Several important questions needed to be answered immediately. Why was she so sick, and would the others also be as sick as she was? Was the old man actually Carter, and if so, why did he stay awake? What had he been doing? Most importantly, was anyone alive outside of the mountain?

She decided to try something; reaching for the intercom switch she depressed the button to broadcast on the entire engineering level. “Dale, this is RJ, can you hear me? I want to talk to you.”

RJ waited thirty seconds and tried again. “Dale, it seems as if everything here in the mountain is really good, but I need some information. Please talk to me.” This time she opened the transmitter on the intercom in the engineering hall. She heard movement, but Dale didn't speak.

“Dale, I don't want to leave you trapped in that hall. I don't think you've done anything wrong, but before I let you out, I need to talk to you.”

Now she could hear a muttered voice, which seemed to be speaking, but not clearly.

“Can you speak up Dale? I can't hear you.”

There was more movement but then nothing but silence.

She huffed out a frustrated breath. “Okay, Dale, I've got some things to do. I'll be back in a while.”

It had reached the point where she'd need assistance, but there were a few things she needed to take care of first.

She walked to the mess hall, heated up a frozen meal, and made some lemonade from concentrate powder and water. After eating her first meal in over half a century, she went to her quarters and took a long hot shower, then put on a clean jumpsuit. She transferred the weapon to the leg pocket on the new outfit and headed to the health center, locating a narrow gurney and some other supplies. She accessed the medical databases and reviewed the drug information she'd learned during her in-depth orientation to the sleep process.

Finally, she rolled the gurney out of the health center and into the sleep chamber where she'd been woken.

Their original plan had been for her to wake Brad Warren after determining they were going to end the sleep. Now things had changed, and she wanted someone who was more familiar with the sleep process to wake up first. She parked the gurney next to Amy Travers' capsule, went to the head of the controls and started inputting commands. Immediately the computer stopped the flow of SF016 into Amy's veins and infused the three drugs designed to ease the wake-up sequence. Next, the system shut off the special gasses she was breathing so she was now getting pure oxygen from the mask.