by Tom Abrahams
Hello, Vihaan. Good morning. You have 1 new message.
Chandra glanced down at the device in his hand and noticed a message icon. He pressed it, felt the response, and the screen changed. At the same moment, there was a metallic hum and click at the door to his room. A red light above the handle indicated the door had locked itself. Chandra pushed himself from the bed and tried the handle. It would not turn. He placed his card key, part of the welcome package in the envelope, against the handle. The mechanism beeped and clicked, but the door stayed locked.
Chandra’s heart rate accelerated and he was about to bang on the door when the welcome message on the Telenet screen was replaced with a familiar face. It was Van Cleaf, the uniformed woman who’d guided him here from Boulder. She looked younger though, her face less drawn from the ravages of age and environment. Her eyes were brighter. Her skin was sun-kissed. Her cheeks were fuller.
How old is this video?
She was sitting in a chair in a control room of some kind. From the movement of her eyes, Chandra could tell she was reading her presentation. She spoke clearly.
“Welcome to your new home,” she said. “You are here because you are important. Please keep that fact in mind as I familiarize you with this facility. If you have questions, you may ask them by pressing the question button on your tablet. Speak normally and the Telenet system will record your query. I’ll answer your question from a series of prerecorded answers. We believe we’ve anticipated most anything you might ask.”
Chandra backed away from the door and plopped back down onto his bed. The Telenet screen had his full attention. As he listened to Van Cleaf’s narrative, he began to fully understand the depth of the protocol and the years of planning it must have taken to have a set of procedures and technologies so intricately designed. He vacillated between impressed and thoroughly frightened.
“I’ll begin with the hard part,” said Van Cleaf. “The world as we know it no longer exists or, in a short amount of time, will no longer exist. As this message is prerecorded, I cannot tell you the circumstances under which it’s been decided to initiate a program that was, until today, classified. You are now living under what is called the Descent Protocol, a failsafe series of highly technical initiatives that will ensure the survival of the human race.”
Chandra fumbled with his tablet and then pressed the question button. The Telenet paused and the screen responded. An audio wavelength appeared at its center, superimposed over Van Cleaf’s face.
“How long have you been working on the protocol?” he asked.
The icon at the bottom right of the screen spun and flipped until Van Cleaf’s image restarted.
“So you would like to know how long we’ve been working on the protocol? That is a question with a complex answer. There have been various iterations of the protocol since the early 1950s. The home in which you now live was constructed in the early to mid-1990s. We have updated the technology and tweaked various aspects of the design on an ongoing basis since then.”
“That’s not an answer,” Chandra grumbled. He pressed the question button again. “How did you select the people you would save?”
The screen paused as the computer worked to recognize his question. A moment later, Van Cleaf was speaking again, even if she wasn’t saying anything.
“You’d like to know how we selected you for participation. You were selected because you are important. Much like Noah selected the needed resources to repopulate the Earth after the biblical floods, we have chosen from among the finest people for our rebirth.”
“Noah didn’t select anything,” said Chandra. “God did.”
“If you don’t have any further questions at this time,” said Van Cleaf, “I’ll return to the original presentation.”
The screen paused, the icon flipped and rotated, and Van Cleaf began her soliloquy from where she’d left it.
“We have provided you with your own room. In the case of families, you have a suite of connected rooms. Each room is accessible via a card key. Please do not lose the key. You will note, as is the case right now, there are certain times during which we will deactivate your key and your room will remain automatically locked. This is for your protection.”
Chandra hit the question button. “Protection from what?”
The Telenet cycled through its routine. “You are asking about protection and the automatic locking mechanism for your room,” Van Cleaf said. “Should any emergencies arise or should we need to convey an urgent or important communication, such as this welcome message, it’s imperative we insure all inhabitants are safe and/or informed.”
“Wow.” Chandra shook his head. The jitters were gone, but an anxious frustration crept through his limbs. Without much of a choice, his freedom was gone. He pushed the question button again.
