by A. G. Riddle
The landing in this escape pod is a lot smoother than the one James and I experienced in that makeshift return module the crew of the Pax rigged up.
Still, we take precautions. Both Gloria and I dress in our EMU suits, pressurize them, and strap in tight, preparing for the worst.
Through the porthole I see the sands of the Sahara and the beaches of southern Italy. The glaciers are receding. The ice is melting, flowing into the sea.
I don’t know if the world we’re returning to has gotten back to normal—in fact, maybe normal will never be the way it was. Maybe normal is something new. But as I look out, I’m hopeful that our new normal will take place in the light of day.
The quarantine seems endless. I lie in bed, in the hospital room, staring at the walls, waiting for the results. The room looks and feels the same as the one I spent so much time in after returning from the Pax. I was broken then. We were defeated. Nearly hopeless. Once again, I have a feeling of returning to the beginning, except now I’m filled with hope. I feel strong. And we are victorious. For now.
Finally, the doctor comes in and clears me.
Fowler arrives next and hugs me without saying a word. He holds me gently, for a long moment, then looks into my eyes, his misting over.
“You may be the luckiest astronaut in history.”
“Any astronaut with James Sinclair on their mission is lucky.”
“Very true. And speaking of, he’s been asking about you.”
He motions to the door. “But first, there’s some folks who want to see you.”
Madison, David, Owen, and Adeline burst in and surround me, like I’m the coach of a team that just won the Super Bowl. Seeing them is the only reward I need. They’re still a little thin, but they’re healthy, they’re alive, and we’re happy.
The tears start coming, and it feels like they’ll never stop.
My vision is blurry from the tears, but I can make out a figure in the doorway of the hospital room, hanging back. I wipe away the tears.
James. Smiling. Watching me hugging my family. But he’s my family too. I hold out an arm. He wades into us and hugs me.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“Missed you,” he says. “You’re late.”
My eyes have almost cleared of tears when another group arrives, waiting silently at the door, peering in. They’re family too. Harry is there, smiling wide, almost back to his normal weight. Grigory stands behind them, along with Izumi, Min, Charlotte, and Lina. They got home. My heart breaks all over. I wave them into the room, and I’m once again engulfed in a group hug.
Harry shakes his head ruefully. “Man, I knew you guys would hog all the glory. We should have never let you off the Pax.”
After the months in space, floating, using my legs and arms almost effortlessly, it’s a rude awakening being back in the gravity of Earth. It feels like the world is constantly pulling at me, like I’m wearing a lead suit.
James, limping himself, pushes me out of the hospital in a wheelchair. We ride in an electric car back to our habitat. The snow on the ground is melting now. It’s a mix of sand and ice. Sludge. It’s strangely symbolic of humanity: a mess, but a mess we can clean up. A mess that looks like it’s getting better. The sun shines bright overhead.
At home, we take a shower and slip into our own clothes and sit on the couch, silently reveling in this little slice of normal, this moment when the world isn’t ending and there are no secrets between us.
Oscar’s door looms off the living room, closed, a reminder that our victory came at a cost.
James glances over at the door and exhales heavily as I take his hands in mine.
“I’m sorry about Oscar.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about him.”
“It’s in the past.”
“And what do you think about my past?”
“I think the past is the past. I only care about the future.”
“So what does the future look like to you?”
“It looks like me and you, together, watching as many beautiful sunrises and sunsets as this life allows. We’ll work the details out as we go.”
Epilogue
The stairs creaked as James descended. The crates were heavy, and he was panting by the time he reached the cool, damp cellar. He placed the first crate on the work island and began unpacking it. It held food and water—enough for a few days—which was how long he thought the task would take.
In truth, he was unsure whether the process would even work. He had never attempted it. But three days later, his efforts had borne fruit.
He sat on a stool, performing one last inspection of his work. It was as good as it was going to get. Still, he was nervous as he spoke the commands.
“Wake up. Bring yourself online, identify, and voice-transmit status.”
Oscar opened his eyes.
“My name is Oscar. Backup restore completed successfully.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Going to NASA headquarters. Being backed up before the Spartan launch.” Oscar turned to James. “What happened, sir?”
“You saved us, Oscar. And we won. Welcome back.”
When James entered Lawrence Fowler’s office at NASA headquarters, he instantly knew something was wrong.
“What is it?”
“The analysis of the computer core from Sparta One is complete.”
“And?”
“The communication array did transmit a message.”
“A comm patch to the attack drones? Trying to cancel their strike?”
“No.” Fowler looked away. “It was a conventional broadcast.”
“Destination?”
“Out of the system. It’s encrypted. We’ll probably never know what it was, but one thing is certain: it was directed at someone far, far away.”
“The grid.”
“Probably.”
“They’ll come for us again. The harvester said they would. And that the next harvester would be more powerful.”
