Shift told the story in all its gory detail. He exaggerated just a bit of the story for entertainment value. But everyone knew they were safe, and the story was a bit funny. Shift and Jonas answered questions, embellishing all along the way.
When there was nothing left to tell, Shift said, “So, here’s where we stand. We can leave the shuttle bay, but we absolutely need suits. While on the ship a few minutes ago, Jonas took remote readings of the air outside the blast doors. There is no oxygen. That means that the containment doors and ventilation systems outside the blast doors were likely destroyed when the shell blew apart. So, we can’t open the blast doors unless some of us remain on the ship while others go out in suits.”
“So, either we all stay here, or some of us go out looking for additional suits and bring them back in here,” Jonas added. “That way, we may be able to find a new place to live in one of the other shells. But we’d have to get rid of bodies and clean another shell first, and that would take some time. Or, alternatively, once the smell goes away in the ship, we can go on in and stay there for a while. There’s food, drink and beds. We could stay there at least until we decide what to do next.”
“No matter what we choose,” Shift said, “nobody goes by the doors or the control board. We don’t want to accidentally open the doors.”
“But we need to go find Jerad and the Birds,” Marilyn said.
“Yes, we do,” Shift agreed. “That will be order number one.”
“But once that is completed,” Jonas added, “We have to have a containment plan. I’ve already programed the doors to be locked unless an access code is input. My thought is this: Since we don’t want any accidents, I should make the process for opening these doors a two-code sequence. Then, if half of us knows one code, and the other half of us knows the other code, there will be no chance that we’re all stuck in here forever unless all six or seven people who know one code or the other die for some reason. And, because it will take two different people to open the doors, there won’t be any accidental, or purposeful, opening of the doors. How does that sound?”
“I like the idea,” Street said.
“Me too,” Hasani added.
“Well, can anyone think of a reason that plan won’t work, or shouldn’t be implemented?” Shift asked.
Nobody responded in the negative.
“How is John holding up?” Jonas asked quietly, to nobody in particular. Jonas was looking over at John who was sitting on the ground against the wall less than 10 meters from the group. “He probably blames himself for our current situation. Is it going to incapacitate him, or is he going to be able to function as a useful member of our group?”
“You’re right. He blames himself and was inconsolable after he heard about Jared and the Birds,” Shift replied.
“I gave him a mild sedative and a temporary antidepressant and I’ll be watching him closely,” Marilyn added. “Jon and Suvan have been spending time with him too, trying to cheer him up.”
“Is it going to work?” Jonas asked.
“Time will tell,” Shift said. “But one thing I know; John is too valuable to let him wallow in pity or become clinically depressed. I’ll go kick his butt if nothing else works.”
“Let me know if you need help,” offered Street with a sly grin. “I’m good at kicking butt.”
“Thanks Street. I know you are,” Shift replied with a grin of his own. “Now, who wants to go out there with me to find our friends and look for additional suits?”
“I do,” Street and Jonas said in unison.
“Alright, let’s do it. But first, let’s help everyone get down to the ship. It’s in real good shape, and we know it’s comfortable. The wall units are still processing food and drink. There’s still the smell, but I think we can get rid of it. After we get back, we can come up with a more long-term solution to our current problem.”
The mood changed with that last statement. The group had become comfortable in the apartments of the United States shell. Life was starting to return to normal, albeit on the moon. Then Jerad died. Then the Birds died. Now, there were only 13 of them, one of whom was seriously incapacitated, and the baby in Anta’s womb. As far as they knew, they were the only humans left alive anywhere in the galaxy.
They needed a plan. They wanted to go home, but nobody dared believe it was possible.
November 10, 2093—Near Juneau, Alaska
It had been nearly four weeks since Lin had hacked into the old IIA “Anthrax E Database”. Marcus and Lin had read every post, and then read them again. Soon thereafter, they began watching the USCAN feeds more closely in Anchorage and Juneau. They were now convinced that the monsters—or “Skins”—as they had been called on the database, were not only dying, but were likely already mostly dead. They saw very few moving about in either town, and those they saw were looking pretty old.
What they didn’t know was whether it was safe to go outside. They learned about a vaccination on the database. They knew people had been vaccinated, and some of them seemed to be safely hidden from the Skins somewhere. But they were at a loss as to what to do about it.
“Well, we can’t just stay here forever, can we?” Lin asked.
“No, definitely not.”
“So what are we going to do? Nobody has responded to any of the posts I’ve made to the database.”
“Just keep posting and keep checking, I guess,” Marcus said, feigning disappointment. In reality, he held on to the belief that his contact would deliver them from their current predicament, somehow.
“I guess until someone responds to my posts,” Lin said, “we can’t possibly know whether it’s safe out there, or how we can get hold of a vaccine, if at all. And we can’t risk either of our lives on mere hope.”
“Agreed.”
November 12—International Lunar Space Station
Shift and Jonas had called a meeting in the lounge area of the ship. After wallowing in pity and remorse over the death of their friends for many days, it was finally time to make some decisions.