“So you’re saying if I had stayed up top, I would have risked a violent death, but I’d be free. In here, I’m safe from the chaos, but I have no freedom. I am a prisoner.”
The system cycled. The icon flipped and spun in the lower right corner of the Telenet screen. Van Cleaf’s image remained frozen for several seconds. Finally, her image moved again and she spoke.
“I’m sorry.” She smiled. “I don’t understand your question. Could you rephrase it, please?”
Chandra shook his head with incredulity. He pressed the question button. “Am I free, or am I a prisoner?”
The Telenet cycled and Van Cleaf spoke. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand your question. Could you rephrase it, please?”
Chandra rephrased the question a half dozen more times, and with each identical non-answer, he became more certain that he’d made the wrong choice. He should have stayed in his condo. He should have stayed in his bed and dreamt of Anila, of happier and healthier times. If the end had come quickly, so be it. It would have been more palatable than living underground in whatever this place truly was.
The video of the Telenet resumed its primary message. Van Cleaf’s eyes moved back and forth as she read her cues. She was as much a prisoner as he.
“In your welcome package,” she said, “you received several items. Some of them have uses that are obvious. Others may seem more obscure.”
Van Cleaf held up a watch similar to the one on Chandra’s wrist. She pushed it toward the camera. “This is your DiaWatch,” she said. “It is similar in design and function to other smartwatches you may have seen. Its functions are touch activated. It alerts you to the time and day, keeps track of your heart rate and physical activity, and will alert you to daily events such as lunch service or group meetings. Also, if you find yourself lost in your new home, the DiaWatch, in conjunction with the DiaTab, can help you regain your bearings.”
Chandra touched the glass screen on the watch. The time and date appeared on the screen. “They’re keeping tabs on us,” he mumbled. “This isn’t for our convenience. It’s for theirs.”
Van Cleaf held up the phone-sized glass tablet. “This is the DiaTab. It’s a multifunction tablet that you should carry with you at all times. It too has an array of functions, most of which are self-explanatory. Feel free to explore the device so that you become intimately familiar with it. It has an excellent battery life, but you’ll need to charge it once every few days. You’ll find a charger in your desk drawer.”
Chandra flipped the DiaTab over in his hand and touched the screen. In the upper right of the screen he saw the battery indicator. It read one hundred percent. He touched the indicator and the screen changed, revealing a large green-colored battery icon. Underneath the icon were the words 73 HOURS REMAINING. That was pretty excellent battery life. It was advanced, in fact, and beyond any smartphone’s capability as far as he knew.
“I know many of you arrived with family, friends, coworkers, or new acquaintances,” said Van Cleaf. “If you’d like to locate them, there is a directory in your DiaTab. You may call their device and connect at your convenience. And lastly, we will have a welcome reception later today. Once we’ve establis
hed a time, you’ll receive an alert. We look forward to seeing you there.”
The message concluded and the Telenet returned to its home screen. There was a hum and metallic click at Chandra’s door. The red indicator light above the lock turned green. The scientist stared at the door, fighting the urge to run through it. He wanted back on the elevators and the train. He wanted up the escalator and back to the bus. He wanted to be home. He knew no matter what they told him here, no matter the technology or creature comforts, this would never be home.
CHAPTER 26
MISSION ELAPSED TIME
74 DAYS, 4 HOURS, 43 MINUTES, 12 SECONDS
RED DEER, ALBERTA, CANADA
Steve Kremer stood with one hand on his hip and the other gripping the handle of an oversized coffee mug. His face glowed from the fire he’d built minutes earlier. The wood was brittle and had fed the flames quickly. It cracked and popped, blowing warmth into the cold room.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked. “I mean your leg. Is it okay?”
“It’ll be fine,” Clayton said. “I think.” The wound didn’t look fine. It was ragged, bloodied, and bruised. The sutures had the precision of a blindfolded toddler. Thankfully, the pain was subsiding. The painkillers were taking care of it, along with the ache in his jaw, though they’d clouded his mind. He was in a hazy fog that hampered his movement and his thought. Everything was a beat off. Clayton didn’t enjoy the sensation, feeling slightly out of control, but it was better than the searing, throbbing pain that screamed from the jagged wound in his leg.
