Final Days: Colony

by Jasper T. Scott

  “Relax. Why bother setting up cameras when you’re going to be frozen like a leftover hotdog in a few days?” He stood, slipping into a freshly-folded white jumpsuit. He needed to find a way into a blue one.

  He caught his reflection and cringed. Roland had never been one for mirrors, but he almost jumped at how bedraggled he’d allowed himself to grow. The pills. He was always so consumed by some irrational fear or another, and now, with a clearer mind, he saw how dire his state was.

  Roland crossed the room to the cramped bathroom, and leaned in close to the mirror. His skin was sallow, and heavy bags hung under his squinty eyes. He had to be better. For the group. For himself.

  He opened a drawer, and saw it was stocked with provisions. His beard was light brown and patchy. He’d always hoped that when it grew long enough, it would fill out, but it only looked worse. He rinsed his face, took a small pair of scissors, and cut the hair, eventually lathering up with shaving cream and using a three-blade razor to shear his chin and cheeks.

  He managed to nick himself a few times as he went through the unfamiliar strokes, but for the most part, it went smoothly. He found some aftershave, and grimaced as the liquid bit into his cuts.

  His hair was another matter, and he combed it, then brushed the locks. It was still a mess, but he figured someone on the ship would be able to assist him with that. The man staring back at him was a stranger, and Roland tested a smile, barely recognizing himself.

  “Not too shabby, Rollie. Grandma would be proud,” he told himself, and shut the lights off.

  He still had a mission to do, and now, feeling like a different person, he was ready for it. He could be more like Andrew. Tough, unafraid of anything.

  His door opened, and he peered from the confines of his suite, finding the corridors on deck thirty-four devoid of another soul. His destination wasn’t far: a compact room at the far edge of their residency’s deck. He arrived after tiptoeing comically across the hard floor.

  He gained access by pressing a code he’d seen a blue uniform use on the numbered panel when they were first shown to their rooms. It opened without preamble, and he settled at the computer screen on the opposite end of the room.

  Having found the backdoor only yesterday, he went through the motions, but found a roadblock as he attempted to sneak in once more.

  “What the…” Roland’s heart raced as he peered over his shoulder. They must have discovered he’d been in there. They’d seen the breach and patched it. Damn it. He was sticking his neck out too far, and he could almost feel the wind of the guillotine as the blade dropped.

  Nervously, he exited all the programs, removed any sign of his access, and went an extra step to wipe his fingerprints off the keys with the wrist of his jumpsuit.

  Soon Roland was in his room, too worked up to sleep once again, wondering what tomorrow would bring and whether he’d be tossed in the brig or not.

  SIX

  Andrew

  Hazy darkness clouded the underside of the bunk above Andrew’s head. He lay awake, listening to the steady humming and whooshing of the ship’s ventilation and cooling systems. His scalp and brow were prickled with sweat. He scratched his head furiously and wiped away the perspiration. Frustrated from the heat and his inability to fall asleep, he kicked off the blankets. He’d only been in space for a day, and he already hated the hell out of it.

  Andrew had always imagined space as cold. Turned out he was wrong. Cram a thousand people and all of the machinery they needed to survive into a ship the size of a skyscraper and then set it adrift in a sea of vacuum, and suddenly excess heat became a real problem. In hindsight, he probably should have known. A coffee thermos worked the same way. That’s what Eden is, he thought, a giant thermos.

  The bunk above him creaked as Val rolled over with a sigh. Am I keeping her awake? “Val?” he whispered.

  Nothing. At least she was getting some sleep. It didn’t help that the director of HR had assigned him to apprentice under what might possibly be the most annoying man on Earth—no, they weren’t on Earth anymore, so that made him the most annoying man in the universe. And that was so much worse, because in space there was no one to hear you scream shut the hell up! To say that Harold was chatty would be an understatement.

