Learning to Love the Bomb (closed)

[Scuttle Buttin']

Sometime in the 1950's, somewhere in Wyoming.


Nicholas 'Birdy' Finch was nervous. Though equal in rank to the man who sat next to him, both of them wore a Sergeant's stripes on their arm, he felt they could not be less equal at this point. One of them was going to drive away from here and return to their base. One of them would sleep in their own bed tonight. One of them would be given leave at some point in the coming days and could get a mlikshake from McDonald's, or meet a pretty girl, or see a movie.

And one of them, the one who even sitting still in the passenger seat seemed to radiate a nervous energy off of him, would be wearing a little silver key around his neck for the next six months. His sole purpose would be to keep the silo somewhere under their feet operational, and, in the event that the alarms went off and orders were transmitted, he was to input the coordinates, insert his key, and push the button.

Birdy, as he'd been called by his friends for as long as he could remember, had never killed anyone. He'd taken marksman training like every other soldier in the military, and if shipped off somewhere he knew he had the capability within him, but up to this point the worst he'd done was hit a dog that had run out in front of him a week after getting his license. He barely got his car door open before enjoying a return engagement with his lunch.

Pushing the button, though, meant he would be responsible, in a very direct way, for the killing of thousands. Tens of thousands, maybe. The mushroom cloud over Hiroshima was firmly fixed in his mind now as he swallowed thickly, his eyes pointed in the direction of his window but unseeing. 80,000 people, just gone. And he had volunteered for this.

What the fuck was I thinking?

"Y'alright there, Birdy?"

The voice of the driver next to him was a surprise, and his eyes were momentarily wide as his head swiveled in the direction the sound had come from.

"Oh..." he forced out a laugh and shot his fingers back over his freshly clipped hair, reduced to stubble on his scalp. He hadn't even considered whether or not he'd be able to cut his hair down there, and if not what a crazy cave man he'd look like when he emerged at the end of his stint, but now it was all he could think of. Mild-mannered Birdy sent underground to protect the nation and look at him now, lost his mind, all hair and lunatic ravings, his-

"Birdy?"

"What? Yeah. I... yeah," he said, and turned his face back to the dusty window. "Yeah, just anxious to get in there and get started."

The men fell back into a tense and awkward silence, broken now and then by the driver's idle drumming on the steering wheel with his thumbs.

In his head, he added: And I'm anxious to see what comes out of there. Glimpse of my future.

Adding to his nervousness was the unknown of the person he'd be living with. Each silo was manned by two people, both of them with little silver keys on little silver chains around their necks. Each was needed to send the ICBM soaring off to it's target.

The program was still in it's beginning stage, and kinks were still being worked out. In some silos, they were told, two military personnel were stationed within. In others, military personnel were teamed up with a civilian from a variety of fields, all working as contractors to help tweak and perfect the program. He'd heard rumors that one poor bastard had found himself locked in with a psychologist for six months. Some ended up with engineers and technicians of various specializations, sent in to check that the new Atlas missiles were in proper working order, or that the silos and attached living quarters were functioning as they should. Certainly no one consulted with lowly Sergeants on who to send in, and so Nicholas had no clue who he was about to find himself locked in with. It was, he thought as he stared at the brightening horizon, the goddamned cherry on top.

It was still a short time before dawn, purples and oranges just started to crawl their way across the wide open sky over the grassland. It was for this reason that they were able to see the headlights of the approaching Jeep from so far off, Nicholas alerted to it by a silent nudge and a point in the vehicle's direction. With a heavy sigh, he nodded and pulled the handle on the inside of the door, popping it open.

A cool breeze ran past him as he stepped out, and the realization that he'd not be feeling one of those for some time hit him. Idiot, he nearly said aloud, and slammed the door of the Jeep. The approach of the other vehicle was carried on the wind, the motor's even, whining sound sounding like a harbringer of his impending confinement. It felt, for some strange reason, more like a prison sentence than something he actually volunteered for.

Turning his eyes away from the imminent arrival of his new underground companion, he stepped through the grass to the back of the Jeep and hoisted his large, stuffed canvas duffel out. Dropping it on the ground, he pulled out a backpack that matched... well, everything. The green of the duffel, the green of his pants, his shirt, his canvas jacket, the green of the fucking Jeep even. The Army loved them some green.

Sliding the straps of his backpack over his shoulders, he let out a little grunt as he lifted the duffel, his chauffeur all too happy to stand by and watch him rather than lend a hand.

Moving back around to the Jeep, he stood next to the passenger side front tire and watched as a vehicle identical in virtually every way to the one he'd come in slowed to a stop in the cone of the headlights. With the two Jeeps facing each other, lights on, it was impossible to see anything but silhouettes as the two across from him stepped out and into the morning air. Realizing then that it must be the same for them, he leaned forward against the weight of his collective baggage and stepped past the hood of the vehicle, the grass whispering around his ankles as he moved.