“Well,” Jonas began, “I would thank you all for taking the time to come here, but I know that, lately, there hasn’t been much else taking up our time. Of course, Mike has been busy, as you all know. I’ve asked him to share with us what he’s been seeing the past few days. Go ahead, Mike.”
“As you know, I’ve been watching USCAN. It has been very interesting.”
Mike had been monitoring the USCAN surveillance system for weeks. He had watched as successive groups of Skins continued to age and wilt, sometimes right where they stood. He watched several episodes where one Skin ate another and then both of them shriveled and died soon after. It was as though the bad vaccine that created them in the first place was negatively reacting with itself and causing a quick and ugly death. But even the Skins who didn’t turn on their fellows were still dying. It was all a mystery.
“Can you give us specifics about what you’re seeing in any specific location, like the United States?” Shift asked.
“Yeah, I can. In the United States, I haven’t seen a living Skin in over a week, anywhere.”
“What about the rest of the world?” Jonas asked.
“Well, in the east, Africa and the Middle East mostly, there are greater numbers, but they’re dying too. Really, if I were to estimate the living Skins on Earth—and remember, it’s just an estimate; maybe more of a guess really—I’d say there’s less than 600 of them left anywhere.”
“Wow!” Anta said. “Only 600? Is there any way we can actually quantify that?”
“Probably not,” Mike replied. “But over the next few days, if I have a little help, we can begin to catalogue the Skins like we did with the humans back on Earth. It probably wouldn’t take more than a week to get a real good estimate. And, since what y’all are really concerned about is going home, we’ll start with Florida. If we want to go home, we have to be able to land safely, and live safely. So I think we should start there.”
“What about no
rthern California or back near Boston?” Angel asked. “I’m thinking about food. Northern California has all of those orchards and vineyards and had, at least, a ton of cows. And hopefully there are a few good farms near Boston, since we vaccinated herds of animals in the early days of the vaccine.”
“That’s a good idea,” Jonas said. “But we’ve got to have a base to land.”
“There’s one south of San Francisco, I think,” Jonas said.
“You know,” Street said, “we can land wherever we want to land. With the millions of hovers sittin’ down there unused, we can go wherever we want to go once we land.”
“Duh, of course,” Shift said. “What I wonder is, are there any survivors down there? If there are, maybe we could still get the vaccine to them and increase our population.”
“Have you seen people alive, Mike?” Hasani asked.
“Nope. But I haven’t really been looking.”
“What about the Anthrax E Database?” John asked. “Has anyone posted anything there lately?”
John had said very little in the days since he crashed the rover into the shell causing it to break apart and kill three of their friends. The group had worried about his mental health. Shift really worried. It was right for John to feel guilt, but not right for him to feel such guilt that he shut down. They needed him. Several of the group reacted when John spoke by turning to look at him. Then Shift had an idea . . .
“No,” Shift said quickly. “What a great idea John. Can you help me check that?”
November 12, later—International Lunar Space Station
While Mike, Jonas, Hasani, Steve and Angel went to work on USCAN, Shift, John and Anta got on the Anthrax E database. As had become the norm lately, Neirioui and Marilyn cooked and tended to other needs. Even with the limited supply of options on the wall units, Neirioui was able to come up with some amazing meals. The group feasted, regularly, on her delicious treats.
Street, really just a kid at heart, spent a lot of time with Jon and Suvan, playing games and keeping the youngsters entertained. Everyone had a place and the group functioned amazingly well. Shift often thought that, with this group, even alone on Earth, they really had a chance of survival. He and Anta shared many late night conversations on that topic.
But on this day, the database was their focus.
“Fire it up, John,” Shift said.
“I haven’t done this for a while. Let’s see . . . oh yeah, here we go.” John was in the database in a matter of moments.
“Holy Sh- —sorry Anta—I mean, holy crap,” John said. “Look at all of these postings from Juneau.”
“That last one was posted yesterday!” Anta said. “People are alive!”
“Are they all from Juneau? Go back a bit John.”
“When was the last time we posted anything?” John asked. “Or maybe, the last time the guys up here posted anything.”
“Probably back in July or August,” Shift replied. “Let’s just go back ‘til we find our last post and move forward. Let’s see if anybody else is still down there.”
John scrolled back in the database to July.
“Well, the last post by any of our group was July 16. That was when the moon guys were trying to get help with the ship. Remember that? The looks on their faces a couple days later when Mike told them they just needed codes. That was awesome!” Then John laughed, for the first time in a long time. It was infectious. Anta and Shift both laughed with him. Shift hoped his friend was returning.
A few moments later, Shift asked, “Okay then, when was the next post, after July 16, by anybody?”
“October 17.”
“Well, let’s start reading there,” Anta said.
The three friends spent the next few minutes reading several short posts by a couple somewhere outside Juneau. The posts detailed, briefly, their journey and what they had been doing ever since.
“So, these were the folks who broke up the hurricane that spread AE across the globe,” Shift said sadly. “I wonder how they’re feeling. They probably blame themselves?”
“I wonder whether they knew what they were doing,” John said.
