Gary smiled. “I guess it's true, for the next few years at least, I'll be the boss, after that we might have another boss. But there will be ten other people, including your dad, who will be helping me to do a good job.”

Cassandra looked beyond Gary to the entrance of the shelter. She saw the long sloping tunnel which led deep underground. “Is that where we'll be living?”

“Yes, that's where we're all going to live for a while.”

“It looks big down there. My mom says that when I can come out of there, I'll be her age.”

“That's true; we'll be down there for a long time. But you'll be going to school, and you'll have friends and even finish college.”

Before Cassandra could ask any more questions, Jillian spoke up. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Bison. We'll let you get back to your work, and we'll go and explore our new home.”

Gary stayed and greeted a few of the other arriving residents, including Megan and Jake Tanner and their family. They then had a discussion with a pair of teens who had arrived without their parents. Eventually he escorted the teens inside. They rode an electric cart down into the shelter where he came across a large open storage area. It was secured with a chain link fence, to keep people from getting into the shelter's provisions.

There was a radiation detector mounted on the wall, and he gave it a cursory glance as he strode by. It was indicating nothing more than normal background radiation currently.

The passage continued down to the main level where all the residential apartments had been set up.

The control center was also on this level, a big room from where all internal cameras and heat and smoke sensors could be monitored, as well as external radiation detectors. There was a console for monitoring the reactor and computer room, and another for communications. From there, they would maintain contact with the other shelters and eventually be contacted by the sleepers upon their awakening.

In the back of the command center was a large conference room, where the Senate and site leader would hold their regular meetings. The next level down held the cafeterias and recreational facilities and in the far back of the shelter, there was even a six-cell jail.

They had a trained, an armed security force, which would provide internal security and the site leader would act as a judge with the Senate as the jury in any problems that came up which warranted judicial proceedings. Incarceration was possible in most situations, but in the more serious of circumstances banishment from the facility could be considered. Gary hoped that banishment from the facility, being sent out into the deadly radiation, would act as a deterrent for most everyone.