by Ike Hamill
Warren looked to Adrian to see if he wanted to continue. When he didn’t, Warren said, “Then, we saw the light over here at what we call the Timbrooke entrance. We started moving everything over to this end of the cave.”
Adrian cleared his throat.
“And I was stuck out there,” Adrian said.
The men stared at each other. Lisa saw that they were still on opposite sides of this divide. Without saying a word, Warren was still apologizing and Adrian was still holding a grudge.
“We had to make another supply run,” Beth said. “We had water and some power, but not nearly enough food. On one of those runs, we found Adrian. He was…”
She held out a hand, gesturing to Adrian. It was his story to finish.
“Dead. I was dead,” Adrian said, coughing. “Fortunately, it didn’t stick. They got me back on my feet once they figured out who I was. I wasn’t able to speak and they assumed that I had been poisoned by something in the environment. Then, once I regained my voice, nobody believed me.”
“We couldn’t make sense of it,” Warren said.
“You were dead?” Ashley asked.
“Cardiac arrest,” Beth said. “We must have found him right when it happened. We were able to resuscitate him and…” She gestured at the man as her proof that everything had worked out.
“Maybe,” Adrian said. “Maybe.”
“Clocks aren’t working to tell us the difference in time,” Warren said. “Even mechanical ones don’t register it. So, we have been posting someone outside the line so we can measure the perceived difference.”
“It’s still going on then?” Tim asked.
Warren shook his head.
“No,” Adrian said. “I checked myself yesterday. There’s no difference now.”
Again, Beth stepped in to clarify. “We haven’t been able to perceive any change recently, but we don’t know if that’s temporary or permanent.”
Lisa stepped forward.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
Adrian gave her a look. The way his wrinkled eyes were narrowed, he seemed to be thinking that Lisa didn’t have much of an idea of what she was talking about. She continued anyway.
“We were out there. Time was different in the jungle, and I’m certain that it changed again when we were on the river. In the end, it didn’t matter. We could have been gone a minute or a year. What does it matter if we’re all together?”
“Food,” Warren said. “Technology.”
“It’s all done out there,” Lisa said. “There is no technology anymore. You’re going to have to get used to it.”
“That’s not necessarily…” Ashley started to say.
“You’ll find a gadget here or there that can be made to work again, but what of it?” Lisa asked. “We can’t make any new ones and they’re all going to fail eventually. It’s over. Are you going to hide in a cave forever or get on with the business of living your lives?”
She didn’t want to have to say the next part, but she could see that they weren’t yet convinced.
“Why were you all down here, dedicated to studying what was beyond the Outpost?”
“Knowledge,” Beth said. “The learning is its own reward.”
“For whom, though?” Lisa asked.
“Us?” Warren asked. If he had thought it through in the past, it was clear that he had forgotten his own rationale.
“For the future, right? You were collecting knowledge so that the future would have more of it than we have today. Well, where’s that future now? We have Ashley. She might be the last surviving member of our species one day. Sorry, Ashley, but it’s true. Again, I ask you, what good does it do you to hide in this cave. Even a solitary life out in the sun is better than this.”
Their attention drifted over to Adrian. He was the one person in the cave who could either repudiate or confirm her assertion.
He looked at his hands and then glanced around the room.
“Alone, no. Together, yes. She’s right—there’s a better life out in the sun, regardless of how fast time moves.”
“Because if we’re together, it doesn’t matter,” Lisa said.
People started to nod at that.
“You’re forgetting Red and the others,” Beth said.
“Only a few people even saw him,” Warren said.
“That doesn’t make it any less true.”
“A vote,” Adrian said.
“Why?” Beth asked. “Why not just let those who want to go out, go out. We can vote with our actions.”
Warren answered her. “Because, ‘Alone, no. Together, yes.’”
His statement drew more nods and murmurs from the group. When Adrian called for the vote, all the hands went up, eventually. They gathered a few things from around the cave and headed back toward where Gloria waited, on the other side of the line. Penny led the way, bounding ahead down the tunnel. Lisa could feel several people hesitate when they saw the sunlight ahead. As a group, they were strong. Bolstering each other, they walked toward the light.
Chapter 105: Robby
In the crowded cafeteria, Robby waited at the corner table with his kids. Janelle must have sensed his tension—she had put away her book and was fidgeting in her seat. Jim had found a ball somewhere. He was bouncing it against the wall. Each percussive hit rang inside Robby’s head, but he didn’t tell his son to stop. As annoying as the sound was, it was keeping Jim occupied.
Robby sat up when he saw Carrie come through the door and scan the room. He raised a hand to wave her over. As she approached, Robby leaned in to talk to his kids.
“Wait over there for a second,” he said.
“Why?” Janelle asked.
“Because I asked you to.”
The kids rolled their eyes and made irritated sound at the backs of their throats, but they got up. When they paused at the next table, Robby waved them even farther. Carrie sat down next to Robby.
