by Justin Bell
Bahram followed the boys in and Chung could see as soon as they entered that this wasn’t a barracks after all, or it likely was at one point, but it had been converted to a makeshift computer lab. Tables had been set around the long, empty space, each one adorned with a few folding chairs. They weren’t fancy, just basic plastic tables found at any local discount store, thick and off-white with legs that had been folded out to keep them upright. There were four tables along the back wall facing them, and one table along each side wall. On each table were two flat-panel monitors, wires snaking down behind the tables and connected to ancient-looking computer workstations sitting on the ground beneath the tables. Keyboards and mice were at each station, and Chung could see cables running along the ground and plugged into some makeshift network jacks bolted to the steel frame of the barracks.
“Welcome to your world,” Bahram said, spreading his arms in some false gregarious gesture, as if he were presenting a state-of-the-art data center, and not some cobbled together basement budget computer lab using decade-old equipment. Chung couldn’t help but notice that no monitors were on, nor lights, nor anything that might normally use power.
“Do you have generators?” asked Chung, looking back and forth along the long stretch of canvas.
“We do,” Bahram replied. “They have remained off while we awaited your arrival.”
“You were bringing us here all along?” Huang asked. “Why did we go to Tehran first?”
Bahram shrugged. “We thought there was a need for secrecy. The original plan was to land in Tehran, amongst the other thousands of visitors to that city every day. From there, we’d drive out here. When we saw what happened to Tehran… we figured simply taking the most direct route was best.”
“And what happened to Tehran…” Chung said, “that was our doing? You know this?”
Bahram’s face twisted slightly and he didn’t look quite as smug as he had a few seconds prior.
“We are not sure what happened,” he replied. “We do not believe what we did should have caused such an event. We are considering it… an unfortunate side effect.”
“An unfortunate side effect costing millions of lives,” Tyan-Yu replied, then bit his lips shut. His eyes darted nervously and Chung shot him a look, telling him silently to keep his outbursts to himself.
“Well, aren’t we feeling brave?” Bahram said, taking a step toward Tyan. “Have you forgotten already what happens when we do not get what we want? When we do not hear the words we want to hear?”
“I apologize,” Tyan said in a haggard whisper, the words catching in his throat. “I did not mean to offend. I spoke before I thought.”
“Indeed.”
Bahram stood there next to him for a few tense moments, but then his mouth shifted into a crooked smile and he barked a laugh, slapping the young man on the shoulder.
“You’ve got guts, young one,” he said. “I like that.”
“Uhhh… thanks?”
“Now show me how much guts you really have,” he continued. “Get this computer lab up and running.”
Tyan-Yu looked around, carefully, checking each table, following runs of cables back with his eyes. Silently, he walked over to the rear corner of the barracks and knelt down, seeing where the cables went, then he peeled back the canvas and looked out into the desert sun.
“These cables go to a wiring closet somewhere?” he asked.
Bahram nodded. “Indeed. The next building over. Connectivity terminates there from a local provider.”
“Landline?”
Bahram shook his head. “According to the men of the village, the landline has been out for several hours. I suspect when Tehran went dark, so did their connection. There is satellite redundancy.”
“Not anymore there isn’t,” Tyan replied, gesturing toward the sky. “The entire atmosphere is filled with space debris. Satellite communications are down and out.”
Bahram smiled oddly, gesturing toward him. “So tell me then, computer expert. What do we do?”
Tyan looked at him oddly. “What do we do? There are no connections,” he said. “There is nothing for us to talk out to. We have no other options. There is nothing we can do.”
“Come now, what happened to those guts I just saw a moment ago. Where is your outside-of-the-box thinking?”
“Bahram, surely you understand these limitations,” Tyan said. “We are not magicians. We cannot create connectivity where none exists. To think otherwise is nonsense—”
Nobody even saw Bahram move toward his weapon, but suddenly it was in his hand and elevated, his arm locked out straight. The shot was loud, a sudden and vocal bark, just once, echoing within the canvas barracks.
Tyan’s head snapped back, his words choked off in mid-sentence. All other noise and movement stopped, everything froze in that one second of time and even Tyan stood there for a few beats, looking back at Bahram confused, a thin, dark colored whisper of blood snaking down from the punctured hole in his forehead.
Then he fell, slumping to the ground in a heap of lifeless flesh, the pale, acrid gunsmoke still lingering in the stale air.
“Tyan!” Huang finally shouted, his own words a choked cry. He stepped toward the fallen form of his cousin, but already a few of the villagers were approaching the fallen boy and swarming him, getting him upright and preparing to move him away.
“What have you done?” he screamed at Bahram. “Why? He was not lying! He was not fighting back! He speaks the truth!”
Bahram lowered his weapon, his face turning stoic and stern. He stepped toward Huang.
“He spoke his truth. But you are all smart boys. I trust you to find a different truth. We need connectivity here. If you cannot provide that to us, you are of no use. Please, convince me that you have value. I’d hate to think we flew you all the way out here just to bury you in the desert where no one would ever find you.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Chung whispered frantically, not sure what else to say. “Whatever you ask of us, we’ll figure something out.”