  Andrew rolled over, and tried to push his thoughts in a more pleasant direction. Somehow that brought an image of Kendra to mind. He frowned at that, wondering why she was the first thing that came to mind. Kendra was pretty enough, but she wasn’t his usual type. After things had gone south with his ex-wife, he’d almost exclusively dated blonde bimbos: young, superficial girls who were only dating him for one thing, which was fine, because so was he.

  One of his buddies from the Marines had pointed it out, and said it was a defense mechanism. Shallow girls are for shallow flings, and if you only ever get your feet wet, you don’t have to worry about drowning. Kendra was a blonde too, but there was nothing bimbo about her. She was probably a hell of a lot smarter than him, if it came down to it, and something told him she wouldn’t be caught dead in a shopping mall looking for stilettos. Maybe it was time for a change of pace.

  Andrew was already shaking his head. He had more important things to focus on. Like where the hell Eden was going, and how to keep Val alive on some alien world with God knows what kinds of dangers on it.

  Andrew lay with his thoughts going in circles for the next hour. He thought about Val and her budding interest in boys; the voyage to Proxima Centauri; the aura of mystery surrounding Eden and its creator, Lewis Hound; and the sinking feeling that this was all somehow too good to be true.

  At last, his eyes grew heavy. He gave into it, and his eyes slammed shut, dropping him into a troubled world of cloying fears and shapeless terrors. He could hear Val calling for him, but he couldn’t find her. He battled through thick blankets of darkness to reach her. “Val!” he tried, but his voice echoed back to him with no reply.

  A heavy, metallic thunk sounded, and Andrew woke with a start. His head was thick, his thoughts still clouded with sleep and the residual horror that Val was missing.

  The door gave a groan, and a wedge of light spilled into the room. A person appeared, silhouetted in the dim, ruddy glow of the night-cycle lighting in the corridor. By the shape of the person’s body and the length of their hair, he could tell that it was a woman.

  “Kendra?” he whispered. But then she turned into the light to shut the door, and he caught a glimpse of her features. Her face was too round, hair too short, eyes too sunken and chin too weak. The stranger’s hair was blonde, though. More importantly, she was wearing a blue jumpsuit, which meant that she was one of the crew. And she seemed terrified.

  “Who are you?” he tried again, louder this time.

  The woman turned to him in the hazy darkness of his quarters. ”You’re Andrew Miller, right?”

  “Yes...”

  “The FBI detective?”

  “No. You’ve got the name right, but the wrong room and the wrong person. You’re looking for Kendra. Two doors down on the right.”

  The woman cursed under her breath. “It doesn’t matter. You can tell her for me.”

  “Tell her what?”

  A hissing noise started up somewhere in the room, drawing Andrew’s gaze to the vents at the top and bottom of the bulkhead opposite the bunk where he lay.

  The woman’s eyes flew wide, and she retreated from the vents as a thick white mist began curling out of them. “It’s too late!”

  Andrew sat up, and hit his head with a reverberating boom on the metal frame under Val’s bunk. “Damn it! What’s going on? Is that smoke?”

  She was shaking her head, flattening herself against the door, eyes wide as the white tendrils of mist curled around her like snakes. She tore her eyes away and stared hard at him, eyes black and gleaming in the dark. “Listen to me! We’re not going to Proxima Centauri!”

  “Not going to Proxima? Then where—”

  The mattress above Andrew’s head creaked as
Val stirred again. “Dad?” she asked sleepily. “What’s going...” She trailed off into silence.

  Andrew felt it too. His thoughts were sluggish, more confused. His eyes grew heavy again. His heart slowed. Whatever was pouring into the room, it wasn’t smoke.

  The woman took a stumbling step away from the door, turned, and tried to yank it open, but it wouldn’t budge. “It’s lock...” She crumpled to the deck before she could finish that thought, and Andrew was sinking back to his pillow in a dream-like haze. And maybe that was all this was: one of those nightmares where you wake up in your bed, only to discover that you’re still dreaming.

  * * *

  Andrew awoke to the sound of the ship’s morning alarm: a klaxon, blaring with all the subtlety of a drill sergeant’s baritone. He groaned and tried to sit up—

  And promptly fell out of bed. “Damn it!”

