The Bunker

     “Let’s start with something easy,” Mrs Kobayashi bellowed, breaking the silence.
     She was a tiny woman of about fifty who always wore a black trouser suit with stiletto heels. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun right at the top of her head, giving her even more austere appearance. Despite her clear Japanese origins, she had not the slightest hint of an accent, with her perfect English tones. The children sat bolt upright, their hands clasped neatly in front of them. They wore a magnificent white and blue uniform, every shirt was ironed to perfection, every shoe shone, and every blazer was impeccably turned out. The attention to detail was akin to that of the military, and just as severe were the implications if they stepped out of line. They looked up at their mistress with absolute attention.
     “Katherine,” the teacher demanded slamming her pointer down on the desk in front of her. It cracked like a whip, cutting the air into pieces. “What’s the square root of seventy-eight times fifty-eight divided by nine?”
     Katherine replied instantly, “twenty-two point four two zero two two eight nine...” 
     “Good, good,” the teacher said abruptly, interrupting the answer. She strode past and patted Katherine on the shoulder. “That’s enough for now,” she added quietly for Katherine’s ears only.
     “What’s the atomic number for Silver, Stephen?” she demanded pointing her wand at him. 
     “Forty-seven,” he answered with ease.
     “And its mass number?”
     “One zero seven point eight six eight two.”
     “Right, good,” she said striding back to the front of the class. The metrical sound of her heels reverberated off the walls and into the children’s ears. “Now for something a little more difficult,” she turned to face another student. “Duane, explain Maxwell’s equations and describe why they are useful.”
     “James Clerk Maxwell's four essential equations are a set of partial differential equations which, along with Lorentz force law, describe the fundamentals of all classical electromagnetic phenomena, for example: classical electrodynamics, classical optics, and electric circuits…”
     David stared out the window. As he watched the trees sway in the breeze and the lake ripple peacefully, Duane’s voice faded into his subconscious. He wondered why this was the only window in the entire complex. He had grown so bored with the white walls, long corridor, and the clinical perfection of everything. Outside was a different world, wild and free, far removed from his experience of life so far. He was fifteen, all the children were. When he really thought about it (something he had been doing a lot recently), he found it strange that all twelve of them were more or less the exact same age. Why? And why had he never contemplated this before? As far as any of them knew, they were the only children in the place, and it was about time they experienced some real excitement. How he longed to go outside and explore the land and promises it offered. How he longed to feel the breeze caress his face. How he longed for something different. He didn’t care about their warnings.
     “David,” Mrs Kobayashi yelled slamming her pointer on his desk, abruptly breaking him out of his musings. 
     He stared up at her. For a moment there was absolute silence as they looked into each other’s eyes. A chill grew at the base of his spine and travelled upwards toward his skull, he shuddered.
     “Did you hear me?” she continued calmly.
     “Of course, Madam. Quantum chromodynamics, otherwise known as QCD, is the gauge field theory which describes strong interactions. It is a vital component for our standard model of the Universe, because it describes interactions between quarks and gluons...”  
     David surprised even himself in the process of answering because he had no idea that he had been listening to her question. As he continued to explain quantum theory in flawless detail, Mrs Kobayashi laid metals, screws, tools, chemicals, and various other apparatus on the table at the front of the class.
     “Thank you, David,” she said once he was finished, scowling at him for the briefest of moments so subtly that he barely should have noticed at all. A vague menace infiltrated his senses, he juddered involuntarily. 
     “Now Mangala, Chang, stand up.” They immediately obeyed. “Come here.” Again they obeyed. “You have one hour to make an engine capable of producing over 200 horsepower using only the apparatus on the table. You must tell us what you are thinking, what you are doing, and why you chose particular equipment.”
     “Yes, Madam,” they replied grinning at each other, clearly looking forward to the task ahead.
     “Right,” Mrs Kobayashi said looking at her watch. “Your time begins now.”
     Mangala and Chang immediately got to work discussing the parts on the table and designating what would be useful and why.
     “As for the rest of you,” the teacher continued. “I want you listen to your classmates and think about how you would do things differently, and why. Make a note of what you are thinking. But, your main task is to, using all the tools, equipment, metals, and chemicals we have at this institute, design a theoretical working platform for an engine capable of travelling at close to the speed of light, or, ideally, surpassing light speed. I want to see your workings out. You can use any form of power available except oil-based. Perhaps some of you could consider using methane as the basis for the power source.” She looked at her watch again and ordered: “Go.”
