by A. G. Riddle
In the kitchen, after the kids eat breakfast, Fowler opens the meeting in the usual way, “Any updates?”
“There’s been a proposal from one of my people,” Earls says. “Her name is Angela Stevens. She’s a corporal. One of my best. She wants to swim through the backup water tube and try to make it through the aquifer.”
“Impossible,” Min says, not meeting his gaze.
“She’s requested,” Earls continues, “that we construct some sort of breathing apparatus for her, maybe a hose or an oxygen bag or tank. She wants to rip some sheets up and make a rope that she’ll take through.”
Charlotte opens her eyes. “What would the rope be used for? To try to pull someone else through? That seems exceedingly dangerous.”
“True,” Earls replies. “Her thinking is that she could use the rope to let us know that she’s successfully cleared the emergency backup water tube.” He rubs at his eyebrows as if trying to remember the details of the plan. The extreme rationing is affecting even him. “She’ll tug on the rope when she reaches the aquifer to let us know she’s okay. Then, when she reaches the surface of the water and climbs out, she’ll tie the rope off, and go to the surface, proceeding to CENTCOM or wherever she can find a vehicle and supplies. She’ll then procure a real rope at the CENTCOM supply bunker. She’ll tie the real rope to the sheet-rope and then tug seven times. That’s the signal for us to pull it back in.”
Earls pauses and rubs at his eyebrows again, the motion seeming to make his brain work. “Where was I?” he mumbles. “Oh yeah, she goes and gets a rope and some MREs and she starts sending those back. Did I say that? The MREs will be tied-in at the point where the two ropes join. From there, she keeps adding food and we keep reeling it in. She pulls the rope back, attaches more food and so on.”
Everyone is silent for a long moment.
“Assuming it works,” Min says, “it’s not clear how long it would take her to transport the food from the CENTCOM bunker down here. It could be a multi-day process by the time she goes there and gets back down through the passage to the aquifer. She’d be making a lot of trips back and forth to feed everyone. We might just be delaying the inevitable. And risking her life to do it.”
His words hang in the air like a death sentence handed down by a judge.
“Let’s explore this,” Fowler says carefully. “Let’s imagine that instead of a rope she goes and gets more space suits and sends those through.”
“How does that help us anymore than food?” Earls asks.
“We’re assuming,” Fowler says, “that the passage at the top of the aquifer is fairly daunting. That’s why Oscar said that James thought we couldn’t evacuate the entire population that way.”
The mention of James’s name focuses me.
Fowler continues: “That tells me that going up and down that pass is going to be a major issue for Corporal Stevens. It’s going to take time. As Min pointed out, she’ll only be able to carry so many MREs with her down the passage. But if she had more than one person to help her move the supplies back and forth, maybe we can actually get a reasonable supply line going.”
Min shakes his head slowly. “If that was workable James would’ve done it. I’m sure he would have thought of this, and he ruled it out for a reason.”
“That was then— almost four days ago—when James made that call,” Fowler says. “Our… circumstances have changed since then. We don’t know if he would make a different decision given… where we are now.”
Talking about James in the past tense, as if he’s dead, as if he will never return, makes my eyes water. I don’t trust my voice not to crack, so I stay silent.
“What if,” Earls says, “we just follow the base plan: Stevens goes to CENTCOM, gets some food and a real rope, ties the rope to the sheet and we pull the rope back to us. Then we have an operational line. We distribute the food. I think, frankly, that will go a long way toward improving morale, which is, I’m sorry to say, just as dangerous as our food shortage.”
Fowler nods. “And then we could pass notes back and forth with her, figure out if we want to requisition some space suits and send others out.”
“Correct.” The colonel seems to think for a minute. “Pulling someone through is a tall order. There are some vehicles at the CENTCOM bunker with winches on them. Maybe she could use one to pull people out.”
