Secret

This party was surreal. I’m am not used to being around people right now, let alone 420 of them. I know that everyone was tested negative twice with some super accurate and super expensive test, but I still feel uncomfortable. The other Americans I talked to share my feelings, people from other countries too but a bit less so. I’ve been inside the vault one time before, and this time it seems to be more busy if anything.

We were in this sort of a very large plaza in the center of the city, and had been their for about two hours mingling.

I heard a suspiciously loud glass klink towards center of the plaza. Mr. Sanchez was standing on top of the ledge of a fountain, preparing to say some words. Everyone quieted down as Mr. Sanchez cleared his throat, his voice amplified through the plaza.

“My father always told me that this celebration replaced his birthday, because like a birthday, it is a celebration of how lucky we are to have survived this long. Seventy years ago, my father created the idea of The Insurance Company, and since then he and I have worked hard to change it to what it is today: both the world’s best kept secret, and an organization for good. My father was a good man, and without his dedication to altruism, none of us would be here, at a party in a town square three kilometers underground during a pandemic.”

Mr. Sanchez and the crowd chuckled.

“Everything about The Insurance Company is ridiculous, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.” Mr. Sanchez paused, and held up his glass, “Here’s to the last seventy years, and the hope we will survive in the future.”