by L K Hingey
Kimber knew that the borealis was not actually absorbing the reflected cosmic rays but was instead constantly interacting with geomagnetic interferences from the solar winds. The borealis, which had once been a rare and treasured sight to behold near the poles of the planet, had extended its dance into skies as far south and north as the equator. For ninety-seven years, it shimmered and flickered… its only audience now a group of grafted Auroras.
For decades leading up to the impact, the citizens of the Earth thought Elyria would be their Armageddon. It led to war so terrible that humans nearly caused mass extinction themselves. When the impact finally happened, and the sun swallowed the enormous half-frozen, half-scalded planet, many things did happen, but none of which involved an apocalypse. Instead, Earth experienced an awakening. The sun began to feed on the newly introduced Elyrian elements, and it grew in both luminosity and cosmic activity.
The energizing of the skies united what was left of the people against further war. The world rejoiced in peace and a new era of limitless energy. The borealis, which had begun to shine over the entire world, became the global symbol of hope, renewal, and abundance. No one expected the time of peace to be cut so short, and when the flare lashed out a mere seventy-seven years later, the apocalypse that people had once feared, was delivered.
Only now, Kimber thought to herself as she stared up at the false symbol of hope, she knew that the scientists had known a flare was likely. Kimber looked around her. Everything looked the same, yet it all felt so different. The world felt more sinister now than it ever had, and for the first time she was grateful not to be alone. She glanced over at Tristan who was lost in his own thoughts scanning the horizon.
Kimber thought about all they had learned in school. Not just her and her fellow Auroreans, but Caleb and the other human friends that she used to have. The time of the Harnessing had held so much promise and then, in a matter of days, the world was decimated. The flare of 2189 was not a traditional flare. It was of course only an explosion on the corona of the sun like all flares, but its magnitude and shape were unlike anything ever recorded in history.
The power behind this explosion, named the Elyrian flare after its parent planet, was unprecedented. Its form was quite extraordinary, taking shape as a loop which enabled it to hold its structure for days. Kimber shut her eyes and pictured the sequence of events. She did not normally dwell on the events that happened before her birth, but everything felt so raw now. It all felt so close to home. The flare, that had caused so much destruction on Earth, was nothing compared to the event that killed the planet Elyria; the fateful event that had set everything into motion over a million of years ago.
Elyria itself had been licked by the supernova of its own dying star, orbiting just far enough out of range to not be completely swallowed, but close enough to experience the full violence of the explosion. It was cast out of its own galaxy, one side charred, and the other side immediately frozen in the vacuum of space. By Newton’s Law, it remained in motion, careening through space for a millennium, rotating on its damaged and now asymmetric axis, until its lopsided path took it too close to another celestial body’s gravitational field. Much to the dismay of humanity, the celestial body that Elyria finally collided with, was none other than their precious sun.
The flare’s delivery of destruction was quite different from a supernova. There is far too much interstellar space between the sun and the earth for the heat from a flare to reach the Earth’s atmosphere. Science fiction had been written for hundreds of years about a flare scorching the Earth’s surface, but science itself had proven that space was simply too vast and too much of a vacuum for that to be possible. What was instead all too real, were the electromagnetic clouds that were projected from solar explosions, called coronal mass ejections.
Kimber tried to steady herself on the facts and the reasons behind the devastation, but they were not helping her feel more grounded. The more she thought about it, the more lost and angry she felt. These coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, were clouds of hyper-charged particles that contained enough energy to ionize any atoms it hit. They had first been recorded by a British astronomer named Richard C. Carrington in the year 1859 during an event which “lit up the night sky so brightly, a newspaper could be read.” Kimber grimaced. Too bad the Elyrian flare had not simply “lit up” the night sky.
