“How come she got a hug?” I asked, jokingly.
Martin then hugged me, he held me in his arms so fatherly for a little while. “Glad you’re okay, Jana, pirate look and all.”
“Eh.” I stepped back touching my eye patch. “I had something in my eye.”
“We saw the tire tracks,” Alice said. “We figured you followed some vehicles.”
Martin nodded. “We did.”
I asked, “Was it the rescue teams?”
“Sort of,” Martin replied. “They weren’t waiting like you said, but they showed up. They said they heard the radio. I believe it, this place has some fancy functions.”
“Then it’s true,” I said. “Everything Julius said. I mean, he was right about the weather. This place …” I stopped talking when Martin lifted his hand. “What?” I asked.
“Before you start letting your mind go. I don’t know what you envisioned this was or what would happen, but I’m willing to bet,” Martin said. “It’s nothing like you expected.
✽✽✽
The kids were so happy to see me, I can’t recall ever feeling so much joy from them. Both hung on to me, clutching tightly.
The front grounds of the place were beautiful.
Martin was mistaken, it was exactly as I expected.
I even recognized the woman sitting in a lawn chair watching two smaller children run around.
The moment she saw me, she waved and stood.
I had seen her profile picture in the group, and I knew it was Marianne from Cincinnati. She had left before us.
“Jana?” she quizzed, stepping to me with a tilted head.
“Marianne?”
A slight shriek of excitement came from both of us, sounding like teenage girls.
“I’m so glad to see you made it okay,” I said.
“Oh, we did. We beat the weather, never saw anything here but a short storm. Nothing major, except you know, the grid went down.”
“Martin, he said this is probably what I wasn’t expecting,” I said. “It looks even better.”
“He probably means the west side of the place,” she replied. “It’s not what I expected either.”
“What happened to it?” I asked.
“Nothing happened. It’s just … what’s there. Here, we’ll walk.” She turned her body, calling out, ‘mom’ and drawing the attention of an older woman. She asked her if she would keep an eye on the kids.
She began to walk, and I followed alongside.
“We were the first ones here,” Marianne said. “The first from our group.”
“Anyone else arrive?”
“A few. Not many,” she replied. “When we arrived, the town was normal. My husband thought I was nuts and even commented I had to remember the Motel Six because there was no way we could afford this resort.”
I laughed. “My husband didn’t buy into it either.”
“Until we pulled up. The entire resort had been evacuated and no one was here.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“There are cabins all around and my husband broke into one, so we had a place to stay. I mean, it was insane, I was angry I followed Julius here and he hadn’t arrived. But the storms were real, so there had to be some validity.”
“I started worrying as well.”
“Then night before last …” She held out her hand. “This.”
It was then I saw what Martin meant.
Julius was ‘supposedly’ in that deep secret lab of NASA, so why were there so many military vehicles parked outside what looked like a huge tunnel entrance?
“Julius?” I asked.
“They arrived with Julius, yes.”
“Have you met him?”
She bit her bottom lip and nodded.
“So, he’s real?”
Again, she nodded. “Maybe it’s time you met Julius.”
✽✽✽
We walked back around to the front entering the luxurious resort through the front entrance. Across the large sunlit lobby with white pillars, black and white floors and a double staircase with red and green carpet.
No one was in the lobby, but as we ventured farther, people moved about. More meandering than anything else. Post apocalypse tourists on vacation.
We approached another magnificent staircase and I really dreaded walking up them, I didn’t have the energy or depth perception, thankfully we walked down a hall next to them.
There were several people in the hall. A couple military, most were wearing casual clothes, holding iPads or tablets. They looked as we walked by and a couple acknowledged Marianne.
We arrived at set of double doors and Marianne knocked.
“Yes,” a man called out.
Marianne opened the door slightly poking her head in. “Jana arrived.”
I didn’t hear a verbal response, Marianne opened the door wider, holding it for me. “Meet you back outside.”
When I stepped in the room, there was a man and a woman there. The man was Martin’s age, dressed clean and crisp with a golf shirt on. The middle aged woman was military, wearing camouflage, or rather an Army Combat Uniform, and though I wasn’t knowledgeable about the military, I knew the two stars on her pocket, made her a big deal.
I sighed out in relief, Julius was real, a little older than I envisioned. Hand extended I walked to him, “Julius, it’s so nice to finally meet you.”
He shook my hand, then shook his head. “Not me.” He pointed to the general. “She’s the Julius.”
TWENTY-FIVE – WINNING COMBINATION
Julius was a woman all along. Right there that explained why ‘she’ rejected my call. Why hide her gender?
She told me I could call her Nel, and then she asked the gentleman to give us a few minutes alone, a man I found out was her uncle when she called him, “Uncle Roger.”
“The name is actually Julien Constanza. Julien being the male name. Julien worked at NASA and the Department of Defense in the experimental Weather Manipulation Project … or Jupiter.”
“Okay I’m confused.”
“Julien or Julius as you knew him when he started the group was my brother.”
“Your brother?”
“Now, before you say anything.” She sat down behind the desk and held out a hand for me to do as well. “I have been part of his plan since the onset. He couldn’t use his real name and when Jules died six months ago, I didn’t want the group to stop. I am very sorry I deceived you. I wanted people to
