High Pressure System: First Season Underground Read Online Free PDF Page A

everyone for so long and hearing all the anti-Brandon rants, I already had a clue.
    “Nope,” he said dismissively.
    The silence was so painfully awkward that I couldn’t come up with anything else to say.
    “Umm, do you want company?” I knew what he was going to say the instant I stopped talking. Maybe he would surprise me with something else.
    “Nope,” he said.
    My face burned as I turned in my chair to leave. He grabbed my hand.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like that. I’m working on something so now is not a good time.” For the first time since the first day I arrived, Brandon actually met my gaze when he wasn’t mad at me. I was so out of sorts that it did nothing but humiliate me more. I could only nod and wait for him to release my hand so I could go. I probably needed to reevaluate my life goals.
    “Try me again next time.” He gave me a sorry attempt at a smile.
    However, there was no next time. Tension was growing. Brandon avoided me and everyone else that wanted to know what was going on above ground. He tightened restrictions even more. What was worse was he refused to answer questions as to whether we would ever get to go home again.
    I finally had enough of listening to everyone gripe about all the things I wanted to know too. I was going to do something about it.
    Brandon headed down the hall to the control room late one night when I stepped in front of him. He nervously ran a hand through his dark brown hair that had grown into wavy, big tousled curls all over his head in the weeks we had been there. When his bright blue eyes met mine, they made me forget why I was so upset for a second. He actually looked sad. If only he wasn’t so infuriatingly disinterested in me. That thought brought the fury back.
    “Why won’t you explain to us why we’re stuck here, why we can’t go outside, and how long this will last?” I stepped in his way again when he tried to step around me.
    Brandon looked me in the eye before he relented in his abrupt way. “Well here’s the run down. Something will kill you when you step outside, and no one knows how long it will last.”
    “I already know
that
much. What’s out there?” Not backing down, I watched his eyes intently.
    “We don’t know exactly.” He glanced away.
    I pressed my finger in his chest. “You know more than you want to tell. Why the music all the time? Why all the lockdown drills?”
    Brandon looked past me as the Andersons and their three kids headed up the hall.
    “Everyone is getting their nights and days mixed up.” He gave the Andersons a brief wave and token smile before he nodded at me to follow him to his control room. After he closed the door, he offered me a chair.
    “I know what it is. But I’m not allowed to say.” All color drained from his face and he trembled as he lifted his tablet from the table to study the screen.
    “What’s wrong?” I stood up to see.
    Brandon clutched the tablet against his chest, shaking his head and his shoulders slumped. He let out a big sigh. “Here’s what I’m dealing with, maybe you can help get everyone off my back. The construction workers finished the tunnel to thirty-eight ninety-eight. They’ve been working around the clock. One of them must have dropped this off while I was out. I wanted to connect bunkers so we weren’t so isolated. It looks like the one closest to us has no survivors.” Brandon showed me the picture on the tablet. The people died clustered together with terror all over their white frozen faces, their chests oddly compressed, and their mouths wide open. “They are filling the tunnel as we speak. I know that the feeling of being cut off from the world is hard on everyone’s morale if we are to stay here long term. And it looks as if we will be here for a long time. They will try thirty-eight ninety-nine next. That’s all I can tell you for now.” Brandon faced the screens on the wall and turned off the monitor that showed a storm rolling in.