ASYLUM: Chapter 2

Asylum

 

Chapter 2

   10:00 am the next morning I was at the Main Construction Office for the meeting. When I entered, a young woman sitting at a desk looked up and asked, “May I help you?”

   “Yes, I’m here for the Phase Six co-ordination meeting?” I was looking around the office area as I spoke. To the left was a bank of glass windows and I could see several people standing around while drinking what I assumed was coffee. I definitely could use a cup, maybe a sandwich also. Most of my years working with John Cameron we had never eaten breakfast. Normally, we waited until the 9:00 o’clock morning coffee break and ate then.  As a result, I was now about an hour past my normal time to eat.

   “May I have your name please?”

   “Daniel Smith, I’m the new supervisor for the fire sprinklers in Phase Six.”

   She quickly turned away and began typing on her computer’s keyboard. After several minutes a printer next to her spit out an ID card with my name, picture and title on the front face. It was even laminated and she added a lanyard through a hole in the card.

   “This is your Facility identification card, please wear it at all management meetings and anytime you are outside of your quarters.” She held it out to me and I placed it around my neck. “Mister Morgan is in the meeting room now, so please join him; the meeting will begin shortly.”

   I strolled to the entrance door of the glassed-in room and was quickly allowed entrance by a man wearing a name tag bearing Morgan’s name, “Mr. Morgan?” I asked.

   “Yes, come on in and get acquainted, you must be, Daniel Smith,” he said as he glanced at my name tag.

   “Uh, yeah, I’m here to install…”

   “The fire sprinklers in Phase 6.”

   “Yes.”

   “Great, you’re on time, but as always, we will no doubt have a few late comers, so the meeting will probably be delayed somewhat. Grab some coffee, or tea, and we have some pretty good pastries baked here in The Facility if you’re hungry.”

   “Thanks,” I said. “This is about the time I normally eat anyway.”

   I’m not going to describe the actual meeting, like most job meetings, they discussed safety protocols and once again myself and the topic of fire sprinklers were the last item discussed. That’s usually the case as most job superintendents do not know much about the subject. After the meeting broke up, I drove my golf cart to Phase 6 and began to familiarize myself with the layout while going over the set of architectural plans I had been issued. Using an aerosol can of Grade Paint, I began laying out where the bulk and cross mains for the fire sprinklers were going to be placed. I did not have my crew yet, as they were going through an indoctrination meeting of their own, but work was scheduled to start the next day and I wanted detailed markings for the starting points.

   At lunch time I drove the golf cart to the cafeteria and ordered a simple cold cut sandwich with a side order of French fries. The sandwich was damn good and reminded me of some the meals I had from name brand food outlets. As soon as I finished eating, I was back to work laying out the markings for the first section the Job Superintendent wanted installed. In order to finish the layout, I worked a little late and then went back to the cafeteria for an early and light supper.

   The next morning at six am, I met the three men who were assigned as my foremen at the cafeteria where I had arranged for us to meet and informed them of how I wanted the job to progress. After we finished, we drove to the starting point for the crews and I illustrated the markings I had made the day before for each crew to start from. By seven am, the crews had arrived, tools and equipment issued, and the work actually began.

   The only problem we had the first day was some of the sleeves that had been installed in the concrete walls were in the wrong positions and new holes needed to be cut. When I approached the Job Superintendent to have a concrete coring crew drill the holes, he informed me that we should use the existing holes and just reroute our piping to match the existing sleeves. I explained we were using a calculated system and if we starting adding fittings, we would end up with too much friction loss in the piping. He fussed a bit and said he didn’t have the manpower for what I wanted to do, but he could loan us the equipment to cut the holes ourselves. That’s what we did.

   I wanted to use one of the larger rooms we were working through as an area stock room, so once the crew working the area had finished running the necessary bulk and cross mains, I had them install the lines that supplied the sprinklers. With that accomplished, we could spread out the materials and toolboxes we needed and not be in our own way later. All-in-all, the first day went smoothly except for the mis-located sleeves that slowed us down some, but from then on, I had new holes drilled when the sleeves were wrong, before the installation crews got to them. Within a very short time, we were pushing the other trades that were supposed to be ahead of us and they were beginning to slow my crews down. The Superintendent went to management and told them the sprinkler crew was out-distancing the others and asked if more people could be hired by the other trades, instead, they passed word down to me to cut my own workforce by one-third and that was in just the first 21 days.

