The Girl Who Found the Sun

by Matthew S. Cox

  Storage drawers held the various pieces of clothing they’d been given, two extra jumpsuits each for Raven and Sienna, dresses, shorts, and tank tops for the kids, along with an astonishing amount of inside pants, which people here called underwear. Sienna made a joke about not having time to wash Tinsley’s laundry, since those rags would surely remain in the Arc indefinitely.

  Raven tried to figure out sleeping arrangements, expecting she’d take one of the bunk spots with Tinsley, unless she and Ariana—the two smallest—wanted to split one. The boys already voiced claims on the upper bunks, and she had the feeling Cheyenne wanted to stay close to Sienna. She’d been with her the longest despite being a year younger than Josh. The boy had been six when his father died and he moved to stay with them.

  Cheyenne didn’t know the true identity of her parents, and hadn’t taken learning they didn’t want her well at all. On the walk to the pod, she’d muttered to Josh about hoping the cougars ate them on the way here if Raven convinced everyone to come. The boy responded with ‘what parents? Sienna’s our mom.’ Both Sienna and Cheyenne had been teary ever since.

  From what Raven had thus far seen of Oasis, it exceeded the Arc handily in terms of technology, but fell short of the world before the collapse. Had the scientists not left the Arc, the gap between her home and this settlement might not have been noticeable. Once she got settled in with their technical team, hopefully, they’d teach her new things and she’d have a better understanding of how the dormant machinery on Arc level six compared. Most of the machines that produced electronic components, medical equipment, and other more advanced items seemed far too large to be moved, but it might be possible to disassemble them. Hauling such heavy things up from six stories underground without elevators might, however, be impossible.

  Tinsley’s somberness at the idea of her going back to the Arc to get everyone faded somewhat when some other children who lived in nearby pods showed up at the door, curious about the new arrivals. The kids ended up going outside to play in a group of at least twenty. Raven could scarcely believe her eyes at seeing a pack of kids that large. Watching her daughter and the others from the Arc laughing and racing around after a ball across open grass brought tears of happiness to her eyes.

  Guilt sat at the pit of her stomach, however. Every minute she spent there felt like she tried to cause the deaths of everyone back at the arc. One of the Oasis security officers would show up in the morning, ready to go with her. Part of her wanted to leave right away, but she also knew her body needed a night of proper rest.

  The vastness of Oasis made the idea of a single centralized cafeteria impractical. They divided the town into districts, each arranged around a central area containing a place that served food, a well or water tank hooked up to the narrow pipes going overhead, one or more storage areas for clothing distribution, and a small security station. Oasis did rely on a centralized school, which required some children living near the edges to walk roughly a mile.

  In talking with Paul, she’d discovered her father’s notion of their location had been reasonably accurate. This area used to be called Pennsylvania, the ruined bits of high-rises to the west of the Arc, a city once known as Philadelphia. According to him, the heat and climate around here came closer to what people living hundreds of miles south would’ve known before the event she thought of as the Great Death. None of the scientists in Oasis thought mammals existed any further south than about 200 miles from here before the temperatures became too hot. Apparently, the ocean had also once been much farther east from where it started. Some of the scouts reported finding the sea only a week’s walk from here, farther east.

  A desire to go look at the ocean stirred somewhere inside her, a temptation she blamed on her father. Unlike him, however, she needed a better reason than curiosity to leave her child behind. Finding a safe place to live qualified, as did trying to save the people still in the Arc.

  Another surprise Oasis had: working clocks. The food stations began serving the dinner meal at 6:00 p.m., and remained open for two hours. Feeling a bit like she’d fallen asleep and gone into a dream world, she followed Sienna outside to collect the kids and go for food.

  The contents of the plastic meal tray left her, Sienna, and all five kids baffled. The main partition held clumps of pale, stringy something covered in a light brownish sauce. Another area had beige goo that smelled like potatoes but looked nothing like them. Green beans, at least, she recognized.

