Mason only looked at her, his face unchanged.
“What if we could provide that for you?”
“Wait, you haven’t been cleared to make promises,” Major Burridge cautioned in her ear, but she ignored him. She was on to something, and she wouldn’t lose them by waiting for approval.
“What do you mean?” Mattli asked, clearly intrigued about her offer.
“We could help. And in exchange, you would show us how to live here.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re kind of like refugees here, Vega. We didn’t even know that you existed. That the United States, in some ways, still existed. Or any other countries for that matter. For the last three and a half centuries, we thought that we were the last people on the face of this Ashby-forsaken Earth. And now, instead of offering us salvation, you stick your hand out and ask for a leg up?” Mason spat.
“Now wait just a second—” Vega started, but Mason cut her off by jumping up from the bench.
“I need some air,” he said as he stormed off.
“Excuse us for a moment,” Lehman said as she stood and went after him.
“Captain Fowell, I apologize if our welcome is…less than warm. Mason isn’t wrong. We had no idea that the airships actually existed. That you exist in such high volume is nothing short of a miracle to us. All of this will take some time to digest,” Mattli said as he stood slowly, extending an arm to her. She took it and allowed him to help her stand. Once up, he released her and offered his hand to shake. Vega hoped he could feel her need and warmth in her grasp. She wasn’t a parasite. Had no desire to suck them dry, as Mason seemed to think, and she put everything she had into conveying that with a simple handshake.
Mattli smiled warmly and said, “Please, stay here. We will be back in a minute.”
Vega simply nodded, a stranger in a strange land.
Vega watched Mattli approach Mason, and saw the younger man shake his head. “You’d think we invited her,” Mason said just loudly enough for Vega to hear it.
“Now what?” Major Burridge asked in her ear.
She wasn’t sure if it was Mason’s attitude toward her, or the desolation around her, but something snapped as she whisper/shouted at the major. “They’re scared and on the verge of death at every turn. They’re in no mood to negotiate or extend themselves any further. They’re already oppressed, stressed, and struggling to survive. We need to show them we’re not going to be another drain on them. Give them some security—a safety net—and maybe they’ll be just a little bit more welcoming.” Vega could hear the desperation in her voice, and hoped she wouldn’t get yelled at for making promises earlier.
“You already offered them something you weren’t authorized to give. And they stormed off,” Major Burridge pointed out.
“Because I waited too long. Mattli was interested. If I can get the other two on board, we might have a solid partnership on our hands. No thanks to you, by the way.”
“The others feel it’s better if they don’t know we’re listening. That a personal interaction is more disarming.”
Vega snorted as she looked around at the people who probably thought she was talking to herself. “That’s obviously working out well.” She stared off toward the small wooden building Mason and the others had gone into a minute ago.
“Make them an offer,” Major Burridge commanded. “You have clearance to do whatever it takes to get their help in this.”
“And what if they can’t help us, Major?”
“Then we will help them, if we don’t all die first,” he said simply, and Vega smiled. His compassion was one of the many reasons he made a good leader. He wasn’t a gruff, all-business leader. He was human.
“Aye, sir.” Vega didn’t ask questions. She knew free rein when she saw it, and she took it with both hands.
As she walked, she had no idea what she would say to them. Sorry? It was a start.
With a shuddering breath, she brought her arm up and knocked on the door.
“Yes?” Mason yelled. But it wasn’t a question; it was more like a shouted demand.
Vega knew she’d be facing some hostility from him, if not from all of them. She’d come to them with her hand out, and it was clear they needed more help than she did. At least with their immediate needs.
She hesitantly opened the door and stood right outside of it. “I just wanted to come over here and…” She hesitated as she looked around. The structure looked to be built from wood. Where had they gotten it? The ground beneath her feet was that strange grey powder. No way had they cleared the land.
“And?” Mason demanded, his arms crossed as he looked at her.
“Where did the wood come from for this building?”
“The island. We have enough for maybe two more structures. But neither will be big enough to house everyone, unless ten people live in each of them. I suppose if it’s raining and people just need something out of the weather, it’ll do, but it’s not what we’d hoped for. Not in the slightest.”
“You could use the wood from the boat. That would buy you more room,” Vega suggested.
She didn’t miss Lehman’s warm smile. “A problem solver, this one,” Lehman said.
“If we did that, we wouldn’t be able to go back,” Mason countered.
“Did you intend to go back? Really?” Vega challenged.
At that, even Mattli smiled. “She has your number already, Mason. You’d better watch out.”
Mason exhaled something that came out like a bit of a harrumph and sat down at another bench seat, leaning up against the back wall.
“Did you have a purpose for coming here?” Mason asked, not even attempting to hide his impatience.
“Mason Hawkins, you be polite to her. She’s obviously just trying to help,” Lehman scolded, and Vega started to understand their dynamic a little more. Lehman was the mother figure in the group. Mattli was the experienced one they went to for counsel. Where did that leave Mason? New blood?
Mason frowned but leaned forward and gestured for her to come in, making her feel a bit more welcome. She took another step forward.
“Please, sit with us,” Mattli offered. But she stayed where she was.