  He picked himself up, limbs flopping, head rolling. His body felt like it belonged to someone else, like his muscles had been pounded into mush while he slept. His head was pounding like it was stuffed with cotton. His mouth and throat were dry. The klaxon went on and on. He glared up at the ceiling “Shut the fu—”

  And then it did.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d say that he’d been on a bender last night, but that wasn’t it. He’d been clean ever since Val had disappeared. He’d been too busy worrying about finding her to remember that he was supposed to be a recovering alcoholic.

  “Ugh,” Val said as she attempted to rise from her bed. She flopped back down, and one arm fell through the railing. “Why do I feel like I fell off a cliff and then had an anvil dropped on my head?”

  Andrew smiled at that. Coyote and Road Runner was an old cartoon from his childhood, but he and Val used to watch it together when she was little. He could still remember the sound of her giggling at the slapstick humor.

  Val attempted to peel herself out of bed for a second time. She managed to put shaky legs to the rungs of the ladder at the foot of her bunk.

  “Don’t fall,” Andrew advised.

  Val’s bare feet hit the deck with a muted thud, and then she turned to him. “So what’s first, shower or breakfast?”

  “Breakfast,” he decided. “I’m starving.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Val replied. “Must be from washing all those stupid dishes yesterday.”

  “So what’s my excuse?”

  Val shrugged and poked him in the stomach. Her finger hit muscle and bounced back. “Gotta feed the beast,” she said.

  He snorted at that. “Good to know how you really feel about your father.”

  “Any time.” Val went to the gleaming white lockers opposite the bed, and put on socks and boots. Andrew joined her and did the same. As soon as they were done, Andrew went to the door and unlocked it via the touch panel. A heavy thunk sounded, and he experienced a trickle of déjà vu. He pulled the door open with a frown, and a wedge of bright light spilled into the room, more dazzling than the gradually-rising lights in their quarters. The feeling of déjà vu grew stronger, and he hesitated in the open doorway.

  “What’s wrong?” Val asked.

  He turned to her. “Do you remember someone coming into our room last night?”

  “What?” Val began shaking her head, her brow knitted with confusion. “No.”

  “A woman with blonde hair. She was one of the crew.”

  “A blue suit?” Val asked. “Definitely not. I’d remember that.”

  “Yeah... I guess you would,” Andrew agreed, but he wasn’t so sure. He could have sworn someone had visited them. A woman. She’d said something to him, and then... some kind of mist had been pouring in through the vents. Had he dreamed it? Or had that actually happened?

  “Dad? Food?”

  “Right.” Shaking off his apprehension, Andrew pulled the door all the way open and led the way to the elevators. The corridor was filling up fast with people bustling about as they went through their morning routines. By the time they arrived, there was already a line of people waiting for them. Ten elevators, five on each side, and somehow it still wasn’t enough to ferry people through the ship. I guess that’s what you get with a ship this size, he thought.

  The nearest one dinged open, and Andrew dragged Val toward it, using his size to shoulder through the crowd. A few guards were standing around, reminding people to play nice, but Andrew wasn’t in the mood for it, and he received a glare from one of the guards for his trouble. He flashed an innocent grin as the doors glided shut.

  The floor was already selected for them. Deck Forty. There were five different mess decks on board, but forty was the closest one to their quarters on level fifty-five.

  When the doors dinged open once more and they crowded out into the mess hall, he and Val quietly shuffled through the serving line, finding their scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, and juice. Andrew took a few extra minutes at the beverage station to get himself a coffee. He bumped into Kendra there—literally—and made her spill coffee on her hand. She cursed as it burned her, and he winced. “Shit. Sorry, Kendra. I’m a klutz this morning. Let me see that.”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped. But then her expression softened, and she shrugged. “You didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “Is it bad?” he asked, reaching for her hand again.