  Josh, the least shy of their group with the possible exception of Tinsley, nudged a man sitting next to him. “Umm, what is this?”

  “Chicken, mashed potatoes, and beans.” The man, who had the darkest skin Raven had ever seen, smiled at him, then looked over at Sienna and her. “Don’t recall seeing you before. I figured you moved across from the other side, but if ya don’t know what chicken is, maybe not.”

  Ice broken, Raven allowed herself to fall into a friendly conversation with some of the locals. They appeared astonished to learn that she’d come from the Arc and that none of them ever ate meat before. The kids adored the taste of chicken, but Tinsley and Ariana flipped out when the man, who introduced himself as Anson, mentioned that they sometimes had rabbit for dinner. Deer meat also made a frequent appearance. That elicited sad looks from the kids, but not the same protest as talk of having rabbit. Naturally, Xan randomly made comments wondering what ‘bunny sandwiches’ tasted like, mostly to mess with the girls.

  After dinner, they returned to their pod—following a brief period of being lost among the dwellings—and settled in for the night. Raven ended up yielding the big bed to Sienna. The boys took the top bunks, Raven on the lower left under Xan with Tinsley attached to her side. Cheyenne indeed shared the bed with Sienna, leaving little Ariana a bed to herself beneath Josh.

  Even though they’d only been outside for three days, stretching out on an actual mattress felt like paradise—as did not wondering if she’d wake up. Even though it lacked the blanket-snuggling coolness of her underground quarters, this pod, with its open windows and outside air, wouldn’t suffocate her.

  Morning came with a fair amount of shouting over bathroom access.

  The boys and Tinsley wanted to just go outside, but questioned if that would be as wrong as randomly peeing on the floor in the Arc. Raven told them to wait and be civilized, since they’d found an actual town and weren’t out in the wilds.

  Breakfast consisted of toast and preserves. Their new home had a small hot plate and working electricity. Bread didn’t require refrigeration and the preserves came in plastic jars small enough to be entirely used up for one meal. Those, too, didn’t need refrigeration until after being opened.

  Over the meal, the kids chattered about their excitement at living above the ground. Josh gushed at how beautiful the sky was. The girls went on and on about cute furry creatures. Xan mostly appeared to like having tons of other people around, since it made him feel less like humanity would die out.

  “Way to make everything sad.” Cheyenne tossed a hunk of toast at him.

  “Didn’t mean it that way.” Xan picked up and ate the piece. “It’s nice. Way less lonely.”

  “Do you have’ta go back?” asked Tinsley.

  Cheyenne fidgeted. “Seems kinda silly to find a place like this then leave.”

  “I’m not leaving.” Raven exhaled. “It would be really evil of me to stay here and let everyone left in the Arc die. You don’t think everyone back there deserves that, do you?”

  “No…” chimed the kids in unison.

  “Not everyone,” whispered Cheyenne.

  “You don’ deserve to die either,” said Tinsley.

  Raven did her best to reassure them she’d be careful, but the kids kept quiet after that, eating without looking up from their food.

  A knock at the door broke the silence a few minutes later.

  Tinsley leapt out of her chair and jumped into Raven’s lap.

  “I got it.” Sienna, who’d put on a dress for the
first time in her life, padded across the room to the door.

  An athletic man in his mid-twenties with a sharp jawline and a small notch of a scar an inch below his left eye stood outside, his beige jumpsuit mostly covered by a poncho colored in a dappled pattern of greens and browns. He wore a backpack and carried a second one. A thin pipe stuck up over his shoulder next to the pack, held in place by a brown strap across his chest. At the sight of Sienna, the man’s pale blue eyes gave off warmth and sincerity. “Morning. Are you Raven?”

  “No, I’m Sienna.”

  “Oh. Hi.” He set down the second backpack to free up his right hand, which he held out in greeting. “I’m Kyle. Supposed to go with Raven to the old arcology site?”

