we do?" The soft light inside his helmet made it easier to see the fear in his eyes, the fear that had been there since exiting the facility but was now intensified.

"I can only tell you what I've done, and still it's only a guess." I paused and he stared at me as if waiting for me to answer. "I—" Gulping, I searched my mind for the right words. "You know the contamination leak that caused the facility to shut down the upper hemi?"

"Yeah, but that was—what—seven years ago? What does that have to do with this?"

"Well, there's more to that story. A lot more."

The facility, like the hundreds of others, was designed and constructed with structural fortification in mind. And what better way to counter the high underground pressure and provide reinforcement from its crushing power than going spherical? It was a genius and durable design. To make living underground with several hundred people easy and safe, the sphere was divided into two: the upper hemisphere and the lower hemisphere. Each hemi had the essentials to sustain and house hundreds of people as there were ten floors; twenty between the two.

Too bad a mysterious contamination breach in the upper hemi had taken many lives and caused the few survivors to transfer to the lower hemi before the upper hemi was permanently sealed and forgotten.

If only the explanation for sending us to our deaths was to remedy the overpopulation risk the leaders believed they would eventually need to combat, but a few cramped quarters was the least of their worries. However, for Connor to have a chance at a longer, prosperous life and a possible future outside the facility, I would choose this path again and again if I had to.

"What, were you responsible for the leak?"

"No, no, no." I waved a dismissive hand. "Nothing like that. But there's more to it. I know, and they know I know, and they're eliminating a possible problem by eliminating me. They would've sent me out sooner if they'd known earlier."

"Well, what about me? I don't know anything about the leak." He marched to our only way inside and stomped on the hatch door, allowing an angry mumble to escape him. "Why are they getting rid of me?"

I shrugged, pretty sure he didn't witness my gesture or even cared. "We have about a day's worth of water and oxygen." I threw my thumb back to the pack that hung on my shoulders, similar to the one Patrick carried. They contained a hydrating solution filled with vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes to sustain and aid our bodies in our trek to accomplish our mission. For simplicity, we called it water. It only differed from the water in the facility because it didn't contain eX-lement—a drug that prevented pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, which was why with pregnancy under control within the facility, overpopulation was the least of Control's problems.

"They're not gonna leave us out here." Patrick huffed. "We're too valuable to them, to Refuge Inc. What other botanist is there, huh? Dr. Price? He can't do his job alone. Sure there're other engineers like me, but isn't there strength in numbers? I mean, they need us."

"Not when we hold the power we do. We can be a threat to the future of Refuge Inc."

"Power? Threat?" With his confusion, I imagined his eyes narrowing.

"Our knowledge." I tapped my helmet. "We know their secrets, and harboring what we know is a hell of a lot of power. We can potentially turn the entire facility upside down, especially now. If we went back inside and revealed how they tried to eliminate us, you know what that would do?"

He exaggerated his shrug. "I know nothing. I'm no threat."

"Sure you are." I sighed. "You just don't know it yet."

Patrick focused his flashlight on the dented hatch. "Control? This is Dr. Patrick O'Donnell with Dr. Damien Nichols. The hatch door on the surface is closed and locked. Can you confirm knowledge of the mishap and correct it, please?"

Waiting in silence was difficult, especially when anticipating nothing but more silence. Only the tiny pebbles tapping against the thick plastic of our visors from the non-stop wind sounded in my ears. It must've been much harder for him, awaiting the voice of the person with the ability to save our lives. After about a minute of quietness, Patrick sat on a small pile of debris next to the hatch. He now knew as well as I that no one was listening, and even if they were, no one was going to respond. As soon as we stepped foot across the threshold and the first door closed behind us, they had stopped caring. Sure, they could hear us, but anything and everything that came out of our mouths was useless.

"Control?" I tried for Patrick's sake. "This is Dr. Damien Nichols on the Resurface Mission. Please respond."

Nothing.

I held my sigh. "Sorry, Patrick." I bent and sat too.