The flare produced a CME so massive, that when the negatively charged cloud reached Earth four days later, slamming perpendicularly into the Earth’s magnetosphere, it pushed the magnetic shield behind the Earth. Without its shield in place, the Earth was left completely exposed to the Sun’s arsenal of ionizing radiation made up of ultraviolet rays, X-rays, and gamma rays. The ozone, which was the next layer of protection made up by delicate bonds of three oxygen molecules, O3, did not stand a chance.
The intensity of the ionization occurring in the upper atmosphere ripped the 03 molecules apart, allowing the full radiation of the sun to penetrate the surface of the world. The Bureau of Race Preservation had not stuck around to witness the fallout. Within hours of identifying the full magnitude of the flare, the plan to go underground before the CME reached Earth was being carried out. No one knew how long the flare had lasted because the tunnels of Inanna were sealed before it ended.
Kimber opened her eyes. A sadness washed over her as she looked out over the wasteland, feeling so much older.
“They predicted the flare you know,” Kimber said, staring out blankly.
“What are you taking about Kimber? Who predicted the flare?” Tristan asked, breaking out of his own trance.
“The Bureau. Which must now be council. The scientists. Hell, I’m not exactly sure, but they knew solar storms were increasing. They built Inanna for when, not if, a flare happened, Tristan. And when it did…” Kimber turned to looked at him, gulping to lower her rising voice. “And when it did, they didn’t tell anyone.”
“How do you know that? And maybe they didn’t know how to tell everyone. How do you tell eleven billion people they have four days before the most terrible cataclysmic event in history rains downs on them?”
Kimber had to turn away. He was right of course, but she was so angry that she did not want to defend the council even in the slightest. She wanted to blame them for Elyria. For the flare. For the radiation that had poisoned every living thing on the face of the earth resulting in global starvation. She wanted to hate the council, but deep down did not know if she would have done any differently than they had.
“Where are the others?” Kimber asked, kicking at the crusted earth.
“They are at the visitor’s center. Shelter One, we are now calling it,” Tristan replied, looking at her questioningly.
“Let’s go check and make sure everyone made it,” Kimber grumbled.
“Yeah. Hey...” Tristan started, concerned he had made her upset. “Are you okay?”
Kimber did not have to force a smile; a small one came naturally. He was being kind and clear-headed, and she knew she was being emotional. “Yeah. I have a long journey ahead of me that’s all. I have to go do some investigating, and I don’t think I’m going to like what I’m going to find.”
Tristan nodded. He did not pry into her thoughts and instead asked about the water purifier as they began to walk to the shelter. “Think it’ll work to get all the dirt and bacteria out?”
“Only one way to find out I guess,” Kimber shrugged and pulled the purifier out of her bag to look at it. “I’ll have to let you know after I cross water.”
Kimber fiddled with it for a moment, practicing unscrewing and screwing the contraption back together. She placed it back in her pouch as they continued to walk across the dried mounds of red dirt and rock, occasionally walking through a dried-up riverbed.
“Five years,” Tristan broke in. “Five years and I still am not used to the world up here.”
Kimber stared at the rocks below her feet and the ditches and gullies around her. They were in lower Kentucky of what had
been the United States of America, but the land did not look like the Kentucky in the Encyclopedias. After the Auroras had taken their first few excursions out of the caverns, Kimber had devoured every book she could get her hands on that contained information on mid and southeast America. Everything from Davy Crockett, to Huck Finn, to educational volumes on the natural history of the western hemisphere.
What she had found was not exactly shocking; it was just enlightening. The old world of Kentucky had been full of trees, shrubs, thorns, lakes, and animals. Squirrels, like the ones in the cavern’s zoo, used to roam and play freely. Kimber tried her best to imagine the cute little faces scurrying around in the fresh air. Snakes used to also live here, but nothing like the African species that the Auroras were grafted with.
Kimber tried next to envision Africa, the place across the ocean that had been more jungle than anything else. The animals there were colorful and vibrant, like her and her brothers and sisters. But now, that land too, resembled the pictures of Mars more than it did the pictures of old Africa. Kimber’s mind drifted back to the idea of an ocean. Perhaps there was still one there, separating America and Africa. Perhaps she would be the one to discover it.