  “Yeah.” Raven stood, holding Tinsley. “That’s me. I hope they’re not forcing you to go.”

  “No. Asked for volunteers. Both of my great-grandparents came from there. Kinda curious to see it and well, see something that far outside Oasis. I already packed some provisions for us both.”

  No guilt since he wanted to go, right? “Give me a moment. My daughter’s a little upset.”

  Kyle stepped inside. “Not a problem. It can be scary out there, but she doesn’t need to worry.”

  “Why not?” whimpered Tinsley. “There’s cougars.”

  He smiled at her. “You guys got here okay and you didn’t even know where you were going. The two of us can cover ground a lot faster than you can with little legs, right?”

  Tinsley bit her lip.

  “I’m also a scout. I’ve been out into the woods a day or so in every direction. Cougars aren’t too much of a problem. They usually aren’t interested in people. Make a lot of loud noise and they’ll usually run. Best to stay upright. Don’t crouch or get low, or the cats can mistake us for deer. Their usual prey isn’t as tall us we are, so it confuses them.”

  “You should bring Chey.” Josh grinned. “She can scream so loud their ears will explode.”

  Cheyenne glowered at him, but didn’t say anything despite looking insulted.

  “There’s ferals, too.” Tinsley sniffled.

  At seeing confusion in Kyle’s eyes, Raven said, “Wild man.”

  “Oh, them. I can handle two or three. They’re not interested in a dangerous opponent.” Kyle winked at her. “I’ll get your mom back here okay. Promise.”

  “The trip back might take a while longer since there are some older people… if they’re still alive.” Raven gave Tinsley a squeeze and handed her off to Sienna. “The longer it takes us to get back, the more people could be hurt.”

  Xan scrambled out of his chair and speed-limped over to his bunk. He rummaged something out of his satchel before rushing over to Raven. “Here.”

  She looked down at his hand, a hot pepper in his palm.

  “For the cats. Just chew it up and spray it in their eyes.” He grinned.

  “Maybe you can do that.” She gently pushed his hand closed around it. “Eating that thing whole would do more damage to me than the cat.”

  “Mommy?” asked Tinsley.

  “Yes?”

  The girl grasped the collar of her jumpsuit and pulled her close. “Please don’t do what grandpa did. You gotta come back.”

  For roughly twenty seconds, the people remaining in the Arc faced certain death. Once Raven’s guilt crash subsided, she mentally talked her confidence back into fighting trim and convinced herself she couldn’t simply stay here yet.

  “Hmm.” Sienna glanced back and forth between Raven and Kyle. “You two off alone in the forest together? Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  Raven barked a laugh while simultaneously crying. “Thanks. Needed that.” She kissed Tinsley on the head. “Be good and stay here safe, okay? I promise we’ll be back before you know it.”

  The child’s huge brown eyes accused her of saying the same thing Dad did, but she merely nodded. “Okay. Please come back.”

  37

  Weapons

  Biting doesn’t work too well for humans, so we invented stabbing, which soon became stabbing people far away with arrows. Then some genius came up with gunpowder, so we could stab people really far away. Somewhere after that came bombs and pumpkin spice. I’m not sure which one caused more casualties. – Ellis Wilder.

  Standing around caught in an endless loop of overthinking would end up killing people.

  Raven hurried outside, grabbing the spare backpack on the way out the door. She hadn’t yet gotten used to wearing a jumpsuit. Not having a loosely draped poncho getting in the way of her arms all the time threw her off guard and got her wondering why Kyle wore one. The backpack, about half the size of the one the boys carried here, didn’t weigh too much, but it also got in the way of the katana. She rearranged the cord harness, tying it around her waist so the scabbard hung on her left side. It didn’t drag on the ground like she thought it would, but came pretty close.

  “So, how far a walk is this gonna be?” asked Kyle. “They didn’t give me much information.”

