by Mike Kraus
Though the area along the Potomac was once highly trafficked, the construction of the warehouse and diverting of the nearby streets and walking paths went hand in hand with the design of his bunker. Though he does not show it, he is relieved to see that the building is intact and he quickly fishes a key from his pocket and uses it to open a small door into the warehouse.
Inside, the warehouse is dark but a quick flip of a nearby light switch solves the problem, illuminating the interior from some hidden power source. The building is mostly empty, except for a small vehicle sitting in the center of the room. Painted all black with no markings, it is a sleek craft, built for one with both a rotor on top and small wings on the sides that extend, allowing it to be flown as both a helicopter and a plane. Mr. Doe circles the craft slowly, checking the surface for any signs of damage. After verifying that it is in working order, Mr. Doe climbs in to the single seat and settles in, placing his briefcase in a slot next to him. The push of a button starts the electric motor and the craft shivers slightly as the rotors lengthen, the wings shorten and it begins to take off.
Though he has already committed to this early course of action, Mr. Doe pauses for another moment before continuing, wishing that he had more time to perfect his plan. A deep rumble from far under the ground confirms that there is no turning back as his bunker is destroyed, consumed by timed explosives that were activated when he entered the elevator. Seconds later, the main door to the warehouse opens, revealing a clear path out across the river and into the sky. With a deep breath, Mr. Doe pushes the dark craft out of the warehouse and into the sky, flying like a raven towards his destination.
Final Dawn: Episode 10
Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims
11:15 AM, April 20, 2038
A fierce wind whistled overhead at the Whitehorse International Airport, sending the snowdrifts churning as it blew across the main runway. The remains of a Boeing 747 were nearly completely covered with snow at the southern end of the main runway. Half a dozen smaller craft were scattered elsewhere, tossed around by the recent storms like a child’s toys. With no one to clear the snow and ice from the runway and roads, the only sign that they were even there was a lack of trees and buildings, making it difficult—but not impossible—to discern which way to go.
Standing at the edge of a hanger, Leonard shielded his eyes against the driving snow as he squinted, looking down the length of the runway. Though it was difficult to see anything through the sheet of white outside, Leonard didn’t want to risk missing any signs of danger approaching through the cover of the storm. With a sniff and a shiver, he walked back inside the hanger, giving a nervous glance overhead. The sound of the wind in his ears gave way to the shrieks of the metal hanger as it struggled to stay erect against the storm outside.
In the back of the hanger, out of reach of the wind and snow, the armored vehicle sat in a corner with a pale glow coming from behind it. Leonard rested his rifle up against the side of the APC as he came back to it, shrugging his heavy overcoat off to the floor. On the cold concrete of the airplane hanger, a small fire was crackling behind the APC. The warmth was welcome by Leonard, who had spent the better part of an hour keeping watch at the entrance to the hanger since the latest storm had blown in.
The strange storms that had first started when they were at Samuel’s compound had only grown more frequent. The last several days of driving had lacked the drama evoked by both Samuel and the creatures, but the storms had more than taken their place. Intense, powerful lightning arced between the clouds, occasionally touching down in a dazzling display of light and fire. As one of the last refuges against the bitter cold and treacherous mountains of Canada and Alaska, Whitehorse was where Leonard and Nancy decided to rest before continuing forward into the icy wilderness. Though the region was beautiful, the late season snowfall filled them both with a sense of dread about their situation and prospects for the future.
Leonard and Nancy’s plan was to head cross-country, through the wilderness, until they reached a small village near the Bering Strait, where the submarine was last spotted. Given the current weather conditions though, such a trip was starting to seem too risky to even attempt. Even with no snow to deal with, the terrain was horrendous and there were no paved roads to the village.
Contact with Rachel, Marcus and David had been patchy at best, and the last communication was a full three days prior and filled with static caused by the storms. Still chasing the submarine they hoped was off the coast of Alaska, Leonard and Nancy felt themselves growing resentful of their mission. Another fifteen hundred miles of narrow roads, off-road driving and the dread of running out of fuel stood between them and the small village at the coastline of the Bering Strait. Leonard had half-hoped that an aircraft would be salvageable from the airport in Whitehorse, though that was clearly not going to be an option.
Sitting down next to the fire, Leonard patted Nancy gently on the back. She slowly blinked her eyes open, rubbing them with a thickly gloved hand as she was roused from slumber. Sitting cross-legged up against the side of the APC, Nancy had fallen asleep to the warmth and crackle of the flames, recovering from a six-hour stint of driving through heavy snow in the darkness created by the cloud cover above.
“Anything out there?”
Leonard shook his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose, brushing the water drops from his hair and beard into the fire. “Nothing but snow and storms. I don’t know it’ll all end, but we shouldn’t stay here much longer.”
