by Han Yang
“Roger.”
“Theo, not Roger. Ah,” I held up my palms to stop her retort, “I understood, busting your saggy tits.”
She chuckled with a head shake. “Maybe this end of the world thing isn’t going to be that bad. You ever need a crack shot on a mission, I’m your gal,” Jenny said.
“You ever need someone who has lived for this moment and…” I paused because a dog came up to sniff my leg. “Holy shit. A dog. A real life dog.”
“Wow, they weren’t spared in the final days. When humans traded neighbors their pet meat, you know things had gotten grim,” Jenny said, trying to pet the dog only for it to dart away. “Hope. Maybe we can do enough good to make a damn difference. Alright, enough talking, the bodies are hitting the floor. Time to save as many as we can.”
“To a better tomorrow,” I said, slapping her shoulder and dashing toward the nearest teenage boy. I openly broadcast, “Coming out with Burr survivor number one.”
“Acknowledged, The Meadow is staying on station. I just had to kill an alpha beri’narock an ape the size of a building,” Darcy said.
“I thought the big ones died off,” I said.
“Mostly. There’s still a bunch of big stuff around to eat the small stuff, if that makes sense,” Darcy said.
“Are we safe?” I asked.
“Never. You’re never safe, Theodore Karo, and I hope to change that one day,” Darcy said.
I smiled, knowing that I’d do my part, and that started with taking these starving people to a secure home.
A secure home with a future.
That thought danced around in my mind and I couldn’t help but wonder how Roma, Lillo, and Zachary were doing.
32
Starship Hope
Day 21 above Earth
My legs begged for a break, feeling between numb and as loose as a noodle. After a day of running from site to site, one thing became abundantly clear - we needed more labor be it droid or human.
All that work of shifting people, animals, and items onto overcrowded ships, made worse because no one wanted to do it. I didn’t just hate what humanity on the ground became, I hate the fact that all the folks forced out of their pods in the fleet were pissed.
Out of the 3,438 people we had to displace for a bit, a few dozen volunteered to go to the surface and help. The rest demanded Moon Coins for their displacement or refused to work. Their audacity left me shocked. I expected more from the best and brightest who survived the downfall.
I rounded the final corner before my room, finding one of the pleasure-mode people who noticeably sat in a park while I busted my butt, waiting near my door - my father. He wore a plain spacesuit and a warm smile on his face.
“Theodore! It has been a while,” Father said, arms folded behind his back.
“Mr. Karo, I have missed you,” I said with a tone of honor. I did switch to disappointment. “Could have used you on the surface.”
“Come, come. Breakfast is on me,” Father said. “I’m a gardener and five drones died after the sites were secured. They saved volunteer lives, which should have never been in danger.”
My eyes closed and I exhaled heavily. I fought the urge to open a debate with my father and ended up passing on the opportunity.
I checked my linker. It was a half hour until sunrise on Snagglewood. No penalty had been applied for my time outside Snagglewood. My point score had frozen, but that was normal. Second place still trailed me, and my father had a point, it had been a while.
I towered over the man I dearly loved. He only stood to my shoulders with a thin frame. His black hair and hunched body needed a few solid meals. While I figured Darcy was enhancing people’s physiques now that we were in the atmosphere, she left father alone.
“I found a bloody handprint on Tammy’s capsule,” Father said with a frown.
“And you bothered to ask me?”
“Ah, so you know and wish not to tell me more. Understood,” Father said, leading the way into the cafeteria.
“I always made it a point of honor to never lie to you. I wisely will not say anything and blame an oversight for your discovery,” I said, giving him more than enough to fill in the blanks.
He ordered himself a salad and I picked out a breakfast burrito with… by the heavens - bacon. It had a legendary symbol next to the option and cost a fortune. I selected it twice, even though I had an idea where the meat came from.
We waited while the machine churned out our food. After a quick check, I noticed the cafeteria was noticeably quiet for so many people not being in their pods.
My Father asked, “How was the surface?”
I shrugged. “Horrid and hopeful. Without more humans, our odds were less than ideal. Now there's a better chance. I just had this notion that humans would be in well-sealed bunkers with a utopian society.
“A place where humans found balance with technology, nature, and everyone knew peace. Even if they were underground, they became better than what we left behind, because those would be the survivors. The wise and just.”
“Ah, I saw the videos. Terrible, truly terrible. I decided to find you before you returned to your pod and not just to catch up. I’ll admit, I decided to tune out the news and wait for humanity to find a secure place before risking my life,” Father said. “The Dominus really intrigues me.”
I raised an eyebrow for two reasons. The moment my food came out, I snagged a bite, and the bacon was heavenly. The other reason was that this comment was wholly unlike my father.
“You want to leave Hope?” I asked.
“I do. I watched the tour of Dominus and... The gardens, Theo, the glorious gardens.”
“They’re empty?” I said with a mouthful of food.
He judged me but his excitement overruled his desire to scold me. “Imagine what we can achieve with all that space. Just imagine, and I raised you better than to eat like a pig.”
“Sweet, sweet irony. Hmm… Father, what are you trying to tell me?” I asked.