“Maybe,” Fowler mumbles. “We have to be very careful in the water tube. Any puncture to the person’s suit or air supply could be deadly.” He pauses. “But we can sort that out when the time comes. Look, it’s risky, but I say we let Stevens have her shot.”
No one agrees. No one disagrees. That passes for consensus now.
“Why don’t you get her in here, Colonel?” Fowler asks.
Five minutes later, Corporal Angela Stevens is standing at attention, hands behind her back. She’s a black woman, mid-twenties, I would guess. American. Slim. Eyes focused. She still has some fight left in her. I recognize her as one of the attendees at my Birthright sessions.
“Corporal,” Colonel Earls begins, “your plan has been approved.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“What you’re undertaking is extraordinarily risky,” Fowler says. “I want you to understand that we believe this mission carries a low probability of success. You need to prepare yourself physically and mentally. You need to be very careful in that tunnel. We’re going to build some sort of oxygen supply for you and we’re going to give you as much time as we can, but keep in mind, we simply don’t have any idea how long it will take you to clear the backup tube or the aquifer.”
“I understand, sir. I’m willing to take the risk.”
After a silent moment, Earls says, “Thank you, Corporal. That’ll be all.”
When she’s gone, I can’t help thinking about whether we are sending that young woman to her death. But I understand why she wants to try. I would too if I could—if I didn’t have a permanent disability in one leg and a child growing inside me. I’m thankful for Angela Stevens’s courage. She might be the best chance of survival for Allie and my unborn child.
In the sub-basement, the adults are gathered around, sitting on pillows and blankets, organized in three rings around me, their faces illuminated by the LED lanterns.
A few of the adults are lying on their sides, dozing. It’s the darkness and, frankly, the lack of food. We’re all weak. I don’t bother trying to wake them for the session. In the outer ring, I spot Angela Stevens.
“Fear is our topic this afternoon. The Birthright posits that the human brain is not born as a blank slate. Every human mind is created with a sort of operating system. That system evolved over thousands of years for a simple purpose: to enable us to survive. Fear is one of the most powerful aspects of our mind’s operating system. It’s a tool. But like any tool, the mind’s fear apparatus can be misused. It can malfunction.”
I turn the page on the tablet.
“What is fear? Fear is what saves our life when we look up and realize a car is rushing toward us. Fear makes us get out of the way. Fear focuses us. Fear makes us think about the future and about the decisions we make today and how they might impact our lives. Fear is good. Fear is why our species has survived so long on this planet. But fear can malfunction.”
I look around the group, at the dozens of faces, all eyes fixed on me. “‘Fear is like an alarm. We—as owners of our own minds—must turn it off when it has served its purpose.’”
I take a deep breath. “Here’s a personal example. As a kid, I was terrified of public speaking. In high school, in my junior year, I ran for class president. I thought the extracurricular activity might help put my college applications over the top.”
I smile, remembering how awkward, type-A, over-ambitious I was at sixteen. “However, that year, they made candidates give their speeches in front of the whole class—as opposed to written speeches. I was terrified. Mortified. But I was even more scared of not getting into college—or backing out. For the
days and weeks leading up to my speech, I barely ate. I slept poorly. And luckily for me, this happened around the same time I first read The Birthright… and it saved me.”
I hold my hands up. “Okay, that’s probably an exaggeration, but it did feel like the end of the world at the time. The Birthright gave me perspective. It helped me see my fear in a new way. Before, I didn’t acknowledge that I was afraid. I saw my fear, in a way, as a sign of weakness. I tried to hide it. I tried to ignore it. I tried to pretend to myself that I wasn’t afraid.
“The Birthright says that’s the last thing we should do. Fear is normal. Ignoring it is not. So I recognized my fear for what it was: my mind’s way of making me prepare for my speech. You see, giving the speech wasn’t just about winning the race for class president or getting into college. My mind knew that the stakes were higher than that. My speech, depending on how it went, would impact what my friends and teachers thought of me, my social standing, and perhaps even my overall happiness for the rest of my high school career. I wasn’t consciously aware of that—but my subconscious was. The mind’s subconscious is very powerful. And at this point in my life, fear—as a warning—was going off non-stop. It was no longer helpful. Instead of protecting me, my fear was hurting me.”