Nancy cast a glance at the vehicle behind her, standing up slowly to stretch her legs. “I think we can go at any point. We gathered as much food and fuel as we could when we got here. Do you really think it’ll get us all the way to the strait?”
Leonard leaned back and reached deep inside his coat, fishing out a thickly folded map from an interior pocket. Spreading it out on the floor, he traced a path with his finger starting at Whitehorse, passing near Anchorage and then out through the wilderness to the village near the strait. “We’ll make it to Anchorage, of that I’m sure. From there, though, that’s a good question. Taking this thing off-road is going to be slow and it’ll chew through a lot more fuel, especially if we start relying on it for all of our heat instead of building fires.”
Even traveling straight across from Wasilla to the strait, it was farther than the distance traveling from Whitehorse to Anchorage. Disregarding the fact that the terrain was incredibly rugged and unforgiving, there was no way that they could make a straight shot across, especially in the weather that had been prevalent as of late. Leonard closed his eyes and took a deep breath, pushing the thoughts of the arduous journey from his mind.
“Maybe once we get closer we can try to raise the submarine on the radio?” Nancy didn’t sound hopeful at all.
Leonard shrugged and nodded, then began refolding the map to put back in his coat. “Maybe, if the storms let up at all. Until then, though—” The thunder from a bolt of lightning striking a nearby building shook the hanger, punctuating Leonard’s sentence. “Until then, I don’t think we’ll be able to reach anyone.”
Bering Strait
April 18, 2038
Standing under a softly glowing light, Pavel Krylov studies a map of the Alaskan coastline. Tracing several paths with a soft-tipped marker, he glances to the side as one of the young officers walks up behind him.
“Commander?”
Pavel turns to the officer and holds out his hand, accepting a document on a clipboard. “Thank you. How soon can we be ready?”
“The ship stands ready for your command, sir.”
Pavel nods and turns back to his map, musing over the various routes he has traced out. “I’ll have something for you within the hour.”
With a quick salute, the young officer turns away and goes back to his station. After staring at the map for several more minutes, Pavel uses a damp rag to wipe away all but one set of lines on the map and then motions for the officer to return to him.
“We’ll fol
low this course, moving at periscope depth unless we see more signs of those things. If they come back, descend to maximum depth, but maintain course and speed.”
Another salute follows Pavel’s commands, then the command deck erupts with activity. The officer Pavel had given orders to begins to repeat them, calling them out to the crew with a loud voice. Moving slowly to his seat, Pavel watches quietly as the crew works. Within moments the ship lurches and begins to move, rising to a shallower depth and beginning its run down the long coast of Alaska.
Feeling frustrated and tired of sitting in the same place for days on end, Pavel has plotted a course that will take the Arkhangelsk down the coast of Alaska, through the Krazinski pass and into the harbor at Anchorage. Pavel isn’t sure what they’ll find in Anchorage, but if there is no sign of anyone, he plans to make for the nearest Russian port where he’ll take the remaining crew members ashore.
“Sir?” The helmsman approaches Pavel, darting his eyes back and forth nervously. “If I may… why are we making for the United States instead of home?”
“It’s a matter of national interest, of course.” Pavel says, speaking loudly enough for the whole crew in the control room to hear him. While the late commander wouldn’t have taken kindly to being questioned, the crew is still on edge enough that Pavel must tread carefully lest they tilt back into a mutinous state of mind. Pavel stands and walks slowly around the deck as he speaks. “It’s a good idea to keep a close eye on the ones who may be responsible for whatever is going on out there, wouldn’t you say?”
The thinly veiled appeal at the crew’s patriotism works perfectly. They begin to smile and clap each other’s shoulders, enamored with the fact that they are about to take the Arkhangelsk right off the coast of a major American city.
Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry
11:49 AM, April 20, 2038
A week prior, the road north into Washington had been relatively easy to travel, with a few exceptions. Roving mutated creatures, unstable buildings and the plethora of destroyed cities and abandoned cars notwithstanding, getting into the city had been a walk in the park compared to getting out. Before losing his connection to the satellite, David had managed to grab real-time imagery of the storms sweeping across the globe. The results were not pretty.
Many of the smaller individual storms had combined into larger “superstorms” that covered entire continents, blocking out the sun and generating vast amounts of lightning and damaging winds. Few of the storms produced precipitation, though there were exceptions at the northern and southern ends of the planet. The existence of the storms—particularly the way in which they sprang up out of nowhere—was in direct contradiction to the laws of nature, but there was no doubting their reality or ferocity. This fact was particularly poignant given that Rachel, Marcus and David had been stuck in the APC for three days, trapped beneath an underpass as they tried to wait out the storm above.
