Ark-13: An Odyssey

by B. B. Gallagher

  The five councilmen had gathered and Sigh, as chairman of the Council, continued the meeting.

  “Andrew. I trust the supply drop went well this evening?” Andrew nodded an affirmative.

  “We are okay on our supply levels? How was consumption these past three days?” Sigh, for the moment, ignored the elephant in the room.

  “Normal… all is fine, granted we continue to receive the same supply levels.”

  “Good.”

  Jim Booker started, unable to wait.

  “Sigh, I would like to bring motion—”

  "Booker, I know that you have a proposal for the Assembly but it'll have to wait for another time. Some serious stuff happened today and I figure we should discuss it." Booker sighed a subtle annoyance but conceded the point with a nod. Sigh continued with a calm but direct management, knowing that he had to address the events of the day.

  "Now. First off, the Bridge contacted us, finally..."

  "We don't know that though..." Jake pointed out.

  "What?!" Booker asked aggressively. Sophia knew what Jake was thinking and jumped to explain.

  "All we know is that an alarm sounded and a message came on the monitors with the words: 'Detain for Treason' next to a picture of Meredith Jones. We don't know that GENESIS is behind that. The system could have been hacked..."

  “What is the likelihood of that? Do you know hackers on the Ark?" Andrew asked Jake. He gripped the note from Meredith in his pocket and shook his head.

  "Well then, we are going to assume it was a message from the Bridge," Sigh continued. "Why now? We have to constantly calm the colonists. She isn't the first to not drink the Kool-Aid around here..."

  "No, she is not. And if I may say, I was shocked to see that message today. Meredith as you know has been one of my closest friends and aids. But she has never mentioned any disconcerting thoughts or exhibited any rebellious behavior. This whole situation is odd to me..." Jake explained.

  "Does anyone else think it is odd they called it ‘Treason’?" Sophia Chen asked the Assembly. "Like what the hell is this? The Middle Ages?"

  "Order is of the utmost importance when our mission is to sustain the human race," Jim recited, as if it were a mantra he had repeated a hundred times.

  "What is wrong with you?" Sophia grew aggressive, turning to Jim. "At every turn you are defending GENESIS. Do you not find it odd that we haven't seen them since launch? Do you not feel a little concern that we have been kept in the dark this entire time? We haven't heard from the Bridge until today. We haven't heard anything from the other twelve Arks out there. And there are no lines of communication for us to send messages to either!"

  "Do I have to remind the Assembly that GENESIS saved our lives? Look, when our names came over the loud speaker in that hangar, and we were selected by GENESIS, I was as surprised as you. But we were appointed by them, and so I think we answer to them even if we can't see them," Booker responded.

  “The American colonists could not see their government. There was an ocean between them. Look what happened there...” Jake responded.

  "What are you recommending then, Jake?" Andrew asked.

  "I recommend we let her go. We have no evidence that she has done anything wrong. There isn't even irrefutable evidence that the message came from the Bridge. If we let her go, we can keep a closer eye on her and maybe force the Bridge's hand. If they really want her incarcerated they are going to have to have better communication with us than a message on the monitors," he explained.

  "You are talking about rebelling against GENESIS," Andrew noted.

  "No, I am not! I am talking about a simple principle that we had governing our country, innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof lies on GENESIS. That's not rebellion, it's just being reasonable and just," Jake explained.

  A silence formed in the room as they met a stalemate of opinions. The eyes in the room naturally turned to the Chairman. Sigh ran a finger through his white mustache as he considered the points made.

  "So... we need to decide collectively if we are gonna follow the order to detain Meredith."

  He adjusted himself as if he was on the fence and started around the table.

  "Alright, Jim... Do I have to ask?"

  "We have to follow the order." Jim stated with such certainty that he tried to sway any dissenters among him with his tone.

  "Sophia?"

  "We should not follow the order."

  "Jake?"

  "We should not follow the order."

  "Andrew?"

  "We should follow the order.

  "The vote is 2 in favor of following the order and 2 in favor of rejecting the order..." Sigh summarized to the Assembly. He leaned back in his chair and glanced over the table. The other councilmen awaited his word, silently. The tension in the room built.

  "It is important that we keep our principles close to us. If we do not, we will change. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not some legal analyst or political scientist. But I think, if are told to incarcerate one of our own, we should at least be told why and given a proper reason..."

  Sigh scratched the stubble on his jaw before speaking his final verdict.

  "Let her go... Assembly dismissed," Jim exhaled a disappointment while a fervent grin came over Jake. They ascended from their seats and exited the Council Chambers. Sophia walked alongside Jake and together they walked back to the Pen.

  "Here's to sticking it to the Bridge!" Sophia smiled over at him. Jake couldn't help but crack a victorious smile. They walked up the Loop another hundred feet until they came to the Pen.

  "You didn't have any guards?"

  "Didn't need any. Only people with this keycard can get in or out." Jake fished the white keycard out of his pocket and scanned it under the red light. A green light flashed indicating granted access. The door hissed and slid open immediately, revealing a shocking sight before him.

  Meredith Jones was gone.