                              
     Class was dismissed two minutes before five, just as it was every day. Weekends didn’t exist, everyone had their job to do to keep the place running and days off just weren’t part of the equation. Life was an endless rhythm of day following day following day. Names for the days of the week seemed to be only loosely applied, almost as an afterthought, to give some clarity to the passing of time for David and the other children. Existence in the bunker was all they knew. As far back as they could remember, every day they were woken early and dragged out of bed to walk the hundred or so metres from their apartments to the classroom. All their lives caught up in this hundred metre space. In the mornings, at 8am precisely, the classroom door opened to reveal the figure of Mrs. Kobayashi who ushered them in, imprisoning them, for another day of learning and staring out the window.  This was what filled their memories. Only through the window did they experience any real sense of time. Through it they watched the passing of seasons, beautiful pure white snow melting to reveal green leaves, the lake, and longer days.  Nothing ever changed though. No animals, no people, no footprints, and touching snow was still something they only understood in theory. But the children knew why. After all, they were the lucky ones, weren’t they? After what happened, things had to be this way, didn’t they? David pondered.
     The children stuffed their satchels with questions for tonight’s homework. They threw everything they didn’t need into their desks before standing up and silently queuing up two by two, girl, boy, girl, boy, in front of the classroom door, waiting for the button to turn green and the door to open, once more, permitting their escape, until tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. They stared up at the great chrome clock, as soon as the minute and second hand simultaneously hit twelve the door swooshed open. A slight breeze lifted the faintest strand of hair, and out they marched, in their usual uniform fashion, out into the great, white, almost oval shaped corridor.      

     The classroom was beside the external wall and this meant they turned right to reach their apartments. They trooped past the doors to the swimming pool, tennis courts, Astroturf football fields, gym, holodecks; everything they could ever possibly need was in their section of the hanger, everything except not being in the bunker. On the walls, moving murals depicted images of the world before, great metropolises with automobiles forever going up and down the roads to nowhere. Landscapes with wild animals roaming free on the serene savannah, soaking up the last few drops of evening sun, things the children would never see. But they were glad for the pictures, they broke the white monotony.
     Cleaner bots rolled past them with huge smiles in blue lights on black robot faces.
     “Hello Nikola, Hello Afolabi, Hello David …”
     They were so polite, and always made sure they greeted each of the children in turn. The children reciprocated in kind, mimicking the lifting of a cap, something they still found wildly amusing; the perfect English gentleman. As the bots went by, a slight smell of oil and metal always lingered for a moment or two. But it wasn’t unpleasant. David breathed it in, something different, a change. 
     After the facilities were twelve apartments, one for each of the children and both their parents. As they continued down the corridor they began peeling off in order to stand in front of their own apartment doors. Each pressed the button and stood to attention, waiting for the light to turn green. David’s apartment was number twelve, the last one before the corridor ended with the abrupt implementation of a huge white door. A door they never ventured thorough without a chaperone. And one they had only been through twice. Behind it was a hexagon shaped vestibule, which contained six doors, including the one David stood facing now.
     “What are you doing?” Katherine asked quietly, turning away from her apartment.
     “Don’t you ever wonder what’s behind those other doors?” he replied staring at the great door, the end of their world.
     “All the time, you know I do. My parents tell me we will find out when we’re ready, whatever that means,” she whispered, suddenly aware of the cameras, as if seeing them for the first time.
     “I know, my parents say the same thing.” He shot her a puzzled glance.
     “Don’t worry, I get frustrated too. My parents won’t listen, I’m sure they’re hiding something. I mean, when I watch the historical tapes, well, I get a sense, a weird feeling. I don’t know, I can’t explain it. Almost like a dead memory. Like I was outside once.”
     “I know exactly what you mean,” he said, his eyes fixated on the door, as if searching for a defect, something he could take advantage of. “Surely they know we’re all too clever to be treated this way. We need answers. We’re not like those children on the tapes. We’re different, everything’s different.”
     They both stood glaring at the door, boring holes into it with their eyes.
     “I need to know,” David whispered almost inaudibly, filled with a suppressed resentment.
     “You need to be careful, David. They’re watching us,” she paused, the silence was so penetrating she could almost hear his brain ticking over. After a moment she continued more animatedly. “I have some theories about the mysteries behind those other doors, do you want to hear?”
     “Yeah, go on then,” he replied glancing at her.
