The anticipation of this adventure made her forget everything that had just happened. She grabbed Pax’s face and kissed him. He rolled on top of her on the floor and they got lost in the moment. The papers scattered around, almost forgotten.
Chapter Thirty-One
She couldn’t find the strength to take the ring off from around her neck. She was drawn to it in an unnatural sort of way. The cold metal was soothing as she felt it pressed against her chest.
The earth simulator was showing increased storms. Every single continent was experiencing torrential weather. Hadley was inputing numbers but it was all no use.
She took a sip of her coffee and almost choked as she watched Kane saunter into the room. He was acting as though nothing was wrong.
“Kane,” she said melodramatically.
“Vanya is running errands. Can you come to my office for a moment? I need to show you something anyway.” He grabbed her hand lightly and led her back to his office. It was large and colourful. A projected 3D globe spun around on his desk, a miniature version of the one in the lab.
He closed the door behind them. He went behind his desk, sat down and pulled out a photograph. He handed it to Hadley.
Before she even looked at it she said, “You’re not going to apologize?”
“I’m truly sorry about the other day. It was all these feelings and emotions. I don’t have anything I can say.”
Hadley peered into his eyes and decided to take him at face value.
“I found this in one of the old files,” he smiled sitting on his desk motioning to what he had just handed her. She looked at the photo and he pulled her backwards into his arms.
Her back was pressed into his chest; she could feel his heart beating.
She looked down at the photograph and it was of the two of them. They were holding up a globe. His hand was on her back and they were both smiling. Hadley tilted her head backwards to look at him, “Do you remember this being taken?”
He shook his head, “No, I wish I did. But the war made lots of things blurry.”
He turned her around and kissed her. She felt his strong arms around her and kissed him back. She felt something when she was with him. There was a feeling in the pit of her stomach, what kind of feeling she wasn’t sure exactly.
Either way they didn’t stop. She knew she had to choose one of these men soon enough. For now, though, she didn’t know anything about their pasts, she didn’t know anything at all, and therefore she felt like she couldn’t make an educated decision on the matter. Maybe it was a coward’s decision, but it was the one she was sticking with.
They heard the door open outside in the lab and stepped apart awkwardly. Hadley opened the door with a final glance over her shoulder and went out into the lab.
“Hey Hadley,” Vanya cooed. Hadley’s face flushed a bright red and she looked at her feet.
“Any progress on the storm?” she asked mindlessly.
Vanya laughed, “I still don’t believe it’s possible to stop an ice age.”
“Me neither, it seems a ridiculous notion, but at least we will have all the information and can make predictions about the length and severity.”
“To the order of a few hundred thousand years. Look at the Cryogenian ice age. It lasted over 200 Million years.”
“But the little ice age only lasted around 10 thousand. Humans as we know can survive another few thousand years. We can ensure that. Look at how far we’ve come.”
“The conditions are different than the times before, we may not even get them close. We could doom everyone if we’re wrong.”
“Honestly Vanya, we can never be worse off—just ill prepared.”
“Hadley, look at what humanity did to the planet. Even before we were born, they were filling the oceans with plastic and the air with CO2 and hydrofluorocarbons. Slowly eating away at the atmosphere and the ocean until there was nothing left. No one cared, should we?”
Hadley nodded at her slowly and shrugged. The Earth had been to hell and back, humanity had ensured that. The planet was supposed to be a self-sustaining ecosystem that could continue on for millions of years, starting and restarting, self-regulating. If it had known what the first hominines—the first real ancestors of the humans that developed in the eastern region of what is now the United Nations of Africa—would do, maybe it would have tried to destroy them, much like the dinosaurs. Though that was caused by an asteroid.
With that, they went straight back to work, leaving the conversation unresolved and unfinished. But the ideas of evolution and planetary resetting danced through the back of Hadley’s mind.
Kane kept Vanya and Hadley working late for the majority of the next week. So much so Hadley barely had time to think about getting to the newest address.
It was the early morning when Hadley finally got up to make herself another cup of coffee; she stared through Kane’s open door as he sat with his face between his hands. Hadley poured an extra cup and walked into the room.
She set down the coffee on his desk and he looked up at her.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently.
“You don’t have to be,” Hadley murmured, unable to find the right words to say.
“I do; I mean everything is my fault.” He realized what he said after he said it.
“What?”
Kane looked into Hadley’s eyes, “everything that has gone wrong here was my fault. Losing you was my fault.”
She just stared at him. “Do you remember something?” she asked gently.
“I just had a brief glimmer of a memory…”
Hadley held her breath, waiting for him to say what he remembered.
Then the bell rang. It was just a loud droning, going on and on.
“We better go,” Kane said getting up, drinking his cup of coffee in one go and starting to walk away.
“Kane!” Hadley said hurrying after him, “We are not even close to being done with this conversation.”
Vanya joined them for the walk to the auditorium but Kane didn’t say another word about what he was hinting at. Hadley sat down beside Pax and a few minutes later the presentations started.