The sun blazed overhead, piercing the earth around them. The theory the scientists in the Inanna currently held, was that the magnetosphere had returned to its natural place after the powerful squall line of the solar storm passed. The ozone on the other hand, had been so severely damaged that it would take hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of years to repair itself.
The key was to add oxygen into the air and then have a force of convection push the oxygen into the upper atmosphere. The natural process of ultraviolet light splitting the organic oxygen, O2 molecules, into free-ranging O1 molecules, would allow the bonding of O3 to start. The rebuilding of the ozone had already begun, but without an oxygen producing ecosystem, the process would be painfully slow.
Occasional windstorms, which then formed terrible sandstorms, would kick up on the surface due to the rapid heating and cooling of the Earth’s, now more vulnerable, atmosphere. This compounded the concern of the subterranean scientists because when the ozone disappeared, and with it every green thing on Earth, the soil lost its ability to retain moisture and nutrients. When the factor of the fierce winds was added into the mix, Kimber could see why it could take centuries for global vegetation to take root again.
“I’m almost a little glad we never saw the world with trees and greenery,” Kimber replied seriously after thinking quietly to herself. “I think it would be too much to handle.”
Tristan nodded. “At least it’s calm up here today. The storms drive me crazy.”
Kimber agreed with him on that. The ferocious winds would rip through the barren valleys, blowing in at hurricane speeds from the Appalachian Mountains to the east or from the lowlands to the west. So much dust and sand would be kicked up that it was hard to breathe, let alone see. They would always be forced to hunker down in whatever shelter they could find, even if all that was nearby was a ditch.
“Imagine if we had Met-blimps. Can you picture never having unplanned storms ever?” Kimber asked daydreaming about the giant meteorology machines.
Tristan groaned. “Oh, I can picture it. One flip of a switch and the dust storms would be gone. Let’s repair every blimp around the world and fix the weather!” He smirked as he pictured the skies filled with weather balloons.
Kimber smiled at him. “Okay. Nashville is the closest city with blimps... so we will start there and fix all of them before moving on to the next city.” She knew they were just dreaming. The big cities were the only ones that had the giant machines. The cities each had ten blimps and ten docking stations built around the city’s perimeter. Each blimp itself was the size of a football field.
“Too bad we are heading north not south,” Tristan said without skipping a step.
Kimber stopped walking. “We?” she asked shocked, “and how do you know I’m even going north?”
Tristan did not stop walking. He called back to her, “If you think I’m letting you go alone, you’re crazy. In the not-genius kind of way.” He turned around with a wink and then continued towards Shelter One.
Kimber frowned and followed him. She had not imagined having company. Deep down she felt a sigh of relief, but she did not want to show Tristan that she was scared or incapable of going by herself. She was trying to think of something smart to retort, but Tristan opened the door to the visitor’s center first. He held it open for her with a smile so genuine that it lit up his colorful yellow, green, and blue eyes and knocked any sassiness right off her lips.
Kimber didn’t have time to process their conversation because she was instantly greeted by a flurry of shimmering scales.
“Oh Kimber!” Naomi rushed up to her, fussing like always. “After you six stormed out of the address, Aaron had us wait for what felt like forever to give you guys a head start to the surface. We figured you would have beat us up here! You made me worry, you know.”
Renee had come up too and started to peer into Kimber’s bag. “Renee!” Kimber laughed exasperated.
“What? You are going somewhere, and I for one would like to know where,” Renee answered undeterred, now ruffling through the items in the pouch.
“Excuse me ladies,” Tristan said patiently from behind. He had been trapped by the door in the flurry of color and concern.
The girls smiled and moved into the center of the room where the rest of the Auroras were either standing, lying, or reclining. Kimber saw Zaak, Aaron, and the handsome Aurorean male with long dreadlocks, Aeneas, talking on the stoop of an unlit gas fireplace. Immediately Kimber asked, “Where are Eve and Raquel?”