"I'm beginning to think someone lied to us about the first class accommodations here," he called out, and the very next instant hoped his words were carried away on the breeze and heard by no one.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

“Eva Davis “was a name that sounded like it belonged to a glamorous movie star. Someone with hair that cascaded over one eye in enticing waves (before Veronica Lake), who wore slinky silk robes and dined at fine restaurants. It was not the name of a colored girl. Well, no, maybe it could have been. But she would have to be fair-skinned, the even smooth color of a paper bag, just dark enough to be exotic but not dark enough to be threatening and dredge up colonist memories of an unspoiled jungle. But that was not this woman.

She was dark – the darkest in her family, teased and harangued as “Blackie-Boo” -, but her skin was evenly dark. She’d never had the same problems with acne that her fairer brothers and sisters had. Small blessings in a world that was stingy with them. What difference did it make if she was darker than a paper bag or not? Colored was colored – white folks saw no distinction between the blackest of the black and the fairest of the fair. Only when she was alone could she feel something close to pride in the unbroken flow of her deep umber skin. None of that “chocolate” nonsense that they’d slur on her at the base, when they were drunk, lonely, hard up for anything resembling woman flesh and willing to put aside long prejudices just for a sliver of pussy. “Chocolate” when they were pleasantly warm with old beer and memories, “Nigger bitch” when the night turned cold and the reality of life weighed down on them, crushing through their youth and unfounded confidence. And both she let roll off of her smooth shoulders, knowing that when it was time to go home, under the yellowed lights of her old (but hers, damn it all), apartment, her skin would ripple free, brown flowing into pink palms, telling the story of her loves, where her life would go, how she would die.

Eva Davis, ‘Evie’ to the few friends that she had, and always, derisively, ‘Blackie-Boo’, to her obnoxious family, was a lot of things. But a glamorous movie star was not one of them. Though she did work for the government, and that always sounded good. Made her puff out her chest with something that almost resembled pride if you were to squint. Something that she knew Miss Jones at the beauty shop ran her mouth about above the roar of hair dryers and the hiss of hot combs laid to freshly greased hair.

Truth be told, Eva was a maid. Which was the nicest way of putting it. But the good thing about being a maid was that she knew everyone’s business. And everyone meant everyone – from the highest badge to the lowest grunt. She was privy to kitchen conversations between other colored soldiers, she disposed of tear-wet Dear John letters and wilted condoms. She swept up reefer papers and knelt to retrieve hidden beer bottles. And they all knew it. And so she was treated with far more respect than most would have afforded a slim black girl in her perfectly pressed grays and whites and unflattering shoes and stockings that never had a single run in them no matter how much time she spent on her knees. And she knew that that was part of the Saturday beer fueled jibes as well. Men, even drunken men, smelled power. Could fear it.

But as much as they knew she knew about them, they knew nothing of her. Not even her first name. She was called, and only called, “Miz Davis” when she was addressed at all. Most times, she was a dark shadow, her and the occasional radio tune that she’d play while she cleaned. Sang along, too, sometimes. Or so it was rumored. And Eva liked that. Liked that no one knew. And that there was, obviously, more to her than what met the eye. That’s how she got the job, anyway. So maybe that wasn’t right. The right people knew. That would be a better way of putting it.

It was how she ended up standing in the cool pre-dawn air, rubbing her arms through the sweater she wore. Despite the early hour –not too early for her, however- she was as prim and proper as always. Gray dress with creases you could set a watch to, bundled under a pristine white apron and her freshly pressed hair lay flat against her skull. The silver key about her neck looked less like a key and more like an adornment. Hardly noticeable at all in comparison to the sharp contrast of her skin and her attire. Even the breeze, slight as it was, couldn’t coax one black strand of hair out of place from the neat bun she wore it in.

The ride had been quiet, as she had expected it would be. Sargent Armstrong had picked her up in the wee hours of the morning, the fabled ‘cain’t see at dawn’, companion to ‘cain’t see at night’ working hours, when even the hop heads had slunk back to their dark alleyways like stray cats. They’d picked the time to cause less suspicion in her neighborhood; folks liked to talk, and it wouldn’t do for either neighborhood, black or white, to hear of military men picking up black women at strange hours of the morning. Just wasn’t done. Well, not flaunted openly, at least.

The street had been quiet then, dented trashcans dully shining in the lone flickering of the one streetlight that illuminated the street name and corner. She had brought down her bags, neatly, one at a time, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the Sargent, his face flushed all kinds of red under the cropped blonde burr of hair, so much so that the fleshy ring of the back of his neck turned scarlet, flowing to the tips of his ears, had hurriedly rushed up the steps and grabbed the bag of out of her hand without so much as a ma’am. When she settled in beside him, her bags in the back of his jeep, she’d turned a dark brown eye on him, keeping the small smile of hers carefully tucked in the corner of her mouth (lest she scare away the confession that was itching his tongue), and watched him.