“See, you’ve frightened the poor thing,” Lehman chided.
“Well, what do you think she did to all of us, coming in here on that contraption?” Mason eyed her with hostility. “You were the one who flew over yesterday, aren’t you?” he asked, except it wasn’t a question so much as an accusation.
“Yes. Shockingly, I wasn’t specifically trying to ruin your day, Mason. I was scouting to see if the mainland was habitable.”
“Huh, just like you and Ashley did not so long ago. Imagine if you’d found someone how they would’ve felt,” Lehman said, trying to keep Mason’s perspective in check, but clearly struggling for it.
“I know exactly how they would’ve felt.” Mason’s glare at Vega had softened, but it didn’t disappear entirely.
Vega had finally had enough. “Listen. I just came over here to see if we could make this a symbiotic relationship, something mutually beneficial. Coming here wasn’t my idea. I was just following orders.”
Mason snorted.
Vega tried to steady herself with a calming breath. “I understand if you won’t help us. I do. We’re just as resilient as you are. We’ll find a way to survive. But if you help, you might get to see what our life is like. Get a shower? Sleep in an actual bed?” Vega glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, seeing that Mason had tensed a bit. She’d struck a chord. Now, to make it play the right tune.
“If we work together, we might be able to better each other’s life. This doesn’t have to be parasitic, like you may have initially thought,” she pressed.
Mason shook his head. “How do you know that? You can’t promise things like that. What are you? Some kind of pilot? Do you have any real power?”
Vega straightened. The barb had stung more than she would’ve liked.
“Mason Hawkins
,” Lehman said, her tone stern.
“No. He’s right. I am a captain on the airship Perseus. I did find you and possibly offer some hope to our people. But I’m no leader or savior.” Mason eyed her at those last words, as if they hit home.
“My best friend, she’s a teacher. She’s so good at what she does. We’ve been together since our parents dropped us off when we were six. I can’t imagine my life without her. That’s why I’m here. Because I want to save her. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Mattli cleared his throat. “We all have our reasons for being here, my dear. Mason’s best friend died for this land. We’d hate to see the same thing happen to yours.”
“You know what I would hate?” Mason aggressively cut in. “For our sacrifice to be sold to these nobodies who have no vested interest in us. Who are we against nearly one hundred thousand people? How are we to know we can even help them? And if we agree to try and can’t, what will they do to us? Heck, even if we can help them, they’re not obligated to treat us right. They could ship us back to the island, where the others are none the wiser, and confine us there easily. We don’t have the upper hand here,” he insisted.
“We don’t need it, Mason. We need cooperation. Survival in Ashby’s world will take more than just us. If his journal taught you anything, it should’ve been that you can’t work alone,” Lehman insisted.
“Ashby left a journal behind?” Vega asked, unable to ignore the mention of the book again.
“Yes, he did. I found it when I was here with Ashley, his last descendant,” Mason answered soberly.
“He had descendants still? That’s amazing,” Vega said, sinking down onto the nearest bench. Lehman and Mattli were to her left, and Mason sat all the way across the small, fifteen-foot space.
“You know what else is amazing? We worshipped him as our savior right up until I found that book, and he admitted in it that he was the downfall of this world.” Mason kicked his foot at the grey dirt floor.
“You what? He’s not the savior. If anything, that Mendhelson character was closer to saving people than he was,” Vega exclaimed, wondering how their history got so twisted.
“What do you know about it?” Mason demanded.
“I know that they were competing to be the first to cure cancer. Mendi was winning, but then Ashby’s killer bots took him out. More or less.”
Mason grunted. “More or less. Anyway, we worshiped him because he created the island. A sanctuary where people could live without fear of the bots. They don’t seem to like the ocean, and Ashby knew they wouldn’t cross it. He gave us the means to come back here. But he left out the part about the bots being his creation.”
“Or maybe, over time, that tidbit was forgotten in the interest of making the best of a rather tough situation,” Lehman suggested.
“Doubt it,” Mason said.
“Wow,” Vega said, unable to come up with any other response. How easily their history had gotten twisted, and what if that happened to her own? What would people remember of the Perseus and their efforts to survive if it fell?
Vega could only hope there would be people to remember the days ahead.
Thirteen
“We need time to discuss this,” Lehman said. “That much is clear. We need to talk about it with the others. Recently, we’ve adapted a very open, in-or-out society. It’s how we decided to come here. Those who came weren’t forced. They came because they wanted to. Those who stayed behind chose to do so, each group knowing the consequences of their decisions.”
Vega marveled at the idea. Not that they didn’t have choices on the airships, but theirs were more of a ‘which of these three preselected paths would be chosen’ type of society. She’d been tagged with a problem-solving personality. As such, it was decided that she would make a good leader. It had been a happy coincidence that she already wanted to be a pilot, which was one of the career options offered to her. Same thing had happened to Jo. She’d wanted to teach, and that was one of her choices. It made Vega wonder how much they were guided toward their choices, and if it really had been a choice in the first place. It was certainly not like the choices the people in front of her could make.
“Do you have contact with your superiors?”
“Yes.”
