METEOR STORM

by David Capps

  As I sat there my hand naturally went to the medallion. I held it in my hand and thought about Tia. She was going to be heartbroken if I died out here in the smoke and the darkness. As I was thinking about her, I thought I heard her voice. I believed it was probably just wishful thinking until I heard it again.

  “Tia!” I called out. “Tia!”

  I heard her voice again, calling my name. I moved slowly down the side of the mountain toward the sound of her voice. It got louder as I went. I came to where the rock dropped off and I could go no further. I realized I was above the cave entrance, but had to go to the left to finish finding my way back to the entrance. I shouted back to her to keep her encouraged. Her voice got weaker as I moved to the side. Finally I found my way back down to the small ledge where the cave entrance was located. I rushed along the ledge until I saw her standing in the smoke, yelling through a dust mask. Tears were running down her face. I embraced her, and she led me back into the cave entrance, while John closed the rock door.

  I pulled the goggles and the dust mask off. Nancy disconnected the oxygen cannula and took the tank from me. I held on to Tia with every bit of strength I had.

  “I missed you so much,” she said. “I was so worried.”

  “I thought I was never going to see you again,” I said. “I couldn’t have found the cave without you calling my name. Whatever possessed you to do that?”

  “The rope came loose,” she said. “It just fell down from up above. I knew you were in trouble and I didn’t know what to do. Then in my mind, I saw you sitting there, not knowing which way to go. I couldn’t bear losing you, so I called out your name and finally you answered.”

  We hugged each other tightly, neither of us wanting to let go. I realized how close we came to losing each other. I never wanted to feel that way again.

  “I hate to break this up,” John said gently, “but how much did you get done?”

  “The tower is back up with the new antenna attached,” I replied. “You should activate it and see what we have.”

  We walked back to the new communications room. John turned the radio on and set the frequency to the amateur band. The signal was clear and strong. John transmitted his call sign and got an answer back immediately.

  “We’re back in business,” John said. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  Later Tia and I held each other in our personal enclosure. She began to cry again. I held her tight against me. In my mind I heard her voice saying, “I love you more than you will ever know.”

  “I know you do.” I said to her softly.

  She pulled back from me. “What did you say?” she asked.

  “I heard your heart cry out,” I said. “It said I love you more than you will ever know.”

  “But I didn’t say anything,” she replied. “How did you know?”

  “All I can tell you is I heard your heart speak to me,” I said. “Just as clearly as if you spoke to me out loud.”

  “Oh my God,” she said. She looked down at the medallion hanging under my shirt. “The extra bumps on the medallion. They’re activating this ability in you.”

  This had never happened to me before. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was the medallion.

  “It must have done the same thing for the old guardian in Tibet,” I said. “He must have been able to hear what was in people’s hearts. That’s why he agreed to lead us to the cave in the mountain. He knew.” Knowing what was in someone’s heart and what their true motivations were gave the old guardian a huge tactical advantage over other people. Now that advantage was being activated within me. It was an ability that I knew came with serious responsibility. In the wrong hands it could lead to terrible consequences for unsuspecting people. Just knowing I had this new ability could lead otherwise normal people to ask for, or demand, that I use it for their personal gain. I could feel that Tia felt the same way about my new ability.

  “Don’t tell anybody except John about this, okay?” she said.

  I could sense her motivation and the logic in her thinking. “Yeah,” I replied. “I bet the old guardian didn’t tell anybody, either.”

  “No one,” she said, pointing her finger at me.

  “No one but John,” I replied. “Him I sense we can trust.”

  * * *

  After eight weeks in the cave, with the end of the meteor storm almost at hand, Tia and I, like the other people in the cave, became curious about what the outside world looked like. We opened the rock door and used our flashlights to examine our immediate surroundings. Smoke still filled the air, but visibility had expanded to around a hundred feet. Some trees were resting on the ground, mostly consumed by the fire. Others were still standing, though well charred. Black ash was everywhere. A light rain was falling, putting out the remaining smoldering pieces of trees. It was still difficult to breathe with the low oxygen content of the air. Rivulets of black water were starting to run down the side of the mountain. By the following afternoon the rain had increased in intensity and the rivulets had become full blown streams of black water cascading down the rocks and the slopes of the mountain.

  After two more days the black streams were taking on a brownish color and the rain was turning to snow. It was November and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Winter was arriving in the mountains and the realization that we would be in the cave for another five to six months dampened all of our spirits. Within forty-eight hours, the snow buried the rock door and we couldn’t get it open more than a small crack. By the next day the door wouldn’t move at all.

  I sat with Tia in our personal enclosure and I talked openly and honestly about my feelings. “Ever since prison I have felt worthless,” I explained. “I am ashamed, and that shame is all I can find within me. It’s a black abyss that can never be filled.”

