Carrie’s eyes widened, and she snapped a sharp look at Andrew. “Is that true, Mr. Miller?”
“No. I’m just talking out of my ass,” Andrew said.
“A bad habit of yours,” Reverend Shelley replied.
Andrew glared at her. Ever since they’d arrived, the reverend had been making strange pronouncements about Lewis Hound and Eden. She’d latched onto the biblical name of Hound’s refuge, along with the fact that the world had just ended, and had promptly begun making tenuous connections to her faith.
“Well, that’s okay,” Carrie said. “Everyone’s allowed to blow off some steam. I’m sure this is very confusing for all of you. Does anyone mind if I sit here for a minute? Mr. Hound’s announcement is about to start.”
Kendra shrugged, her mouth too full to speak, and pulled out an empty chair beside her. It slid out on rails. All of the furniture seemed to be bolted down in some way or another. Val wondered why she hadn’t noticed that until now.
Carrie rounded the table to sit beside her sister, and Val directed her attention to her food as the conversation lapsed. As she ate, she became aware of someone staring at her. It was Tony, the boy from Eureka who’d flown out with them on the helicopter. She felt her cheeks warming under his unwavering gaze. He wasn’t bad-looking: tall with long dark hair, a strong jaw, and big, intense brown eyes that made Val feel nervous whenever he glanced at her.
Don’t you do it, Val, she thought to herself. This is not the time or place to go falling for stupid boys.
She focused on her plate, but he kept staring at her.
“Hey, stupid,” her dad said.
Val’s head snapped up to see her dad scowling at Tony.
“Wha...? Are you talking to me?” Tony asked.
“No, I’m talking to the kid standing behind you.”
“Uhhh…” Tony twisted around to look, but there was no one there.
“Now you understand why I called you stupid. Listen up, because I’m only gonna say this once: keep your eyes and everything else away from my daughter. We clear?”
Val felt her cheeks warming again, but for a very different reason this time.
“Look, man—” Tony began.
“Man?” her dad echoed incredulously. “How about, sir.”
“You don’t decide who can look at me,” Val interrupted.
Her dad’s head ratcheted around to her. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t own me.”
“I’m your father! And you’re fourteen. It’s my job to protect you.”
“You’re unbelievable! After everything we’ve been through, that’s what you’re worried about? Whether or not boys are looking at me? Maybe I want to be looked at. Did you ever think about that?”
Her dad’s cheeks bulged with an angry retort, but before he could say anything, a loud chime sounded, and the lights dimmed to a dark golden hue. The mess hall grew silent.
“Shhh,” Carrie said, nodding over their shoulders. “It’s about to start.”
They all turned in their seats to the other end of the room. A familiar man in a blue jumpsuit was standing under a spotlight, holding his arms up for attention. It was Eric Keller, Lewis Hound’s second in command. Short and skinny, with dark hair running seamlessly into a matching beard, he wasn’t much to look at, but he had a frigid aura about him that made Val shiver whenever she saw him. A pair of guards stood in the shadows behind him, their sidearms conspicuously visible.
“Welcome, everyone,” Eric said, his voice booming through the mess hall, amplified by unseen means. “Please put your hands together for our enigmatic leader, the brains behind Eden, Lewis Hound!”
A lackluster round of applause echoed through the room, and then the entire wall behind Eric turned into a bright viewscreen showing the larger-than-life head and shoulders of Lewis Hound. Another man who could make her shudder just by looking at him. Hound was smiling broadly, but somehow his expression didn’t seem right to Val. Maybe because his eyes didn’t crinkle up like her father’s did when he smiled. His face was movie-star handsome, with a broad jaw and a chin dimple. Thick, wavy black hair, and eyes like charcoal that seemed as though they’d suck her in if she stared into them for too long.
“Thank you, Eric,” Hound said, his voice booming as his number two fled the stage. “And thank you all for your patience. By now you’re likely wondering what we’re doing in space. And, for that matter, how we got up here. I apologize for playing this hand so close to my chest. Until now, revealing Eden’s true secrets was simply too dangerous, and to be honest, I didn’t want to risk losing any of you when you found out. Now you’re a captive audience, and it’s too late. That might sound selfish of me, but the opposite is true. The future of the entire human race is at stake, and we couldn’t afford to have any of you abandoning this ship.”
Troubled murmurs filled the air as everyone began discussing the implications of that.
Hound went on: “Now, as to the questions you undoubtedly have. Number one, our destination: we’re currently accelerating on an outbound course that will take us directly to the nearest star besides our own. That is Proxima Centauri. More specifically, we are heading for one of its planets—Proxima Centauri b.”
Val sucked in a noisy breath, along with a hundred others in the room. Hushed murmuring grew progressively louder, and Hound’s fake grin returned. He waited, as if he could somehow hear them reacting to the news.
“How is that possible?” someone yelled. “Proxima is over four light years away!”
“It is,” Hound replied, his voice booming back at them and stunning the crowd into silence once more.
I guess he can hear us, Val thought.
“As a result, the trip will take us approximately seventy-three years.”
With that, the room erupted into chaos.