He’d taken the pills as soon as he’d gotten into Steve’s truck and popped another dose before they arrived in Red Deer.
They’d made surprisingly good time from Jasper. Steve had remembered the pitfalls of his outbound trip and avoided them with aplomb on the return. They’d not talked much, though Clayton had repeatedly thanked Steve for his generosity. They’d left the bodies in the truck bed when they’d arrived at Steve’s home, a modest cabin on large acreage. It looked like a place straight out of the 1800’s, except for the tall steel tower bristling with HAM antennas. Steve had told Clayton they’d rest first and talk about what to do with Ben and Boris. Clayton had reluctantly agreed, in part because he knew Steve was right and in part because he was in too much pain to argue.
“Are you sure you don’t want some coffee?” Steve asked. “It’s nothing, really. Just a spoonful of Taster’s Choice in a cup of gas-boiled water. Easy to do.”
“I’m okay,” said Clayton. “The fire is nice though.”
Steve plopped down on an ottoman and pulled it closer to Clayton. He cupped the mug in both hands and drew it to his lips, blew gently, then took a sip. He used a poker from the hearth to stoke the flames.
“You know, you’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” Steve said, dropping the poker onto the brick. “As long as you need, eh? There’s no rush. I’m always stocked for the winter. Too lazy to make regular market runs once the snow falls.”
Clayton studied Steve’s face. There was a hint of sadness he hadn’t noticed before. Maybe it was loneliness. “That’s too kind of you, Steve.”
“Well,” said the Canadian, “I mean it.”
“You live alone?”
“I do,” said Steve. “It’s peaceful. I’ve got my friends on Facebook and all of the HAMs out there. Well, I had Facebook. I must imagine Mark Zuckerberg is freaking out a bit right about now.” He chuckled and took another sip of his coffee. “I can see him now,” he said, mimicking the Facebook creator, “Oh, great. One minute I’m a gazillionaire with millions of friends. Now I’m penniless and friendless.”
Clayton laughed. It was a funny thought. The world was so dependent on technology. The CME wasn’t only about a lack of mobility or communication or the major life-altering changes that were capable of sending society back hundreds of years. It was about the little things: YouTube and Netflix, Xbox and iTunes, microwave ovens and smoothie blenders.
“How pervasive is it?” he asked Steve. “The CME? From what you know, is it bad everywhere?”
“The chatter on the radio is mixed,” Steve answered. “I’ve heard all of North America is offline. The power grid is toast. Most of Western Europe too. Not sure about Asia. Some think we could be back up and running in a few weeks or a few months. I don’t agree. I think it’ll be years. I was on the grid, but I’m not dependent on it. I’ve got the generator, a backup, solar, and even a windmill that charges a bunch of batteries in the basement. I can’t run the windmill in the winter. It doesn’t get along with ice.”
“Would the CME have killed your solar panels?”
“Maybe,” shrugged Steve. “But I’ve got extras in the basement. I like redundant redundancy.” He chuckled at himself.
Clayton shifted his weight in the chair, wincing against a bolt of pain that exploded from the wound. The painkillers could only do so much and he didn’t want to overdose.
“It doesn’t much matter to me,” said Steve. “I’m good to go here. I’ve got natural gas and propane. I can conserve it. During the winter, keeping food cold isn’t a problem. I can save the ice in the spring. It’ll last a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’ll harvest some produce from a little garden I’ve got out back. There’s a well for fresh water. Not ideal for nice hot showers, but it’ll do. Plenty for the two of us.”
Clayton smiled flatly. “I do appreciate it, Steve. But I’ve got to find a way to get home. I’ve got a wife and two kids in Texas who aren’t nearly as well prepared for this as you are. I can’t even imagine…”
A sudden well of sadness overcame him and he couldn’t speak. He tried to finish the sentence, but only an alien-sounding croak escaped his lips. Tears soaked his face. His chest heaved uncontrollably. Clayton tried to ebb the outburst, but couldn’t. Damn drugs.