“Eve is sleeping in the staff room. Raquel is watching over her,” replied Aaron.
Kimber cocked her head to the side. She thought back over the last few days. She had seen Eve several times and she had looked just fine. Actually, Kimber thought, Eve had been looking more than fine. She had been looking more colorful than normal, as if she had just gone through her own shed. Kimber had dismissed it as excitement during the address. Eve was a sweet girl but was known to be hot-headed and to wear her heart on her sleeve.
“Is she sick?” Kimber demanded sharply, immediately concerned.
“Not sick exactly,” Tristan cut in as he sat down with the boys at the fireplace.
“…Expecting.” Aaron finished for him.
Realization dawned on Kimber. Eve was pregnant! That was why Tristan had made such a bold move to get her out of the address while the council was preoccupied herding the rest of Inanna. Kimber apparently was not the only Aurora in danger.
“How did I not know about this?” Kimber asked in dismay.
“She told the surface crew right before the address… it was during your shed,” Tristan said softly.
“Yeah, while you were busy sneaking into the chamber of the Mothers,” Aaron added accusingly. His tone was light-hearted though and Kimber knew none of the Auroras minded her secret escapades to see Kimberly.
“Soo,” Kimber started, ignoring Aaron. “Which one of you is going to be a dad?”
Kimber’s stomach fluttered and she hoped the answer was not Tristan. She did not know why she cared. She didn’t even know him that well, but she knew she liked being near him.
“Um,” the boys said in unison and looked at each other.
“None of us,” answered Aeneas.
“Wait... do you mean what I think you mean?” Kimber asked, too stunned to say the words.
“Well, she’s not Mother Mary, so yes, the father is a human,” Aaron said tritely.
Kimber did not say anything. Her jaw was nearly on the floor. She turned to the girls and scolded them with a frown. They should have told her something this important! Kimber sank to the floor in a daze. She was trying to wrap her head around Eve’s predicament in lieu of the recent ordinances.
“Maybe, because this happened before the new laws, the council will grant an ex
ception and let the baby be raised amongst the human children... like we were.” Kimber was thinking out loud.
Aeneas scoffed quietly in a voice that carried notes of a melodic South-African accent. “Yes, when green things grow outside greenhouses, then maybe.”
Kimber had to hide her smile knowing that plants did grow outside the greenhouses. Remembering her own secret garden served as a gentle reminder to not be too harsh on the others for withholding Eve’s secret.
“They will be pretty angry after we walked out like that today. It’s going to take a fair bit of negotiation to come to a compromise with them,” Tristan said, ever level-headed.
“Then why walk out like that at all?” Kimber asked fishing for their reasoning. She would have done the same thing, knowing what she knew now, but wanted to hear the answer organically from the members of the group who would be representing them.
Raquel walked in from the staff room. “Because, if the proposals passed with no rebuttal, it would have been an automatic concession to the new laws. And who knows what that could mean for the baby,” she said quietly sitting down.
“Or for Eve,” Aaron added, nodding. “We have no way of knowing if they’d try to implement some kind of a punishment for the newly found ‘crime.’”
Kimber thought for a second and then spoke slowly and steadily, “Actually... I do have an idea what they would do. I need to tell you guys something, and then I need to take a small... vacation.” Kimber looked up at the girls behind her who had abruptly stopped their hushed chatter when they caught her fervent tone.
Kimber stood up and glanced down at Tristan. He nodded seriously, urging her to continue. “Everyone,” she began deliberately, “I have some news too.”
The room went silent and the twenty-one pairs of eyes with their slit-shaped pupils homed in on Kimber.
“I will be taking a trip; it will probably take about five days total. I am headed north to a military base. My mother told me something the other night that may be of incredible importance.” Kimber took a deep breath and continued. “The council, well some of them, I’m not sure how many, used to work in the Bureau of Race Preservation. My mother was one of the lead scientists in the facility.”