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we drag them with ropes to what’s left of Eden. The water from Radcliffe’s flood had washed away most of what the fire we had set didn’t destroy, but the steel-lined killing room is eerily intact.
    It’s hard for me. I remember looking into that monitor and seeing my father’s head opened before his body was sloughed off into the trap door in the floor. Turns out that trap door leads to an industrial-grade meat grinder that renders bodies into a paste before flushing them down sewage pipes the length of the step locks into the Pacific. So we toss the dead scientists in and grind them up and send them as fish food out to sea. It’s a much better burial than they deserve, if you ask me.
    Fortunately, almost all of the materials used down here are either synthetic plastics or metals designed to resist corrosion, so there is very little damage from the flood. Hannah and the professor—we refuse to call him “Moody,” like he asked—spend most of their time restoring the critical mechanical systems around the Foundation: heating, lighting, waste-water pumps. But even though the computer systems are water-tight, designed with heat sinks instead of cooling fans, we decide to let them dry for several days, as a precaution, before rebooting to see if we can take control of the drones.
    The professor walks us through the Foundation and uses his codes to unlock the few remaining rooms we haven’t been able to check for bodies. He takes us into the sintering plant, where Hannah and I stood with her father and watched the missiles being built. Although pools of water remain on the floors, everything seems operational enough. Still, we all hold our breath as he opens the munitions room door. But there, too, everything seems to have been moved around by the water but hardly damaged at all.
    “Why is that here?” I ask, pointing to the strange black box marked with red letters that read: ANTIMATTER.
    The professor squats and peers into the box’s blue-glowing window.
    “This little baby here,” he says, running his hands over the box as if petting it, “contains almost a trillion dollars-worth of worldwide scientific work.”
    “What’s a dollar?” Jimmy asks.
    “A measure of currency, when the world used money.”
    “Oh. Like pearls or somethin’?”
    “Like pearls,” the professor says. “But the money aside, this represents an amazing accomplishment. Unfortunately, like everything we lousy humans did, it was only produced because of its potential use in weaponry.”
    “How much is in there?” I ask.
    “A little over 200 grams,” he says. “But don’t worry. The design of this case, really a large battery itself, keeps it trapped in permanent suspension. Unless it’s detonated, of course.”
    “Whataya mean by detonated?” Jimmy asks.
    “Let’s get something to eat,” the professor says, changing the subject. “My stomach is growling loud enough to be rude, I’m afraid.”
    We’ve scrounged up enough sealed rations to eat fairly well, heating our meals on the cook stove in the living quarters. But with the rooms still drying out, Hannah, the professor, and I sleep on separate bunks in the submarine, while Jimmy sleeps outside the submarine in the boat with Junior.
    On the fourth day, with no bodies left to be found, Jimmy, Hannah, and I gather at the command center door and wait for the professor to let us in so we can reboot the computers.
    “What’s that say?” Jimmy asks, pointing to a metal plaque mounted next to door and engraved with the words:
    MISSION STATEMENT
THE PARK SERVICE THUS ESTABLISHED SHALL PROTECT AND CONSERVE THE NATURAL BEAUTY OF THE EARTH BY EMPLOYING ALL AVAILABLE MEANS TO ERADICATE FOREVER FROM THE PLANET THE VIRAL SPECIES KNOWN AS HUMANKIND.
    To my relief, before I can read the plaque to Jimmy, the professor shows up and punches his code into the keypad and leads us inside the command center. It reminds me of the safe room at the lake house, only larger and more