   I returned home for my first ten days off and after only three days, I was ordered back to the Facility to address problems that cropped up. After a major meeting, I was ordered to cut my crews by another ten per cent. Needless to say, I had never been asked to slow down a job before and the main office for my company vigorously protested the decision. The cuts were made as directed, but the other trades were given permission to increase the size of their crews. I didn’t return to finish my time off, instead, I was told it would be necessary for me to reduce my days off to only three, but I would receive overtime pay for the days I was on-site when I should have had the days off. I started taking my days off at the facility because once travel time was deducted from my three days off, I would only be home for one day a month. I didn’t think it was worth the trip.

   I started using my days off to explore the complex, hike the surrounding hills, and I began to fully appreciate how large the Facility was. There was a movie theater, an indoor swimming pool, hell, there was just about anything you might find in small town America. In my explorations I also discovered the Facility had two shooting ranges; one was for the exclusive use of Interior Security and the other was supposedly for use by Exterior Security. Naturally, I had occasions to interact with both branches of security, but I much preferred the people working for EXSEC. They just seemed to be less, I don’t know, abrasive, I guess.

   When I met Lieutenant Packer, who commanded EXSEC, I asked if there was anywhere, I might go to do some target practice with my pistol and he invited me to use EXSEC’s range whenever I wanted, unless it was being used by his personnel. He even offered to sell me training ammo at the cost EXSEC was charged. It was so cheap I began to spend a great deal of my off-time practicing with my P89. It was something I enjoyed doing and eventually I started getting to know many of the men and women who were employed by EXSEC. After a while, some of them invited me Topside, what they called outside of the Facility, to use the rifle range they had made themselves. When I told them all I had with me was my pistol, they offered to allow me to use their weapons. Well hell, I jumped on that right away.

   The first two members of EXSEC I became friendly with was Daniel Smith and Danni Lynne Monroe. Yeah, I know, he had the same name as me, and like me, he had no middle name. Is that weird or what? It wasn’t until later that I discovered that, Dan, like me, was also an orphan abandoned at birth; even stranger. Dan was about my height, 5-10 and we could easily swap clothes with each other if we wanted, but that was where the physical similarities ended. I was very fair-skinned with auburn hair and hazel eyes, where he had a darker, more olive complexion with dark brown hair and brown eyes. Danni was 5-8 with this kind of weird almost white-blonde hair, even her eyebrows were white, but she had these dark eyes that were rather startling the way they contrasted with her pale skin and hair. She kept her hair cropped really short, and used something on it that made the hair on top stand straight up in kind of a short, spiky way. She appeared very athletic and in very good shape. Actually, she was quite beautiful and I wondered if her and Dan might be lovers, though I never saw them hold hands or anything.

   They were the first to invite me to shoot on the range top-side and we started becoming friends that day. Unfortunately, their work hours were constantly changing and sometimes they would be on security detail when I was off, but I truly enjoyed the time we spent together shooting. Then came a period of time when their hours off continually matched up with my work hours and every time I called or dropped by, they were busy working. The topside rifle range was intended for the use of the security team and their invitees, so it was frowned on if I showed up by myself. Besides, I didn’t have my own carbine with me, so if they weren’t there I couldn’t shoot anyway. I started wondering if maybe I had inadvertently offended them somehow and decided maybe I was intruding too often in the time they chose to spend together; I stopped calling and swinging by.

   A week passed by and I had just finished my shower at my apartment after work when I heard a knock at my door. My two foremen were supposed to stop by for a couple of beers later, so I assumed it was them, just a little early. I wrapped a towel around my waist, threw another over my head as I started roughly drying my air and opened the door.

   “Come on in,” I said as I turned and headed for my bedroom to get dressed. “Beers are in the fridge, pour me one and I’ll be out in few minutes.”

   I quickly dressed, but I didn’t put any shoes on. I heard the fridge open and the clinking of bottles as I exited the bedroom and entered the kitchen. To my surprise, it wasn’t the two foremen I was expecting, but a young woman about my age. I stopped and froze as I looked at her, then turned my back while tucking my tee-shirt into my unbuttoned jeans. She was about five-foot-six, a mass of dark, curly, shoulder length hair, amber eyes, well built, almost muscular in appearance. She was wearing a pair of snug fitting, coyote brown cargo pants, an OD green tank top and brown roughout boots. “Uh…” I stammered.

  Sitting down at my table she chuckled with a very nice contralto voice. Using a multi-tool from her pocket, she popped the caps off two bottles of Shiner’s Bock and began to pour the beer into glasses. “I think you were expecting someone else?”

