“They’re rather resourceful,” replied Wallace. “Jokes aside, that question has had us stumped for quite some time as well. We tried asking them, but they don’t show us.”
“Mark, do you remember those hatches that dropped food throughout the day?”
“Yeah, I do. Think there’s a connection?” he asked in reply.
“Yes. There is something up there on the surface. We saw a large building on the way to the airlock that leads below the surface. I thought I saw green in the windows,” Max said.
“Interesting,” remarked Wallace. “I think I know where that might be, although it’ll be faster if we drive there. It’s pretty close to the surface, and it has been a few hundred years since I drove a car, and just as long since I visited a surface farm. Let me talk to my commander first though.” Wallace abruptly walked away to chat with one of the people sitting at the table eating. He they spoke too low for anyone else to be able to listen in on the conversation. The leader looked pleased, and Wallace quickly returned, with a set of keys in hand.
“Since the gravmag cars won’t work due to no main power, we have to take a car with its own power source. Follow me.”
They walked down another narrow tunnel and arrived in a parking garage that connected to a main road. It was only occupied by a beat up vehicle, which had a rather large hood. There was only one door opening to a large cabin that could hold quite a number of people.
“This is an old experimental bus, designed during one of the numerous energy crises back in the day. Runs on compressed air and electricity. The flywheel is spun by air that is pumped into storage tanks by electric motors, that are ran by an internal battery, which in turn are charged when the breaks are used. I have no idea how they built it, or why it works. But as long as you don’t mind not being able to go extremely fast, it’s a great machine. And sometimes if the battery dies and you leave the tanks with no pressure, you have to hand crank some charge back into it, or roll it down a hill and use the breaks.”
Everyone had boarded the bus, including Hector and Paris who crawled under the seats in the back. A faint humming sound emanated from the front of the vehicle somewhere as a heavy flywheel was accelerated by compressed air. The bus slowly moved forward. Leaving the garage, it accelerated and was soon moving rapidly down the road towards a destination that the driver was somewhat guessing at.