by Ellis, Tara
“Is this your way of being optimistic?” Hernandez mumbled. He was leaning against the door, like he was prepared to hold it shut against an intruder.
“Her bedside manner is a little dry, but she’s a genius,” Devon quipped.
Peta glanced over her shoulder at her co-worker, uncertain whether to take the comment as a compliment or not. She often had a hard time reading people and had suffered through social awkwardness her entire life. “It’s not about optimism,” she continued, deciding to simply ignore Devon’s remark. “It’s simple mechanism and thermodynamics. The surge may already be past us, and if so, we’ll need to hurry. The methane won’t be far behind, and I imagine the lower regions of the island are already submerged under a couple of tsunamis caused by the more local quakes. The one generated from the MOHO eruption could be upwards of a thousand feet high.”
Hernandez coughed in his mask, and Peta stared at him, trying to gauge if he was throwing up. “You can’t be freaking serious!”
“Lituya Bay, Alaska,” Peta answered matter-of-factly. “Nineteen fifty-eight. A tsunami generated by a landslide after an earthquake had a run-up height of over seventeen-hundred feet. Yesterday, I would have said a tsunami created by seafloor displacement could never reach that height. Today? I’m not so confident.”
Lieutenant Rogers and Ensign Hernandez turned toward each other, their flashlights playing over their faces and reflecting off the masks. Peta didn’t have to see them or be good at reading people to understand they were afraid. That was the only logical response. Personally, she was terrified.
“Found ‘em!” Devon shouted from the far side of the long room.
Devon began pulling equipment out as they all gathered around the large container, and it was difficult for Peta to make things out at first, between the fog on her mask and the glare of the flashlights. It was apparent there was a decent stack of small air cannisters though she knew they didn’t hold much. She’d only suited up once, during her first visit to MOHO Island, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Henry thought her discomfort was hilarious and used it as a means of coercion for days afterward.
“Good news is there’s a dozen air tanks,” Devon announced, leaning back with a silver, tinfoil-looking fire suit in one hand. “Bad news is there are only two suits.”
Several heartbeats of silence passed before anyone spoke. “Well this is just great,” Hernandez moaned. He threw one of the cannisters back into the tub, and Peta winced at the loud clanking sound it produced. “What the hell are we supposed to do now? Hold our breath?”
Peta calmly reached out and retrieved the thrown tank, taking a special interest in the tubing attached to it. The gear was made for a quick, emergency deployment and came with the regulator, high pressure hose, and connectors already attached. The tank was refillable and could be used for years, so it was also cost-efficient.
After a cursory examination, Peta reached up and twisted the filter on the front of her gasmask to the left and pulled it free, replacing it with the regulator in her other hand. Though she’d already expected it, she was greatly relieved to confirm that it fit and locked snugly into place with a small turn to the right. She had a brief moment of panic when she struggled to turn the air on, but it soon flowed, and after a couple of adjustments to the straps on her head, she had a solid seal.
Peta closed the tank and wordlessly reversed the steps, so that the whole procedure took less than a couple of minutes and left the men staring at her. “What?” she asked, when she realized they were all still watching her. “It’s totally logical that the gear would be interchangeable.”
“This is better.” Lieutenant Rogers was the first to react, though it was almost impossible to see his expression. “We’ve all got air, but it doesn’t solve our heat problem. There’s still only two suits, unless you have an idea to MacGyver something else?”
“It’s not MacGyver’d,” Peta corrected, then waived a hand dismissively. “You and Hernandez get the suits.”
“Hey!” Devon interjected.
“Unless you can fly the helicopter?” Peta moved next to Devon and placed a hand on his arm to stop him from another rebuttal. “They can go up first to make sure the worst of the pyroclastic surge is past. The methane will make it impossible to breathe, but it shouldn’t be hot.”
“Shouldn’t?” he asked, not sounding at all convinced.
“Well, of course it’s impossible to know since this is a unique event, Devon.” Peta gestured to the soldiers. “Which is why they need to have the suits on. They’re our only chance of getting off the island.”
Rogers was standing with his hands folded over his chest, and was staring intently at Peta. “I don’t like it, but I have to agree. Even if you two become injured, Hernandez and I will get you to the Sea King, and we’ll make it out of here, no matter what it takes. That I can promise you.”
“How long do you think it’s gonna take us to get there on foot?” Devon questioned, accepting the decision. “I’ve always had a jeep ride from the landing pad and that takes a few minutes. Those small air bottles don’t last very long.”
The landing pad was part of what used to be a full-blown airstrip during the war. Although close to the lab, when traversed on foot during a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions, it would feel very far away.
“Assuming the roads are impassible, I’d say approximately ten minutes on foot,” Hernandez guessed, scratching at his head. His black hair was sticking out in random directions through the tight plastic straps and he kept pulling and readjusting them.
“Maybe we should have just gone for the ‘copter in the first place,” Devon said. He was dragging the rest of the gear out and started handing stuff to the other men. “We could be well on our way to Diego Garcia by now.”