   “Uh, yeah, I mean…” I ran out of words.

   She pushed a glass of Bock across the table and leaned back into her chair, “Danni gave me your phone number and directions here; I tried to call several times today, but figured what the hell, and decided to drop by instead.”

   “Oh, so your friends with Dan and Danni?” I asked.

   “Yeah, sort of. I’m Debra Tarn,” she said as she stretched out her hand to shake. “They’re in 2nd Squad and I’m in 3d. Every once in a while, we have down time that coincides and we get together. Anyway, Danni was saying her and Dan have been giving you some rifle training, but their hours and yours weren’t meshing very well lately.”

   “Hi, Debra, yeah, I haven’t had the chance to talk to them for over a week and I was kind of thinking maybe they might be getting a little tired of me intruding, you know?”

   She got a puzzled look on her face and then said, “Intruding into what?”

   “Well, they’re always together. I sort of assumed that the two of them…” Whatever I was going to say faded away.

   She laughed, “Holy crap! Wait till I tell Danni you thought they were sweet on each other!”

   She had a really nice throaty laugh; it made me want to smile. “So, they’re not together, at all?”

   “Nope, totally certain. Danni is a lesbian and made absolutely certain all the men in EXSEC knew it from day one.”

   I sat there a bit dumbfounded as I sipped at my glass of beer, “Huh, I could have sworn…”

   She smiled as she asked, “You could have sworn, what?”

   “I guess I understand women even less than I thought I did. Several times I saw Danni sort of, admiring Dan? When he was focused on something else. One of my majors in college is Communication Studies and part of that is Nonverbal Communication; you know, how people communicate without words even when they aren’t aware, they are doing it. She seemed to be sending signals…”

   Debra stared at me with a slight smile that slowly disappeared, “Really?”

   “Guess I was wrong, especially if she has a made a point of telling everyone…never mind. So, what can I do for you?” I was rather curious after all was said and done.

   “Yeah, we got a bit off topic.” She gave that brief throaty chuckle again and I found myself starting to respond to her. That, of itself, was a bit strange; the last relationship I was in ended really badly and I hadn’t put myself out there in a while and Debra was nothing like the type of woman that normally caught my attention. I usually went for the petite, blonde, helpless type; the ones that for some reason needed to be rescued. Unfortunately, it usually ended up being me that needed the rescue from them.

   “Danni asked me if I might be interested in shooting with you when they aren’t available. She said Dan agrees with her that you are really coming along and they want you to continue to improve. I said what the hell, why not? I need more time on the range anyway; shooting is a perishable skill if it’s not maintained.”

   “Well, sure, I mean, if you don’t mind…” I always feel a little, no a lot, intimidated by women, even when I was living in foster homes when I was a kid. It was never a good idea to expose the real you to some of the girls you shared a roof with. Most were okay, but some, maybe through no fault of their own, were pretty damaged. “I’m sure we could do that, but this evening I have a meeting with the foremen of the fire sprinkler crews. I need to have a discussion with them about some problems we’ve been experiencing down in Phase Six.”

   “Sure, I understand. How about I give you the number of the phone in the women’s bay at the barracks and you give me a call when you have the time to train? We’ll have to fit it into our work schedules, but I don’t see a problem with it.” She held up the glass of Shiner’s and asked, “This is pretty good beer, mind if I finish it before I leave?”

   “Of course not, I wasn’t trying to chase you off by any means, especially after your offer to help me practice shooting.”

   “Uh huh, but you need me gone.” There was a small smile teasing her lips, which she covered with the glass of Bock as she sipped.

   For some reason, I decided I wasn’t ready for the encounter to end. I stood up and going to the wall phone, I dialed the barracks where my two foremen were staying. When Willy Stillwell picked up and answered, I said, “Willy, this is Smith. Look, something has come up and I’m going to have to cancel this evening; can you tell Junior for me? I’ll make it up to you guys, okay?”

   Willy said no problem and he would tell Junior. Returning to the table I sat down and took a sip from my glass, “Now, I don’t need you gone,” I said. “So, Daniel has been working with me on the AR 15, and Danni has been working me on her M1A Scout rifle. What weapon do you use?”

   She pushed her empty glass away and then placed her elbows on the tabletop while crossing  and grasping her upper arms just above her elbows; she rested her breasts on her forearms as she leaned towards me, “I use an AR like Daniel, but mine is quite a bit different.”

