by Andrew Gates
How long has it been since she learned the news about her dad? Iris struggled to remember. It was almost impossible to keep track of anything anymore. Had it been days? No, no, we just met the other survivors, Iris recalled. That had to have been a few hours ago. Or was it yesterday?
Iris remembered events, but not time. She remembered Ryan telling them the story of their escape. He spoke about finding Trace in the escape pod bay, saving him from the crowd and leaving the station. Was that before or after Dan told our side of the story?
She also remembered Dan telling the new survivors the tales of their adventure. Everyone was walking along the beach after a brief stop for food. Dan was loud and expressive as he regaled his audience about Iris leading them to the pods, setting up the HPE, discovering the cave, springing a mantis trap, escaping death, discovering a city, learning that the station had been underwater for thousands of years, even about the mysterious footprints.
When was that? Was that today? She felt like she was having memory loss.
Warm wind blew up against Iris’s cheeks, suddenly bringing her out of her thoughts. She shook her head as she came back to reality. Her eyes still rested upon Ophelia, who had not moved.
“Hey Iris, can you hear?” someone shouted.
She turned to face whichever person was talking to her.
“What?”
“I was asking you if you wanted to do the honors. This was your idea after all,” Dan explained. He held a stone in his outstretched hand.
I must have zoned out longer than I thought, Iris realized.
“Sure!” she said, walking his way. She reached out and grabbed the stone from him. It was time to rescue those survivors.
Greyson, Ryan, Garren, Tobias and Felix all splashed sand onto the fire to put it out. After a few seconds, the flames died away. They pushed the logs and sand aside, revealing the window.
“Go for it!” Garren said.
Iris swung. The first hit left a crack in the window. She pulled her arm back further this time and brought it down. The crack got bigger. On the third hit, a number of small cracks branched off from the big one. On the fourth hit, everything shattered.
The group cheered. Cold air blew against her. It was freezing and for some reason, the smell was revolting. Iris instinctively closed her eyes, though she was not sure why. When she opened her eyes again, she saw a naked man lying atop a pile of objects. He was paler than any living human she’d ever seen in her life.
Naturally, she shrieked.
Dan rushed in and pulled her back. His presence was comforting, though unneeded. It only took her a few seconds to realize that this man was dead. There was nothing to be afraid of.
“What is it?” Greyson shouted from behind.
“It’s a dead man. That’s it. There’s just one person in here!” Dan answered.
Iris did not understand how that was possible. The pods were designed to carry a minimum of six passengers. They should’ve gotten more people out.
“It’s Zhang!” Garren realized.
“Who?” Greyson asked.
“Andrew Zhang, one of our fellow Navy,” Ryan replied. “We entrusted him to ensure our equipment made it up safely. He appears to be dead, though he also appears to have accomplished his mission.”
Iris could hardly believe what she was hearing.
“Excuse me, but are you saying you ordered this man to go into the pod alone?” she asked.
Ryan nodded before reaching into the window and pulling out the dead man’s body. Rina ran up and helped him carry the corpse. They set him down on the sand.
“Why would you do that?” Iris wondered. She was furious. “This pod could have been used to save lives. Instead, you wasted it on carrying your equipment!”
“Look, I’m amazed you all lasted so well up here on your own these past few days, but I wasn’t about to enter a whole new world unarmed,” Ryan argued as he reached through the broken window and pulled out a box labeled ammunition.
Iris was about to strike the man, but Dan held her back. She had never wanted to hit someone so badly in her life.
“Is that what you brought up here?” Selena asked from behind. “Guns?”
“Mostly. But we have other important things as well. Medical equipment, batteries, lights, extra food-”
“But not human lives!” Iris added. She could hardly contain her rage.
“Look, I don’t need to be lectured!” Ryan replied.
“That man… how did he die?” Jallah asked, completely changing the subject.
Ryan set down his box of bullets and studied the body for a few moments. He shook his head and then looked up at Tobias, as if expecting his answer. The red-haired man meticulously examined the corpse for a few moments and then turned to analyze the interior of the pod. He stuck his head in like he was trying to feel the air.
“It’s cold,” he said. “It looks like he had the air conditioner running on high. Maybe you were right after all. Zhang didn’t shut the energy down. He used it all up.”
“I never thought I’d see the day when you tell me I was right and you were wrong,” Ryan said.
“Well it looks like that’s the case,” Tobias replied.
“Why would he do that?” Rina asked.
“Hypothermia,” he answered. “We all had it when we first entered the pod. Zhang must’ve had it too. That explains why he’s naked. He was trying to get colder. It looks like he killed himself doing so.”
“I thought you were supposed to get hot when you have hypothermia,” Margery stated.
“That’s right, but when you have hypothermia, your body reacts in odd ways. Often the body feels like it needs to cool down, not heat up. It plays strange tricks on the mind,” Tobias explained.
Iris recalled her own experience with hypothermia. It had nearly killed her too. She did not want to deal with that ever again.
But that wasn’t important right now.
