When The Lights Go Out — Part Three

Post-Apocalyptic Life Under Yucca Mountain

A nearby star sparks a global extinction. To save humanity, the Sandia scientists create a Utopian refuge under Yucca Mountain. Charlene is a mechanical engineering student betrothed to Roger. Together, they are exploring the idyllic life.

New to the story? Check out the beginning …

Charlene was a year into her study of mechanical engineering. Proving the adage that opposites attract, she was in Roger’s bedroom while they studied together. Roger had chosen to specialize in history at the University. He had never been any good with mathematics, while Charlene found history confusing and pointless.

There had been no declaration of a promise, but the two had discussed a potential marriage. She imagined she would one day share this bedroom with Roger as man and wife. And then, sometime later, his younger sister would marry and move into her husband’s family home. Charlene and Roger would then have two children, who would occupy the vacated bedroom in the three-bedroom home. And finally, one day one of his parents would die; she and Roger would then take over the master bedroom. The apartment would become theirs, and the cycle of life would go on.

The population and the space in Yucca City were fixed, and the living quarters were constantly recycled. Each male was sterilized after fathering two children. Thus, society required young men to be celibate until marriage. There was no such social restriction on women, except that they could only consort with sterilized men.

“What are you studying?” Roger asked.

The two were lying on their backs, side by side, on the bed. Each was staring up, reading the scrolling holographic images of texts, pictures, and figures of their respective textbooks. A vast quantity of knowledge was instantly available via their watches. Charlene knew what physical books were, and she had seen pictures of them, but she had never actually seen a real book.

Charlene used her finger to scribble notes in the air. These were automatically transcribed to the margins of her virtual textbook. Soft music played in the background. The air was filled with the soft scent of pine trees.

“The operation of the plastic recycle generators,” she answered his question. “Every molecule of plastic material in Yucca City is recycled. Some plastics are melted and reshaped into new objects while others are broken down into their molecular components for use as raw material in the three-dimensional printers to create new items on demand.” The scrolling automatically stopped when she flicked her eyes to his book. “And what is this you are reading?”

“It’s one of those books about life in Los Angeles City before the Rapture.”

“Is it about killing people?”

“Yes, it’s a genre they called murder mystery back then.”

“That’s what most all of those books are about — killing people.” Charlene wrinkled her nose. “I hate those. I hate that whole world. So much war, death, and violence. I have a hard time believing that they were really humans.”

“Indeed, that is a point historians debate. Not that they were human, but just how much are the stories real. Certainly, they can’t all be real.”

“But then, what is the point of writing and reading stories of such violence? And, the animals which kill people. I mean, the things called snakes which hide and wait for someone to come along just so they can bite and kill them with poison.” Charlene shivered. “It just makes my skin crawl to imagine such creatures could be allowed to exist. I mean, in a world where everyone carried a weapon, why were they not eradicated.” She swallowed and returned her eyes to her own textbook. “I am so thankful that we don’t have such things here.”

“Charley, you do know, it’s a historical fact, that all of the plastics you are learning to recycle originated in that world, the world before the Rapture. Those humans back then fabricated the plastics from something called crude oil, which they dug up out of the ground. Since we live underground, why can’t we dig up more of it ourselves?”

Charlene smiled. “Two reasons. First, we live in the wrong place. The location of Yucca City was chosen because this is a geologically stable region — no earthquakes; thus no concern the tunnels will collapse. There is nothing but water in the porous rocks below the city — no crude oil. Second, those people living on the surface used up almost all of the crude oil years before the Rapture. Supposedly, there is still some here and there, but it is very deep underground and very hard to recover.”

“You know, in the early years after the Rapture…” He paused, and then changed the subject. “The word rapture itself is rather confusing. Did you know the word was actually used to define the end of the world by certain religions?”

Charlene shook her head. She had heard something about this, but she wanted to hear him talk. While she thought much of history was pointless, she enjoyed Roger’s conversations. One of the reasons she loved him. She reached over and entwined her fingers with his while she listened.

“Rapture specifically referred to a time when the true believers in the religion would be swept up to heaven to be with their God. About fifty years after the supernova, which ended the world, the survivors here in Yucca City began to call the event The Rapture, although there was nothing of a religious nature to the event. Thus, historians talk of the old world as Before Rapture, or BR.”

“That is interesting,” she said. “Rather than being swept upward, our ancestors came down into the Earth and created our own heaven. I mean, what we have here is much more akin to the proverbial heaven than what they had in the, uh, BR world. I mean, we have no murders, or any sort of crime, or dangerous animals. We have no disease. Yucca City is sterile without any harmful bacteria or viruses. Our medical science can cure most anything that can go wrong with a human body. Everyone lives to be more than a hundred years old.”

“Yeah, but science can’t conquer death entirely. Our bodies eventually wear out and people die.”

Charlene nodded. Yucca City was a closed system and absolutely everything except water was recycled. She chose not to mention that human bodies were also recycled after death. From her simplistic perspective, medical science could cure everything, but people eventually grew tired of living and this was when they died.