     “Well we know the largest door is for Eden Two…”
     David remembered the two recent field trips the children had been taken on to Eden Two. A truly glorious indoor rainforest. They had never seen anything like it before. Something different, something new, something other. That was the moment something sparked in David’s head, real, unadulterated beauty. It was a sudden realisation, as if his entire life had been leading up to that moment, observing nature in as raw a form as they could ever possibly know. Staring up at the intertwined braches strange meanings began merging before his eyes. The radiant green leaves all around, made him feel as if his perception had suddenly popped from 2D to 3D. Green, what a vibrant and beautiful colour. Until that moment he had only observed it through thick, dusty glass, or in images, how much more alive and real it felt when he was in its presence, when he could actually touch something so beautiful that actually possessed green as an inherent quality. How much more was he missing? A vacuum was created inside him, a black hole which day on day consumed his soul and sucked his essence, his mind was in awe. A sense of distrust of his teacher and parents was born, and had grown, and was now blossoming. How could they keep such a secret from him and his friends all those years? How he wished he could have played in the trees, like normal children, back when they were still little, how much more beauty that would know now. Why hide it until that moment? He couldn’t fathom. Maybe that was the point. Maybe the sight of the trees and the plants was supposed to do that. Maybe it was supposed to make him question everything? Who knows? Nothing was ever explained.  Well, nothing outside the dry facts of the classroom. What was he supposed to feel? It was all guess work, solitary guesswork mainly.
     On the edges of the forest were levels upon levels of agricultural land, as high as the eye could see. They grew oats, wheat, rapeseed, and more obscure crops just out of view. All their nutritional needs and more were covered. There were people who worked inside that biosphere, but the children never saw them. Like ghosts, they spent all their lives attending to the Hydroponic lighting that fed the continuous needs of the forest and crops; or to the constant recycling of water. 
     “Are you listening, David?” Katherine asked.
     “Of course.” He flashed a wry smile.
     “What did I say then?”
     “You said there must be a room through there that’s for the mechanics to build the robots, you said there must be an electricity generating room, you said there must be bedrooms for all the people who work on those things.”
     “How do you do that?” she asked grinning.
     “Do what?” he replied.
     She just frowned, pouted, then turned and entered her apartment. The door whooshed closed behind her. David relished the fleeting sensation of breeze. Turning he breathed deeply, lingered for a moment, faced his apartment, and reluctantly pressed the large rectangular button. He waited, sometimes it took minutes to open, but today it took seconds. He stepped through the door into the vision of his mother standing in the kitchen. She faced his way and was busy chopping onions. They never made her cry.
     “Good evening darling, how was school?” she asked looking up at him intently, with an ambiguous smile on her youthful face.
     David dumped his satchel on the floor and glared at his mother.
     A bot rolled towards him and picked up his satchel.
     “Evening, David,” it said.
     “Evening, Andy,” David replied. “Thank you.”
     “You’re very welcome,” Andy chirped, rolling towards David’s bedroom.
     David stood motionless.
     “Are you okay David?” his mother eventually asked bluntly, putting down the knife and staring at him, her smile had faded to a look of concern.
     David felt a rising annoyance take root within him, as she put her right hand on her hip and slouched down, resting on the counter with her other elbow, she continued to stare at him with a look he couldn’t quite understand. He felt she was doing this purposely to irritate him, the rage fired behind his eyes; he had to pinch himself to calm down, to not scream at her, screaming never did him any good.
     “I am bored, mother, bored of feeling like I’m missing something. I need to know when we will be ready for the next phase. How much more can we possibly know?”
     She took her hand off her him and laid both hands on the counter, breathing deeply. The space between them was thrown into deep silence, almost as if she were waiting for his thoughts to pass, but not for one moment did she take her cold, hard eyes off him.
     “How many times have we had this conversation, David? You know you will be ready when Mrs. Kobayashi tells you.”
     “Why? Why does Mrs. Kobayashi get to say when?”
     A long, infuriating pause followed.
     “She is your teacher, David. She knows your skills better than we do.”
     “Why is she the only one who’s allowed to say? Why does she have so much power over us?”
     “That is her function, she is the teacher.”
     David stared at his mother who returned his gaze unblinking, exasperatingly unperturbed.
     ”Is this some kind of test?” he said finally, not taking his eyes off her for a moment.
     He wanted to observe every movement. She looked at him blankly. They heard Andy wheel into David’s drawers, a glass knocked against the wall.
     “Andy, be careful,” she called slowly and sternly, keeping her eyes on her son.
     As Andy reversed, the sound of his tracks rumbled like thunder, opening up a void between them, like a crack in the mountainside, forevermore exposed, unrepairable.
     “A test,” she repeated after an eternity, cocking her head to the side as she said it.
     “That’s what I said.”
     Again silence. Then she turned away from him to face the back wall. She leant against the counter and dropped her head forward so her hair hung in front of her face. She brought her right hand up to the side of her head, and massaged her temple.
     David watched on bemused. A dry laugh he couldn’t hold back ascended from his stomach. He stepped towards her.
     “What are you doing? Why do you always do that?” he yelled, drawing closer and closer. “You don’t deal with stress very well do you, mother?”
