The Rain: The End by Marietta Standlee (good summer reads TXT) 📕

through my body; I can only imagine how cold that water will be and try to bring up scenarios in which I would welcome a cold shower but come up empty.

"We're working on a water heating system, at least for a warm bath."

"Where does the wastewater go?" Colin inquires, intrigued.

Carl changes the view on the screen, and now the pictures make a little more sense to me. It shows a drawing of the inside of the mountain. On the sketch, the mountain is cut open, and I can see several levels that have been carved out of the solid rock.

This picture makes more sense to me. I can distinguish the large, cavernous hangar we arrived in. From there, a long hallway, slowly leads up until it tuns into other large rooms above the hangar. That's why it felt to me like we were walking up. The levels are drawn in crudely, without much detail other than Level One, Level Two, and so on. So far, there are four, all getting smaller the higher it goes—like a pyramid.

Way down beneath the hangar, a large lake resides, which I assume is the water source Carl mentioned. A steep tunnel leads all the way down to it.

Ace points at it. "We're going to create a couple more levels between the lake and the hangar as soon as Carl is done with his analysis to make sure the additional carve-outs won't jeopardize the mountain's stability or anything else."

To say I'm impressed is putting it lightly. I have no way of knowing what was already here, but these guys have done an enormous amount of work.

"Of course, the more hands we can get, the faster this will be finished. The hard part is getting all the rock out." Ace states.

I give him a sideways glance. He sounds so adult now, not at all like the football jock I got to know in California. Then again, I think we all have grown since then. I didn't notice it before but come to think of it, we all sound different, act older—all of us did a lot of growing up in little under a year.

A year? Without really seeing it, I stare at the drawing of the mountain. A year ago, I was fighting with my mom, wanting to stay with my dad. Getting excited about the amusement park trip, and now I'm staring at a drawing of a mountain I'll soon be living inside of. I take a deep breath; this is not how I envisioned my life to be like a year ago. How could so many things have happened in such a short time? Carl's voice interrupts my thoughts and brings me back to the present.

"See here?" He points towards the ends of the levels. "This is where the bathrooms, slash showers are. And here," He directs our attention at something that looks like pipes going down. "Is where gravity takes our waste and deposits it back over here." His finger indicates the mountain slope.

"Don't worry about smell or anything, I understand there will be a lot of people here soon, but the shower waters and rainfall will dilute all the waste perfectly. Trust me, it'll get lost going down."

It seems simple and brilliant. I stare at Carl as he pushes his glasses up his nose. This man is a genius.

"What about ventilation?" Colin presses on.

"The space is big enough, so we won't be in any danger of running out of air, but just in case," he cranes his neck up to the ceiling, and we all follow his example and his outstretched finger, where we find a small opening in the uneven rock.

"That's a ventilation shaft; when we have more people and resources, small fans will be installed to circulate the air."

I step a little closer to the space heater which doesn't seem to be able to rid the air of the cold. "What about heat?" I ask, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

For the first time, I wish we were back in Bandon. I would have to contend with the heat instead of the cold, but then I scold myself. No, that heat was unbearable. I'll take the cold any day of the week; all we have to do is layer up with clothes or exercise. With the heat, all you can do is lay down and moan.

"It is cold in here, but first, you'll get used to it, the body is amazing that way—most of the time I don't even feel it anymore, and secondly, we're also working on better heating."

"Check this out." Ace moves the cursor, opening another screen.

The new picture shows an empty level, just above the lake. "If we can figure out how to bring water up here, we'll run it through pipes and heat it up here." He indicates a crude drawing of large ovens. "The pipes will run all along the walls, filled with hot water, thus warming everything up, plus providing warm shower water. You're a genius, man." He puts out a high five towards Carl, who indulges him. I smile; this is my Ace, the way I know him.

"Very impressive." Colin praises again. "Where is all the electricity coming from?"

"For now, from the few solar panels we took from my house and distributed around the mountain, soon we'll start stealing power from the hydro dam not far from here."

I exchange a glance with Colin. This setup sounds not only perfect, but it also sounds like something meant to last for a long time, which reassures and scares me simultaneously. We'll be safe here; as long as we'll be smart about attacks, nobody will find us here.

But on the other hand, it just reiterates that we're in for the long haul. This is not a war we'll win overnight, probably not even in a year. No, this will most likely go on for decades. I reach for Colin's hand; I need the grounding comfort only he can provide. My heart beats a bit faster at the probability