  “Took us three days to get here, but I’m sure the two of us can go much faster. Kids don’t walk as fast and need breaks more often.”

  “Right… what made you risk taking the little ones along on a journey like that?” He whistled. “Things must be bad where you came from.”

  “I wasn’t planning to. Set off alone hoping to make good time, but Sienna got spooked. The kids were all woozy and passing out. Looked like oxygen deprivation, so she grabbed them and snuck out.”

  “Oxygen deprivation…?” He scratched his head.

  “Do you know about different gases? CO2, oxygen, that sort of thing?”

  “Not really.” He swung the pipe off his back, which turned out to look an awful lot like how she imagined a gun. “I can whip up a mean batch of powder though.”

  Raven stared at the weapon, not sure how to feel about it. Her tech side marveled at the object, which had obviously been hand made from steel tubing machined to size. It appeared to consist of a single, long pipe fitted with a latch at the back end connected to a wooden stock and pistol grip. The only familiarity she had with firearms came from reading novels. This thing didn’t have any of the openings or little switches on the side, merely a barrel, grip, and trigger.

  The part of her not admiring its engineering wanted to back away before it hurt someone.

  “It’s a gun.”

  “Yeah.” She shifted her stare from it to his face. “I figured that.”

  “This is why I’m not worried about cougars or ferals.”

  “Ever see one before?”

  “You’re talking about the gun, right?”

  He laughed. “Yeah.”

  Raven turned her head to hide her impish smile. “No. But I’m familiar with the concept. An explosive chemical propellant accelerates a metal projectile fast enough to destroy whatever it hits.”

  “It uses gunpowder to lob a slug.”

  She glanced at him. “That’s what I just said. Are you playing with me or should I start using smaller words?”

  “Kinda playing with you, but I don’t really do the science words thing. School and me didn’t get along. That’s how I ended up as an officer, breaking up fights and roaming around the woods.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “What did you mean when you said your friend had to sneak out? Did she not have permission to take those kids?”

  Raven shook her head rapidly. “No… they’re her kids in every sense except biology. She’s our only teacher and people in the Arc have babies mostly because Noah tells them to. Except for Josh, their birth parents didn’t want them. His died. Tinsley’s my actual daughter, but her father’s a piece of shit. I said sneak because it’s one of our rules that people aren’t allowed outside.”

  “So you both snuck out?”

  “Not exactly. I got the okay, but I would’ve done it anyway.” She grinned.

  Kyle exhaled. “Damn. Why the heck would it be against the rules to go outside?”

  “Because N
oah, our version of Tess, still thinks it’s deadly out here. He’s a bit of a chicken.”

  “Hah. What’s your plan if he refuses to let people come back to Oasis?”

  She raised her arms to either side and let them fall against her body. “I’m kinda hoping that seeing you will shatter his little mind. He also believes we’re the only humans left alive on the planet.”

  “Interesting. I’ve never shattered a mind before, unless you count shooting a deer in the head.”

  Ick. Food though… She doubted she could kill an animal herself without being at the edge of starvation, but she wouldn’t have a problem eating meat. “So, I guess you know how to fight?”

  “Yep. They train us and we practice at least once a week. Not sure why. It’s almost like Julie expects some other town to have an army and come after us, but I suppose it’s better to know how to fight and not use it than get caught off guard.”

  “Or you could just flail at someone with a sword.” She laughed. “Found this thing on the way here. Never got into a fight before that feral jumped on me.”

  “Doesn’t seem like it would be too complicated.” He made a stabbing motion.

  They walked among the residence pods, occasionally waving at people going about their day.

  “It’s a lot more involved than that. I mean, it is if you fight someone else with a sword who knows how to use one. There’s all sorts of stuff like parries and ripostes and feints. This type of sword is even harder to use because there are like three different stances and each one has a whole different set of moves and countermoves.”

  “Whoa. Where’d you get that from?”