   It was a struggle to keep my eyes on her eyes instead of her chest; the cleavage was impressive. I’m not saying she was well endowed, just really, really nice. “How is it different? I mean I realize ARs are pretty adaptable, but how is yours different?”

   “I have mine completely set up as a Designated Marksman Rifle. Though Daniel has a good quality scope for his, it only has a sixteen-inch barrel. Mine has a twenty-inch, heavy profile barrel that gets the most out of the potential ballistics of a 5-5-6 round downrange.”

   “Oh, Daniel said most scopes for 5-5-6 are calibrated for a twenty-inch barrel, so he had to do some extensive sighting in with his shorter barrel.”

   “Yeah, the three of us have shot together quite a bit.”

   I nodded and smiled, “I know Dan and Danni are pretty good; I’m looking forward to seeing you shoot.”

   Raising her right hand, she pinched an errant curl of hair and began to wind it around her index finger, “I hope it will be fun too. Shooting has always been a favorite pass-time for me.”

   “Yeah,” I stared at her finger as she unwound the hair around her finger and then wound it back again. After watching her do it several times, I pulled my eyes back to hers.

   “…a Ruger P89? We were all issued Glock 17s; before I was hired here, I had only used an M9 Berretta.” She looked at me with expectation.

   “Uh, I’m sorry, what was your question?”

   She gave me that throaty chuckle again, “I said, both Dan and Danni said you were really good with your pistol and it was a Ruger P89.”

   “Oh, sorry, yeah, I bought it new in the box even though it was so old it was no longer in production. The guy that sold it to me included four spare ten round magazines too.”

   “Why would you only want ten round mags?”

   “My home is in California.”

   “Oh, sucks to be you.”

   “Yeah, I always figured if I moved to a different state, I’d buy some of Mecgar’s twenty round magazines. Where are you from?”

   “Born in Midland, Texas.” I guess I had a blank look on my face, so she added, “It’s over by Odessa.” The blank look again, I guess, so she smiled and said, “Bum Fuck, Egypt?”

   I laughed and she joined in, “Gotcha,” I said. “Was it nice growing up there?”

   She laughed, “I figure it’s a great place to be from, but not so much to return to. What about you? Where are you from?”

   “Born and raised in California.”

   “Yeah? Is your family still there?”

   “I don’t know, I was in foster care from birth until I turned eighteen. The only person that ever felt like family to me is the guy that gave me my first job. He has always been like an older brother type thing.”

   “Sorry, both of my parents were addicts. Things didn’t start looking up until I left home and joined the Air Force when I was eighteen. I haven’t seen my mom in six years and my dad was killed breaking into someone’s home in Odessa.”

   “That’s too bad; you must have been pretty broke up over his death.”

   “No, I wasn’t, he wasn’t a good father and he was physically abusive, the only regret I had was, that he was, what he was.”

   “Oh.” She glanced away and I wondered if she really felt that way or if it was her way of dealing with the pain; she just shut him out. “I never knew either of my parents, from what I was told growing up, my mom came to the emergency room, gave birth to me and then left without even naming me.” She didn’t say anything and the conversation started to falter, “From what I’ve gleaned from Daniel and Danni, EXSEC is set up like an infantry platoon; I’m kind of surprised the Lieutenant hired someone from the Air Force, I mean, what did you do when you were in?”

   “I started off Air Police and then I was one of the early female Air Security. I did a tour in Afghanistan and when I got out, I worked a couple of years for the Dallas PD. Then I came across the ad for the Facility, applied for a job, and here I am.”

   “So, you were kind of a cop in the Air Force?”

   “Yeah, but sort of enhanced.” She didn’t add anything else; she just kind of smiled, but she reached for her empty glass and waved it at me.

   I nodded then went to the fridge and pulled two more bottles out, one for her and one for me. “When can we get together and do some range practice?” I asked.

   “My original intent was to invite you this evening, but…” She waved the beer and then started pouring it into her glass. “I don’t mix alcohol and guns.”

   “How about tomorrow afternoon after we’re both off work?”

   She smiled, “It’s a date.”

   I found myself hoping she meant a date both figuratively and literally.

   That’s how I met Debra and maybe our previous lack of family was the reason we related so well to each other. I also found out Danni had been raised by an aunt after her parents had been killed in an auto accident. Maybe that was the reason the four of us became friends. John Cameron was the only family I had ever known; I guess it was a good thing I had found three good friends.