“Let’s not get off topic here!” Iris shouted, trying to bring the conversation back. “Let’s not forget that you just wasted a perfectly good escape pod to get your guns out.”
“So that we can be safe!” Ryan argued.
“Iris, I understand you’re upset. I am too. But what’s done is done,” Dan said, trying to reassure her. Iris was appalled that he would react so calmly to this.
“Don’t take their side, Dan.”
“I’m not! I’m just saying we can’t do anything about it now. There’s no sense fighting.”
“No sense fighting? So now you want to avoid conflict?” Selena asked, jumping in. “How many times have you and I disagreed since we’ve arrived on the surface?”
“This is different, Selena. We can’t change this!” Dan argued.
Suddenly more voices jumped in. Like always, Iris got lost in it all. She could not differentiate one speaker from the next.
Dan moved away from her and walked to Selena. Iris did not need his restraint anymore anyway. She no longer wanted to strike Ryan. She just wanted to scold him instead.
“You selfish trog!” she shouted to the lieutenant.
Ryan ignored her and crawled into the pod through the open window. He rummaged through the enormous pile of equipment. It was so high that he could practically swim in it.
“Doesn’t it matter to you that you could have saved more lives?” she shouted, not willing to get ignored so easily.
“Look, Iris,” Ryan said as he exited the pod. He now carried a large rifle in his hands. “If it means anything to you, your friend, the one with the bad leg, he helped pack this thing.”
Iris could hardly believe what he was saying.
“Trace? Trace helped you?”
Ryan nodded.
“We had a lot of equipment with us, as you can see. Each of us carried several weapons, med-packs and other supplies. We knew we couldn’t take it all with us in one escape pod. So we decided to put the equipment in one pod and ourselves in the other.”
“Why not do half a
nd half?” Iris asked.
“What if we didn’t make it up? If half of us died, that wouldn’t do much good, would it? Three people. Not good odds. We wanted it to be all or nothing.”
“Then what about Zhang, huh? How come he was all alone?”
“Zhang volunteered! Don’t put that on me. We needed someone to stay behind and make sure your friend launched the pod correctly. And he did, evidently.”
“But there was room!” Iris shouted. She could feel tears coming down her eyes. “Room for other survivors! For Trace! You could have just left some of this stuff behind!”
The group became silent now. It seemed that last outburst managed to shut everyone up for a moment.
Ophelia came running in. Her face was red and tears streamed down her cheeks. She embraced Iris and sobbed into her grey jumpsuit. Iris held onto the girl and stood still. For a moment, nobody moved. Nobody said a word.
They could have saved Trace.
She felt overwhelmed. People were looking at her, Ophelia was in her arms and she felt a bubbling rage. I need to remove myself, she thought.
Iris stepped off to the side and pressed on Ophelia’s back, prompting her to move with her. They walked away from the group and found a quiet spot a few meters away on the beach. They sat down.
The girl still had tears in her eyes, but she was quiet. It seemed her crying had stopped.
Relax. Decompress. Forget about everything, Iris told herself. She closed her eyes. The breeze was still warm from the fire. She could still smell the smoke too. It would probably take some time before the air around them went back to normal. She opened her eyes again. It was bright.
Neither of them said anything for almost a minute. They simply sat there, gazing at the waves as they rolled in. Iris took a deep breath. Then Ophelia turned to her and smiled.
“Thanks,” she said.
Iris nodded.
“Are you okay?”
Ophelia shrugged.
“I guess so. It’s hard dealing with this news. Thank you for sympathizing.”
“It’s not an effort. I really do sympathize. Trace was close to you. If he could have been saved, he should have been, along with at least five other people!”
“But he chose not be saved though,” Ophelia said. “He could have jumped in that pod if he really wanted. But he helped them send it off instead. Do you think he just didn’t want to come to the surface?”
Iris sighed. That was a hard question to answer.
“Your dad was badly injured. I don’t think he thought he would last long up here. I think he was worried he would end up just like that man there,” she said, pointing to the pale corpse on the beach.
“So he made sure the others got out instead?”
“Yeah,” Iris confirmed. “That’s what I think. And as much as I disagree with it, I guess he thought sending these guys up with all these guns was a good idea.”
“Maybe he just wanted to keep us safe. Maybe he knew the Navy guys would find us,” Ophelia suggested. “He wanted us to use these supplies too!”
Iris had to admit, that idea made sense.
“Maybe,” was all she said in return.
They both took a deep breath at the same time and sat quietly again for a moment. They looked out at the water again and then back to each other.
“Did you like my dad?” Ophelia asked.
“Yes, of course,” Iris replied. “I admit, it took me a bit of time. He is intimidating, you know. But by the end, I considered him a friend.”
“No, no, no. Did you like my dad?” she repeated, emphasizing the like.
“Oh.” Iris understood the question now. She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t like that. Maybe I did when we were kids, but definitely not as an adult.”
Ophelia looked back to the water again.
“I see,” she said. She picked up a handful of wet sand and tossed it forward. “Well I think he liked you.”