First everyone explained what they were working on and what was happening. Then finally, Kane got up on stage.
“We are nearing a point where we are at a crossroads. A storm is coming that will change everything again. We need to adapt, to change, in a way that we haven’t before. We have all lived through a lot. This will be the worst,” Kane said strolling in front of the meeting room. “It is important that starting today we make a plan for our upcoming course of action.”
There was a murmur from the room, a soft whisper that was gradually growing stronger. Kane demanded attention at the front of the room, though everyone couldn’t help but wonder the magnitude of what he was saying. The information he was giving was intense, and isolating, but he said it in a way that made Hadley believe this was not the first time they had encountered such a dire situation.
“The storm you see here is coming faster and harder than we could have imagined. There are events happening worldwide that are causing catastrophic damage.” Kane continued waving his hand in front of the holographic projector. An image of the earth appeared around him. The storm swirled behind his head. He held out a hand and zoomed in on the continental United States. For comparison, he opened the globe with a wave of his hands so it laid flat filling the entirety of the front of the room. The storm swirled violently, and the eye of the most massive portion was by far bigger than the anything you could imagine. It looked unreal, and frighteningly it wasn’t.
“So where do we start?” Jeremiah piped in watching intently.
“We can’t stop the storm; we can only prepare.”
“So what are we going to do in the meantime?” Jeremiah pushed further. He felt helpless and was overcompensating by being pushy.
“We need to resolve our conflict with the RFE’s first of all. The human race relies on as many people living, especially
after 2066. Once we do this everything else will fall into place. Every project everyone has been working on for the last bunch of weeks will be able to be implemented. Your teams are posted on the hologram in the front. Check them before you leave. These will be your teams for everything in the coming weeks. They will be like your family, treat them as such. Protect each other.”
“How do you propose stopping the conflict with the RFE’s?” Hadley asked finally daring to speak up. Maybe she was overstepping, but everyone turned around and stared at her.
Hemmer stood up, “We, Hadley my dear, will do whatever we have to.” That was the end of the conversation.
That was all he could say, all he would say.
However, Hadley pressed harder, standing up despite her better judgement, “Hemmer you have said these are militants that we have no purpose conversing with. Why now?”
“To save humanity,” Kane answered calmly.
“Sure Kane, that’s great and all. But aren’t we working hard to preserve a type of humanity that we want for the future?”
“Hadley, sit down,” Kane urged, but she didn’t even look at him, her eyes stayed glued on Hemmer.
Hadley took a deep breath and started to voice how she really felt. The anger she felt boiled over into her next statement, a noose swinging in the wind forcing her voice, “Hemmer, you have said, time and time again, that the RFE’s are terrorists. It has long been known that we don’t negotiate with terrorists. Why are we going to give them information?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I have the right to know!” she screamed unable to control the volume of her voice.
“We are giving them information to see if any of them want to come back to our side. We are giving them the chance to live through this storm. To be on our side again.” It was the first glimpse into Hemmer’s humanity, and his insanity. Both had been buried deep within his soul.
Hadley nodded and sat down, giving up her fight with him, understanding where he was coming from. Kane gave her a weak smile, almost thanking her for giving up. Everyone sat breathless for a moment, taking in the magnitude of Hemmer’s statement. Taking in the fact that Hemmer really did want to save humanity, in his own twisted way.
After a few moments they got up. Hadley walked up slowly to the projector at the back that listed the teams. She had her fingers crossed that she wouldn’t be paired with the one pinger she didn’t trust.
She looked at the list: Team 1: Captain: Jeremiah, Vanya, Hadley, Fred, Kristen, Zeek, Olive, and Gunner
Hadley sighed, determined to make the best of a bad situation. By now word had gotten around about their escapades two nights ago and the fact that they had been out of the complex. Everyone understood why Hemmer had put her against Jeremiah during the fights.
The other teams read:
Team 2: Captain: Paxton, Stephen, Marcia, Cullen, Nadine, Alyse, Ernest
Team 3: Captain: Jinni, Joey, Syb, Benji, Caitlyn, Kryp, Daro, Marcia
Hadley groaned again, she caught Kane’s eye but he looked away quickly. Paxton grabbed her around the waist and gave her a squeeze to stop her from saying anything. They walked out of the room ready to plan their next escape.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Later, they didn’t even pretend they were going to bed. They sat in Paxton’s room with a map he had stolen. After they had left the meeting they each had gone to our own labs and worked for a while.
Kane didn’t come back to the lab, a fact that annoyed Hadley immensely. Paxton had found the map while he was in the electronic archives and had copied it quickly onto his coinet. Though he was under strict supervision by Alice he had managed to snag it. Hadley definitely thought Alice had a soft spot for him.
Hadley took a virtual stylus and changed the colour to red. She placed an x on their location in the compound. She circled the exits leading out of the complex. There were 14 separate places to get out.
“Those are all patrolled,” Paxton remarked, crossing out 10 with a black pen.
“This one I haven’t seen this one before,” Hadley stated circling it a second time.
