Heiser-The-Facade - Sparkling Eyes

suspiciously."Good question, isn't it'?" Deidre smirked."Most of these places were built in the event of nuclear war," Mark explained."The government wanted a place where top officials could park their asses,"Deidre continued, "while the mere mortals on the outside fended for themselves. I knowit sounds incredible, but they have a complete alternate government-in-waiting downhere. Every-one from the President down through cabinet level secretaries has acounterpart. A complete parallel federal apparatus.""Is she serious?" Melissa queried incredulously, looking at Malcolm."You bet," he confirmed. "If all our top government officials were killed in somecatastrophe, their stand-ins would all be alive and ready to go right here.""All duly unelected, of course, and they have no term limitations, either. Themirror government also has representatives of five federal agencies—the FCC, theFederal Power Commission, Selective Service, and the VA—a complete good of boynetwork, " Deidre chimed in. "This base isn't even in FEMA's published budget.""Girl, how did you know that?" Malcolm quizzed her. "That wasn't part of thebriefing.""This isn't the first time I've been exposed to this place.""That's right," Brian recalled, "Father Benedict said he'd read an article on MountWeather.""Me too. Another thing they didn't bother telling us about the place was thatFEMA is under no congressional oversight; it answers only to the National SecurityAgency known by its fans as the `Puzzle Palace."'"What do they do here?" asked Brian."Several things I'm sure you would find interesting," Deidre quipped. "Accordingto their own PR, FEMA exists to manage national crises. So one of the things they dohere at Mount Weather is play "war games," studying various crisis models. Butaccording to that Time article Father Benedict alluded to, they primarily collect andprocess data on U.S. citizens. That article cited a Senate subcommittee report thatconcluded files on over 100,000 Americans are maintained here, and the place isnetworked to all the other national `relocation centers.' Mount Weather is basically onebig database for those who survive.""Survive?" There was alarm in Melissa's voice."Yeah," Malcolm picked up the discussion. "They monitor something called the`survivor's list' here. The government actually has a list of around 6,000 people deemed`vital' to the survival of the nation in the event of a catastrophe. Names, addresses, theworks.""Do I know anybody on it?" joked Brian."Look in the mirror," Deidre answered."You're kidding.""Nope," Malcolm said cheerily. "The Colonel told us we're all on it. I feel moresecure already. Anything happens to good old mother earth—that is, if ET all of a suddenwants to play nuclear chicken we're on the dole. It almost makes me want to plug my earswhen I hear that sucking sound of our tax dollars getting vacuumed down the black holewe call the federal budget.""Typical," Deidre said cynically. "Even if we fail in helping society transition to apeaceful existence with the Grays the government will still pay us. What a system."252