“Wasn’t seemly,” he said at long last, nearly under his breath. “Lady carryin’ her own bags and all.”

And then they’d both leaned back in their chairs, relaxed that it was in the open, and said nothing for the hours that stretched ahead of them.

Flat land stretched out for miles in front of them, so flat that she could make out the slight rounding of the sky near the horizon. Under the myriad of white stars, past the echo of the city, she could look up and let her thoughts carry her away. She was a lot of things, she reminded herself. But right now, she was a maid. A maid sent to look after a grown man buried beneath the earth for months at a time. Reminded her of one of those Greek stories she’d heard growing up, the girl that was snatched by the God of the Underworld, doomed to live underground for six months of the year. And that’s why there was winter. She could almost imagine it now – the moment she set foot into the bunker, when the doors closed behind her, the earth would give off a great wail, and the sun would withdraw from the sky, coiling itself in gray blanket clouds and a great stillness would settle over everything. And then, then, the first fall of snow, the whisper of heavy white flakes as they began to fall, luring the rest of the world to sleep. Couldn’t you just imagine, all of that sorrow, over one little colored girl going below the ground? The thought coaxed her smile free. Sargent Armstrong looked at her, his pale blue eyes darting quickly to her and quickly away. He never really looked at her – not longer than a few seconds. Scared to be caught talking to her, to look, to see, to let whatever fascination that he clung to sink in.


He was the one that had recruited her.

From the get-go, really. She’d boldly marched up to the registration office in her hometown, not paying any mind to the faces that coiled in revulsion at her, sneered “Gal”, and “girl” and whatever came to mind to belittle her. She wanted out. She wanted something better. And then there was a minor scuffle. Miscommunication among the military (who could imagine?), some thought that desegregation was a suggestion, not an order. But still this slip of a girl had held her place, her nostrils flared, chin tilted defiantly up and for the first time in his long life, Douglas Armstrong had to look twice at a colored woman and was disturbed at what he saw.

So he’d given her the job.

And when this opportunity came up, and she volunteered, he ran through the usual gamut of questions, all the while wondering why in the Sam Hill that she’d volunteered to begin with. It was unheard of to put men with women in these things. But men with men had given strange results – some that were expected, (from violence to friendships), then some had turned relationships between men into something unnatural. And he’d heard from on high that there was more riding on this, this experimentation between male and female, white and colored. He’d heard, no, he was told, to pair the two, even if she wouldn’t volunteer. Well, someone had an interest in her – he figured to see how this whole desegregation thing was going to go. Oh, the Dixiecrats had hated that, howled to beat the coyotes in their protests, but here they were, and there she was, some serene black dream until the car stopped and her eyes opened and she stretched her long arms overhead with a yawn.

The other car was already there – he caught fragmented conversations on the breeze. Boy howdy, would that one, that Birdy, wouldn’t he be in for a surprise? The mild-mannered sop with this girl that held her ground when all else crumbled, a veritable sphinx of military secrets.

“Depends on what you were told,” he’d made sure he replied firmly, in the no nonsense manner he was known for. “This is a military operation, not a day at James Coney Island.” And his fingers itched as he heard Eva shift in her seat. Was he to open the door, or let her do it herself? If it was the two of them, things would be different, he reassured himself as he dug his boot heels into the ground. Yeah, if it was the two of them, things would be different. He’d open the door for her, not look at her, and help her with her bags because colored or not, she was still a lady and it wasn’t right for a lady to be doing things on their own. They did too much of that and they got mean, bitter, like all the sweet tenderness was sucked out of them by a world that cared not a lick for feminine delicacies.

As much as his heart sank when he heard the click of the door, he had a strange welling of pride. There was truly something about those colored women. Hardly nothing seemed to stop them. Sliding one leg out at a time, Eva’s long body followed, and she let her arms fall neatly by her side. She knew better than to expect a handshake, and she had to take a deep breath to quell the certain rush of fear that came from standing between three military white men in the middle of nowhere, knowing that her family didn’t know (and didn’t care, for the most part) of where she was. Licking the film of dust from her lips, she cleared her throat, then spoke.

“Eva Davis, reporting for duty.” It sounded silly coming from her, she knew it, she could hear it, but to her credit, her voice didn’t shake.

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

Inwardly - and maybe a little outwardly too - he winced at the rebuke he received from the as-yet-unseen driver, and he waited in the cone of harsh yellow light for Sgt. No Humor to reveal himself. The passenger, and who he might be, had become an afterthought for the moment, the knowledge that he'd be spending months underground alone with this person set aside. Back burner, yes, but not off the stove completely, the anxiety and apprehension still cooking along on simmer.