“Negative,” Rogers said pointedly. “The Sea King is a Sikorsky that’s capable of some great things, but she has her limits. She’s empty of cargo and fully fueled, so we can make it eight-hundred miles, but much more than that and it gets risky. At a hundred sixty-five miles-per-hour, we can reach Madagascar in a little over four hours, but there’s no way we can make the run to Diego Garcia. It’s why she’s stationed here, to make the shorter trips with supplies to the Outlander.”
“The northern tip of Madagascar is our best bet,” Peta added. “At five hundred miles further from the eruption, and behind a thousand miles of tall mountain ranges, there’s a much greater chance of surviving the initial events. By waiting here, and then making the four-hour flight, we should be well behind the surge and methane, just to make sure.”
“Tell me again why we don’t just wait here for extraction?” Hernandez asked, turning to his commanding officer.
“Because there’s a good chance by the time they’re able to reach us, this whole island would be under water,” Peta answered for Rogers. “Not to mention, as the Lieutenant already pointed out, only a plane can span the distance here from Diego Garcia and how long do you think it’ll take us to clear the local airstrip of all the trees and other debris that’s sure to be covering it?”
“Okay!” Hernandez snapped. “I’m sorry,” he rushed to add. “I’m just freaking out a little here. I’ve never had to wear a fire suit through killer methane before.” He tried to laugh, and it came out sounding more like a whimper. He cleared his throat to cover it up and hurried over to the radio. “I’m going to try ‘em one more time before we pull this stunt. Make sure we don’t have any other orders.”
Rogers nodded in agreement though Peta doubted there was any chance of successfully reaching anyone. The SAT phone had stopped working as soon as the surge hit, due to what the Lieutenant explained as atmospheric interference. She imagined that between the pyroclastic surge, methane, and growing ash plume, communication was going to be an ongoing and worsening issue.
“Here.”
Peta was surprised to see Rogers stripping out of his military pilot’s jumpsuit, revealing a plain white t-shirt and boxers. When he handed it to
Devon, she smiled in understanding.
“I think Hernandez is closer to your size,” Rogers joked, and then chortled when the man in question turned back to look at them.
With the useless phone still held awkwardly to his mask, Hernandez gawked at Rogers. “What’re you doing?”
“Our jumpers can at least offer them more protection than their island get-up,” Rogers explained, pointing at Peta and Devon’s attire.
While Peta was wearing a lab coat over her tank-top and jeans, Devon was in flowered shorts and flip-flops. Inside the fire suits, the soldiers wouldn’t need anything else on. She thankfully took the clothes after Hernandez also stripped down. While they certainly weren’t fireproof, they were thick, long sleeved, and much better than nothing.
Struggling into the one-pieced outfit, Peta’s hand slid over a patch on the arm and she paused to look at it, using her flashlight. The easily identifiable infinity symbol with added compass points was a logo Peta had become very familiar with. However, she was a little confused to see the private corporation patch, ICONS, attached to a military uniform. While the International Coalition Of Natural Sciences was one of the original sponsors for the MOHO project, and later took on an even larger role in the recovery, she didn’t think they had any military affiliation. She wanted to ask Rogers about it, but the man was currently attempting to get the fire suit on so she decided it was a conversation that could wait.
Minutes later, the Lieutenant re-entered the room, unrecognizable in the hooded, metallic-looking clothing. “It’s definitely toasty up there, but my gauge reads a hundred and twenty degrees. We should be able to make it to the chopper.”
Devon and Peta exchanged a look. “Can you tell if there’s any methane?” she asked. Now that the time to act was upon them, she was having trouble working up the required nerve.
Rogers shook his head. “Everything is torched. The air looks… odd, wavy like near the surface of a hot road, but I don’t know if that’s from the heat or something else. I didn’t see a sign of anyone else out there.”
Peta swallowed around the tightening knot in her throat. The realization that anyone left out in the open was either dead or dying was hard to accept. Hundreds of thousands of souls all crying out at once. The Earth chose that moment to issue a low, resonating moan. Peta rubbed at the rising hairs on her arms through the jumpsuit and forced her legs to move, suddenly eager to see any kind of light. She didn’t know if it was getting harder to breathe because of her anxiety, or if the methane was settling into the basement.
“If you want my vote, I’m guessing the methane is here,” Devon grunted, coughing briefly before unscrewing the valve on his mask. Peta watched as he successfully attached an oxygen cannister and then she did the same.
Tucking it under one arm, she put a spare under the other. They would last anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes each, depending on how hard she gulped it down. Peta did the math again as they mounted the steps, concentrating on evening out her breathing. Ten minutes to the helicopter; one cannister. Start-up time for the Sea King was another ten minutes at least, according to the soldiers. That left them each with one spare, barring any complications, which should be enough time to get above the gas. This was all assuming the helicopter was in working order after being exposed to an unknown level of heat.
Near the top, Peta had to step over several chunks of concrete. Looking up, she could see where parts of the ceiling were crumbling, and hastened her pace, not caring anymore about oxygen use.