“When I go back into Snagglewood. I’m going to compete. Hunso, too.”
Hunso was his love after mom. I almost never saw her, but she was sweet, kind, and caring. The two of them were very happy together.
“Ah, well, I’m proud of you. I bet the gardens won’t have limits like Hope does,” I said.
He smiled so wide I couldn’t help but smile with him.
“Exactly. It won’t be the amazing garden around my small home on the surface, but I can finally do what I love and grow produce.”
“We each have our roles and welcome seeing you doing your part while finding fulfillment. There is something soothing about sprouting new life until your tummy rumbles,” I said in a tease. “I will do my part by helping where I can when the need arises.”
“You must have not seen Darcy’s memo. I know where you are going soon. Darcy said there are critical supplies infested with narock hordes near the ship. She asked for a call to action to help her restore the diminishing droid numbers. So far, the vote is split. Half the council wants to give her more droids, the other half wants humans to step up,” Father said.
I scoffed. “They won’t volunteer. Who the hell wants to risk their real body only to end up as an implant? No one. It’s lunacy. Hell, I may sit out the next adventure just to prove a point. Support Darcy or do it yourself because there is nothing in between.”
“I’m an in-betweener. Try not to get too riled up and realize you’re delving into politics. Humanity, which Darcy is a part of, will find a way. I say this son, because it consumed your mother, changing who she was and making her into the woman she now is,” he said, and I nodded.
He was right of course. The moment she reached the council her demeanor changed. I checked my linker, noting she hadn’t messaged me.
“After all those years of telling me to be the best, not a single word of praise for -”
Slam!
Father’s hand crashed against the table. The others eating in the room jolted from the
sudden violence.
“Do not for a second underestimate your mother. She wants you to be the best. The second best. Not the first. She loves you, but be wary of her ambitions, they’re the root of her problems.”
I nodded, again, agreeing with him. My father tended to give sage advice and impart wisdom with his tones.
He calmed down and said, “I look forward to competing in Snagglewood. The river boat I work abroad just saw its first narock.”
“Ah, might as well compete if there is no true pleasure mode,” I said.
“Well, if I get eaten, I’d rather it tickled, but you have a point. Darcy said as much after broadcasting the fact that our fleet has grown in numbers. Snagglewood is meant to be an eye-opener. Most of us realize that the old ways are changing. Some are not, but they will adjust, they always do,” he said.
I finished my burrito, not telling him that I thought so because Darcy brainwashed them.
The point was moot, and I had better things to do than argue about why some people conformed easily while others remained anti-AI. That was always his argument, but somehow, even if there were those who didn’t like Darcy, she hadn’t earned as much hate as expected.
“Enough about me, how are you?” Father asked with concern.
I finished my scrumptious meal before leaning back in my chair. “Becoming jaded and old. Everyone I meet tends to rely on me, and while I may not thirst for power, I hunger for glory. I don’t openly say it, but I feel I can with you. I want to survive and retire with a big house on the ocean.”
“Not going to be an environmentalist like me?” Father asked.
“I hope you don’t judge me too harshly. The planet can obviously recover from whatever tiny ants do to its surface. This tiny ant wants white sands, lapping waves, and a wife he can ask where he left his sandwich at,” I said.
“Careful, some might think you are sexist.”
I heartily laughed. “I made the sandwich, Father. I just forgot where I put it.”
He also found this amusing and we delved into small talk. My linker pinged, alerting me I had five minutes before sunrise. I rose with a groan, and we walked back to our room together.
As I entered my pod, I heard, “I’m more proud than you’ll ever know.”
“I love you too,” I said, and the cryopod closed.
33
Snagglewood Day 32
Opo
Returning to Snagglewood. Your absence accumulated to 26 hours and 32 minutes. Your accrued time of 12 hours and 12 minutes has been deducted. You will need to wait fourteen days and ten hours to leave again for Hope. Do you accept (Yes) - (No) - Yes accepted - Entering Snagglewood.
I awoke in the captain’s suite with a burning desire to pee.
“At least I’m clothed,” I said with a grumble.
I peeled myself off the bed, heading to the bathroom. After relieving my bladder, I left the small privy. I grabbed my water container off the desk and washed the dryness out of my mouth by spitting out an open window. A few greedy gulps later and I felt alive again.
The fact I’d woken alone and couldn’t hear the spin of the wheel gave me pause. There could be a million reasons as to why the steamboat wasn’t in use, and I decided to fear the worst.
I pulled a dragon out of its holster, readying the weapon for whatever came next. The moment I peeled the door open, I found something I didn’t expect. A man about my age sitting in the driver's seat of the boat.
He wore a fancy top hat, a fine suit of tan and brown, and his blond hair was perfectly kept. His physique seemed like the scholar type and matched his expensive outfit. Even if he didn’t seem like the killer, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a threat.
“Who are you?” I asked with clenched teeth.
“Whoa! Easy partner,” the man’s hands shot up. “Kevin. I’m Kevin and a friend.”
“Why’s the boat drifting and where’s my friends?”
“You must be Theo. Nice to meet you,” he said. “Yilissa rescued us and I’m on night duty to watch over the ship.”