“I didn’t even know there was one there,” Paxton wrinkled his brow in confusion.
Hadley said decidedly, “Well that’s the one we should try.”
Hadley got up and stretched her arms above her head. She headed for the door. Paxton blinked for a moment before he got up too.
It didn’t take them long to reach the spot on the map where the exit was marked. Hadley looked at the abandoned hallway they were approaching and noticed it was under construction. There was a large yellow sign on it that read RESTRICTED. She pushed open a glass door and walked into a cloud of sawdust. Broken glass and nails crunched beneath her shoes as she walked further down. She tiptoed her way through. There were plastic sheets hanging through the hall. She pushed them out of the way as she walked. Single light bulbs hung from the ceiling, bare and alone, casting an eerie circle of light every so often and leaving the space between them dark. They were both leaving fine footprints in the thick dust, which was flying around them in soft pillows.
Hadley stopped suddenly to look in a lab. The top half of the door was glass. She wiped a spot clean and peered through the glass at a room that was frozen in time. The red streaks across the walls were what caught her attention most. The vials and equipment laid smashed on the counters and floors. The windows were cracked. A large red spot stained the floor and glowed through the dust. Hadley slowly grabbed the metal door handle and pulled the door open transfixed. Paxton grabbed her arm.
“What are you doing?” he whispered gripping her arm tightly while pulling her back. She just pulled away sharply and didn’t answer him. The broken vials and equipment mesmerized her into a trance like state. She went to the wall and put her hand out. She didn’t touch them but she could feel the marks. She let her fingers linger just above the wall, just over the long streaks. The drawn out streaks of a blood soaked hand running across a white wall.
An image of people being killed came to Hadley’s mind, blood splattering through the room and the screams. She shuttered, crossing her arms. Pax just stood by the door watching her intently. He had set his jaw and was uncomfortable with the whole situation.
Hadley walked towards the other side of the room. There was a window. The first she had seen in the complex. She looked out onto the dark streets but with no streetlights she couldn’t see very far in detail. The horizon was clear though. It was a broken and crumbled line against the full moon that was out tonight. She put her head against the window. Her breath was hot and humid and she watched the white mist cloud and disappear in front of her mouth. Her breath condensed on the hard cold glass.
“Remember when everything was easy?” she said in a singsong voice full of melancholy. She didn’t know where the question had come from, but it felt true. Things must have been easier at one point in time, even if they couldn’t remember everything.
“Was it easy? Or were we fooling ourselves?” Paxton retorted walking over to stand beside her. He put his hand lightly on her shoulder and ran the tips of his fingers across the top of Hadley’s collarbone.
“It seemed easier didn’t it?”
“Perhaps, or perhaps we just remember it that way,” he said as he grabbed her hand. He squeezed it tight.
“I guess we don’t even know if what we remember is real…” Hadley replied looking towards the horizon.
“We are going to find out eventually, but I don’t think anything will ever be easy again.”
Hadley let out a sigh knowing he was right. It was a harsh reality that she had been fighting with. Right or wrong. Hard or easy.
“Do you believe in fate?” Hadley asked bringing her hands to the window. She placed them lightly on the glass. It was cold and her skin left white condensation. Her hands seemingly imprinted for eternity onto the glass.
“I believe we make our own choices and that our choices lead us to where we are supposed to be. Everything ha
ppens for a reason and at everyone’s core they are truly themselves. I believe in paths.” He believed everything would work out. Always the pleasant optimist.
“Don’t go soft on me,” Hadley said unconvincingly and gave his arm a shove. “A war is coming. We have to find out what side we’re on.”
He shrugged, “I know.”
They looked into each other’s eyes. He looked the saddest Hadley had seen him since she met him a few weeks before. Pax couldn’t make out Hadley’s emotions, which infuriated him. Hadley knew that she should know more about him but deep down she believed she did. She just wanted to remember and to know with certainty. She knew he was a good person, but she felt like they were just scratching the surface with each other. Hadley trusted him fully and unconditionally but she never asked why she should trust him; she just knew that she did. That terrified her.
“We should go…” Paxton said pulling her away from the window. He wound his fingers through hers and she followed his lead out of the lab closing the door behind her. Though she wasn’t sure she could ever put the feeling she got there out of her mind.
They walked until we got to the end of the hall. Every room was covered in red, long thin red streaks in groups of five, or splatters covering entire walls. Everything was broken. It was cold. Hadley couldn’t shake the thought that someone was watching her, and she kept glancing over her shoulder, but destruction was all that lay behind. She pushed aside one of the plastic tarps and ducked under it. The doors at the end of the hall were boarded up and broken. They looked for alarm sensors but saw none.
“I think we are clear—” Hadley thought aloud. She took a deep breath and pushed the doors open, emerging into the night air. They walked in silence, both deep in thought for a long time. Hadley pulled out the map and looked at the streets around the complex. She finally saw Hummingbird Street. They followed the map until she stopped to look around in the middle of an intersection and saw a door with a red symbol drawn on it. It was the RFE symbol.
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