I turn the page on the tablet and quickly find the passages I’ve marked. “‘If you don’t master your fear, your fear will master you.’” I glance up at the group. “How do we master our fear?”
My brother-in law, David, answers softly. “Recognize it.”
“That’s right. That was my first step. I recognized that I was afraid to give the speech.” I pause, scanning the group. “I think I speak for everyone in the Citadel when I say we’re all afraid down here. Let’s drag those fears out of the closet right now.” I hold my hands out to the crowd, palms up. “Anyone. Who would like to start?”
Alex, James’s brother, breaks the silence. “I’m afraid we won’t get out of here.”
“Good.”
Fowler’s wife, Marianne, speaks next, her voice quiet. “Both my children are adults now. I’m afraid they’ll starve down here. And I’m even more afraid for the younger children.”
Fowler puts his arm around her and pulls her to him. “I think that’s a fear we all share.”
To my surprise, Colonel Earls speaks next. “I’m afraid of missing something. Of not doing everything we can to get out of here.”
I nod to him. “Thank you, Colonel.”
Corporal Angela Stevens’s voice rings out in the sub-basement, clear and strong in the darkness, just as it was in the kitchen. “I’m afraid of letting everyone down.”
“I think we all are, Angela. We share these fears. And we shouldn’t keep them bottled up, inside of us, running wild. We must recognize our fear—and see it for what it is: the mind’s warning system. Once we’ve received the warning, fear has no place. Fear—if we let it—will focus our mind on the object of our fear, the event we dread or the outcome we can’t bear. It will operate like a horror film on repeat, playing endlessly in our minds. We must recognize fear as an alarm and turn it off. That is how we master excess fear—seeing it as a broken alarm, a common event in everyone’s life. With time and practice, you can learn to turn the alarm off.”
The next morning, in the water treatment plant in the basement, Corporal Stevens is standing beside the small pool that accesses the backup tube. Her body is wrapped in aluminum foil, taped tightly to her. That will trap her body heat to keep her warm—and it makes her look like a superhero: Foil Woman. The foil is the best we can do to keep her warm. The water in the tube will be cold and it’s going to be a lot colder in the aquifer. If she doesn’t suffocate, or go into cardiac arrest, or simply stop from exhaustion, she could easily succumb to hypothermia.
The oxygen tanks are, frankly, pretty crude. Each is a bunch of plastic jugs that have been melted together to form an oxygen tank. There are three tanks, each with a hose connected to her suit, fitted with valves that she can turn on or off. The idea is that if one tank fails (or runs out of oxygen) she can switch to the other.
Fowler holds up a tablet with the map of the water tube and the aquifer.
“We’re fairly certain you have enough oxygen to reach any point in the aquifer. It all depends on how fast you swim and how much oxygen you use. And whether the tanks stay intact. With that said, your best option is to instantly go for the top of the aquifer once you clear the backup tube. Find a break in the water surface and get oxygen and rest. Take your time and search for the passage to the surface from that home base.”
“Understood, sir.”
An army sergeant ties the makeshift rope around her waist: strips of bedsheet braided together and wound tight.
“Godspeed, Corporal,” Colonel Earls says.
Chapter 25
James
I wince when the blood hits my face.
“Hold tight, James,” Izumi says.
She’s got nerves of steel.
We’re both dressed in army surgical gowns, gloves, and face masks.
The patient, a 26-year-old young man we recovered from a habitat about three hours ago, fidgets on the operating table in the CENTCOM bunker’s med bay.
Izumi glances at the machine displaying his vitals and supplying the anesthesia.