“We should answer their posts,” Anta said. “They know, obviously, that had Gortari II not been shot out of the sky by the Cubans, that the hurricane wouldn’t have caused any problems. Plus, if they don’t know, they need to be told, that even if Gortari II hadn’t been shot down, AE still would have spread. Right? Someone on that ship was infected. Whether the infection could have been stopped, nobody knows. But I doubt it. It’s likely that nothing these two did had any real impact on anything except, possibly, speeding up the process. They need to know that.”
“Agreed,” Shift replied. “Do you want to do the honors? It sounds like they don’t even know if there’s anyone left alive in the world besides themselves. And, they aren’t vaccinated. That has to change.”
The group spent the next few minutes replying to the posts. Then they sat there, waiting, to see if they would hear back from Juneau. Several minutes later, they gave up and went to check on the others.
November 12, later—International Lunar Space Station
John, Shift and Anta walked into the small computer room where the others had spent the last couple of hours looking for Skins and humans. As they walked in, smiles beaming across their faces, all of the others stopped what they were doing and stared.
Finally, Hasani asked, “What?”
“Let’s get everyone else, and then we’ll talk,” Shift replied.
After the whole group was assembled inside the computer room, and 12 faces were looking at Shift, most of them anxious with anticipation, Shift finally spoke again.
“There are others,” he said calmly. “Alive.”
Several people clapped briefly, and others made quiet exclamations. Overall, the group was too leery of the prospects of life to become too excited about Shift’s announcement.
“Tell us about it, Shift,” Marilyn said.
Shift proceeded to tell the group what they had learned. While he spoke, Mike connected to the IIA database. When Shift finally finished, Mike spoke up.
“They’ve replied, Shift. They can’t wait to meet us.”
November 14, 2093, 2:47 AM—International Lunar Space Station
“Shift!”
“What is it babe?” Shift asked, his eyes still closed and sleepy.
“My stomach is cramping—bad.”
“What?”
“My stomach. I think it’s the baby.”
Shift bolted upright in bed and quickly turned on the light.
“The baby? What’s happening to the baby?”
“I don’t know Shift. Calm down though. I’m sure it’s fine. Go get Marilyn please?”
“Okay.”
Shift rushed from their small room on the ship and down the hall to Marilyn’s door. He couldn’t stand still as he knocked. Bouncing on his toes, Shift continued rapping on the door until Marilyn finally opened it.
“What is it Shift?” Marilyn asked through the small gap between the door and its frame.
“The baby! Anta thinks there’s something wrong with the baby.”
The urgency and fear in Shift’s voice pushed Marilyn into action. She rushed back into her room and was back in 10 seconds with a bag. Marilyn had been checking Anta’s and the baby’s vitals every morning for the past several days. All had been well.
Together, Shift and Marilyn ran back down the long hall toward Shift and Anta’s room. When they arrived, Shift threw open the door and led Marilyn over to the bed. Anta was lying in a fetal position under the covers, tears soaking the pillowcase under her head.
“Tell me what’s happening Anta,” Marilyn said softly.
“I don’t know. But it really hurts.”
“What hurts dear?” Marilyn asked.
“My stomach. The cramping, or whatever it is. It’s crushing me.”
“Can you roll onto your back please? Is the pain coming from down here?” Marilyn a
sked, placing her hand onto Anta’s lower abdomen.
“It’s all over. I can feel pain all over my whole body,” Anta replied. “But it’s worse there.”
“Shift,” Marilyn said, “please run down to the medical station and grab the wheelchair. I’ll call Angel to come help.”
Shift took off, running through the ship as fast as his legs would carry him. When he returned, only three or four minutes later, Angel and Marilyn were helping Anta put a robe on. As was her habit, Anta had worn only her underwear to bed that night, and there was a small bulge where the baby was growing inside her.
Shift pushed the wheelchair up alongside the bed. Together, Marilyn and Shift lifted Anta carefully into the wheelchair and began a rapid walk through the ship to the medical station. Throughout the walk, Anta’s pain rose. On two occasions, she screamed out from the pain, waking others in the ship who had been, until then, sound asleep.
When they arrived outside the doors to the medical station, the doors slid open with a soft whoosh. Shift pushed the chair over to the nearest hospital bed while Marilyn hurried across the room to where the equipment was stored.
The medical station, although highly modern and equipped with the latest technology, was small and held only eight beds. Medicine had progressed to such a degree that patients were rarely confined to beds in hospitals unless they had a serious injury. Rarely did any illness result in an overnight stay at a hospital. Until AE. But that was also behind them, or so they believed.
Here on the ship, on the moon, Marilyn didn’t think she’d ever have use for the equipment in the medical station. So, she had pushed most of the equipment out of the way and set up a small lab. She and Angel had begun, in recent days, experimenting with E-rase. They hoped to be able to determine, in some way, whether the baby in Anta’s womb, or any other baby that the small group was blessed with, would be able to survive.
Marilyn rushed back to Anta’s bedside pushing a medical tray on wheels. The tray was equipped with a small computer screen and several compartments holding small pieces of medical equipment and instruments. Rapidly touching the screen, she said, “Shift step to your left please.”
Tomorrow We Rise (The Killing Sands Book 2) Page 26