The Compound by S.A. Bodeen Read Free Book Online Page A

double door. As I stepped through, a rush of air hit me. The ceiling was twenty-five feet over my head. The entire space went as far as I could see to my sides and front, and was open except for various walls and doors every now and then—a warehouse. There were storage areas, shelves that stretched all the way to the ceiling, and the freezers, twenty of them.
    I hopped into the golf cart sitting near the door and drove, stopping randomly at one of the storage rooms. I opened the door. Of course I’d been in all of them before many times, to get toilet paper or laundry detergent. Had I ever really considered how Dad had done it all?
    The Compound itself must have taken years to build, not even counting all the planning. How do you know how much toilet paper you’ll use in fifteen years? Also, how could a project like this, headed up by my dad, not make it on CNN? If I had worked on the Compound, then found out we were under attack, this is the first place I would have headed.
    The answer was probably money, which my dad had loads of. Power, too. He probably made everyone sign a confidentiality agreement and paid them a lot to do so. It was sort of a constant in the old world. My father had the means to get whatever he wanted.
    That was just how things were. And we all knew it.
    I glanced at my watch and realized I was late for chores, so I headed to the very back of the Compound.
    My main job was to run the hydroponic garden, an enormous open room where vegetables grew in troughs of water, relying on artificial sunlight to grow more rapidly than in traditional soil gardens. I’d learned about hydroponics at a local co-op we went to every Saturday on the outside. While I learned how to grow vegetables, Eddy learned about livestock and poultry. My mom learned how to bake bread, can vegetables. Part of Dad’s planning, I’d come to realize, that we all have a role in the subsistence world of the Compound.
    The tomatoes, lettuce, and red bell peppers were close to another harvest. I started some more seedlings by pushing seeds into small squares of sponges. One row of grow light bulbs flickered.
    I held my breath.
    They came back on. Stayed on.
    I breathed again, relieved.
    After nine months in the Compound, some bulbs had gone out. I replaced them, but the light didn’t look the same. After checking the storage room with the supply of grow light bulbs, I found a nasty surprise. More than three-fourths of them were normal fluorescent bulbs, no good for growing anything.
    Depending on how long the grow bulbs lasted, our supply of vegetables would run out around the time I turned eighteen, if not sooner. So I had good reason to panic every time those bulbs flickered. Especially when I took into account the rest of the food situation. And that was something I tried not to think about.

I FINISHED MY WORK IN THE HYDROPONICS AND HEADED TO the computer room to do some schoolwork. We had the best computers, of course, at least they were the best available when we entered the Compound. Dad had started his company on his own, building computers, and he still created prototypes for new ones, each better than the last. I could only imagine how many millions of dollars the latest model would have made. It was weird sometimes to think about money when there was no need for it in the Compound. I guess I’d always been tuned into it, though, knowing we’d had so much.
    Our computers were loaded with educational software, all programmed to work at the user’s pace with an infinite level of endless subjects. Although I had just turned fifteen, I was on my first year of college studies. This wonder boy was gifted in math and sciences, big shocker there. Plus I still studied Mandarin.
    Lexie was on her first year of college, studying literature and Greek. I’m pretty sure she would have been more of a vapid socialite in the old world. In the Compound she studied, but only the subjects she liked. She refused to do any math or sciences and