“That’s my boy!” Bahram said, smiling widely. He turned back to Huang. “See? That is the attitude I look for. That’s the ‘can do’ spirit we need. Listen to him, boy, he alone may save all of your lives.”
With that said, Bahram stepped from the barracks, the others falling in line behind him, pushing through the opened flap and disappearing out into the hot desert sun, leaving the three remaining boys to try to figure out how to get out of the mess they were in.
Chapter 6
Now.
Monday, June 29th.
The deserts of Arizona, United States of America.
Scott still remembered that day back in sixth grade. He’d never been a perfect student, but he’d done all right for himself, getting solid B’s all the way through school, and even excelling from time to time in his younger years. At the tail end of sixth grade, he’d even gotten to the finals in the state spelling bee and as he stood in front of an entire auditorium filled with parents, teachers and students (though his father was stationed somewhere overseas), he stepped to the podium and received his word.
Despondent.
Closing his eyes, he pictured the word in his head, it was a word he’d seen and read several times throughout his young life. Slowly, carefully, he spelled out each individual letter.
D. E. S. P. O. N. D. E. N. T. Despondent.
“Incorrect,” the proctor said with a sad, silent shake of his head.
Scott had heard the word spoken, and had read the word in books, but at this point he didn’t think he’d ever truly seen someone despondent, someone completely and utterly without hope.
Until now.
Marilyn picked her way through the ragged rocks, taking each step slowly and carefully, her face a solid stone of misery. She hadn’t spoken since the group had forced her from dropping down off the ledge, and had practically carried her down the first stretch of the path off the mountain top, but she had obediently followed the group, not onc
e turning to try to run back to where Vera and Keeler had fallen. She’d lost her balance a couple of times, stepped wrong on a few rocks, but she had never called out, never asked for help, and never even reached for anyone.
She was the very definition of despondent.
Scott walked close to her, just to her right side, helping her navigate through the more challenging passages, helping her step over particularly high and ungainly rocks. He even had to guide her underneath the thrusting, sharp outreach of leafless branches. Marilyn was on auto-pilot, and he was her navigator.
Thankfully, the hardest part had come and gone. The path they now walked was tightly packed dirt, a winding, meandering track through the more gentle slopes of the downward-facing rock ledge. They’d made it past the dangerous part and the rest of the walk would be gravy. From their vantage point they could even see the small town, the place they’d been heading all along, less of a town and more a collection of random houses in a tight group. Even from this height and over the broad expanse of desert, Scott could see only two dozen structures, the road intersecting it from south to north, never drifting close to where they were walking. He could see the tall, straight shape of a steeple, worn white wood looking at least a hundred and fifty years old. Beyond that, the roofs and walls seemed to blend together into a few rows of small structures, the main road branching off like an asphalt river, leading several different paths to several different sections of the tiny town as if its inhabitants couldn’t just walk everywhere.
They were still very far away, however, and Scott suspected as they drew nearer the town would look at least a little bit larger. From here it almost looked like a falsehood constructed to work with an HO train set, not at full scale, but only a toy. Silently, slowly, they continued their lonely trek down the mountain.
“Mom,” Scott said quietly, “don’t give up, okay? We need to get to the town, then maybe we’ll see what we can do about finding Keeler and Vera. We’re not going to leave them, I promise.”
Marilyn nodded, but didn’t speak, her pace actually slowing a bit.
Scott looked toward the sky, dismayed by the fact that the sun was making its way down the far side of the horizon, the previously blue sky shifting to a darker gray. It wouldn’t take long before it made its way from gray to indigo, then to full-blown night. They’d never find them at night, of this he was certain. Another thing that he was certain of was that Marilyn wouldn’t stop until she found them, one way or another.
In silence they finished the downward trek and continued walking toward the town, the buildings growing slowly larger as they approached.
***
Now.
Monday, June 29th.
The deserts of Arizona.
His shoulders screamed and his back felt as if it might be on fire. From neck to knees, Keeler Gregory was practically a full body bruise.
But he’d done it. He’d saved his sister.
The ground had shifted, the rocks breaking apart and giving way, and he could still remember toppling over backwards, halting in mid-air for a brief second as he realized they were going down. He’d wrapped little Vera in his arms and coiled his entire body around her, crushing her into the fetal position as he hugged her harder than he’d ever hugged anything in his life.
For thirty yards they’d spilled down the uneven slope of the rocks, going end over end, hitting shoulder to hip to back to shoulder, but he hadn’t let go, he’d kept himself tightly curled, kept his little sister’s body cocooned against his flesh and bone, absorbing each blow with his own spine or ribs. She’d screamed and cried as they tumbled, a fall that felt like it took hours, though it had only taken seconds, and when they halted on the ledge several feet below the crest, he’d laid there for a few minutes, trying to get his bearings.
Rocks continued breaking free of the ledge and spilling down toward them, bouncing from jagged ridge to jagged ridge, and miraculously, none of them had hit them. Even so, Keeler remained curled around his sister, laying there for a moment, sheltering her until the rocks stopped falling. He could have sworn he heard his mother screaming and crying from the ledge now far up above him, but the screams didn’t last long as darkness teased at the edge of his eyesight.