The sound of the second door opening drew his attention to that other burner then, and his eyes pointed uselessly in the direction of feet meeting the dusty dirt road, the person attached to them hidden still by the light in front of him. A turn of the body gave a hint of silhouette, and time slowed to a terrible crawl as Nicholas thought he glimpsed the outline of breasts. It was there and gone in an instant, his (her?) body shifting to make a second look impossible, and suddenly that pot on the back burner was boiling over. Surely they had not paired him with a woman for the next half year.

That was not to say he was afraid of being paired with a woman, he was a military man goddammit, but he also could not conceive of a situation that made him more uncomfortable. Whatever happened down there, everyone that knew of his assignment and his partner in it would assume something had happened down there, which meant nothing could happen down there or he'd end up spilling the beans somehow. And how presumptuous to assume she'd even want to! Maybe they had found one of those lesbians he seemed to hear about but never meet, a woman somehow attracted to other women. And she, the poor girl, was probably just worried he was a rapist or something, and she'd be trapped down there for weeks on end. He'd have to find a way to put her at ease, something to relax them both so they didn't go crazy with the tension that surely must be in more than just his head. Maybe he'd see if there was a room that locked, and let her-

She stepped into the light, and every thought in his head disappeared, blown like dust on the wind.

She spoke, her name mixed in there somewhere, and he knew he wouldn't remember it. He'd have to ask again, an awkward thing to do right after someone introduces themselves to you, but what choice did he have? He couldn't just call her-

He coughed. Blinked at her in a silence that had now drug out far too long, a moment stretched like taffy that never seemed to break. Coughed again.

"Jesus, wake the fuck up, Birdy!" his driver said as he approached from behind, and punched him in the shoulder. The force of it caused him to stumble, catch his toe in the dirt, and nearly fall, an ungraceful pinwheel of his arms restoring his balance through some miracle.

"Don't mind Birdy, he's never spent much time outside of Idaho, I think all the potatoes effected his brain. I'm Sgt. Harper, m'am."

The Sergeant made no move to help with her bag, or to shake her hand, stopping just past the point where Nicholas had stood and leaving his greeting at an introduction and a nod to the woman. Courteous, perhaps within earshot of friendly, but not quite venturing into that territory with her. He was itching to drop this pair off, drive his new passenger back to the base, and laugh himself hoarse at poor fucking Nicholas locked in a bunker with a black woman for the next six months. Officially, he was not allowed to tell anyone who his passengers were. Unofficially, after enough barely and hops had loosened his tongue, he'd tell anyone who listened about this.

While these thoughts rattled through Harper's head, Nicholas stood just off to the side, rubbing his shoulder through the canvas jacket and scowling at the man that had driven him out here.

Fucking asshole, he cursed within the confines of his own head, and watched as Harper did his best to seem friendly while making sure he never touched the woman. His scowl deepened for a moment, and then he rolled his eyes and stepped in front of the man, offering his hand to Eva.

"I'm Nicholas Finch," he said with an easy boyish smile, finding his courage quickly drying up now that he had the other man right at his back and his eyes were able to better discern the dark pools of her own, "But you can call me Birdy."

He blinked, his eyes moving to look over her shoulder at the vast and dark nothingness in the distance, and shifted on his feet.

"I mean, people do, but you don't have to. Nicholas works too. Or Nick, I guess, though no one really-"

"Hell's bells, Birdy!" his driver interrupted louder than was necessary, sending Nicholas' wide gaze back to Eva's face, "Can we get a fuckin' move on already? We've still got a walk, and I have to drive all the way back tonight."

A half shrug and some measure of a blush were the best apology he could muster at the moment, and then he turned away from his new roommate and partner in world destruction to collect his own bags.

The thick iron double doors had been built into the side of a rocky hill, and while it was obvious up close that something unnatural was going on, from a distance the dark tint of the metal blended in well with the dark soil. The entrance was almost a half mile off the road, almost directly north of the point where the two Jeeps had met, a walk that would take some measure of time given the lack of moonlight to guide them. A small trail wound through the grass, and the small group started off single-file down the narrow dirt line. The two drivers walked ahead of them, and Nicholas swept a hand after them as they passed, letting Eva go ahead of him.

Falling in close behind her, and feeling loaded down like a pack mule, Nicholas kept his voice low, hoping to keep as much from the two sets of ears up ahead as he could.

"So what bet did you lose to end up here with me?"

 

[Apollo Wilde]

The funny thing about well-to-do white folks (or those who thought they were, through their jobs or marriage) is that they were always scared to cross that line. Rulers of the free world, and they couldn’t be seen touching a black woman’s hand. Maybe they thought that the blackness would rub off of them, that they’d suddenly wake up to how well they had it, breaking the backs of those that they stood on. But they lapped up the culture and made curious eyes when they thought no one was watching. They were a miracle of affliction. Normally, Eva could play these games; keep her eyes up but down enough not to poke at the carefully arranged plumage. But now, about to be locked away for months, there was no need for any pretenses. And so she looked Sargent Harper directly in the eye, her gaze coffee bean dark and steady, with all of the mystery and dignity that the white poets liked to wax philosophically on. The souls of black folk, so stalwart and dignified in immense suffering to the liberals, sporting heavy eyes and jowls of an ape to the more backwards thinking.

