Balance (73 page)

The
y drive for
a half-
hour, finally
descending
into
an underground parking
garage
connected
to
a
small building.  A portly
,
elderly man, dressed in white scrubs
,
rushes into the
enclosed structure
to meet them
.

He and Leonidas
lift
Michael out of the rear seat.
With Rena’s help, t
hey carry him
to
a waiting gurney
.  Inside
the small medical
facility
,
run mostly by volunteers,
they
wheel
Michael
into the first open room.
 
Rena quickly shuts the door behind them.

“Leon.” The portly man turns
to Leonidas,
“it’s
been too long.  So what
have we got
here?”

“Gunshot wounds.
Two.
F
irst grazed his head, the second
,
through and through, might have hit the liver.” Rena responds immediately.

The portly man
regards
the young woman
with surprise
,
“Very good, my dear … we’ll see what we’ve got. 
We heard
there was an attack at an old hotel in the city.
  Was he there?
”

Rena looks at her
godfather
, not knowing what to say.

“Will, let’s just say, for your safety, the less you ask and the less we answer, the better it will be.” Leonidas replies.

The portly man
studies
the young woman
,
tears starting to flow
down her face
, bloodstains covering
her
once elegant white blouse.

“
H
elp him … please.”
She pleads.

The man quickly goes to work.

Two
hour
s
later
; Leonidas and Will lay
Michael down in the back of the sedan
, still connected to
bag
s
of blood
and antibiotics
. 
Will wishes them good luck
as Rena thanks him
, kissing him on the cheek
.

She
climbs into
the back.  Feeling
it
safer
if
they’
re
not visible, she
pull
s
a
blanket
over her and Michael like a tent
.
I
t
’
s uncomfortable, but for Michael
,
she’ll endure.
  Leonidas places
a
c
ooler
with extra blood and antibiotics
on the floor in the front.

They
leave the medical facility
heading
west
.  After an
hour,
Michael
begins
to stir
,
once opening his eyes.  Rena, crying with relief
,
kisses him gently on the
lips as he falls back to sleep.

Michael wakes …
feeling lousy
, like he’d been hit by a car.
 
Looking
around,
he realizes
he’s
in a bedroom, one like he has never seen.  It’s homey and
attractively
decorated, warm.  There are small pieces of artwork on
the walls. 
D
ark
wood furniture,
dre
s
ser, vanity
cabinet and a chest-of-
drawers adorn the space
.  This is some
one’s private bedroom, but who’s
? …
And how did he get here?

His head pounding,
h
e carefully pushe
s himself to a sitting position.
T
ouch
ing
it
, he
feel
s
a bandage
.  His mid-section
aching
as well
,
he
lift
s
his shirt
,
finding
another
on his stomach.  He
reach
es
to his back
,
locating
a third
.
 
He thinks back, remembering the sedan, the muzzle flash, Rena’s
turquoise eyes,
flames,
crimson, her
beautiful face wrapped in white clouds
…
kissing him.

Lifting
himself
gingerly
off the bed,
Michael leans
on
the
bedpost
,
and
w
ait
s
for the pain in his head
to subside.  His vision cleared,
he make
s
his way
slowly
out of the
room
.
 
Using the walls and furniture for support, h
e
ambles
into a large open
space.
A
comfortable looking living room
extends before
him
with
floor-to-ceiling
windows span
ning the far wall.
Beyond
,
he can see
the
night sky, impenetrable like a black veil
,
with
stars
visible
in the distance. 
Off to his right, a
very functional kitchen built around a
large combination chopping
block
island
with two stool
s
positioned on adjacent sides.
  B
etween the kitchen and the living
room,
a handsome oak dining table with four matching high back chairs
.

Michael walks around the kitchen
and formal dining area
, discovering a hallway with doors on each side and sta
ir
s
at the end.  Entering the first
room,
he finds a
dance stud
io with mirrors on
three
wall
s
, t
he second
he finds
a workout room.
  Feeling
stairs are probably not a good idea in his current state, he returns to the main living are
a
.

H
e
wanders
slowly
around the dimly lit
open room.  S
everal origina
l oil paintings
hang on
the walls
,
and a
baby grand
piano
resides
in the far corner
by the window
.
L
ow inlaid shelves
run along the walls, filled with books
, sculptures, exotic mineral samples and knick-knacks
placed here and there
,
add
ing
warmth and character
.  Walking around the leather couch, he
discovers
Rena
sound
asleep, curled up
on a soft looking
extra-large
leather chair. 
He
hovers
,
gazing at her
beautiful
face. 
W
earing faded jeans and a soft looking
teal-
colored
turtle
neck sweater, h
er full dark red
tresses
,
fall
in coils
about
her shoulders and chest
, framing her face
.
Her eyes puffy and her
cheeks flushed, h
e
suspects
she
fell
asleep crying
.

Reaching for
an afghan
laying across the back of
the
c
ouch,
he covers her, careful not to wake the sleeping angel.
  He notices the picture sittin
g on the end table
, Rena and Leoni
das, her turquoise eyes blazing.  She looks to be around fifteen and
happy
.

He turns to the wall of window
s.
D
iscovering a sliding door
,
he steps out into the
night.  A large deck
runs
the length of the exterior
wall
and looks to wrap around both side
s
of the dwelling
.  Walking to
t
he railing, he discovers a body of water
and a rocky beach about twenty
feet
below. 
The lake,
calm,
star
s reflecting
off
the
glasslike
surface. 
Falling water can be heard in the distance, providing a soothing white noise and breaking up the silence of the night. 
He f
ollow
s
the
l
ake into the distance,
eyes
adjusting to the low light as his gaze
moves
along the surface,
his vision
reaching the far shore several hundred feet in the distance
.
 
His eyes fully adjusted,
he
realizes the stars are not stars at all, but glowing rock
s
embedded in the walls
and ceiling of a
dome,
a dome
completely covering
the house and lake. 
Th
a
n it hits him, they are in a massive
subterranean
cavern.
T
he
low
lights
from the house penetrate
the darkness, illuminating the e
ntire perimeter of the lake,
rocky shoreline and walls
.
S
talactites hang from the ceiling of the cavern, stalagmites
rise
here and there
in clusters around the lake.
 
Michael stands at the railing, staring in awe at the beauty sprawling out
before
him.

He doesn’t know how long he
’d
sat on the end of the lounge chair
,
staring out into the massive cave
rn, not noticing
Rena
walk
out on to the deck, afghan sti
ll wrapped around her.

“Beautiful, isn’t it.”
She
asks politely
.

“Amazing,
but how?”

“It was an experiment, developed by a team of MIT
engineers in the mid 1960’s.  A
result of the cold war in response to
the Cuban missile crisis.
” She
explains
.

“F
or what?”

“Several extremely wealthy
industrialists
privately contracted MIT to develop comfortable
subterranean
living
that would provi
de protection in the event of
nuclear attack.  The project kept highly secret, for fear that if the
public
became aware, there could
be
mass panic and fighting to access the sites
in event of a strike
.  Basically, the predecessor
s
to our
SuperElite
were
,
even then
,
trying to survive without care for their fellow man.”
A
ntipathy apparent in her voice.
 
“Anyway, the projects
were mothballed in the 70’s, p
retty much
totally
forgotten.”