  She waved him off. “No, I’m—”

  He grabbed her wrist, not taking no for an answer, and held the burn against the side of his juice cup. The juice was cold. That had to help some.

  “I’m fine, really... it was just a few drops.” Her hand shook in his, and he found himself staring into her eyes. Hazel eyes, but there was a kaleidoscope of color in them—specks of fiery gold, red embers, emerald greens...

  Kendra pulled her hand away, breaking the spell. “We should find a table.”

  She led the way, leaving him to gawk after her with a whole mess of unfamiliar feelings sparking through him. Suddenly he was wide awake.

  “What was that?” Val asked.

  Andrew glanced at her with a frown. “Nothing. Mind your own business.”

  Val smiled. “If that was nothing, I think something might scar me for life.”

  “Keep your mind out of the gutter, Val.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Andrew followed Kendra to a relatively empty table, where she was sitting with her sister. Roland was there, too. Andrew pulled out a chair as far from Kendra as he could, next to Roland.

  “Hey, man,” Roland said. “Sleep okay?”

  Andrew shrugged and dug into his breakfast, swallowing scalding hot coffee in big gulps to help clear his head. It still felt stuffed with cotton.

  At some point that teenager with the stupid long hair came to sit beside Val, but Andrew was too preoccupied to comment. He gave half an ear to their conversation, but it was all innocent enough, so he gave up eavesdropping. Something was bugging the hell out of him, but he couldn’t decide what it was. He glanced up and stared hard at Kendra, wondering if it was about her. Carrie spotted his attention with a smile and nodded to him. Kendra noticed then, too, and flashed a tight smile of her own before hurriedly looking away. He dragged his own gaze away a few seconds later. No, it wasn’t her that was bothering him. He wasn’t in the mood for romantic distractions, but even if some part of him had decided otherwise, that inner conflict wasn’t enough to put him into a tailspin.

  This was something more sinister. Something to do with the woman he thought might have visited him last night. Who was she? And what had she said to him? It was so hazy, like a half-remembered dream.

  “I can’t wait till we reach Proxima!” Carrie exclaimed. Her voice broke into Andrew’s thoughts, and he looked up sharply.

  “Proxima,” he said. That connected to something in his head, but he wasn’t sure what.

  Carrie and Kendra both stared at him with puzzled expressions.

  An image of a blonde-haired woman silhouetted in the open door of his room flashed through his head.

  “I have a question fo
r you, Carrie,” Andrew said.

  She set her knife and fork on the table and nodded for him to go on.

  “Do you know someone in the crew with blonde hair—medium to short in length? She has kind of a small jaw with a weak chin.”

  Carrie was shaking her head. “There are literally a dozen people that could fit that description. Do you have a name?”

  “No.” If he had a name, he wouldn’t bother describing her.

  “Well, can you tell me anything else about her?”

  He shook his head. “That’s it.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  Kendra was showing unusual interest in this conversation. Was that jealousy? Don’t flatter yourself, Miller. “Well, this is going to sound stupid,” Andrew said.

  “Try me.”

  He debated telling Carrie the truth, and then decided to go for it. May as well rattle the cage and see what falls out. “I think I might have dreamed her. She came into my room last night and—”

  Kendra rolled her eyes dramatically and took a bite of her toast.

  “No, it wasn’t like that,” he added hurriedly. “She was there to warn me about something, and she looked terrified. Then the vents started pumping this mist into the room and she collapsed. I fell asleep soon after that—unless I was already asleep.”

  Carrie’s brow furrowed all the way up to her hairline. “Why would a member of the crew sneak into your room? To warn you about what?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I can’t remember.”

  Kendra looked alarmed. So did Roland, Val, and Tony. They were all trading glances with each other.

  Carrie smiled as if it were some big joke. “Guys, come on. You can relax. If there was something going on that you should be worried about, I’d be the first to tell you. No one here is out to get you.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Andrew replied. He was talking to the wrong person about this. “Must have been a dream. Like I said, it was hard to tell. I was half-asleep at the time.”