Fowler stood and walked around his desk. “Maybe. But that’s a problem for another day. Right now, we’re safe and warm. And we ought to enjoy it while it lasts.”
The house was full. Emma liked it that way.
Since returning to the three-bedroom habitat that she had shared with James and Oscar on the surface, she’d spent every waking hour decorating it. James had insisted that they bring the exercise equipment back. He wouldn’t budge on that point, and she had learned when to give in to his demands.
He had spent most of his time at NASA, working on a plan he called Solar Shield. He had left for only a week to, in his words, “see an old friend.” He was back now, but he had returned home from a meeting at NASA in a funk, as if a dark cloud was hovering over him.
He seemed more cheerful now, in the company of their family and friends. Abby and Alex were there, as were Jack and Sarah. Madison and David had come over with Jake and Adeline. The crew of the Pax were all in attendance too. Harry Andrews was manning the grill in the back yard, telling jokes and stories from their time on the Pax. Emma had heard all the stories a couple of times now, and they seemed to get a little more outlandish each time. In a few years, no doubt, the tale would be so large it would be more like a Star Wars sequel.
The sun was shining, and the snow was completely gone now. There was talk of people returning to North America and Europe and China. The world seemed new again. Anything seemed possible.
She was in the kitchen, prepping the salad, when James leaned in and whispered in her ear, “I’ll be right back. It’s a surprise.”
Abby, sitting at the kitchen table, raised her eyebrows.
Emma shrugged. “Knowing James, a surprise can literally, literally mean anything.”
Still, her jaw dropped when James reentered the house with Oscar following close behind.
The entire room fell silent. Emma realized that the crew of the Pax had never met Oscar. And she now knew what Oscar might represent to Alex.
Abby turned her gaze to her husband, who was holding a beer, frozen, paused in mid-sentence.
Alex glanced from James to Oscar, then he walked over to the two and held out his hand.
“Welcome home, Oscar. James told me what you did. Good job. I’m glad you were there.”
When everyone had left, James insisted on cleaning the house himself so Emma could rest. Oscar joined him.
When they were done, James entered the bedroom he shared with Emma, who was reading a novel on a tablet.
He plopped down on the bed and began pulling off his shoes. “Any good?”
“Just got to the good part.”
After a pause, she added, “I was really happy about what Alex said to Oscar.”
“Me too. We’re going to need a lot more like him.”
She sat up and set the tablet aside. “What do you mean?”
He looked back, seeming to remember she was there.
“Oh, nothing. Just saying, there’s a lot of work to do.”
She nodded, still feeling as though there was more to his words.
She was almost finished with the book when a wave of nausea swept over her. It was worse than anything she’d ever felt in space. It seemed to emanate from deep inside her and grip her entire body.
She stumbled on shaking legs to the bathroom, and just had enough time to close the door before the contents of her stomach emptied in the toilet.
James was up and at the door in seconds.
“You okay?”
She tried to clear the wretched contents from her mouth.
“Yeah,” she said between breaths, “I’m fine.”
“You think it was some food? Burgers were undercooked?”
“No. The food was fine. I think.”
“The salad?”
“James, I’m fine.”
“Call me if you need anything.”
She stayed by the toilet until she felt well enough to stand again. Then she reached into the drawer of her vanity and took out the home health analyzer. She touched it to her fingertip, and it extracted a drop of blood.
She sat on the toilet, staring at the display as it ran a series of tests.
When the results popped onto the screen, she scrolled by the blood chemistry and routine tests down to the infectious diseases panel, which read:
No pathogens detected.
She flipped back to the routine health checks. Cholesterol and white count were normal.
Her eyes grew wide when she read the last line:
Pregnant: Yes
The Story Continues
Read The Solar War, the thrilling conclusion to the Winter World two-book series.
More at:
AGRiddle.com/Solar-War
They decimated Earth during the Long Winter.
Now the Grid has returned, and they won’t stop until the last human is dead.
On a ruined world, humanity’s last survivors fight against impossible odds.
In their darkest hour, they discover a new hope for survival. But it comes at an unthinkable price, with consequences that will change everything.
AGRiddle.com/Solar-War
also by A.G. RIDDLE
The Origin Mystery
The Extinction Files
Departure
see more books by a.g. riddle at:
agriddle.com
Author's Note
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading Winter World. This is my seventh novel, and it was the hardest to write, mostly because of the events occurring in my life.
Novels reflect their creators. They’re a window into our beliefs, our fears, and our fascinations. And they sometimes evoke our state of mind at the time they were written. I wrote Winter World during the winter of my own life, a time when my mother was dying. She had just been diagnosed with a rare lung condition (two, actually: PVOD and PAH). She was sixty-four. We learned that there was no cure for her condition, and no treatment.