Patrick let out a huff. "You know what really gets under my skin about this entire situation?" When I didn't answer he continued, "You're just so damn calm about it. It's sickening. It's cold. It's cruel."

"It took me three days to prepare myself," I admitted, remembering the torture I lived through, the tears and heartache of knowing I'd be separated from my son for the rest of his life. "As soon as they announced my name, I started mentally preparing for this exact moment."

"Good for you." His anger emitted through his tone, but I didn't expect anything other. I stopped expecting things as soon as I'd accepted death.

"I left behind a son who hasn't had a mother for seven years, and now he'll live on without a father." I found myself struggling to get half of the statement out. Most of the words seemed to anchor themselves in my throat. No matter how much I tried to snuff out my emotions, my memories found a way to trigger them.

He grunted. "At least you had a chance to say goodbye."

"It doesn't lessen the blow." And that was the truth. "Saying goodbye made those three days of accepting my fate even harder."

"So we're left up here. Our only choices are to either suffocate when our oxygen runs out, or breathe the toxic air and be eaten alive from the inside out by contaminates?" His head hung low between his knees. "That's a tough decision we'll have to make."

Indeed, it was tough. Every choice we had made since impact was tough. Withdraw underground and lock ourselves away from the millions of people left on the surface, or meet the same fate as those people by staying? Other difficult choices I had to make? Do I speak up, cause a racket, and get thrown out of the facility because I disliked the decision they made for me, leaving my son in utter chaos and fear, or do I comply and go down in history with respect by keeping the facility intact and the residents oblivious to the harsh truth? I had made my decision. Hopefully it turned out to be the right one.

"Wait!" Patrick stood, kicking up dust as he shined his light toward the ground. He pushed the debris around with his heavy boot, visually searching through the contents. "If we can find the right parts in this junk, I can make it so we can recycle our drinking water. It won't contain nutrients because our bodies would have absorbed and utilized them, but it will keep us hydrated for about three days if we ration it."

There was no mistaking his enthusiasm, but was it valid?

"What about the oxygen?" We could save our water to hold out as long as we could, but not our oxygen. "Air is a more urgent necessity. When we run out, then what?"

"Once the oxygen's low, we use our face masks instead of the helmets. I can rig our masks to filter the outside air."

His excitement was infectious. "That will work?"

"I don't see why not."

"Why fight off death for three days? I sure don't want to prolong our experience without a good reason." I lifted an eyebrow, fully aware he wouldn't have witnessed my skepticism.

"We're not just fighting off death. We're going to buy us time to get that hatch open."

I shined my light toward the dented slab of metal and then to the human bones surrounding it. "If they couldn't do it, how do you think we're going to?"

"We're going to accomplish our mission. We're going to find a plant that has adapted to the surface conditions, and when we do, they're going to open the hatch, because with that plant you're going to help discover a cure for the toxins. There is, what, a thirty percent chance of finding existing plant life?"

"Twenty-eight." The number Randolph and the leaders had frequently tossed around during the short briefing of the mission.

"That's plenty." He laughed, revealing a cheerful side I hadn't known until now. And despite my initial shock, it was a rather pleasant quality for a man to harbor in such a situation. Cheer hadn't been part of my makeup for the last few years, let alone the previous few days, but somehow he managed to unearth a bit of it within me. "We're gonna find that plant and save the world, Damien. You're gonna become a real-life hero. Your son will be proud."

He spoke with such conviction a pinprick of hope forced my heart to skip a beat. Was it possible? Could his plan work? Would we be able to find a plant and convince Control to open the hatch and allow us to return to the safety of the facility in order to study it? Would my son consider me a real-life Refuge Inc. hero, like the two before me whose heroism lived on only as legends?

My knees crashed to the dirt beneath me, and I raked my fingers through the fine grains of sand, drawing long, deep grooves in the dirt until I scooped up the brass bells. Tiny granules of soil seeped from each rounded bell as they lay in my palm.

"Myson." I smiled.

~~~

So how about that plan, eh? Does it sound like it's feasible? What would you do in this situation?