  Tia reached out and lifted the medallion from under my shirt and held it in her hand. “Tell me about the old guardian in Tibet,” she said. “What’s he like?”

  “He’s really old, but we couldn’t keep up with him going up the side of the mountain.”

  “But what’s he like as a person?” I looked into her eyes wondering where she was going with this.

  “He’s kind and understanding, but has an inner strength that lets you know you can’t mess around with him,” I said.

  “So he’s strong on the inside but gentle on the outside?”

  “Yes, that would be a good way of describing him.” She looked down at the medallion and then back up to me.

  “Is he a worthwhile person?” she asked. “Is he worthy?”

  I glanced down at the floor, paused, and then looked back at her. “Yes,” I replied, “he is worthy.”

  “How do you know?” That deep penetrating look of hers was drilling its way into me. She could be really intense at times.

  “It just radiates from him,” I said. “You can see it; you can feel it when you are with him.”

  “Do you think he is a good judge of character?”

  Now I began to see what she was doing with this line of questions. “Yes, I do.”

  “He must have thought you were worthy for him to pass the medallion on to you. How many other people do you think he found worthy to pass this position on to?” she asked.

  I lowered my head and kept looking at the floor. My mind raced for an answer other than what I had known ever since the cave in Tibet, but there was only one answer. “Trent told me there were none.”

  “And what about Ed, is he a worthy person?”

  I was feeling very uncomfortable with where this was going but I knew she was right. “Yes, he is.”

  “Do you think he finds you worthy?” she asked.

  I searched my mind for an answer, but nothing was there. “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t tell us everything when you told us about what happened in the cave in Tibet,” she said. “Ed told me the part you left out. He was going to defend you against the robot when you stepped in front of him and talked him out of the knife h
e had. You then offered yourself as being responsible, willing to die in Ed’s place as well as everyone else’s. Worthless people don’t do that. They run and hide. They are cowards. Only one who is worthy does what you did. That’s how the old guardian recognized you as worthy of being the next guardian. That’s also why the robot recognized you as also being worthy.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Shhh…” she said gently placing her finger on my lips. “You can’t allow a bunch of thugs in prison to decide your self-worth. They didn’t know anything about you. They didn’t care. Their opinion isn’t worth anything. The old guardian, his opinion is valuable. Ed’s opinion is valuable, so is John’s and mine.”

  “John assigned Ed to protect me; he was just doing his job.”

  Tia shook her head. “That’s not how Ed sees it,” she said. “Yes, Ed was ready to give his life to try to save yours, because that was his job. But you saved his life. You talked him out of his weapon and offered your life in place of his. That wasn’t your job. That was above and beyond what your responsibility was. Ed respects you, like he would a brother SEAL and that’s rare.”

  She grabbed me by the hand and led me out of our enclosure and down the tunnel to the communications room. After she closed the door she spoke.

  “Robot, have you found Carl to be worthy?”

  Yes, Tia appeared on the screen.

  “And if you had not found him worthy?” she asked.

  Then he would never have left the cave in Tibet alive appeared on the screen.

  “And how would you know if he was worthy or not?” Tia asked.

  We have worked with humans for more than seventy thousand years came the reply on the screen. The worthy ones are rare and easy to identify.

  Tia looked at me. I stood there not knowing what to do or say. Finally I managed to speak.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  You are welcome, guardian appeared on the screen.

  It was a lot to absorb. Intellectually, I knew Tia was right, but the struggle was on the emotional level, not within my mind. Over the next two months I gradually reformatted my thinking and my feelings. It was extremely difficult, but eventually the black abyss faded into the nothingness I imagined waited for only me.

  Something else was happening. I was becoming much more aware of people’s thoughts and feelings. At first it was like these were my own thoughts and emotions, but they didn’t seem like thoughts or feelings I would have. Gradually I developed a sense of what were my own thoughts and what belonged to others. Same thing with the feelings I was experiencing.

  Finally I understood Tia’s love for me and Ed’s respect. I was experiencing what was in their minds and in their hearts, just not as intensely. I laughed out loud as I realized what the medallion was doing for me. The old guardian must have had a grand old time when we were there, sensing what we were thinking and feeling. If I was getting this much from wearing the medallion for six months, what was he experiencing from wearing it for decades? I was looking forward to finding out.

  CHAPTER 24

  John called us together in the dining area of the cave. The look on his face was somber and pained. This couldn’t be good news.

  “I have been in radio contact with people around the country,” he said, “The meteor storm is over, and the sunlight has returned.

  We all cheered. John smiled slightly, but the serious look on his face returned quickly.

  “This is what we know so far. Most of the people who built bunkers the way we recommended have survived, but that appears to be a small percentage of the population. Large cities are the worst areas for damage and deaths. In all likelihood we are dealing with more than 300 million dead bodies just in the United States. There is so much destruction and so many corpses that some of the major cities have been abandoned. There’s no one left to bury the dead. Smaller cities fared a little better. Organized efforts are underway to collect the dead bodies and either burn or bury them.”

