Twilight Earth
Agent Sandra Sempis, National Security Agency. May I impose on you to introduce me to your clients?”
    Ben never did get a good explanation from Bob as to why the NSA was trying to confiscate Tom’s stuff or how they were stopped. However, Ben forgot all about it until two weeks later when the doorbell rang shortly after lunch. Kaitlin answered the door to a very serious looking, large gentleman in a black suit.
    “Good afternoon, Miss Bedouin. Is the rest of your family here?” The strange man asked.
    "Yes they are; may I help you?”
    The man nodded. “Yes Miss, you and your family need to come with me; stage one is now active.”
    ––––––––
    L ocation Unknown
    Fulton's Prairie, Missouri
    United States
    ––––––––
    T he gentleman introduced himself as Ed and waited while they packed some clothes for the ‘trip’. Ben tried to get some answers out of him, but found out that the man was under orders not to say anything until they got to where they were going; the location of which he couldn’t say either.
    Once the family was loaded into the big SUV, Ed drove them downtown to an out-of-business gas station that had been empty for as long as Ben could remember. As they approached, Ed touched a garage door opener and one of two bay doors began opening for them.
    Once inside and the big door was once again closed, the whole SUV began to lower on what must have been a huge elevator. There were no points of reference, but based on the speed of the elevator and the distance traveled, Ben guessed they had gone down at least a hundred feet before they stopped.  Ed drove the truck to a parking space, and shut it off. The elevator began rising as soon as the SUV was clear of it.
    "Please follow me," Ed instructed once the family got out of the truck.
    "Can you tell us where we are yet?" Ben asked.
    "Other than the obvious, no," the big man replied. "I will tell you everything I can as soon as I can Sir. Until then, please continue to follow instructions."
    "It's not like we can run away at this point, so we don't have much of a choice," Kaitlin said, sarcastically.
    "You always have a choice Miss Bedouin. If you do not wish our help, we will return you to the surface and never bother you again," Ed replied.
    "Tom asked us to trust him, Kait," Deirdre said. "Because he is 'trying to save our lives'. Although I'm not too crazy with the situation either, I think we should trust Tom."
    Kaitlin nodded agreement and the family continued to follow their guide toward a heavy, vault style door at one end of the 'garage'.
    Ed remained as stoic as a statue. "We’ll enter a short stairway that goes down to another security door. Once past the door, we will follow a short hallway around a guard station enclosed in bulletproof glass. At each corner there is a secure door that, like this door, can only be opened from inside the guard station. Our immediate destination is an elevator on the far side."
    Ed led the family through the door and down the stairs.
    Ben looked at Deirdre. “I don’t know what thought is scarier; the way we were brought here or what this high-tech bomb shelter was built for.”
    “I’m just wondering what Tom was involved in. The fact that he never told us about any of this kind of hurts. I mean, didn’t he trust us?" She asked.
    They worked through security hallways and made it to the elevator. As soon as the last security door was closed, the doors to the lift slid open. It struck Ben as odd that the lift car was so big; it resembled a large cargo elevator that had a set of doors on both ends. Ed didn’t offer an explanation either; he just made sure everyone was in before pressing and holding the down button until the beeping became a solid tone.
    "This is not your normal cargo elevator. Where the hell are we going?" Jorga asked.
    "Still classified, Ma'am. I'm sorry," Ed replied.
    "I understand, Ed," Jorga replied. "It was a rhetorical question."
    "If it is any consolation, I
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