Though the armored vehicle was no lightweight, occasional gusts from the storm had nearly thrown them off of the road on more than one occasion. Seeking refuge beneath the underpass, the group had hoped that the storm would pass in less than a day. Three days later, though, the storm had not lessened in intensity and they were beginning to go stir-crazy, especially Sam who was not used to being confined for so long.
Forced to stay in the cramped interior of the overloaded APC, the group only dared to venture out when it was absolutely necessary, either for bathroom breaks or in their vain attempts to start a fire and warm up some of their dwindling food supplies. The hours passed by slowly, and after the first day they all slipped into silence, having no more topics at hand to discuss.
Sitting in the driver’s seat, Marcus ran one hand over the steering wheel while he adjusted his air conditioning vent with the other. Running the engine on and off to keep themselves comfortable had helped save on fuel, but they were beginning to run low. Taking advantage of the brief time when the engine was running, David sat in the back with his computer, trying in vain to connect to the orbiting satellite so he could contact Leonard and Nancy.
Rachel sat quietly in the passenger’s seat, her eyes closed as she tried to sleep, not wanting to give the dark storms outside another glance. A soft grinding sound came from her left and she opened her eyes, giving Marcus a worried look. His jaw was tense as he ground his teeth together. Three full days of frustration had built to a head, and with nary a warning, he snapped.
David shouted in surprise and Rachel heard his laptop computer slam closed as the APC jerked forward, its tires spinning against the pavement as they fought for traction. Pushing herself up in her seat, she screamed at Marcus in shock. “What the hell are you doing?”
Marcus ignored Rachel’s cry and swerved the APC around a pile of cars, sending Rachel slamming up against the side door. Sam barked loudly in the back compartment and David shouted something incomprehensible as he was buffeted from side to side, though there was little room for him to go anywhere.
“We can’t be out here, Marcus! We’ll get torn apart by the storm!”
Marcus’s eyes flicked over to Rachel and she involuntarily shrank back. For the first time since meeting him, Rachel found herself somewhat scared of Marcus, especially after seeing the look that filled his eyes.
“I guess we’d better buckle up then, because we’re not going back!”
In the brief moment that he had been driving, Marcus had already brought the APC up to a high rate of speed, and was tearing through grass and across the highway at a breakneck pace. Rachel tightened her harness and looked back at David who had finally managed to sit up as he frantically gathered his scattered computer equipment.
“What the hell is going on up there? Why are we moving again?”
Another swerve cut off David’s next question and he groaned loudly as he bounced off of Bertha and fell onto his back. Instead of trying to get up again, David kept still, gripping his computer on his chest as he grumbled to himself about the current state of affairs.
“Marcus, please… we need to get back under cover and wait for the storm to pass.” Rachel spoke calmly and fought to keep her voice level as the APC continued to swerve back and forth on the road. Marcus’s driving, though erratic, was successful, and he had avoided every obstacle in their path.
“I know you think I’m crazy right now, Rachel.”
“No shit.” Rachel whispered under her breath, though it was still loud enough to elicit a grin from Marcus.
“But the way I see it is that we don’t have time to keep standing around with our thumbs up our asses. Either we get to the coast or we die trying.”
Stopping herself before she spoke, Rachel simply held on to her seat and tried to keep from bouncing as the APC continued forward. At the speed they were going, it would be suicide to try and wrest control of the vehicle from Marcus. In a way, she thought, he was right, though the execution of what he described left something to be desired.
When they had first set out from Washington, they had been able to maintain contact with Leonard and Nancy. Taking turns, each group described the events of the last several days to each other, comparing notes over their situations and discussing what their next steps would be. The first sign that Rachel, Marcus and David wouldn’t have an easy trip to the south came in the form of a massive storm that stretched farther than they had previously encountered.
While he was still able, David had grabbed the latest satellite imagery of the storms and had compared notes on them with Rachel while Marcus had slowly maneuvered them down the road. The storms were obviously not a natural phenomenon, so Rachel and David took to discussing the various reasons why the nanobot AI would want to generate them, assuming of course that it was responsible.
Much of the debate about the storms centered around the possible benefits that they would provide to the nanobots. Theories were tossed back and forth until Marcus finally interrupted, pointing out a possibility that Rachel and David had overlooked in their overly analytic
al debate.
“Doesn’t this thing want us all dead and gone?”
Rachel and David looked at each other blankly, then Rachel answered. “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but yes, that’s right.”
“So the first thing it did was wipe us out en masse, but it missed the ones in its whitelist, and probably a few others too, I’m guessing. So what would be the best way to kill off the remaining survivors now that pretty much anyone capable of putting up a fight is dead?”
Marcus didn’t wait for Rachel or David to answer his question. “I’ll tell you how: pull us into another ice age, or whatever these storms are going to do. If they’re expanding to cover the planet and these things are using precious energy to do it, what else would they be trying to do but snuff out the remaining survivors?”