Vera had woken him up, wrapping her little hands around his shoulder and shaking him furiously, harder than he thought she was capable of, yelling his name in his ear, telling him he had to wake up, he just had to, she couldn’t get down by herself.
He had awoken, he’d jerked awake and sat up, pain racing up and down his entire body, his muscles threatening to tear themselves away from bone, every part of him feeling thick and slow and numb.
“Keeler,” she whispered in a near frantic voice. “We have to get down from here. This ledge is skinny and if it shakes again...”
“It’s okay, Vera-bear,” Keeler said quietly. “It’s okay. We’ll… we’ll get moving. Soon we’ll get moving. I hurt, but I’ll be okay.”
“Where are you hurt?”
“A little bit of everywhere.”
“If Mom was here she’d kiss it to make it better, but I don’t want to kiss you, Keeler, I’m sorry.”
Keeler laughed, closing his eyes against the pain. “It’s okay, Vera. I’ll be okay. We’ll get Mom to kiss it better when we find her.”
“Are you sure we will? I don’t know where she is. I don’t know where we are,” her voice was near hysteria and Keeler reached over, pushing away the stabbing agony in his left side and wrapped his arms around her.
“Shhhh,” he whispered. “It’s okay, baby sis. It’ll be okay.”
“It won’t be okay,” she said. “Everything is going bad. Things are falling from the sky. Our house is gone. All my stuff. I… how am I going to get all my stuff back, Keel?”
Tears burst free like a river rushing over the rocks and she sobbed hard and long, and all he could do was squeeze her, holding her tight, trying desperately to comfort her, even though he knew there was and would be very little comfort for anyone in the coming days. Not to mention the coming months.
“I know, Vera,” he whispered. “We all lost our stuff, but you know what?”
“What?” she sniffed.
“We’re still together, okay? You and me. You’re my pardner, right?”
Vera looked at him uncertainly. “We’re not together. Scott and Mom are gone. They went down the mountain.”
“Yes, they did,” Keeler replied, “but you know why? Because they want to look for us. We need to go down and find them.”
Vera’s eyes drifted past him, over his shoulder and looked far up into the sky. She could make out the scant streaks of orbital debris in the lower atmosphere and she drew in a choked breath.
“The sky is getting dark,” she whispered. “It’s going to be night soon, isn’t it?”
“Don’t think about that,” Keeler replied. “We just need to focus on getting down and finding Mom and Scott, okay? That’s what we need to worry about, nothing more.”
Vera nodded.
Keeler struggled some, drawing in a breath and pushing himself upright, groaning slightly as his body fought back. They’d tumbled quite a way down from the crest of the mountain, but they had quite a bit further still to go, and it would be a long, lonely walk, especially once it started getting dark.
“Come on, big girl,” he said quietly. “Let’s get moving.”
As he stood, his head spun, the world around him whipping around like a tornado, sky shifting to smears of gray and blue, clouds blurring into a circular whirlwind of flat black. Stars burst behind his eyes and he could feel himself going over, tipping sideways, and he knew the ledge was there, and if he passed out, he’d fall down and out, tumble end over end, and he’d be crushed at the bottom.
He knew it all, but he couldn’t stop it. His brain went to mush, crawling into a deep fog and he could barely feel himself lurching forward, dipping out into empty space, halting for a moment, just waiting for the endless tumble into death.
***
Now.
Monday, June 29th.
A mesa in the deserts of Arizona.
He jerked out of it, his head snapping up as his momentum shifted, falling sideways instead of forward. His back struck the rocks, exploding another burst of white hot agony low in his spine, ratcheting up through his shoulders and into his clavicle. From the waist up he was one solid exposed nerve ending and the pain was so strong, he thought he might pass out yet again.
But he didn’t. One moment Keeler had been pitching forward, ready to lunge off the edge of the cliff to his doom, and the next moment he was shoved sideways, landing back on the relative safety of the ledge. He picked his head up and looked and saw Vera sprawled out over his thighs and waist, her arms wrapped tight around him and head lifting slightly.
“You were falling!” she cried. “I thought you were going to jump right off!”
“What happened?” Keeler asked.
“I tackled you like I saw you do. When we go to your football games. I remember what you said, ‘wrap them up’ or something. So I wrapped you up and tackled you.”
Keeler laid his head back, tousling his little sister’s hair with both hands, tangling his fingers in among her thick, brown locks.
“Vera, honey,” he said. “You saved my life. You’re a hero.”
She looked away, her cheeks flushing.
“No I’m not,” she whispered. “I just didn’t want to be out here alone.”
“You’re still my hero,” Keeler said, pushing himself up into a seated position and throwing his arms around her. They embraced, just sitting on the hard ground hugging each other for longer than Keeler could keep track.
Eventually they separated, and he used the rocky wall to help himself to his feet, looking down the narrow ledge which slowly progressed in a downward slope across the face of the rocks.
“It looks like this ledge will take us down toward the bottom, kid. You ready? You ready to do this?”
Vera nodded softly. “I think so,” she whispered. “I think I can do it. If Mom is down there, I can do it.”