“Did he?”
Ophelia nodded.
“I think so.”
“How do you know?”
She turned back to Iris again.
“I’ve lived with him all my life. I could just tell. You made him happy.”
Iris let that information sink in. It was quite a surprise. She did not know what to say next. She tried to think of small moments they shared together, how they joked, how they laughed. Perhaps she’s right.
“I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Ophelia said.
“No, it’s fine. I just never realized.”
It occurred to Iris that this was the most heart-to-heart conversation she’d ever had with Ophelia. It felt nice to finally talk to her about her father. She felt like this was what Trace would have wanted.
When he asked me to take care of her, he probably meant more than physically protect her. She needs emotional support too, Iris realized. She was frustrated that it took her so long to understand that.
“I talked to Jallah about my dad a few days ago. He was pretty shaken up about his family too,” Ophelia said, bringing Iris’s focus back to the conversation. “I was still sad at the time, but I felt like it was easier to accept his death when I thought he was a hero. Now I’m not as sure.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Do you think my dad died a hero?”
“I do,” Iris answered. “I may disagree with his methods, but he died doing what he thought was right. He saved the people he cared about. He even saved soldiers, the people he never cared for. That shows a lot about who he was.”
“And helping them fill a pod with nothing but guns?”
“I wouldn’t have done it, but maybe those guns will save our lives. Who knows?”
Ophelia sighed.
“You’re just saying that to make me feel good. I know you don’t like the idea.”
“You’re right that I don’t like the idea. But I’m not saying that just to make you feel good. I honestly believe you should be proud of your father. There are 15 people on this beach right now who would be dead if he didn’t stay back and launch those pods from the inside the station.”
The girl was quiet for a bit but then she slowly nodded her head.
“I guess you’re right. Thanks. It feels good to talk to someone about this.”
“I’m glad you think so. I found it helpful too. If you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here,” she said.
Ophelia smiled and leaned over to her. She embraced her while remaining seated. Iris thought it was an odd position, but she hugged her back nonetheless. After a few moments, they pulled away and just sat quietly.
Though the conversation was brief, Iris felt a strong bond to Ophelia now, one she did not expect. She really cared for this girl. It was almost like her maternal instinct was kicking in.
Maternal.
Iris instinctively moved her right hand to her belly. No physical differences there, she thought as she felt it. Iris was feeling a bit sick lately, but she’d felt sick ever since leaving the station. It was hard to tell if she had any new symptoms or if she was just feeling more of the same.
“What is it?” Ophelia asked. She must have noticed Iris’s sudden worry.
“It’s nothing,” Iris lied. She simply looked away from the girl.
Ophelia did not ask anything more about it. Iris was glad.
“It looks like the clouds are coming back,” the girl pointed out.
Iris peered up to the sky. Sure enough, grey clouds were rolling in. Only half of the mantis ship was visible.
“It looks like the rain is coming back.”
“Is that a good thing or bad?” Ophelia asked.
“Depends who you ask. Some people in our group don’t seem to like the rain very much. Others do.”
“What do you think?”
Iris smiled.
“Me? I like the rain.”
Ophelia smiled back.
“Then I do too.”
LINDA AND ANDRE STOOD TOGETHER at the altar. Their faces glowed in
the light. Linda looked surprisingly beautiful in her makeshift dress. It was simple, but it did the trick.
“By the power vested in me by the Atlantic Federation and in view of the Light of the Lord Beyond Both Seas, I now pronounce you husband and wife!” Commander Grey said. The audience erupted in applause. “You may kiss!”
The Navy Commander and the Elected Official shared a kiss. People cheered and clapped. Sanja just sat and watched. A New Year’s Day wedding, she thought. Cliché, but beautiful.
She leaned over to Baltir, seated directly to her left. He wore a torn brown shirt and some scrubby black pants. His leg was still recovering so a large cast covered half of it.
“And just like that, they’ve become the ultimate power in the FCP,” she whispered.
Baltir turned to her.
“I don’t think it’s about the power,” he said.
Sanja rolled her eyes.
“It’s not about the power, but just think of what they can do together. A union between a Navy Commander and an EO. All her allies become his allies. All his allies become her allies. That’s a lot of pull from both the Navy and the CEO. Nobody would dare challenge them now.”
“You don’t think they married because they love each other?” Baltir asked.
“Of course they love each other. You’d have to be blind not to see it. But it’s a great career move, you have to admit.”
“Do you ever think of anything but power?” the naive hacker asked.
“What else is there to think about? Without power, there is nothing,” Sanja explained. “Don’t act like it’s not on your mind too. Did you forget how you got here?”
Baltir did not respond. She had him there.
When she’d first learned about the Final Contingency Plan, or FCP, Baltir refused to add her to the list right away. He thought he was clever by waiting until the last possible second. Doing so meant he remained necessary until the end. Of course, once the end finally came and her name was added to the list, Sanja could have killed him then and there. At that point, it was only her compassion that kept him alive. He seemed to forget that detail.