  At first he did not know what to think, paralyzed in shock and confusion. It wasn't until Meredith's words echoed in his head that he could make sense of it.

  I think they're after me... I saw something Jake, something that exposed the truth. GENESIS lied to us.

  Jake's eyes fell to the crease in the middle of the floor, he visualized the ground opening up and dropping Meredith through a chute to some unknown location. His hand tightened into a fist as he realized what had happened.

  "GENESIS took her..."

  Chapter 7

  Requiem for Earth

  Log Entry # 3

  Everything is different now. Not only did the world die that day but so did we. We left ourselves behind when we boarded the Ark. But who was I, before everything came crashing down?

  It was one week before launch. I was in my small office above the antique store. Out the window I could see the seagulls circle the harbor. This was probably my favorite sight of Earth. I turned the TV on in my office and the local news was on the scene. Apparently, some guy was stopped by the cops because he was screaming about how he saw the world end. His name was DeAndre Graves and he apparently disappeared in the woods for a few months and then came back with a premonition of the end of the world. Everyone wrote him off as crazy. Turns out his vision was right.

  So DeAndre Graves walked into a convenient store and decided to hold up the place. It didn’t take long for the hostage scene to become a full blown media circus. He made no demands, he just wanted to be heard. Everything that came out of the poor bastard’s mouth sounded insane.

  “Can you believe that guy? It took hours of talking to him and then he just willing went to jail,” Doris asked, as she brought a coffee into my office.

  “The world is a crazy place, full of crazy people,” I responded.

  “What do we got on the docket today?” Doris was my assistant for my whole law career. She was still sharp as a tack despite pushing eighty years old. Her husband was abusive and gone now for many years. Her children were grown. I took care of her as if she w
as my mother and with just as much love too.

  “Ms. Greene is comin’ in to sign today. Here are her papers.” A folder hit the desk in front of me. “Then I have to run to the courthouse, but your afternoon is clear believe it or not.”

  “Oh good…”

  “What’s botherin’ ya this mornin’, Jake?”

  “Nothing I’m fine…”My assistant, Doris, was an older woman who could smell a lie from a mile away. She gave me one of those straight and narrow looks with the signature hand on the hip.

  “I met Nora for coffee the other day.”

  “Oh? How is she?” Doris asked.

  “Good, she wants me to call my dad…” Doris’s ears perked up at hearing this.

  “Why?” Her eyebrows dropped in concern, knowing my situation with dad.

  “He supposedly has something he’s got to talk to me about…”

  “Are you going to call him?”

  “I told her I would…”

  “It’s been five years now hasn’t it...” she recalled.

  “I don’t know if I will but—”

  “Well you have to.” Doris interrupted me. She sat done across from me in the motherly way she did. I noticed this move, it was the move where a gem of wisdom was about to be given.

  “Get ya head outta ya ass and call ya daddy.”

  Somehow it worked.

  Chapter 8

  Day 18

  Jake sat in his sleeping pod, back against the wall, elbows on his knees, and hands over his face. His journal was opened next to him – his pen in the crease of the page. A bottle with clear, liquid Ether was in his grasp – his vision was blurry from its effects.

  Glad Andrew set this aside for emergencies from the supply drops.

  He chuckled to himself pathetically as he took another swig of the Ether. Jake looked down in his hand at Meredith’s note again.

  TRUST DANNY RYDER, FIND THE X DRIVE

  GENESIS has taken Meredith. She was worried that they were on to her, because she had seen something. And how in the hell does she know that hacker kid Ryder? And what the hell is the X drive?

  Jake scratched the stubble sprouting along his jaw line and then consulted his personal parcel next to him on the floor of his closet. He flattened his legs to the ground and placed the box atop them before him. He cracked open the box and met his stack of 4x6 photographs. He flipped through a number of them until he found one.

  Nora…

  A sadness turned his stomach like a screw digging its way down. She was gone. He had left her, wishing for him to be a different man. One who would take a leap of faith. One who would let his guard down and act on what he felt instead of what he thought. One who would put his heart before his head every once and awhile.

  But he was not that person on Earth.

  He remembered the girls that he let slip through his grasp. He became paralyzed when he met any decision of long-term commitment.

  What would Doris say?

  He thought back to his secretary at his law firm. Her candid wisdom somehow came through his subconscious.

  Get ya head outta ya ass.

  Jake started laughing as tears started to pool under his eyelid. He took another swig of the Ether and got up and walked to the mirror. “I left them… I left them all behind…” Jake spoke aloud, his voice cracked into a million inflections. The tears welled up to their limit and began to stream down his face. His throat seized on itself and his face contorted into an unbridled sadness. Regret possessed him at every thought of his life before launch. His body trembled, knowing that he was alone and away from the public eye and could let out his feelings.

  Now Meredith is gone... I am so sick of people being taken away from me!

  He raised his head to his reflection and met the look of conviction drawn over his face. He was certain in his deliberation and ordained to a new cause – to right the wrongs of the past by living in accordance to a new code.

  The very thing that made us human was the blind willingness to love and the unquenchable appetite to be loved in return. If I don’t fight for that than what does that mean for the survival of humanity?