For long moments, enough to make the Sargent squirm, she looked at him steadily. At his rough treatment of the man beside him, her gaze went from mildly bemused to stern – the same look she’d give to a child that was acting out. That wouldn’t do – not on her watch. The look never faltered as she handily picked up her own bags from the back of her respective jeep. Sargent Armstrong watched, a vermillion flush starting at the nape of his neck, settling just below obvious visibility.

Birdy. What an odd nickname. Her tongue itched in her mouth, and she tucked in the corner of her plush lower lip. Wouldn’t do to go mouthing off to this man – the odds of someone defending her were slim. And as loathe as she was to admit it, defending would be what she needed if things turned ugly. She was a scrapper, sure, but part of that was knowing when and where to pick your battles.

“Are you okay?” She tested the air with that. Wasn’t going to run the risk of potentially insulting a fragile ego by making a light joke. It was coupled by her standing shock still, making no move to help him. A polite inquiry that didn’t insult his masculinity or his position – years of practice behind that simple question, the slight lift of her dark brows, the careful neutral line of her heavy bow shaped lips.

Kneeling, she set one of the bags down in the dust. Studied Birdy’s preoffered hand. Her carefully crafted façade dropped, for the briefest of moments. Clouds of suspicion gathered in her eyes, and her lips tightened, a small twitch. Then, flickering deeper down, a slight hint of….perhaps admiration? Respect, for even attempting to make the gesture?

But she didn’t take it.

She picked up her bag again, and met his eyes evenly. In that exchange, she offered a slight apology for not taking his hand. Nothing personal, after all….but perhaps it was. It was odd. Not once in her life had she “willingly” touched a white adult. Maybe “willingly” wasn’t the right word. In her time as a maid, she’d handled the occasional white child, but that was different. And in her time, she’d also had to fend off the advances of a few white men – but this, this sort of touch, that was something completely different. Something she hadn’t been fully prepared to handle, something that crossed THAT line. The line that she was fine on standing on the other side of – the casual observer of the other side, fully confident, comfortable, in the idea that the two worlds would never meet. And here he was, offering a tentative bridge. A chill pricked the back of her neck, tickled the fine hair on her arms. Nausea curled lightly in her stomach, and before she knew it, she stepped back. Just a slight half step in the dust, but enough to get her away from the offending hand.

“Eva Davis,” she repeated, calmly, as if talking to a willful child. Didn’t offer the suggestion of a nickname. “ ‘Miss Davis,’” she added, almost as an afterthought. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Finch,” her voice cut through his stammering. None of that was necessary – though it was strangely comforting.

Harper’s rough bellow cut through the awkward peace of the moment, and again she turned that “You best mind me” look over to him. This time she wasn’t alone in it; Armstrong glared at him as well. Different reasons – Harper was a jackass. Didn’t know that situations with the coloreds had to be handled delicate-like. And this Nicholas; hell, he seemed to have fallen off the turnip truck the night before and now had to face being paired with a woman, and not just that, a colored woman? The boy was allowed a bit of nerves. As he strong armed his way to the front of the motely line, he shot Harper a nasty look before turning his attention forward and starting down the path.

As Armstrong started forward, Eva knelt again. She set down her bag again, before picking up a larger johnny bag. It was packed tight, nearly bursting to the seams, and even in the dark carried a weight. She slung it across her shoulders, strap firmly between her breasts with a slight huff, a slight knocking off balance, before retrieving her other bag. Before she could begin her trek up the hill, she was stopped by Nicholas.

“Men only walk behind a woman for one reason, and it ain’t got nothin’ to do with good manners,” she could hear her sister cackle in her head. Well, no difference. The gray dress was long enough, and did nothing to flatter her figure otherwise. Funny how that worked, really. Either she was the center of unwanted attention, or frankly ignored. Her flat shoes kicked up a faint puff of dust as she stepped forward, pausing to ensure that he was behind her. Her calves flexed, bunched powerfully under the hem of her skirt as she pushed forward without a complaint.

Startled by the sound of his voice, she didn’t notice the gnarled root in front of her. Her toe hooked under it perfectly, and she stumbled forward. Catching herself, she straightened up, a lock of hair snarled free from her bun. If she was embarrassed, she didn’t show it. “I lost no bet, Mr. Finch,” she said, as she tucked that errant piece of hair back into place. “I volunteered.” She couldn’t keep the pride from filtering into her voice.