“But,” she prodded, “you were saying something about crude oil…”

“Oh, yes, not crude oil, but plastics. In the first years AR, or After Rapture, people from Yucca City ventured out to places on the surface, like Los Angeles City, to find plastics. In an odd twist of fate, our forefathers failed to recognize the need for large quantities of plastics when they created Yucca City. Thus, there were these rather dangerous expeditions on the surface to gather up what could be found in the old world.”

“Hmm,” she mused. She had not heard about this. She thought she would ask Professor Jones about it. “How did they do it? I mean, how did they survive on the surface?”

Roger shrugged. “I don’t know that, but the expeditions came to a halt when the ice flows covered the land above.”

Charlene frowned. She didn’t like to be reminded that their slice of heaven was encased in ice. In some respects, Yucca City was a tomb. But, the alternative was so much worse.

Another idea came to her. “Roger, I remember from school that our immediate ancestors, that is the initial population of Yucca City, came from a place called Sandia. What is Sandia, and where is it?”

“Hmm, the records aren’t clear, but there are some consensus opinions among the historians. Sandia is not an actual place, but rather and ideology. It refers to a collection of scientists and engineers dedicated to expanding the knowledge about energy. These people were the intellectual cream of the crop in the BR world. While it doesn’t appear to have been one of their principal tasks, they anticipated the end of the world. They had come to the conclusion that the end was imminent, and they used these vacant tunnels under Yucca Mountain to build a survival city. However, they were in constant debate as to how the end was going to happen. There was a fraction who believed the excessive burning of carbon fuel had flooded the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and this would cause the Earth’s temperature to rise, killing all life. Another group projected pretty much the opposite. They mapped the patterns of past ice ages and predicted the world was on the verge of another ice age, which would make most of the planet uninhabitable.”

“Wow, how did these people get along in the time of so much violence?”

“Good question. But, there’s more. Some of the scientists believed an eruption of a supervolcano, at a place called Yellowstone, about a thousand kilometers north of here, was overdue. When this eruption occurred, most of the North American Continent would be covered with ash and this would trigger an ice age. This group banded together with the other ice age group. And then, there were those who were observing the star 1K-B. They calculated the time for a supernova was close.”

“So, how did this cause the construction of Yucca City?”

“Again, this is not clear; it was all done in secrecy. But, somehow these people controlled a substantial portion of the population’s wealth. The scientists diverted a portion of this wealth to the secret construction of Yucca City where they planned to move their families when the end came.”

“I am certainly grateful that they did,” Charlene said.

“Yeah. Anyway, one day the evidence for the explosion of 1K-B became compelling, and they began moving into Yucca City. Our ancestors came from two places. A place called Livermore, which was about six hundred kilometers to the west, and a place called Albuquerque which was about seven hundred kilometers east.”

“That’s a very long ways.”

“Yes, it is.”

“How did they travel so far quickly enough to not be killed by the gamma rays?”

“Back then, the people had machines for rapid travel. They even had machines which could fly through the air at very high rates of speed.”

“Airplanes.” She knew of the toys children played with, but she could not imagine one large enough to carry a person.

“Yes. A long time ago, they stopped teaching about these things in school. They observed it caused distress when people thought about things they could no longer do. But, I do have some pictures I could show you.”

She nodded. “I would like to see them.” Perhaps history is not so boring.

“Anyway, Yucca City is located in a very isolated desert called Nevada. Of course, they couldn’t keep their escape a secret once the supernova occurred. Thus, they had to use explosives to close off the shafts leading to the surface when hordes of violent men — they were called the left behind — arrived with the intent of capturing the city and killing everyone.”

Charlene asked, “I thought you said they ventured to the surface to gather plastics.”

“Yes, the timing of all this is not clear. They didn’t keep decent records in the early days.”

Charlene attempted to return to her studies, but her mind would not let go of the conversation.

“You know, the issue with the plastics is the carbon atoms. What we have a shortage of, is carbon. Of lately, there is a project being considered to run a pipe to the surface to suck in some of the atmosphere. It has a significant quantity of carbon dioxide. The idea is, that much of our use of metal could be replaced with high density plastics, if we had more carbon. The process of manufacturing this new plastic would consume less energy than the recycling of the metal.” She paused to think about what she had just said. Speaking the words sparked a new meaning in her mind. “However, I’m not completely sure why they want to do this. I mean, the energy from the radioactive decay is there whether we use it or not. What’s the point in creating such a complex project to save energy?”

With a few more seconds of thought, she realized she had just formulated the basis for her upcoming dissertation. She would either demonstrate the validity of the proposal, or create the basis for arguing why it was a wasted effort. She began to think about the thermodynamic equations for the two processes.

THE END of Part Three

Part Four, (coming soon)

Copyright ©2023 by S. M. Revolinski All Rights Reserved

Thank you for reading my story, I hope you enjoyed it. Check my profile for more stories for you to enjoy. I have more stories and books published on Amazon and other ebook retailers for your reading pleasure.