Page 39 of Twisted Empire

11

Elias

Tatum stared at me,her eyes wide and luminous. “Where are we going?”

“The safest place in the world.” My shoulders sagged with relief, and despite the enormity of my sorrow and guilt over what happened to my old friend, I let a ghost of a smile tug my lips up. Henry came through for us when we needed it the most, even though it cost him his life in the end. I wasn’t really a spiritual person, but I hoped he was at peace now. No more stress and strain from the society following him everywhere and penetrating every aspect of his life. No more repression. No more fear.

Tatum shot me an expectant look, tilting her head to the side. “Are you being vague on purpose, or were you not finished?”

“Sorry. I was thinking. Have you ever heard of a billionaire apocalypse shelter?”

Her mouth hung open slightly. “Er… no. But I’m guessing it’s exactly what it sounds like.”

I nodded and stuck the key in the ignition. “Yup. There’s a few of them around the place now,” I said as I pulled out onto the main road. “But the one Henry reminded me of is called the Ark. I haven’t thought about it in years.”

“I’m picturing one of those Cold War fallout bunkers in someone’s backyard. Only with a Lamborghini parked outside.”

I let out a dry chuckle. “It’s a little more than one of your standard-issue fallout shelters.”

“So what’s it like? And how did Henry know about it?”

“Remember the gang of friends from college I told you about this morning? The ones with the shitty nicknames, including him.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, about five years ago, one of the guys mentioned something he’d seen online. It was the Ark. A luxury community doomsday shelter. You know how you sometimes hear about rich people—or crazy conspiracy theorists—building their own personal shelters on their land?”

“Uh-huh.”

“A community shelter is the opposite. Instead of riding out the apocalypse by yourself, you have a whole bunch of other people to keep you company. And in this case, they’re all super rich, because the private apartments in the Ark start at a million dollars.”

Tatum arched an eyebrow. “So I’m guessing it’s enormous.”

“Yeah. Massive. It’s built into the side of a mountain out of a decommissioned munitions storage facility. Totally fortified, and it has renewable power, water purification, and air filtration that can handle even the most toxic air. There’s also a hydroponic gardening setup on one level so residents can grow their own stuff.”

“Wow.”

“That’s not counting all the food rations that are already there. There’s a fuck-ton, as you can imagine. Enough to last years, all freeze-dried or canned so it doesn’t go off. There’s even a wine cellar, and from what I remember, it’s about triple the size of your old room at the Lodge.”

“To be fair, if the apocalypse was happening outside, you’d want to get pretty drunk.”

”No shit.” I smiled again. Even after everything she’d been through, especially in the last couple of days, Tatum was still able to make witty little quips. It seemed like a fairly minor thing, but it was important. A lot of people who’d been tested the way she had would fall apart forever, never even speak again. But not her. She was brave, resilient, strong. She always wanted to keep forging ahead no matter what. I was proud of her.

“Honestly, you’ve gotta see this place to believe it,” I went on. “There’s a movie theater, a bar, a gym, pools, a library, classrooms, hospital-grade medical center, and even a salon and day spa.”

“Wow. I guess aside from drinking, you wouldn’t really have much to do with your time during the end of days, so you may as well paint your nails and put cucumbers on your eyes,” Tatum said with a thin smile.

“Yeah. So anyway, a few of the guys and I went up there to check it out one weekend. We all knew it was a novelty thing that we’d probably never use, but something about it appealed to us. It was just so fucking cool. All this stuff, buried so deep in a mountain. So we bought a couple of the apartments, and now, if the world ever goes to shit and someone starts dropping nukes left, right and center, we have somewhere to go.”

Tatum’s eyes widened. “You guys just casually dropped two million dollars in a weekend?”

“Yup.”

“And you forgot all about the place?”

“Yup.” My face turned hot. It really was a disgracefully flagrant display of my wealth that I could manage such a thing.

“Wow. We really do come from different worlds. I used to have trouble deciding if five dollars was too much for a sandwich, and I’m still leaning toward yes.” She sighed. “I don’t even know if I could spend two million dollars in a year, let alone a weekend. And I certainly wouldn’t forget about it five years later, either.”

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