This was…unusual. But at this point, there was clearly nothing usual about this man behind her. Again, her tongue itched – culturally enforced apprehension was readily giving way to natural curiosity. Why was he talking to her? Why did he want to shake his hand? Where was he from? Why did he have that nickname? Why was he here? A torrent of questions; just the dams of color lines and social class keeping them at bay.

Still, she offered no additional thread of conversation, no light lilt in her tone to suggest that she was open to more questions from him. A soft, gentle air of finality had tempered her question, in the self-same calm voice she used whenever she responded to any inquiry as a maid. Quite a feat, she idly thought – considering the knots in her stomach and the stinging sweat that threatened to trickle into her eyes. This man had her flustered – and that was not a good place to be.

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

If he thought the walk there would give them a chance to begin getting to know each other, the idea was quickly flushed from him and replaced with a silence that made his tongue itch. She had stumbled, something that could've happened easily to any of them but fate was a bastard and selected her for the honor, and he started forward to catch her when he saw the hitch in her stride, but she caught herself without his help being necessary. Closer than intended, and half-bent forward to reach for her, he took a step back as she straightened to reestablish the distance between them, and made sure to step over the root she had not when they continued on.

Up ahead, the other two seemed to be involved in a discussion and entirely unconcerned with the pair following behind them. He found himself happy they'd not seen her stumble, and vowed he'd take it to his grave. Mentioning such a thing to her, however, didn't currently strike him as a good idea. Perhaps later.

So, instead, onward through the darkness they trudged in silence, her final two words, 'I volunteered," rolling around and around in his head. He was, in short, fascinated by this dark-skinned woman that wound her way through the ankle-high grass in the dead of night to lock herself for months on end with him, in an underground bunker. He knew why he was here, though the reasoning likely seemed strange and convoluted to anyone else he may've tried to explain it to, but her... volunteered.

Sweat began to form on his brow and body, causing his shirt to stick to his sides. The breeze felt good, cooled him some and dried it, but he knew he'd need a break if they didn't arrive soon. Hoisting the stuffed pack higher up on his back, he stopped for a moment and stared at the shape of Eva in front of him, one foot relentlessly placed in front of the other, and a realization hit him full force, like a bucket of cold water had been thrown in his face. She may be flagging worse than he was, her back and shoulders and calves and thighs aching, but he knew then, with a certainty that felt foreign to him, that she'd never allow herself to show it.

There was always the possibility he was wrong - what could he truly know of a person he'd set eyes on not even an hour previously, who he shared a species with and virtually nothing else? - but he would've accepted any offered bet that he was not. He had never truly considered that he lived in a world somehow separate from people he saw, and passed by, and spoke to every day, and yet now as he watched the distance between them grow, he felt as if he was seeing someone from another dimension. A place much like what he knew, the geography and the events almost mirror images, but their impact felt differently. Like the laws of physics that she was bound by were different than the ones he knew.

"Heh."

The short laugh was humorless, the choice of his mind to use the word bound in the midst of his string of thoughts not escaping his notice, and in that moment he was angry at himself. And he wasn't even entirely sure why.

The packs he carried felt a little heavier when he started out again, though perhaps that was just a bit of the wind that seemed to be missing from his sails now.

"Took you assholes long enough!"

The words were shouted, and looking ahead he saw a sliver of yellow light that seemed to open from the very rocks themselves, though daylight would surely reveal a door that had been fashioned into them, as much of a disguise from foreign spy planes as was apparently deemed necessary. Standing in the middle of the light, waiting for the rest of the group to catch up to him, was one of the two people he was there to relieve. Harper and Armstrong, and a moment later Eva, were there waiting when he finally arrived to join the rest of them, and it was only the interjection of a man that was clearly very ready to go anywhere that was not a hole in the ground that saved him from Harper's tongue.

"Come on, let's get your stuff in and give you two the penny tour so we can get the fuck out of here."

The man, who had not yet introduced himself, started to turn away, then stopped and turned back towards Eva.

"Pardon my French. I'm sure you'll understand when your relief gets here."

His eyes met those of Nicholas then, and he flashed a grin that Birdy to shift uncomfortably on his feet.

"You definitely will."

Turning away then, he stepped through the doorway and began to lead them down the sloping concrete path, gradually deeper and deeper underground, their little group now numbering five.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Sweat painted her underarms, between her breasts, the hollow of her throat, with long strokes. Thankfully, it was still dark and the tell tale signs of her exhaustion were hidden, for the most part. It’d be hard to mistake the glistening temples for anything else. Pain snagged her ankles, her calves, and so she did as she always did when her body began to ache. She began to hum, not trusting the lifting nature of her voice to the men around her. That’d be just what they wanted – the pack horse negra, singing her cares away. Far from understanding the depth of beauty, the glory, the understanding that this life, it was transitory.