     She swung around to face him.
     “Life is a test in this place, David. What do you want me to say?”
     “I want to go outside. I want to see through those other doors. I want to know what is happening. We are ready, we are brilliant, what more do we have to do before you...”
     “Before we what? What do you think we are hiding from you?”
     “If I knew that, we wouldn’t be arguing right now, would we?”
     “It’s too dangerous for you growing children to go outside, we can’t risk mutations. You’re so much more susceptible than us. We have put far too much into your education and growth for it to be destroyed because of some ill-advised adventure.”
     “What about the other doors then?”
     “What other doors?”
     “Don’t play dumb, you know exactly what doors.”
     His mother stood still and closed her eyes, her chest rose and fell rhythmically. She opened her eyes: “Mrs. Kobayashi will be taking you soon. You are almost ready David, you must be patient. Your minds are...” she broke off suddenly.
     “Our minds are what?”
     “Open, David, keep them open. Now enough!”
     David leaned against the other side of the counter, glaring up at his mother resentfully. She ignored him, picked the knife back up, and continued cutting the onions. He remained until the acrid vapour stung his eyes.
     “I have been patient,” he replied quietly, stepping away, his head hanging.
     He trudged over to the white sofa and slumped down. The sound of her chop, chop, chopping grew in his ears until it ceased and she began stirring the pot. He switched on the TV. Someone at the Bunker had the job of uploading videos onto the channels they wired throughout the complex. What filled the screen now was one of their favourites. David rolled his eyes. If he watched the news footage of the panic in the hours before the comets hit, he thought he would finally go mad.  How many more times do they have to be told about the fall-out and unbelievable death-count, sometimes he wondered how their lead-encased bunker survived. His parents never spoke of it.  He grabbed the remote and switched over. On the other side was a video about the invention of the jet engine. One of the channels always corresponded with what the children were doing in school that day. He left it on and stared at the screen. Absorbing knowledge.
     At one minute to six he picked up the phone and called Katherine. It only rang twice before she answered.
     “Hey, it’s David, how are you?” he whispered.
     “I’m fine. How did I know you were going to call?” she replied sarcastically
     “Wait for it…” he said
     As the clock struck six David’s apartment door whooshed open and in walked his father, accompanied by the faint smell of methane. On the bottom of his boots he swore he could see reddish dirt. Things just didn’t add up.
     “He’s back at exactly six again,” he whispered, covering his mouth with his hand.
     “Mine too. Yes it is very strange. Okay, I admit it.  See you tomorrow.”
     “Yeah, see you tomorrow.” He hung up.
     David looked up at his father and forced a smile, showing all his teeth.
     “Good evening son.”
     “Evening father,” he replied, maintaining eye contact.
     David felt the strangest sensation, almost as if Mrs. Kobayashi were looking at him through his father’s eyes. A tingling rose from the base of his spine and travelled upwards, slower than it should have, touching every one of his vertebrae in turn, before enveloping his head with pins and needles. After the longest moment, it evaporated. But, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. The sound of the television faded into his subconscious. He watched as his father went through the motions: kissing his mother on the cheek; giving Andy his coat and bag; washing his hands. Why did this all feel so unreal? There was nothing else for it; he had to take matters into his own hands. But how?
     As usual, they sat around the white table for dinner, sitting on their white chairs, no-one speaking. Only the sound of metal chinking on plates could be heard above the silence, and the faint humming of the bunker. His attention was unexpectedly sparked by its sound, as if he had only just noticed it. So universal was it, that he never paid it any heed. But right at that moment, it was all he could hear. As he listened, it changed from a murmur to a roar. He watched his parents; perfect manners, perfect etiquette, perfectly imperfect. What was he missing?
     That night, in rebellion, he lay on his bed, forcing himself to stay awake in absolute darkness. He didn’t want to run the risk of them seeing light under his doorway. A swarm of thoughts crossed his mind. Was this some kind of weird torture technique? When would the picture become clear? He listened to his parents on the other side of the door. They were busy working away on their electronic tablets and gadgets, work that just couldn’t wait. He could hear the sound of tapping with fingers, nothing more, no talking, never talking. Why? He lay and listened.
     He woke to the sound of his parent’s bedroom door closing. Furious with himself, he jumped up, and picked up the glass. He held it to the wall and pressed his ear against it. Nothing, no noise, no whispers, nothing; he couldn’t even hear the bed creak.
     What was going on? Were they always like this? In a hypnotised frenzy, he slammed on his lights, flung open his bedroom door, and rushed over to his parent’s door. He knocked on it frantically calling:
     “Mother.”
     There was no reply. He knocked even louder. Still nothing.