  Intellectually, we all knew what was going to happen with the meteor storm. We weren’t emotionally prepared for the impact of what John was telling us. From the looks on their faces, everyone was taking the news harder than I would have thought.

  “We have sent out simple directions for making lye by draining water through wood ashes. Lye can be used to help stop the spread of disease from the rotting corpses. People aren’t the only victims of the meteor storm. Millions of animals have also been killed. So far, no one has seen a single bird alive. We may have lost most, if not all of the bird species in the world, except for the ones collected in Project Ark.”

  The realization was sinking in: we have survived a near extinction level event. Thousands, if not millions of animal and plant species may no longer exist. The world as we have known it has profoundly changed. Our ability, as humans, to adapt to changing conditions will be severely challenged. We, as a species, survived the last meteor storm, but the recovery took tens of thousands of years. It remained to be seen just how effective John and Project Ark would actually be.

  “The colder weather is helping decrease the stench of decomposition, but it also means that bodies are harder to move because some of them have already frozen and stuck to the ground.

  “The top two concerns are food and disease. Without adequate food more people are going to get sick and die, adding to an already devastating situation. I have directed that the food we have in storage be made available to people on an as needed basis. Already we have problems with people hoarding food and supplies. There are some reports of people being killed for their food, but so far those seem to be isolated incidences. Most people are cooperating with us and helping to create soup kitchens and shelters where we can feed and house the growing number of people who are arriving on a daily basis.”

  “Will the food reserves in Project Ark be enough to feed all of the survivors?” someone asked.

  “Based on the preliminary numbers of survivors, yes,” John said. The real problem is distribution. Some of the people are several days to several weeks of walking to get to where help is available. We’re doing everything we can to minimize those kinds of problems.”

  “So how are people going to know where to go or what to do?” someone else asked.

  “So far, the only communications are by amateur radio, and much of that is at night. A few police officers have survived and they are providing basic law enforcement. Government services are nonexistent. Most of the roads are pockmarked with meteorite impacts, but with some work will be passable. That’s all I have at this time.”

  * * *

  Meanwhile, teams approached the sixty-four commercial nuclear power plant sites in the U.S. with Geiger counters. The radiation levels were dropping, but still up in the deadly zone, and the area was marked as a health hazard with radiation markers.

  The nation’s oil refineries had been destroyed along with most of the pipelines. Whatever oil was left had burned off as a result of the meteor storm. Some underground tanks at gas stations had survived, but they had been drained dry in the first month after the storm. The nation’s natural gas reserves were all underground, as were most of the gas pipelines, but in pumping stations where the pipelines surfaced, fires still raged with no way for ordinary people to shut off the flow of gas. The reality of a lack of fuel for energy and transportation was both sobering and depressing. It would take a decade, maybe two, before any kind of large scale petroleum products would be available.

  * * *

  After the long winter we finally got the rock door open. The snow was still there but it was melting rapidly. Tia and I joined a group that ventured out to finally see the world. The air was clear and a rich blue sky greeted us. The warmth of the sunshine embraced us as we waded through the snow to the rock outcropping. We climbed the back side of the rock and looked out at the vista spread out before us.

  The ground where we were at the higher altitude was snow covered with black trees sticking up in macabre shapes by the millions. The val
ley stretched out below us with a lush green that spoke of renewal and new life.

  “The old world has passed away,” Tia whispered to me, “and the new world has begun, reborn with promise and hope. Your old life has also passed away, and your new life has begun, reborn with promise and hope. Carl Palminteri is no more. Only you, Carl Koenig remains, the worthy guardian of a new world.”

  I looked out at the green grass below and the bright blue sky and the white stream that rushed down the meadow. Tears came to my eyes. Tia was right. It was a new beginning for me, for everyone, and for the planet. We returned to the cave with the news of the verdant valley below. Tia and I went over to the deer enclosure. The deer were all standing, attentive, and full of expectation.

  “Do you think they know?” she asked.

  “Of course they know. Look at them. They’re ready to go back out into the world and begin again, just as we are,” I replied.

  John opened the deer fence and the rock door. The deer, the elk, and then the moose rushed out of the cave and into the snow. They all headed down the slope, proceeding to the meadow below.

  “Be fruitful and multiply,” John said as he watched the herd moving down and away from the cave.

  CHAPTER 25

  The people in Denver were constructing an administration building for John. Now that the snow was melting, we would be able to make the trip down to the city. Randy, our head of maintenance, had spent the last several days working on a project down where John’s cabin used to be. John had stored 300 bicycles in a protected enclosure for our use when we came out of the cave.