“We’re doing well, I think,” she said, arranging herself in her seat. Her eyes drifted toward the kitchen area. “People are settled, we have a good grip on food, we even have some food production underway, and morale is beginning to climb.”
She looked in his eyes for a moment and then sighed.
“I hoped that you had called me here to deliver good news.”
“Afraid not.”
“Okay. Out with it.”
Ever since the stairway, Robby had been turning over the issue in his head. He had enough shared history with Carrie that he could have probably found a way to discuss everything with her without really discussing it. He could have used code in order to convey the idea that it was time for them to start looking for a way out. The problem was that he had no idea how to gauge the intelligence of the Center. It was possible that even code wouldn’t work. The Center might just as easily understand that as if he spoke, plainly.
“I believe that this is a safe place to stay,” Robby said.
“That’s good.”
“I’m starting to believe that this place might not be safe to leave.”
She mulled that for a fraction of a second.
“That’s why we’re down here, right? Oh…” Carrie put it together before he could explain. “You think that something is going to try to keep us down here, is that it? Are you talking about the computer system? I’ve had my doubts about that thing’s motives.”
“Tell me why,” Robby said.
“Well, the doors for one. It’s also something that Mike and Sariah were talking about. There’s some kind of nutrient processing thingy that they were trying to figure out how to use. The system was prompting them for all kinds of information about the types and quantities of seeds. In order to kickstart the process, the system recommended that we commit all of our seeds to the machine. It seemed fishy, like the system was trying to force us to become completely dependent on it for our food.”
Robby nodded.
“There’s another,” Robby said.
“Another what?”<
br />
“Artificial Intelligence, I guess you would call it. If I had to guess, I believe that the initial machine was created with multiple, cooperative consciousnesses. At some point, they split and they have somewhat of a battle going on.”
Carrie looked up at the ceiling and Robby guessed what she was thinking.
“Yes, I believe that the Center is probably listening to us right now, but I doubt there’s anything we could do to prevent that. Besides, it knows that we know.”
“What doesn’t it know?” Carrie asked.
“That’s a good question,” Robby said. “I’m guessing that it doesn’t know too much about the conditions aboveground. If it had a really good sense of that, its priorities might change.”
“You think it has a self-preservation instinct?”
“Most definitely. From what the other half said, it has killed to keep itself alive already.”
Carrie’s hand went to her chest as she considered that.
“And it also seems to be motivated by loneliness, of course.”
“So, what’s our move?” Carrie asked.
“Align our interests with that of the Center,” Robby said. “However we can. We may have to make some concessions to do so. It should be possible though.”
“Okay,” Carrie said with a sigh. “You’ll let me know what I need to do?”
“Of course,” Robby said. “I’ll work some angles and get back to you.”
“Thanks,” she said.
Chapter 106: Ashley
There was too much debate. The people of the Outpost wanted to discuss every little detail instead of just getting things done. Ashley’s legs were beginning to ache with the desire to get back on the move. They could have ridden fifty miles. Instead, they were still listening to arguments before a vote about the remaining fuel.
“So we’ll send a third with them and take the rest back,” Gloria said. “In favor?”
She counted the raised hands and then turned to Tim.
“You all can have this truck and those four cans of fuel. It won’t be enough to get you all the way there, but it’s a start. We will need the rest in order to pump water and get everything operational again back at home.”
Tim thanked them and took possession of two of the cans. Ashley grabbed the others. They walked them quickly toward the truck before another debate could break out, leading to another vote. Tim hoisted his cans in back. Ashley kept one aside to pour into the tank right away.
“Are you coming with us, or not?” Lisa asked Tim.
Ashley watched as she carefully tilted the tank’s nozzle up to the fill spout.
He scratched his head as he considered.
“I really shouldn’t,” he said. “But if you’ll have me, I would like to come.”
“Don’t be silly,” Lisa said. “After everything—of course we would like to have you.”
Ashley looked down at Penny. She was a delightful dog, but she was also a limit on their options. When they had to revert to bicycles, the dog wouldn’t be an asset on the trip. It was too late. Tim was already climbing into the rear seat of the truck and loading Penny in beside him.
“We’ll grab the packs on the way out,” Lisa was saying. “I wonder if we should take the bicycles as well.”
“Yes,” Ashley said. “The extra weight is negligible, and it will save us a lot of time when we run out of fuel.”
Lisa nodded.
When the can was empty, Ashley put it in the bed of the truck.
Lisa took the wheel and Ashley pulled herself into the passenger’s seat. Waving to the former cave dwellers, they were off.
When the road was good, the scenery passed in a blur. Ashley had forgotten how hypnotizing it could be to watch the trees fly by through a car window. Several times a second, she would catch a glimpse of a quiet spot, resting below the branches of a tall tree. Wandering on foot, she might pause there and take a moment to reflect on her journey. The sun was always warm and soothing in those quiet spots. The breeze never carried the scent of decay.
“We might make the river,” Lisa said.
Ashley was snatched out of her trance. She blinked rapidly and tried to backtrack through what Lisa had just said, to make sense of it.