“Let me explain!” Hound thundered, shouting to be heard. “I have spent the past decade perfecting the technology to safely store your bodies in cryogenic tubes until we arrive. You won’t be aware of the time passing. You won’t age. You won’t even dream. That is how we’re going to do the impossible and travel to another star. And before you ask, yes, I know that Proxima Centauri is a long shot, but right now, so is Earth.”
The viewscreen switched from Hound’s face to the smoldering ember that was Earth, and a stunned silence fell over the hall.
“We have every reason to believe that Proxima will be better for us than Earth, but even if it isn’t, there’s also Alpha Centauri, and it has several potentially habitable worlds of its own. The Centauri system is technically a trinary. That means it has three stars in close proximity, and each of them is likely to have its own habitable planets. One of those planets is going to be our new home. New Earth.”
“New Earth!” Reverend Shelley shouted back at him. “Yes! Take us to the promised land!”
A hushed grumbling rippled through the room, and Hound’s face returned. He was grinning again. “Trust me. I wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble just to get us killed. This is not a fool’s errand. It is our last best hope for survival. Our Mother Earth spewed us from her womb, and that’s terrifying, but she did us a favor. There’s a much bigger universe waiting for us out here. May the stars guide us to our new home. Until then, take heart. This is the beginning, not the end.”
The viewscreen faded, and the lights swelled to their full brightness once more. Everyone in the hall seemed to be frozen in shock.
Reverend Shelley was the first to speak. “New Earth,” she said slowly. “That means the thousand-year reign will begin when we arrive.”
“The thousand-year what?” Andrew asked.
Her head turned to look at him, eyes wide with a feverish intensity. “You’re blinded by your ignorance. Can’t you see what this is? It’s the end of days. The Earth was destroyed, and we’re the chosen ones who survived. Our savior has rescued us, and he’s leading us to our new home.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Andrew held up a hand like a stop sign. �
�Hold the funny farm. Are you trying to say that Lewis Hound is the second coming of Christ?”
“When I come, it will surprise you like a thief! But God will bless you, if you are awake and ready.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It’s from the Bible,” Shelley replied. “And it means that the second coming will be unexpected. You don’t see Hound for what he is because the Devil has blinded you. For it is written, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. You are not one of his sheep, so you don’t recognize his voice.”
“Congratulations, Reverend,” Andrew said, softly clapping his hands.
She cocked her head at him.
“It must be hard to shovel that much bullshit.”
Shelley sneered at him and jumped to her feet, her palms planted on the table and eyes flashing. “You fool! You’ll perish! You’ll die in everlasting torment! Don’t you see? You need to repent before it’s too late!”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You’ll take your chances in Hell!” With that, the reverend whirled away and stormed off. Andrew watched her go with a smirk.
“Well,” Carrie said. “That was interesting.”
“She always is,” Andrew replied.
“I wanna go home,” a small voice sniffed from beside Tony. “I wanna go back to Earth!”
Val looked to see who it was. A young girl. One of the other survivors. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old. Eight, Val decided, remembering vaguely that Diane had told them her age at Eureka.
“It’ll be okay, kid,” Tony said, reaching an arm around her shoulders in a brotherly hug. “Proxima is better than Earth!”
“How do you know?”
“Cause... do you like unicorns?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, that’s where they come from.”
“They do not.”
“Do so,” Tony insisted.
Val smiled at the exchange. “He’s right,” she added.
Diane’s eyes grew big and round as she looked from Tony to Val and back again. “If you’re lying...”
“We’re not,” Tony answered for them. “You’ll see.”
“I’d better.”
THREE
Kendra
Kendra pushed the distraction of the reverend from her mind as the troublesome woman left the room. She noted how Andrew visibly relaxed at her departure, and the way Val watched over her father: the soft eyes of an intelligent child wishing she could do more for her dad.
“Where is Proxima?” Diane asked, gawking at Kendra.
“It’s…” The truth was, it had never occurred to Kendra to look to the stars. She’d had enough to deal with on Earth while she was there. Carrie took this one, as she’d always done as a kid.
“Proxima is the nearest star to Earth, at over four light years away,” Carrie told Diane, repeating what Hound had said a few minutes ago.
“Is that far?” Diane asked her sister.
“It’s seventy-three years far,” Roland said with a chuckle.
Diane gasped. “That’s…” She flipped her fingers out, one by one. “That’s a long time.”
“Don’t worry, honey,” Carrie said, setting her hand over Diane’s in a maternal gesture. “You’ll be sleeping for the trip.”
“But I’m not sleepy,” Diane told them, making their group laugh. Kendra’s mouth tilted up at the corners, but no laugh escaped her lips. She was dreading the journey.
They all had so many questions, but it wasn’t the right place to discuss them.
Tony brushed his hair to the side with his hand, and leaned toward Diane. “It’ll be okay, kid. We’re in it together.”
Kendra liked Tony, and judging by the glances Val was passing to him, she wasn’t the only one who enjoyed his company; only hers was on a completely different level.
Andrew seemed annoyed with the two teens’ subtle interactions as he glowered at the few blue suits still lingering in the common space. Kendra knew he’d be eager to discuss this, but his gaze settled on Carrie, his jaw clenching.