  Jake formed a fist on which he leaned. Anger flooded his emotions as his despair had run out and rebellion took its place.

  GENESIS took Meredith and I’m going to take her back!

  Chapter 9

  Day 19

  The next morning Jake walked the Stalls, surveying the bustling masses. The large hall resembled an Indian bazaar as different vendors offered their trinkets or crops to the colonists milling about. A middle-aged man approached Jake through the crowd.

  “Councilman Hansen!” It was his fellow councilman – the Director of Resources, Andrew Langford.

  “How’s it going?” Andrew put his nose up and inhaled a lungful of air.

  “Good… good… commerce is running smoothly. I wasn’t sure how it would all run with that second currency infusion from the Bridge last week. But it appears that splitting it up evenly was the right course of action. A few complaints from some vendors saying, that they needed more funds to operate but nothing big.”

  “Great. Hey, I’ve been meaning to tell ya that you’re doing a great job with the commerce sector.” Jake complimented, having always liked Andrew.

  “Oh… well thank you. And I’m sorry about what happened to Meredith, I know how close you two were… and about the vote yesterday—” Jake interrupted him with a waving hand.

  “Don’t worry about it. What good is a Council if we don’t stand up for what we truly believe?” Despite his sincerity, Jake could not keep his eyes from surveying the crowd for any sign of Danny Ryder.

  “I think we could pull this off. Well, we have to…” Andrew reflected with an optimistic smile. Jake tuned him out as he found a figure through the crowd of a similar height and build of Danny. All he could see was a mop of black, shaggy hair, walking across the Stalls fifty feet away.

  “… we have to always maintain the integrity of our society here…” Andrew continued his soap box, despite noticing Jake’s preoccupation. Jake patted Andrew on the shoulder trying to conclude the conversation.

  “We will… we will… hey I gotta go check on something, real quick, so I’ll see ya later.” Jake rushed off, leaving Andrew perplexed and concerned by his erratic behavior.

  Jake was off, walking at a distance, but tailing Danny.

  Danny’s mop of black hair turned down the third row of vendor stalls. Jake squeezed through a crowd as he continued his pursuit. He passed by Junior Posey and pretended that he didn’t hear his beckoning call. Danny led him out of the Stalls and started traveling up the Loop.

  Because gravity grounded them to the floor, they were able to travel up and around the Loop until they reached the Stacks. They had a horizontal orientation when walking the Loop, while the Stacks turned to being a vertical orientation, all was the same as the gravity shifted from chamber to chamber. The bridge to the Stacks corrected this phenomenon. As the colonists walked the bridge, the pathway twisted like a corkscrew until they turned ninety degrees. Then they walked out onto the Stacks with the floor beneath them and the pods towering to either side.

  Then Danny ducked into a nearby sitting area before the main Chamber. Jake planted himself behind a corner and watched him from afar. There was another teenager waiting for him. His behavior toward Danny was awkward and shady, as if he was uncomfortable in his presence. Danny scanned their surroundings and continued the meet.

  Danny reached out a hand with a currency note and the other teenager took it quickly and shoved it in his pocket.

  What kind of Black Market is going on here?

  Then what Jake saw next shocked him. The teenager scrunched his sleeve up revealing his armport. Danny brought out an insertable drive, one that was different from the standard issued holographic, and plugged it in to him. The holographic screen shined from the other end. With a push of a button the screen flashed through the teenager’s body levels. Then after a few mo
ments the holographic screen showed the words: Download Complete.

  What the hell?

  Danny unplugged the drive and nodded to the teenager who went on his way. Danny continued toward his sleeping pod – Jake continued to follow. After 60 yards, Danny began climbing a ladder to the third floor of pods. Jake watched from the ground floor as Danny entered the seventh pod down from the ladder.

  “I’ll see you tonight… Mr. Ryder…” Jake murmured under his breath.

  ⊶<>⊷

  When you are floating aimlessly in outer space there is no day or night.

  The overhead fluorescents through the Ark had dimmed, denoting that night had arrived. The clock read 1 AM.

  What does time mean anymore? We aren’t waiting for anything. We just are… If your future is the exact same as your present, time is obsolete.

  Jake knew that most of the colonists would be asleep in their pods, so he decided to make his move to Danny’s. Jake walked on light feet across the steel catwalk that connected the network of pods. He descended a ladder to walk over to the next cluster of pods and then ascended another ladder. Jake finally arrived to Danny’s pod.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Jake whispered to himself aloud.

  He exhaled and then raised his hand to the entrance button. Upon pressing it, Danny’s pod opened, revealing an unexpected sight.

  Danny was sitting casually facing the door, arms-folded, feet up on the desk, wearing a smirk.

  “Jake! I’ve been waiting for you…”

  Chapter 10

  Day 19

  “Welcome to my humble abode…” Danny raised his arms in presentation. His demeanor was much more relaxed and more casual than Jake expected. The pod was a carbon copy of Jake’s and all other colonists for that matter.

  “You’re expecting me?” Jake’s brows furrowed as he tried to make sense of the situation.