Insolation

by Bradlyn Wilson

  Kane nodded, “Good, you’re remembering. Trust your body; it’s done this a million times.”

  Hadley noticed that her teammates were gathering in a circle. The pressure was on. She waited for Kane to make his move and he did. So she dodged his fist as it went straight for her face. She ducked and turned. He caught her but not before she brought her elbow back into his stomach. He held her for a second before letting her go.

  “I could have killed you—” he whispered menacingly into Hadley’s ear, her skin was crawling from his cool breath on her neck.

  He didn’t let go of Hadley yet though. His arms wrapped tight around her as he said to the whole group, “If I was an RFE, Hadley would be dead. I’m stressing the importance of this.”

  Kane stood back and pushed her forward with a lurch. He stood up straight brushing himself off and called out, “All right, you can have the afternoon off. I don’t know what you all did last night but the majority of you look like you might die on me. Get some sleep.”

  “Half a day off! My god!” Vanya said as she skipped up behind Hadley who was nursing a broken ego. She was bouncing with excitement. Hadley was still thinking about the peppermint. Her dream about Kane flooding back into her memory. The way he held her against his chest gave her goose bumps.

  “What are you going to do?” Hadley asked in monotone.

  “Hmmm, I know who I would like to do…” She uttered under her breath stealing a glance at Jeremiah.

  “Vanya!” Hadley burst into laughter, her eyes went wide and she blushed.

  “Oh don’t play coy; I’ve seen you and Pax.” She gave Hadley’s arm a light hit.

  “What?!’ Hadley played innocent, wondering where Vanya’s sudden confidence was coming from.

  “Right.” She said abruptly and walked forward to Jeremiah. Hadley watched her put her arm through his as they walked out the door. She just laughed and watched Kane start talking to Jameson and the other captains in the room.

  Hadley rushed after Pax who had stopped right outside the doorway.

  “I thought you weren’t talking to me,” he sneered.

  Hadley looked at him, “I just got my butt kicked, and I’m over it.”

  “Maybe I’m not,” he started to smirk.

  “Oh come on!”

  He grabbed her and pulled her into a corner. She was taken aback and bit her lower lip. He kissed her lightly, and then brushed a piece of hair off of her face.

  They walked back to the dorm together, smiling to themselves. As they approached Hadley’s door it got awkward. She didn’t know what they were doing, if they were saying goodbye.

  Pax cleared it up by saying nonchalantly, “I’m going to hit the gym, but grab lunch with me after?”

  Hadley just smiled and nodded as he walked away towards the gym. She stood outside her door for a moment before deciding to go to the pool. A place she now considered her sanctuary.

  The lights came on as she opened the doors and walked out onto the deck.

  “Hello Miss Evans,” a voice said, it was something that was new.

  “Hello?” she called into the emptiness around her.

  “They finally fixed me, I’m the voice activated controls for the complex; can I interest you in any sounds or lighting arrangements?”

  Hadley laughed. “Yes, give me a soft seaside wind in the late afternoon.”

  The statement even sounded ridiculous coming out of her mouth. But the lighting and sound effects started.

  Hadley turned on her tablet on a lounge chair and decided to open the second video diary, just in case it was different than the first.

  Again she saw herself sitting on a chair, with blood running down her cheek.

  “Hey Hadley. Me again. But I guess you could have guessed that.

  Any who! Hope everything is coming back to you. I hope you have started to get some memories back. Is that the right thing to say? Who knows?” She shrugged and brushed a piece of hair out of her eyes, but it got stuck in the blood on her cheek. Her eyes flicked to something behind the camera as she tried to get it out.

  “Umm. Well trust Hemmer and do as he says. Listen to Kane. He was always a mentor and almost like a— umm— father figure?” She was super unsure of herself as she said the last part as though she was reciting it from a script.

  “So you should know that Kila, our dog died yesterday. You probably remember her but don’t know what happened to her…”

  The Hadley on the screen just kept talking about nonsense until Hadley turned off the entry. She was frustrated and was hoping for more information, anything real that she could grasp and hold onto.

  She promptly deleted the files.

  Swimming was a great way to clear her head and she decided to take a swim. After changing she hopped into the deepest part of the dive pool and let herself sink a few meters to the bottom.

  She sat there underwater looking up at the flickering lights that passed through the water above her. She closed her eyes, seeing how long she could hold her breath. She kept going until her lungs yearned for air and she pressure started to push on her head.

  Then she remembered something.

  It had been months ago. She was running through the streets as they burnt around her. The bombs had dropped years before but the world was still on fire.

  She had awoken long before she should have and knew she had to flee.

  She ran until she saw the pile of rubble sitting there, she climbed down a hole as deep as she could and lay down. She had been wearing a yellow dress and she peeled it off leaving her in her underwear. A small wooden box clutched in her hand. She opened it and smiled.

  Then without hesitation she rolled it up in the yellow dress and stuffed it into a crack in the concrete as far as her arm could reach.

  In the other hand she had an injector; she pulled off the cap with her teeth and dug it straight into her thigh. Then she went to sleep.