“Are they expecting some kind of an immediate response from us?”
“I think the sooner the better,” Vega said, feeling like Major Burridge was breathing down the back of her neck even though he stayed silent.
“So what do you want to do, Mattli?” Lehman asked.
“We need to present it to the islanders.”
“We should stop calling ourselves that. We don’t live on the island anymore,” Mason said.
“Well, mainlanders is a bit cumbersome, don’t you think?” Mattli asked.
“I feel there are more important things to debate than what we should call ourselves, boys,” Lehman said, trying to rein them in.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
They filed out of the small one-room structure so abruptly they nearly left Vega sitting alone.
“You coming?” Mason said as he held the door open.
“Am I invited to the discussion too?”
“Sure. Sounds like you’re going to be our greatest ally from the opposition. We might need you.”
“I hope that isn’t true. I really don’t think my superiors are your opposition.”
“Well, we’ll see who’s right in the end.”
Vega took a deep breath, knowing how much was at stake, but not sure what she hoped the outcome would be. Now that she’d met the mysterious mainlanders, and actually liked them, she wasn’t as confident she was doing the right thing. She found she didn’t want to lay her burdens on them. At all. Even if she truly did need their help.
It didn’t take long to gather the islanders. There were only about fifty of them, give or take a handful.
Mattli went to the group. They were gathered around the picnic table the four of them had sat at less than an hour ago. Mattli, Mason, and Lehman were standing on the top with the rest gathered around in a circle.
“We have something to discuss. This woman has come to visit us from Ashby’s airships,” Mattli proclaimed. Apparently, he didn’t see any point in beating around the bush.
A collective gasp spread across the group in a wave, making Vega wonder what was so surprising.
“The airships are real?” someone yelled.
“Technically, they weren’t Ashby’s airships,” Vega corrected. “Ashby was the reason they were needed at the time, but the government built them to save humanity.”
“Not us, and we were part of humanity. At least our ancestors were,” a woman from the group shouted. She was in the back, and Vega couldn’t get a good look at her. The words stung, and Vega wished she hadn’t spoken up.
Mason cleared his throat and waved his hands, clearly trying to diffuse the situation. “Ok, one thing at a time.”
Vega was so grateful for his interjection. She didn’t care if he wasn’t specifically trying to come to her defense. He’d saved her nonetheless.
“So, as it turns out, there’s a lot of people on the airships,” Mason continued.
“Could we go there? Could they rescue us?” a man up front asked. He looked weathered, with grey stubble and dirty clothing. Vega couldn’t even tell what the original color of his shirt was. The gray ash that blanketed the Earth covered its inhabitants too.
“Actually, they’re sort of hoping we’ll rescue them,” Mason added flatly.
“What?” At least three members of the group responded with the same question at once, rather loudly.
A murmur spread throughout the crowd, and Vega could feel the dissention among them without hearing what they said. She folded her arms over her chest, as if that would provide defense or safety from their hostility.
“Perhaps the one from the airships could explain it better,” Mason suggested as he held his arm out toward her. “Vega, would you care to come up here
and tell us a little bit about yourself?”
Vega looked nervously around as the crowd turned to her. “Are you sure I’m the best one to talk about this? I’m just a pilot after all.”
“You explained it to us quite well. I think you have some excellent thoughts on the idea,” Lehman added, giving Vega a kind and reassuring look.
“All right,” Vega said reluctantly as the crowd parted for her and she made her way to the picnic table. She didn’t like the idea of standing on top of it, being the center of attention for all these strangers, but she climbed up anyway. She was used to commanding a huge airship, but this was different. That was her crew; they knew instinctually to obey her. These people weren’t obligated to her, even if she did need them to help save humanity.
“So, I was sent here to ask for your help. As it turns out, the airships are aging badly after three and a half centuries aloft. They will all come crashing down to Earth, and soon, if we do nothing,” Vega explained as the crowd watched her. She saw hostility and curiosity in their faces, but most of all, she saw need.
She stood in front of them in her crisp and relatively clean uniform. Her boots and the bottoms of her black dress pants had gotten soiled from the grey ash everywhere, but her shirt remained remarkably white with all the dust around. As did her face, hair, and everything else. For the moment, anyway. And as she looked at them, she saw the filth. Saw how tired they were. It was an exhaustion only survival could bring on, and she saw that the will to live was all that kept their feet moving, one in front of the other, every single day. She couldn’t help but wonder if she was looking into the face of the future, her future.
“Nearly all of humanity will be wiped out if we don’t do anything. You will be the last survivors of Ashby’s era. His legacy, I suppose,” Vega added.
“We actually already thought we were the last survivors, so if you all die, it won’t really affect us much,” a woman near the front of the pack pointed out. There wasn’t anger, or any kind of hostility, in her voice. Only factual information.
“You thought a group of a thousand or so were the last people on this Earth?” Vega heard herself say it. She knew it sounded insulting, as if they were self-centered for the thought, but she couldn’t help it. It didn’t seem possible that they had truly thought they were the last people on Earth. “That seems lonely,” Vega added to soften the blow with a little truth.
The Dead Room Trilogy Page 41