Slowly she hands me the clamps and holds out her hand. “Suture.”
Forty-five minutes later, the patient is out of surgery, and I’m scrubbing my hands.
“I think he’s going to make it,” Izumi says, standing beside me, washing her hands at the silver-metal trough. “We’ll probably know by tomorrow morning.”
We step out of the operating room, shuffle through the med bay and out into the open area of the bunker, which we’ve transformed into a hospital. Rows of folding cots cover half of the floor. We removed all of the vehicles except one troop carrier and parked them right outside the bunker to make room. White sheets hang on ropes between the cots, adding a modicum of privacy. Roughly twenty patients are awake and crying. Their sobs are gut-wrenching, but for now, we’ve done all we can for them. We’ve treated their wounds and given them painkillers for the ache in their body. There’s not much we can do for the hurt they feel in their hearts for the loved ones they’ve lost. That pain isn’t going away, at least not anytime soon.
We’ve been running rescue operations for about a week now. Malnutrition, lacerations, and broken bones are the most common injuries. There’s no shortage of concussions among the survivors. But I think most are going to make it.
Forty-two survivors. That is the number of lives we’ve saved.
In the last week, we’ve pulled a total of fifty-three people from the ruins of Camp Seven. Eleven of those succumbed to their injuries. Five of the survivors were healthy enough to help us. They’ve been searching the wreckage, and they’ve been a big help. One in particular, an army captain named Tara Brightwell, has drastically increased our efficiency. She’s British, a woman of few words, but she makes every one count. She’s directing the rescue operations now—and doing it better than I can.
Grigory and Harry have been digging at the asteroid impact site. Day and night, they’ve been operating the large excavator and bulldozer we found here in the CENTCOM bunker, pushing the machines to their limits. Even with the excavator’s hydraulic hammer, it’s slow going. The earth below the impact crater is packed tight—and some of it was rock long before the asteroid hit.
Without Oscar, we can’t make it back to the Citadel. Digging is our best hope of reaching the people in the Citadel, but with each passing day, I grow more nervous about our prospects of success.
Izumi and I have spent our time caring for the survivors. In the moments in between, I’ve stewed over the decision of whether to accept Arthur’s help. In the back of my mind, constantly, is the thought that Emma and Allie are slowly starving to death—and that Emma is pregnant. Time is running out.
Nine days. They have nine days of food left. Can we reach them in time?
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If we can’t, there’s only one alternative: Arthur’s deal. But I fear that accepting his offer could kill us all, that his gesture is a ruse, a lie to gain access to robotics components he’ll use to slaughter us. Is that his plan? To kill everyone in the AU first, then move around the world? It’s more than possible that the grid used asteroids as a first strike, knowing it could take control of Oscar to finish off the last survivors.
But what if I’m wrong? What if we can’t dig down to the Citadel in time? What if Arthur is our only chance of getting those people out of the Citadel, including my daughter, wife, and unborn child? What if my delaying is killing people in the Citadel right now? I wish I had some idea of what’s happening down there.
It’s an impossible decision to make, one that could save us or doom us. And I have to decide soon. Time. That is the currency of our existence now. We’re spending it, and we won’t get more.
I’ve also considered the black goo that took over Oscar’s body by inserting Arthur’s program. I’m assuming it’s no threat to humans, but I’ve put everyone on alert—and instructed them to keep it off any mechanical equipment. That was a weird conversation. Some of the rescue team members probably think I’m losing it.
In the CENTCOM bunker’s small situation room, two survivors sit at a long table. They can’t work out in the field—both have broken legs—but they’ve been a big help here with coordinating our teams.
A slender young woman with strawberry-blond hair, who I believe was in Emma’s current class, holds the handset of an army radio.
“I repeat, this is Camp Seven. We’re searching for survivors. If you read me, please respond.”
The radios have a limited range, but if any helicopters or vehicles are passing by, they might hear us.