I assessed his sincerity. I wouldn’t trust someone I just met, but Kevin didn’t seem like he needed a gun pointed at him. I slid into the booth seat, leaving my revolver on the table.
“Glad you survived the invasion. I’m bothered that the ship is off,” I admitted.
“Yilissa said something of an unknown type ailed you. I gave you an inspection at gunpoint, not finding anything wrong with you. After that, we decided to conserve fuel while we waited for you to wake.
“Out in the ocean, the big narocks keep the little ones from going too deep. The lobo’narocks don’t care about us and leave the ships alone. You see that floating island of ships over there?” Kevin said, pointing to a flotilla of ships out on the ocean.
“You come from those?” I asked.
“Not exactly. We didn’t have enough food to earn entry.”
“We?”
“Sleeping in the passenger pews, you’ll find the rest of my party that Yilissa rescued. We hadn’t eaten in days and conceded to her long list of rules. There’s me, my younger brother, his two friends, and Grandma Sally. Five of us, all willing to follow the rules to stay alive,” Kevin said.
“And my friends?”
“In the crew quarters, sleeping. They had an interesting night,” Kevin said hesitantly. I rolled my wrist. “Oh, I study medicine, hence my inspection of you. After I inspected your crewmate, Craig. The work you did on his leg was amazing. If your hands weren’t so rough, I’d swear you were a full-time surgeon.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice. Keep going.”
“Well, I prescribed him a small flask of liquor laced with opium,” Kevin said.
“You drugged Craig?”
“He was in incredible pain. Rather barbaric how you forced him to suffer,” Kevin said.
“No Kevin, it wasn’t. Maybe one month you can meet Mother Nature and she can tell you that opium is bad. Alcohol thins the blood too, but I digress. A small dose with limited applications shouldn’t be terrible. Alight, let me wake Yilissa so we can go raiding,” I said.
“About that. I doubt she will be amenable,” Kevin replied.
I cued in. “He shared.”
“Maybe. All I know is they went in there, then there was giggling and loud laughter. After it went quiet, and I could only guess they passed out,” Kevin said. “I can’t be certain, but she wasn’t tired like he was.”
I ignored him, stomping off to the crew quarters. I understood Craig using drugs for pain relief, but not Yilissa. As my hand snatched the door handle, I had to remember, she was not my child, and I could only do so much here.
When I opened the door, I did so without anger.
I stepped into the small room smelling vomit, sex, and whiskey. A quick look revealed Yilissa sprawled over Craig, both were naked. Before Kevin could enter, I closed the door and sighed in disappointment.
I walked into the room, shifted by their heads as they slept.
“No wonder she called you the heartbreaker,” I muttered.
“It was his idea,” Yilissa said with a grumble. “I took one swig, lost my lunch, and then stayed with him to make sure he was okay. We connected on a different level and then one thing led to another. His leg is busted, the rest of him still works like a charm.”
“Too much information Yilissa. I need you to get up, get showered, and see how you’re feeling. How’s his leg?” I asked.
“Not going to scold me and yell?” Yilissa said.
“I’m upset, but I’m not your father. Yelling at you does nothing to help us survive. I want to get back to Roma, and for Craig to see his wife and daughter again. Ostracizing you for sleeping with him doesn’t help anyone.
“What does help, is that you found some men to help us. It is disappointing to find you sleeping with Craig, but only because I hate secrets and Kayla is a sweetheart,” I said.
“Yeah, she is great. Secrets… That means you’re not going to say anything?”
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“Do I need to? I doubt he’ll remember. Lie to him, lie to yourself, and there’s some virgins downstairs to have fun with,” I said.
“I doubt they’re virgins, but I see your point. Thanks, Theo.”
“Don’t thank me, you owe me. I like having leverage. Hurry along while I check his wound,” I said and added, “Leave the door open.”
I spent the next ten minutes carefully checking his stitches. They held through his fun last evening and I redressed the wound. The fact I saw no sign of infection was positive.
When I exited the compartment, Kevin asked, “What do you give patients where you're from? Yilissa said there is a continent called Earth.”
“Something like that. When we have an excess of time, I will tell you where I come from. Throughout history, yes, opium and alcohol were used as pain remedies. That changed with medical and scientific advancements. Where I come from, we slip patients into a coma inside a box. When they’re done healing, they come out,” I said, trying my best to simplify it. “If the injury is mild to moderate, their… alterations to the bloodstream fix them.”
“You disconnect the pain from the person. Interesting. Very interesting. I have a thousand questions. However, I haven’t slept in over a day because I pulled the night shift, may I retire?” Kevin asked.
“Uh, yeah. Sleep in the captain's bed. I’m going to rouse the others. At the very least, one of them can cover me while we go raiding. Speaking of which, what's the city like?” I asked, glancing over to see the morning sun illuminating Opo.
A few narock moved about, but for the most part, the monsters I saw sunbathed.
“The city is deplorable. I… I woke up to screams one morning. Constant gunfire from the docks grew louder until it reached our building. I gathered up my brother and his friends, readying survivors to flee. Before you judge me, I’m not a fighter and have no skills with weapons.