The rest of the trek to the outside was a blur, as Peta simply held on to the back of Devon’s jumpsuit and plowed ahead. When they stepped outside into a premature twilight, she was hit by a wall of heat that left her gasping.
Doubling over instinctively against a flash of pain, Peta could immediately feel the skin on the back of her neck begin to burn. Only, she knew it wasn’t from the heat. She’d kept some additional information about the Methane and CO2 releases to herself, specifically how they tended to also include some other chemicals such as sulfur and hydrogen.
“Ah!” Devon yelled, twisting away and running from her. “Hurry!” he spat at Hernandez as he passed the slower man. “It’s burning us, man!”
Peta didn’t argue and although she was a long-distance runner, she was again having a hard time getting her legs to obey. She was too distracted by the devastation surrounding them. The trees, buildings, animals…even the grass was charred. Birds lay scattered where they fell from the trees, a monkey was halfway under their company jeep, barely recognizable.
Peta began to whimper, the sound trapped in the mask sealed to her face. Her breathing became rapid and she started to hyperventilate, unable to control the emotional response. As the edges of her vision greyed out, Peta could feel the exposed skin of her neck split apart and she welcomed the darkness when it overtook her.
Chapter 11
TYLER
Antisiranana, Madagascar
750 miles NW of Mauritius Island
“Let me go, Ty! Let me go!”
Tyler clung to Mikael’s shirt, afraid to let go of his friend. He had an intense feeling that if he did, he’d never see him again and the thought terrified him. “You have to stay, man! You gotta stay here or you might die.”
Mikael twisted away and managed to break free of Tyler’s weaker grip. “I don’t care! I have to go home. My parents will be looking for me. I’ve already been gone too long. I should have never come here, Ty. You know they’re gonna be freaking out!”
Dead leaves blew past them and it was hard to see very far in the shadowy, unnatural darkness. The past hour had changed the landscape around the house dramatically, even though Tyler’s dad said the pyroclastic flow wasn’t much by the time it reached them. The earthquakes continued to get worse, forming cracks in the plaster walls of the house and taking out the power.
Tyler wasn’t sure if it was the boom or the quakes that broke the large family room window. As a result, they’d been forced to watch the bizarre, hot swirling winds as it ravaged the trees from behind a spiderweb tapestry. While the pyroclastic thing wasn’t enough to set anything on fire, it was still like a super-heated hurricane with devastating effects. Luckily, only small amounts of the ash-laden air made it inside and the dust masks his dad handed out seemed to keep them from having any breathing issues. As soon as it began to subside and the temperature dropped, Mikael refused to stay.
Tyler watched as Mikael staggered across his front yard and he thought again of the bike, laying in the street. Had he been wrong to make his friend leave it and go with them? Was it his fault if Mikael ended up dying on the road somewhere, never seeing his parents again? Tears left tracks down Tyler’s dirty face as he rushed after Mikael. He couldn’t leave things that way.
“Mikael!”
Mikael spun around; his expression set in a resolve Tyler had never seen before. He put his hands out defensively, afraid Mikael was going to take a swing at him. “I’m not going to try and stop you. I just… I’m sorry.” Tyler started sobbing and he didn’t even care how un-cool it was. His social status suddenly didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did. “I’m so sorry.”
Mikael stepped forward, pushing past Tyler’s outstretched arms and gathering him up in one of his classic bearhugs. He was well known for those amongst his friends. Without a word he grunted, let go, and ran off, leaving Tyler with no other option than to wipe at his tears and let him disappear into the jungle.
“Tyler.” His Dad’s voice was strained as he rested a hand on his shoulder.
Tyler shrugged away from his father’s touch. He knew it wasn’t rational, but Tyler needed to blame someone for what was happening. He was scared, angry, and confused. His Dad was supposed to know how to make things right. Only, as more messed-up stuff unfolded it was becoming painfully obvious that he was clueless. On top of everything else, that realization was too much to cope with.
“We have to go in the cellar now,” Bill insisted when Tyler wouldn’t look at him.
“It’s the only way we’ll be safe if the methane reaches this far.”
Tyler’s shoulders slumped and he felt defeated. So that was it. His friend was gone. His school, friends…everything. They would all be gone and dead by the time it was over. What else was there to do? He silently followed his dad as he led the way around the side of the house, the withered grass crunching under their feet.
Tyler didn’t credit the cellar idea to his father, since it was his mom who texted them about it shortly after arriving at the house. In their family bugout bag stored in the hall closet, was seventy-hours of water and snacks, a first aid kit, and a Garmin Explorer. With the Explorer, they were still able to text back and forth with his mom at Diego Garcia even after the phones went down, since it worked off satellites.
The messages between Tyler’s parents had been vague and odd, like the conversation was more of a combination of hints and confirmations of an earlier plan. The same way they were talking back at the school. Everything had happened so fast and was so overwhelming, Tyler hadn’t allowed himself to think about what it implied. His brows furrowed as he wrestled with his conflicting emotions. He was finding it increasingly difficult to confront reality without feeling more nauseous.