  Hadley’s eyes widened as she remembered and she pushed off the pool bottom. She made it to the surface, coughing out the water in her mouth. She swam to the edge, grabbed her towel and rushed to change.

  With her hair still wet she ran down the hall and started hammering on Pax’s door.

  He opened it, and stood there in a white towel, his abs gleaming under a coating of water droplets. He was drying his hair with a smaller towel. Hadley bit her lip and her cheeks flushed.

  “Oh, couldn’t stay away?” He said in a sultry voice.

  She pushed through into the room and turned around, after he closed the door and said quietly, “I remembered something…can you help me?”

  He just smiled.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Hadley peered out of Pax’s door an hour or so later. She was breathing heavily, her heart racing as the adrenaline pumped through her body. She was ready to find the small wooden box and find some well-deserved answers.

  She felt for the paring knife she had hidden and slipped it into her sock. The hallway was dim but the lights gradually turned on as she peered out. She hid behind the slit in the door and looked out, waiting for whoever was coming.

  There were two sets of footsteps, stumbling along down the hall.

  “That was fun,” Vanya said with a giggle.

  “Mhmm it was, wasn’t it?” Jeremiah replied devilishly. Jeremiah pinned Vanya against a wall his fingers tracing along her arm, along to her elbow. They started furiously making out, hands all over each other.

  “I just want to get out of this place, go home,” Vanya said as Jeremiah kissed her neck.

  “Soon babe, soon,” he replied against her neck. He pulled her shirt over her head and moved his hand to her chest.

  Pax started breathing over Hadley’s shoulder, watching with her.

  “In the hallway?” he breathed exasperated into her ear. Hadley had to stifle a laugh.

  “I know, I know, but I’m getting sick of waiting. I feel like we are just going through the motions. Just doing the right things to the right end,” Vany
a said.

  The right end? Hadley strained to hear every word the two were saying. What was she talking about? It sounded as though they had a dirty secret. Hadley pressed her back harder into Pax knowing they definitely didn’t want their conversation overheard.

  “Everything has to be perfect; you know that, Hemmer wants to do it right this time around. He needs ALL the information.” Jeremiah said. He grabbed Vanya’s hand and pulled her into his room. They were gone.

  “What was that about?” Hadley whispered to Pax.

  “No idea,” he shrugged. “Strange though wasn’t it?”

  Hadley grabbed the rest of her things, her coinet, and a small backpack filled with a bottle of water and some food patches.

  “You’re adorable when you’re nervous” Pax laughed as he stood waiting by the door.

  “You’re not nervous?”

  “Meh, what’s the worst that can happen?” He was chill as always.

  His hair fell over his eyes in a carefree sort of way. His silhouette was distinct against the wall. They stood by the door for a moment ensuring there were no more sounds. Hadley rested her ear cautiously on the door waiting for absolute silence. When they were sure there was no one around they rushed quickly out of the dorm. The halls were empty and deserted.

  They rushed to the roof through the winding halls. Hadley held her breath hoping that they wouldn’t be caught. She breathed in the cool night air as they emerged through the door onto the roof.

  It was natural, not fresh, but natural, and a nice change from the indoors of the compound. Hadley hadn’t noticed how sterilizing the interior of the compound was.

  “You’re sure we won’t die from radiation out here?”

  “Oh now who's the nervous one?”

  Pax gave her a punch to the arm. “Shut up.” He laughed.

  Hadley gave a chuckle. “We will be fine for about 4 hours, and we will definitely be back in our beds before that.”

  She looked up at the cloudy sky, which had an eerie yellow glow from the moon. The clouds looked radioactive and were exuding brightly coloured light. As she watched them shift for a moment sending streaks across the sky she knew they were the product of the gas levels in the sky and that a terrible storm was brewing tonight. Great! She thought. We couldn’t have picked a less intense night.

  The lack of ozone and increased greenhouse gases meant that more charged particles were entering the atmosphere as a result of solar winds. These were colliding with the oxygen in the atmosphere creating the lights through the clouds in the sky, like the northern lights that used to be a treasured phenomenon that people chased around the globe. Slowly the magnetic poles had shifted and the lights fluttered into nothing. Occasionally they could be seen hovering over areas of Antarctica.

  “What now?” Paxton asked with a crooked grin.

  “You start that way and I’ll go the other.” Hadley said with conviction, pointing to a ledge right in front of them.

  They started at one edge and started to look for any way down to the ground. The ground didn’t seem too far below them, but that was always thought standing staring over the edge. Hadley started to get frustrated at the lack of a way out of the compound and she calculated the probability of survival if she were to jump.

  It was low.

  As far as the eye could see the roof extended. Splitting up was good to cover more area but still it was seeming more and more like a fool’s errand. Hemmer wasn’t one for missing things. He missed the open door but he wouldn’t have left a way out. Not one Hadley could find. The more they looked the bigger and bigger the roof seemed to grow. Like the Universe continually expanding.

  At last she saw it, just as she was about to give up, in the far corner of the eastern section of the roof, a ladder leading down the side of the compound. We were at least 100 feet up at that point and the ladder led to a platform below. Hadley looked down and to the sides and saw no cameras or people. She threw her leg over the edge and put her whole weight on the ladder. It held. Thankfully.