Steve put a hand on Clayton’s foot and squeezed. “I had no idea,” he said softly. “It certainly explains your gumption, your fight.”
Clayton wiped the tears. “My fight? It’s more like guilt. I have to make it back to them. My wife told me if I died on this mission, she’d kill me.”
Steve smiled. “She sounds tough.”
“She is,” said Clayton, clearing his throat. “She reminded me many times she didn’t marry an astronaut. She married an engineer with an adrenaline addiction.”
Steve’s smile broadened. “Aren’t those the same thing?”
“Funny,” Clayton said, “but no. It’s one thing to hang glide or bungee jump. It’s another thing to strap into an explosive, propel yourself off the planet, and then go for a walk in a vacuum.”
“What’s it like?”
“Space?”
“Yes.”
“It’s like a dream, really,” said Clayton. “From the moment you strap into your seat for liftoff, to the moment you clear Earth’s gravity, to entering the ISS for the first time, it’s all surreal.”
“What was your favorite part?”
“Looking back at Earth,” said Clayton. “It looks so peaceful, so singular from up there. I mean, it can look deadly too. The Sahara Desert is a big lifeless monster. But for the most part, it’s peaceful. It’s like standing on the edge of the ocean and staring at the horizon. You get lost in it. It’s so close, so reachable, yet so far away.”
“What happened when the CME hit?”
Clayton took a deep breath and adjusted his body to take the pressure off his wounded leg. His chest felt heavy with the slightest exertion.
“It happened fast,” he said. “There was an alarm. We lost power. Ben and Boris were on EVAs.”
“Spacewalks?”
“Yeah,” said Clayton. “Their suits failed. I’m guessing they died pretty quickly, though I couldn’t be sure. I got basic power functions up and running and went to the Russian side of the station. I hopped into the airlock, suited up, and went for my first EVA to try to rescue them.”
Steve drew the coffee to his lips and blew. He took another sip, his eyes wide above the rim of
the mug. Clayton wasn’t looking at him as he spoke. He was staring blankly into the fire, his mind two hundred and forty-nine miles above the planet. He wasn’t sure why he was talking so openly about it. He barely knew Steve Kremer. Maybe it was because he felt obligated to share his story with a man who’d risked his own life to help a stranger he’d met on a HAM radio. Maybe it was because Clayton needed to talk to someone other than the voices inside his own head and Steve was there. Most likely it was the involuntary lack of inhibition fostered by the painkillers. It didn’t matter. He kept talking, his eyes fixed on the flames.
“Seeing their faces was the worst part,” said Clayton. “I mean, I knew they were dead once I got to them, once I’d tethered their bodies to mine.”
Clayton pinched his eyes with his fingers and held his thumb and index finger at his nose. He was trying to erase the grotesque images floating through his mind, but they were affixed like negatives imprinted on celluloid.
“Really, I suspected they were dead,” he admitted. “There was no way they’d survived the solar blast.”
“You had to try though, right?”
“I don’t know. Reason and logic told me they were dead, but my emotions clouded my judgment. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t reconcile, in that instant, that they were dead and that I’d survived. I couldn’t wrap my head around it until I saw their dead eyes, their mouths frozen open as if they were in the middle of saying something.”
“Why do you think you were selfish? I think what you did was heroic.”
“It was selfish because I wasn’t thinking about my wife and children. I promised them I’d come home alive. If I’d died trying to rescue two men who I rationally suspected were dead—”
“Your wife would have killed you?”
“Exactly.”
Steve extended the coffee mug toward Clayton as if to toast him. “Well then,” he said, “we need to get you home. That’s my mission.”
“I like that mission, Steve,” said Clayton. “But it’s not as though I can hike anywhere, and you don’t have enough gas to drive that truck thirty-five hundred miles. If you had a plane, on the other hand…”