14


Sharona Connaught had done everything she could to hide the location of the Camp from the outside world.


She had over a hundred backgrounds for her interviews with the students that she sent to the media: blown up pictures of back alleys, blown up pictures of kitchens and living rooms in the former households of 3--I members, blown-up pictures of brick walls and stone cave walls and even shop windows. So now, as Sharona sat there reflecting, scores of people deliberately passed by these places in the pictures, having recognized them on the internet. Police stood guard there, having already searched the places and arrested and questioned and jailed the innocent people inside, who had nothing to do with 3--I.


The 3--I members' households were another thing. They came from all across the nation, with their truckloads of everything. Collection after collection, to be hidden in the tunnels and the Bunker until places could be found for all of it. They were to now live at the Lodge.


Igor collected the eating utensils, Bartholomew the dishes, Marck the cups and glasses. Things not needed were to be taken to town and sold. That pile was growing. Boxes and boxes of collections. A collection of tea sets, teddy bears, potpourri, cushion covers, fountain pens, figurines, old encyclopedias, rag dolls, action figures, an artificial Christmas tree. Collections of snow globes, fake flowers, rubber grapes on plastic grape vines, and even children's books were to be sold for more useful things, like weapons, food, gasoline, vehicles, parts for damaged vehicles, and more bulldozers and cement and boxes to dry the cement in to make more bricks, to make more tunnels.


The children understood not to play with the toys or become too attached to them, because they had all recieved detailed explanations in their own language at their own level about what they must do for their freedom. They were used to doing without anyway. At Hope House, nothing had been a right, and here, each child only had their medication, their journal, a pen, a pencil, and two changes of clothes... the Hope house uniforms they had come in, and the change of casual clothes issued to them by the 3--I, usually orange.


But the children were happy. There were not shocked, they could sleep in, and they understood why they had to learn what they had to learn, unlike their slave labor at Hope House, which had given them no explanation as to why they needed it to survive. Just shocks if they didn't do it.

The next day, each person lined up and made their way past each "station" in the mess hall, collecting one thing from each. A plastic or metal cup, a plastic or metal bowl, a fork, a knife, a spoon, a blanket, a sheet, a pillow, a towel, a facecloth, a comb, a toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste, and a backpack to put it all in, if they didn't still have the backpack their GED had been in. 3--I members and students who had been initiated into the 3--I got weapons.


Then they packed all the plates, glasses, glass bowls, vases, toys, perfumes, jewelry, lampshades, curtains, blinds, and other unneeded stuff into the vehicles and they were driven back. extra clocks were also packed; there was a clock in every room at the Lodge and in the Bunker, and that was enough. There were mirrors in the bathrooms and that was enough. Extra toothpaste, toothbrushes, towels, and soap was put in the bathroom, which was now starting to look more homey what with all the different kinds of shampoo and conditioners and soap everywhere, and the different colors and designs on the towels.


The toilet paper was removed from the bathrooms and the two 3--I mechanics went to work enlarging the toilet stalls and installing bidets in them that they had made themselves in a kiln with the clay from the earth and some taps and piping from the houses they had abandoned. The toilet paper was also to be sold. Water, however, was free, and the resevoir on the roof of the Lodge was twenty metres deep, fifty metres long (the length of the Lodge), and twenty metres wide.