But if black folks had as much as whites seemed to, she supposed she wouldn’t be so eager to see the gates of Zion either.

As she rounded the crest of the hill, she ignored the throbbing in her feet and the tenseness of her calves. Tired though she was, she couldn’t afford to let her guard down. If, in her mind, she’d entertained the slightest hint of a warm, or at least lukewarm welcome, it was dashed by the swearing trooper in front of her. A little dirty language didn’t bother her; par the course of working around the military and men in general. Shifting the bag on her shoulders, she nodded slightly. How long could any of this actually take?

The route down into the bowels of the bunker was deliciously cool – protected from the harsher elements of the outdoors. With each step, she could catch the faint scent of her perfumed talc powder, one of the few luxuries she afforded herself. It was struggling against the heat and natural odor of her body, but held admirably. For a brief moment, she reached up and smoothed her hair back against her skull, feeling the sweat and grease leave a long streak of slickness against her palm. Her bottom lip twisted, and discreetly, she wiped her hand against the smooth dome of her skull. Luckily enough for her, thinking that they’d at least have a stove, she’d brought her hot comb along with her. She could already feel the sweat eating away at the straight hair, leaving softly puffed waves of her natural hair beneath it. Couldn’t be helped – sweat lead to naps.

“There’s a small bathroom here in the corner – not much more than a bucket and a toilet – you get to choose which is which. Have gas, though, for the stove so you can at least heat up water. Anything else runs the risk of giving the whole place away,” came the voice of the leading soldier. As they touched down in the bottom of the bunker, she paused.

It was….bigger than she thought it would be.

The room was dully lit by struggling lights – large and concrete, naturally cool. In one “corner” (hard to say, since the room was really round, like a cave) was a stove, complete with kettle still resting on one of the burners. Beside the stove was a large pantry. “There’s tea, coffee, rations. Can’t put too much juice down here or else the generators will shit out on ya. That’s the thing – alla this is runnin’ on generators. They’ll last ya the entire time, you just gotta spend at least a day, sometimes two days, a week in the dark. We got plenty of candles down here for that. Ain’t that bad, considering most o’ the food don’t need to be hot to eat it. Might have a hard time findin’ ole miss here in the dark, though,” and he gave Birdy a shit eating grin.

The back of Armstrong’s neck turned pink. Eva said nothing. Gave the soldier a long, penetrating stare. Then turned back to looking carefully at nothing.

Noting that the joke went flat, the soldier grumbled a bit under his breath, and continued. “Beds across from the stove,” and he vaguely gestured to the left. “Control room’s further back; you’ll know what you’re looking at when you see it. Only thin’ that’s perpetually powered, got an emergency call wired in so if one of ya’s gets into a medical fix we can come getcha. But it’s last ditch effort; there’re medical supplies down here too. Soldiers should know how to dress a wound. Well, that’s it,” he said, “Hope you brought something to keep yourselves occupied.” Saluting the higher ranking officers, he all but dashed up the stairs, thrilled to feel the fresh air again on his face. Armstrong gave his retreating back a look, turned his attention briefly to Eva, and just…stood there. He couldn’t salute. Couldn’t shake her hand. “Ma’am,” he finally said, the tips of his ears flushing. A gentle tipping of her head to him, and that was enough of a good bye. He turned and started up the stairs himself, the other soldiers in front of him.

Silence settled in on the room.

“Well,” she said, with a slight huff as she set down her bag on the left bed, the one closest to the wall. Her dark eyes held a hint of mischief as she looked at him, sizing him up. "How did you get a nickname like Birdy?"

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

It was a strange experience for him, the nickel tour as it were. Almost like a host showing you around the place he'd set aside for you, while at the same time handing over hosting duties to you. Oh yeah, and there was a giant nuclear bomb down a concrete tunnel that you and your new black, female roommate were there to launch if American went to war. It nearly made his head spin, and the added urgency of those to leave made him wonder, far from the first time, just what he'd gotten himself into.

He was silent as the details - sketches, more like - were laid out for them, the location of important items, the things they could and should expect. And then, the joke. Nicholas stared with wide, blinking eyes at the grin thrown his way, and from his mouth fell a sound not far off from what would leave him were he punched in the gut. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment after, his mind groping in the dark for something, anything, to say, but all of it seemed useless and ineffectual, and then the moment passed, the 'tour' continued, and he tried in vain to remember the things he was being told.

The sight of the men finally retreating up the tunnel turned out to be a welcome one, the prospect of six months between seeing them something he'd buy a ticket to in a heartbeat now. He watched until they were out of sight, then stood watching still until he heard the echo of the doors closing behind them, and at last he and Eva were alone. His eyes moved to find her then, and he saw her picking out one of the beds.