“I have work to do, Ken,” Carrie said, using her old nickname. Kendra’s arms flushed with goosebumps at the term of endearment. She hadn’t heard anyone call her that since she was a teenager herself, and it caught her off-guard.
Kendra stood, matching stances with her sister, and hugged the older woman, who was now a stranger. She intended to change that, after uncovering the full story about Hound from Carrie.
“We’ll talk soon. Maybe after my shift tonight?” Carrie asked as they separated.
Kendra nodded, unable to find words at that moment.
Carrie left their table, chatting with an older man in a blue uniform, before waving one last time as she exited the mess hall. Most people were talking in hushed tones, some tables clearly worried about the pending trip, others elated that they’d been selected by Hound to re-establish the human race.
Kendra glanced around, making a point to see who appeared the most distressed. Profiling those around her had become second nature.
Andrew asked a question, and she heard her name, but nothing else. “Kendra? Earth to Kendra,” he said, tapping her on the shoulder.
“Not a great choice of words, Andy,” Roland said with a smirk.
“I’m sorry. I’m so distracted by everything. What did you ask?” Kendra turned and sat at the table, the sight of their remaining breakfast repulsing her.
“Can we trust her?” Andrew asked softly.
“Carrie?”
“Yeah, the blue-uniformed woman that seems to be enamored with our leader, Hound,” Andrew said, his voice a low hiss.
Kendra bristled at his tone. “At this point, we’re practically strangers, but she’s all I have. I’d appreciate giving her the benefit of the doubt. She was the smart one. If she’s bought in, I trust it.” Kendra didn’t think she pulled off the bravado, because the truth was, she didn’t believe in the story. Not completely. But there was nothing she could do. Earth was gone, and she was on a spaceship, heading for a distant planet with no consideration of returning.
“That’s good enough for me,” Roland said: a clear attempt at breaking the tension. “I have something to tell you.” His eyes narrowed, and he placed his elbows on the tabletop, glancing around before speaking.
“What is it?” Tony asked.
“I… I hacked into the system last night. Before we launched. I found the schematics, and a star map. We are going to Proxima, according to the files,” Roland said.
“Roland, you have to be more careful. This isn’t a game we’re playing here,” Andrew told him.
“I know, I know. I had to see it for myself. I needed to figure out his endgame. How the hell do we have a ship that can bring us to another system? I mean, Lewis is rich, but you still need technology to create…” Roland waved his hand through the air, indicating the technology around them, “all this. Not to mention cryogenics.”
“And for a thousand people,” Val added.
“What’s cryogenies?” Diane asked, playing with her fork.
“It’s where we sleep,” Tony told her, and she nodded, as if that cleared everything up.
“Can you do more digging, Roland?” Kendra asked. This was their chance to perform some investigative research before they each went into a tube to freeze themselves for seventy-three years. It was this next week or never.
He pulled his baseball cap lower on his forehead, as if this would help conceal him. “I’ll try. I don’t think it’ll be so easy.”
Val tapped her finger on the table. “Is this really so hard to imagine?”
“What are you saying?” her father asked.
“This. The starship. Eden,” Val said.
“I’d rather you not call it that,” Andrew said, glowering in his seat. He seemed to harbor a personal vendetta against Reverend Shelley Morris, not that Kendra blamed him. Part of her wished they’d left the old bat on the hospital rooftop.
“Whatever, Dad. Either way, it adds up.”
Kendra smiled softly at the girl, urging her to explain.
“I mean, a thousand people. Almost all of them are specialists in a specific field, and people like your sister have been with him building this for the last decade. So he not only had unlimited funding, but also some of the world’s brightest behind the project,” Val said.
Andrew let out a breath. “I guess so. What do I know? I’m a mechanic,” he said, stretching out in his seat.
“Right, Dad. Any old mechanic would have been able to track me down, escape endless catastrophes, and fly a helicopter to an oil rig in the middle of the ocean,” Val said, grinning ear to ear.
Even Andrew brightened at her praise. Kendra found his expression appealing, and she instantly chided herself for the thought.
End of times. Didn’t people return to their most basic needs? Love, survival… procreation.
“Can you see if Carrie will show you around the cryogenics facility?” Roland asked.
Kendra snapped out of her internal monologue and nodded. “I’ll ask when I see her later.”
“What do I do?” Tony asked.
Andrew took the lead. “You… be a kid. People don’t notice kids. They’re sloppy around them. Listen to what’s happening around you, specifically from the blue uniforms. We need to understand everything we can. And…everyone should leave the reverend alone. I feel like she’s on the road to disaster, and wants us to tag along.”
“What about me?” Diane asked sweetly.
Kendra patted the girl’s arm. “You stay out of trouble, and make sure you get enough to eat, okay?” She wasn’t sure what else to say.
“I can do that,” Diane said.
“Good,” Kendra said as a group across from them started to argue loudly.
“You son of a bitch. They didn’t deserve it! My wife and daughter are dead, and you have the audacity to say the world brought it upon itself!” The man was on his feet, rushing another one, whose smug smile was punched from his face in a flash.
Final Days: Colony Page 2