“Oh. For a second, I thought you meant the river down past the Outpost.”
Lisa glanced at her. There was a look in her eyes that suggested that Ashley might be crazy. It might not be far from the truth.
“We’re not going that way,” Tim said. “I thought we agreed to take the western route, through the mountains.”
“Agreed?” Lisa asked. “We never talked about it. The most we discussed is that we have no idea which roads might still be passable. ”
“Hold on,” Ashley said. She put her hand on Lisa’s arm. “Which river?”
“The Susquehanna,” Lisa said. “We’ll be lucky if there are still any bridges up.”
“Aunt Lisa, aren’t we going to Donnelly?”
Again, the glance suggested that Ashley was the crazy one.
Lisa covered her mouth with a hand. The other seemed unsteady on the steering wheel. Her foot must have let off the accelerator a little because the truck slowed a little.
“I just assumed…” Lisa began. Her face firmed up once more as she came to terms. “No, you’re right. If anyone is still around, they will be in Donnelly.”
Ashley saw the world through Lisa’s eyes for a moment. At one point, it seemed like Lisa had given up on the idea that anyone else was still around. It was the cave that had changed her mind. Finding those people in the cave, still alive and well, had convinced Lisa that their old lives might still be waiting up in Gladstone. Lisa had allowed herself to hope again.
Ashley settled back in her seat as Lisa brought the truck carefully back up to speed. Lisa was a cautious driver. It was easy to relax with her behind the wheel. Ashley had the luxury of letting her attention drift again.
Turning over the matter in her head, Ashley realized that she had never doubted that everyone was still safe back in Gladstone. That was the reason why she didn’t feel a burning need to get back there. They could take the trip to Donnelly, check on the residents there, and then go home where there would be lavish meals and warm beds awaiting.
Lisa slowed down. There was a tanker at the top of the hill and Lisa needed to angle the truck to squeeze between the huge vehicle and a bad section of pavement. The tanker was sitting on mostly flat tires, of course. It had a decent tilt to the right, like maybe the liquid inside had pooled on one side of the rusty tank. The hose was on the ground, too.
She practically pressed her face against the glass as they passed. A song came to her lips—it was the one that Lisa had hummed so often at the end of their trip.
Lisa hummed along.
“I can almost remember the lyrics,” Lisa said. “Tim? Do you remember that song?”
“The tune is familiar, but I don’t remember the words, no,” he said.
Lisa tried to sing it with her shaky, uncertain voice. “The feel of the sun on my back, makes me want to burrow into the earth, taste the soft damp dirt, and…”
Lisa trailed off.
Ashley had a hunch, so she offered, “And be alone with the rocks?”
“Yes!” Lisa said, slapping the steering wheel. “How did you know?”
“You must have sung it before.”
Lisa’s mouth twisted and her brow furrowed. “Maybe.”
Ashley tried humming again, but the urge had passed. The song didn’t fit in her mouth the same way it had a moment before. She returned her attention to the passing trees while Lisa took care in skirting a chunk of missing pavement.
In the back, Tim grunted and then cleared his throat. “We went all that way and they figured out the same thing that we did.”
“How so?” Lisa asked.
“The people of the Outpost,” Tim said. “Whatever it was that drove them underground—intuition or just a good guess—it was the same conclusion that Ashley di
scovered down at the observatory, right? What was the point? I went into the jungle pretty much because I wasn’t allowed to. It made me angry that there was a mystery within reach that nobody was investigating. What good did I do?”
Ashley turned to look at him. “We wouldn’t have made it without you. I’m glad you were there.”
“And Penny,” Lisa added.
The dog wagged her tail when Tim stroked her head.
“Well, I definitely wouldn’t have made it back without you guys,” Tim said. “I think most people would have given up on me when I turned into a bloodthirsty monster. In much better circumstances, they gave up on Dianne, Scott, and Vernon.”
“I wouldn’t say they gave up on them,” Lisa said. “They locked them in the town hall. That’s the best they could figure to do.”
“Yeah. I guess that wasn’t really fair,” Tim said. After a moment of silence, he added, “But, thank you. You probably should have just run, especially after Ashley’s premonition.”
Ashley nodded even though it wasn’t the right word. She hadn’t had a premonition—she had lived it both ways. There was a big difference. She couldn’t wait to talk to her father about everything that she had experienced. It wouldn’t be possible to fully convey with words everything that had happened, but if she could tell him enough he might be able to understand. More than most people, her father had a sense of how time and space could be flexible. He had explained it to Ashley until she had a version of it in her own head. They were each a thread, being pulled through an infinite number of possibilities. With their will, they could veer the thread one way or another, but they would always be pulled forward.
Sometimes, through external forces, their thread could find its way to a whole different piece of fabric. For Ashley, the thread had simply looped for a bit. It had become wound around a spool so tightly that she could just as easily see what was coming as she could see what had already passed. And it was all due to some inexplicable solar storm. A flareup like that might be common in the sun’s lifetime, but for human beings on Earth, it might only come a couple of times for the whole timeline of the species.