He smiled, his brows bouncing up quickly, then hoisted up his own bag again to carry to the bed on the right. He was unsure what he expected when it came to sleeping arrangements - in the time since he discovered he would be down here with a woman, he'd not exactly had time to consider everything they'd be confronted with - but the beds were much closer together than he expected. He worried, perhaps for the first time, that he'd snore.

Crossing to the side of the room that seemed to make up their bedroom, he lifted his bags up onto his bed with a grunt, then gave the footlocker on the floor at the end of the bed a tap with the toe of his boot. It sounded hollow, empty, and he doubted the military designers of this place had thought to leave anything else as storage for clothing and personal items. If it couldn't fit into a rectangular box at the end of your bed, the thinking seemed to go, then you didn't need it. Time would tell, he supposed. Opening the bag, his head lifted when he heard her voice behind him, and then he let out a short laugh at her question.

"Oh, that," he said, half turning so he could see her as he pulled a stack of Army-issued pants in drab olive green from the bag, "It's 'cause of my last name, Finch? The military loves giving people nicknames, and it always seems to be the easiest thing they could go for. So..." he shrugged, his hands pulling free a stack of flawlessly white t-shirts, and setting them next to the folded pants on the bed, "Birdy it was.

"I'm almost surprised they didn't give you-"

His words shut off mid-sentence, like a hose with a sudden kink in it, and he blinked at her once before his face flushed. He turned his eyes to the open top of his bag, finding something within that desperately needed to be intently stared at.

"Um," he began, uneasily, as he moved to the foot of the bed and opened the footlocker, "So should I call you Eva? Or Miss Davis?"

He realized he'd not seen a ring on her finger, but he hadn't exactly gone looking for one either. Surely a married woman wouldn't volunteer for something like this, right? Still...

"Mrs. Davis?" he ventured then, at last lifting his eyes up to meet her face again.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

The light in the bunker couldn’t be described as “non-existent,” because they weren’t plunged into darkness. It wasn’t stark white enough to bathe them in unnerving flickering blue. That would still be a few decades into the future. No, it was a strange, somewhat soft off-white, slowing turning yellow with age. Not quite the color of a setting sun, but oddly soft enough to bring warmth into an otherwise sterile room.


“Mmm, I suppose that makes sense,” she said, as she began to dig through her bag. “You can call me ‘Miss Davis.’ ‘Eva’ if you feel that comfortable,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “I suppose I’d grow to miss my name if you were to call me by some other for as long as we’re down here.” A rare bit of honesty from a woman, that, moments before, seemed an impenetrable sphinx. “ ‘Eva’ is fine. Does ‘Birdy’ work for you?” Leaning down, she began to delicately unlace one of her shoes. Since this was home, there wasn’t a reason to keep them on and her feet ached. Work shoes were not meant for any sort of hike. As her fingers nimbly worked the laces loose, she looked at him.


Considering. Studying him as she’d looked at him. She’d really never given herself (or to be honest, had the chance) to study a white man. Not that he seemed alien to her; she was, after all, surrounded by them for most of her work week. But without the sea of similarly hued faces, he seemed so much smaller. Nervous. Human, really. From his light eyes to the sweep of his hair, she watched him. It took her long moments to realize that her watching had migrated into blatant staring, and she pulled her eyes away.


In-between the creaking of bed springs and the hum of the generator, the muted clack of her shoes hitting the floor joined in, before she shifted on the bed to begin unpacking. Like his bed, there was a lonely trunk at the foot of it. It didn’t matter much to her; she didn’t have much to her name as it was. Shifting on the bed, there was a small flash of a stocking-clad foot, plush calf, before it disappeared under the gray of her dress. Though she spoke easily with him, there was a sense of….dread, perhaps, that sat in her stomach. Fear, she didn’t take much stock in. She’d grown up with hard headed brothers and knew how to defend herself, should this little bird decide to get fresh. It was the feeling of being too close to the ‘other’ – she knew enough, certainly, about white men from working around them. They had their own peculiarities, but to be this close…without being catcalled or threatened, that was strange. Her folks had taught her (and with good reason) never to let her guard down around them, even if they were from up north. The few relatives that she had still South wrote letters full of blood and fear, and she took whatever small comfort in being somewhere a bit different.

At least, a fraction more covert.

Her curiosity raked kitten claws down her tongue, tickled her throat. So many questions – but whatever excitement she felt was tempered by the sobering reality that he was, well, a stranger. And you simply just didn’t start asking all sorts of personal questions of strangers. And that was under the assumption that he wasn’t a redneck. He didn’t seem like one, but there really was no telling with military men. Could be once he got “comfortable,” he’d want to change his mind. But really, though, look at him – awkward as a newborn kitten and hungry. Part of her, the part she was loathe to admit, wanted to mother him from the get-go. And in this case, it might serve to her benefit. If she played the role of caretaker, it would allow her to step back into a role without sex, without assumptions – and, to a certain degree, command a little fearful respect.

"Have you eaten?”