The only option for survival was a double lung transplant. So, even in her weakened state, with slim chances of survival, she came to live with Anna, Emerson, and me, and began pre-transplant rehabilitation in Durham several times each week. It was a long road to get her body in shape for the transplant. And once she accomplished that, getting listed on the transplant registry was another challenge. Perhaps the greatest hurdle was being selected for transplant. Rightly so, they select the patients in greatest need and with the best chance of survival. We waited weeks, then months, always on alert, ready for the call at any hour. She was hospitalized twice, and recovered both times. We all knew time was running out. The doctors at Duke were doing everything they could to keep her alive, but her body wasn’t cooperating. It felt like the light was going out on the person who had given me life, the center of our family, and the gravity around which we all rotated, the body that held our family together. Our world was slowly freezing and dying.
Then, unexpectedly, the call came at 2 am. By ten the next morning the transplant was complete. The hope we felt was indescribable, as if we had been pulled back from the edge of a cliff. She walked two days after her transplant. Things looked promising. Then fate intervened again. She experienced a rare post-transplant complication (hyperammonemia). And then another (thrombocytosis). Both times, the doctors took extraordinary measures that saved her life. But there was only so much they could do. Five weeks after the transplant, she passed away. Like the characters in Winter World, I felt as though the sun had gone out. The weeks after were the darkest of my entire life. I stopped working on the book, or doing anything else.
I felt my life would never be the same. Perhaps it won’t be. But eventually, I started writing again. I finished the novel and edited it and started going into the office again and out to lunch and doing the things I had done before. There were times when life was going right along and I would forget that she was gone; moments when I would take a picture of our two-year-old daughter playing and raise my phone to text it to her and only remember in that moment that I couldn’t send it to her, that the number that popped up would never be answered again.
Loss leaves land mines. They’re unavoidable. And they hurt, but you have to keep marching past them, knowing you’ll hit a few, but the person you lost would want you to.
Like the characters in Winter World, the sun is shining again in my life, but my world will never be the same. If you’ve experienced loss, I know what you’ve been through. If you haven’t, you will. And I hope you’ll remember this letter. The sun dims and sometimes it goes out completely. But the sun always rises again. Time heals all wounds, but enduring those times is what defines us. We have to take care of ourselves during the winters of our lives. I hope you will.
- Gerry
Raleigh, North Carolina 22 October 2018
Writing as A.G. Riddle
Acknowledgments
I couldn’t have completed Winter World without the extraordinary team around me.
My thanks first go to my wife, Anna, for her support during the incredibly trying period when I wrote this novel. The last few years have been difficult, far more taxing than most marriages could have survived, but I believe there are better times ahead.
I also want to thank my literary team, including Danny and Heather Baror, Gray Tan, and Brian Lipson. Writing is a solitary exercise, but being a successful author is a team effort. You all have brought my work to readers around the world and put it in front of film and tv studios. I’ll forever be grateful for your efforts.
David Gatewood edited this novel and made fantastic corrections and suggestions. Four other early readers made significant contributions that greatly improved the work: Lisa Weinberg, Judy Angsten, Fran Mason, and Carole Duebbert. A number of beta readers caught typos and issues we all missed, and I’m incredibly grateful to them as well. They include Kim Myers, Kristen Miller, Michael Gullion, Justin Irick, Teodora Retegan, Paula Thomas, Lee Ames, Julie Greenawalt PhD, Norma Jean Fritz, Cindy Prendergast, Michelle Du
ff, Kay Forbes, Sylvie Delézay, Sue Davis, Kris Kelly, Blake Rosier, Dave Renison, Aimee Hess, Karin Kostyzak, John Schmiedt, Gareth Thurston, Heather Leighton, and Skip Folden. Thank you so much for all of your time and work on my novels over the years.
And to you, my readers, without whom this show simply wouldn’t go on. Thank you for following my work.
- Gerry
About the Author
A.G. Riddle spent ten years starting internet companies before retiring to pursue his true passion: writing fiction.
His debut novel, The Atlantis Gene, is the first book in a trilogy (The Origin Mystery) that has sold over three million copies worldwide, has been translated into 20 languages, and is in development to be a major motion picture.
His fourth novel, Departure, follows the survivors of a flight that takes off in 2015 and crash-lands in a changed world. HarperCollins published the novel in hardcover in the fall of 2015, and 20th Century Fox is developing it for a feature film.
Released in 2017, his fifth novel, Pandemic, focuses on a team of researchers investigating an outbreak that could alter the human race. The sequel, Genome, concludes the two-book series.
His most recent novel, Winter World, depicts a group of scientists racing to stop a global ice age.
Riddle grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill. During his sophomore year in college, he started his first company with a childhood friend. He currently lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife, who endures his various idiosyncrasies in return for being the first to read his new novels.