  The ladder was old and the paint was peeling off the fading copper. As she grabbed the rung she felt the paint dig into her palm and she held on tighter knowing a tight grip was the only way not to fall to her death below.

  The temperature was noticeably dropping, at an alarming rate. Frost was starting to form on the metal rungs, freezing the paint into tiny ice crystals. Hadley’s breath was forming a small loud in front of her face. She watched as the tips of her fingers started to turn white.

  “Come on!” She yelled to Paxton as she poked her head over the top of the railing.

  The wind was howling in her ears and that was all she could hear. Her hair started to fly around her head and she couldn’t see anything. She hoped that Pax had heard her, but her hands were freezing and she started to descend.

  Almost a minute later, and 20 or so rungs Paxton leaned over the rail. He looked down at Hadley completely shocked.

  “Are you crazy? We were just scouting tonight Hadley. Come back up so we can think this through.”

  “Never mind that Pax, this might be our only chance! Now what are you waiting for?” She laughed her voice electrified with excitement.

  He shook his head but swung his legs over and started to climb after her. The ladder started to shake and they both held on.

  “Dammit,” Paxton breathed, his knuckles going white from hanging on too hard, “remind me you owe me for this Hadley.”

  Hadley laughed. The ladder was definitely less sturdy with two people on it and she could feel it vibrating beneath her. Her hand slipped for a moment and she let out a quiet yell.

  “You okay down there?” Pax yelled back concernedly.

  “Fine, how about up there?” she yelled back, not skipping a beat.

  “Fine!” he said gruffly, she could imagine the eye roll that went with the statement.

  They kept climbing down the ladder; it took longer than either thought to get near the bottom. The cold dark air started to whistle as it blew faster and faster. The storm was picking up steadily.

  Then, to make matters worse, the rain started. It pelted against their faces and obstructed their vision. The rain drenched Hadley in seconds. Lightning streaked across the sky. Combined with the lights it was creating a masterful artwork of the sky. They started to move faster and faster as burgundy and gold splashed above them. They were so close to the bottom but still so far.

  Hadley put her foot on a rung and it collapsed along with the last 20 feet of the ladder. She screamed as she dropped down barely managing to hang on by one hand to a frigid rung above her.

  “Pax!!” She screamed trying furiously to grab on with her other hand. She could feel her hand slipping and started to panic. She screamed Pax’s name again. It was met with silence.

  She tried to look up but her vision was so impaired by the rain so she looked down and saw the ground far below her. Puddles already forming.

  She knew that she wouldn’t make it if she fell but the rain was making the rung impossible to hold onto. She dug her nails into the metal, trying to get any grip she could. She scrambled and thrashed trying to hang on. The muscle in her arm tearing as it strained itself.

  Finally, she felt her hand slip off the rung. She closed her eyes and expected to fall.

  She didn’t feel it; her body didn’t move. She looked up and Paxton was holding her arm. She exhaled as he hoisted her up.

  Pax used all the energy he could to hoist her up. She clung to him, unable to stop shaking or to let go. He held her tighter than he had held anyone before. He knew he had almost not made it.

  His arms were almost crushing her and her nails were digging into his back. But neither of them let go. They were breathing in sync and their heart beats were at the same pace. The warm tears burnt Hadley’s eyes and poured down her cheeks onto his shirt. The rain came down harder and harder. They were dripping wet and their skin was freezing to the metal.

  Pax whispered into Hadley’s hair, “Let’s go back
up.”

  She pulled away from him and looked around. There was a pipe a few feet away from the ladder. She watched how it led downwards into the blackness below. Without thinking she reached out and grabbed it.

  “What in the world do you think you are doing?” Paxton said pulling her back to him.

  “I’m not giving up that easily,” Hadley smiled weakly as she wiped the tears off her cheeks. Then without thinking she jumped for the pipe. She almost overshot but managed to hang on. She shuffled down it like a fireman, holding her breath the entire way until finally she felt her feet hit the pavement. She looked up to see Paxton looking down in disbelief.

  “You’re crazy woman!”

  “Come on you chicken!” Hadley laughed up at him, regaining her rhythm. The rain was pounding her face and for a moment she was unable to understand where her courage had just come from. It took him a few moments before he grabbed the pipe and was on the ground beside her.

  “You are absolutely insane!” He pulled them together in an embrace. They both laughed basking in their adrenaline and stupidity.

  “Let’s go, we will figure out how we’re getting back in later,” Hadley said grabbing his hand as they walked down the street keeping our eyes peeled for any sign of the pile of rubble he had pulled Hadley out of.

  “So much for scouting.” Pax laughed.

  It was difficult to distinguish street names because so much of the city was destroyed. Some still had their ancient road signs. All the digital and holographic signs no longer functioned so they had to rely on looking at buildings that might have any distinguishing features.

  Before they knew it, the sun was starting to come up and they still hadn’t found anything they recognized. They started to jog checking every street as they went. Hadley had her coinet out and was slowly marking her way through a map she was drawing in a GPS app. They were making a grid of the city, but the city was bigger than she could have ever imagined.