by Kevin George
“If history was meant to survive, someone will find this place,” he said aloud. “I’m not going to be a prisoner here like James, not when people need me.”
He heard the strength in his own voice, the resolution, which made him feel stronger. He pushed aside any doubt about if it had been Sally’s voice over the radio—and if she’d mentioned being at The Mountain—and hoped his injury wouldn’t make him too late to help. He marched into the small hallway and finally opened the closet, where two packed bags had been waiting for months. He slung one over each shoulder and took a few steps, his knee still holding strong.
After making sure the ISU’s front door was unlocked—just in case—he wrote a quick note about the history housed in the library and left it on the floor for the next person to find. The ISU housed so many comforts he’d never expected to experience in life, but he refused to take a final look at any of them. Instead, he marched to the hatch, lowered his bags down and climbed into the bunker, pausing a last time to hear static within the radio room. When he reached the back wall of the supply bunker, he pushed aside the last of the boxes stacked in front of the door leading to the tunnels beyond.
He slithered through the bunker tunnel until he reached the larger connecting one. Clicking on a flashlight—of which he packed several, all of them fully charged—he pointed the beam down both ends of the tunnel, knowing the two paths led in different directions. He turned right, deciding to push forward into his future. The path he’d dug through the debris pile months ago was still clear. He squirmed through the path, pushing his bags ahead of him, emerging into darkness on the other side. He brushed himself off and headed toward The Mountain, with only a general idea of how long it would take to reach it and no idea if the entire route would remain as clear. Still, the thought of Sally kept him pushing forward and Chad didn’t take a single glance back.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Carli sped less than twenty feet above the White Nothingness, yawning within her helmet. She approached a snowy mound protruding from the ground and only had a split second to avoid it. Without panicking, she rolled to the left, missing the snow by inches, continuing to zip forward without so much as a skipped heartbeat. The idea of crashing—of injuring herself in the middle of nowhere, with nobody around to help, frozen death a certainty—no longer entered her mind. It was hard enough to concentrate on the ground, especially after weeks passed since the last time she’d spotted anything of—
A glint of light struck her eye, finally causing a jolt in her chest. She was careful to temper her expectations; sunlight often played tricks on her when it reflected off the snow. She slowed her speed and circled the general area several times, finding nothing out of the ordinary for the first few minutes. Carli nearly flew off when she caught the glint again, still unable to spot exactly where it was but certain that something was among the infinite whiteness. She cut her jetpack’s power and leaned back, feathering the button a few times before landing softly in the snow.
Her first few steps were clumsy, as they always were whenever she landed from a marathon flight session. She knew humans had once lived solely on the ground, but something about it just didn’t feel natural. Despite the glint being nearby—the first thing she’d spotted in weeks—she kept her head on a swivel, turning in slow circles, keeping a lookout for any sign of potential danger. She hadn’t seen a hint of human existence since flying through the snowy city months ago, but she’d never quite shaken the feeling that someone was out there, watching her every move.
Satisfied she was alone, she turned her attention down and started to search for anything but snow. Several minutes passed and she found nothing. Probably wasting your time, she told herself, a familiar theme in her life now. She’d been searching for months, soaring farther and farther from the downed Comm HASS, finding nothing of use. All that she had found was useless junk, scraps of materials from a past world that served no purpose for what Wyatt needed. She’d brought some junk to him at first but hadn’t hauled back anything for months. You don’t even know if the old world around here had the parts Wyatt would need. . .
Of course she’d never admit that to him. Wyatt had been begging her to stay with him for weeks, to remain in the Comm HASS at all times while he experimented with other potential fixes to the GPS. On the days she’d taken a break from scavenging—mostly during bad snowstorms making flight too dangerous—she’d wandered about the HASS with nothing to do. When Wyatt was working, he was so focused that he barely spoke two words to her, and those words he did say normally seethed with annoyance. He was attentive and friendly at all other times, giving her most of what little food they produced, constantly nervous about her safety, always asking how he could make her situation more comfortable. But he became unbearable when he focused on work, which didn’t make him different than how her father had been.
Carli finally spotted the tiny glint sticking out of the snow. She ran over to it, slipping and sliding along the way, her shoes sinking so deep into the snow that her feet and ankles became frozen. She dropped to her knees and started digging, ripping off her oversized gloves so she could grip the snow better. Within seconds, she’d exposed some sort of handheld metallic contraption that had a handle at one end and a tube at the other. There was a small opening that seemed to be the perfect shape to fit her finger. It looked vaguely familiar, as if she’d seen it while watching an old video from the past. Carli was certain it was some sort of weapon but couldn’t remember the name.
She was also certain she no longer wanted to hold it. Though it might come in handy one day, she tossed the weapon down and kicked snow atop it until it was buried. She sighed and sat, removing her helmet and shrugging the jetpack off her shoulders, which were sore and still seemed to vibrate when the pack was removed. Her eyes turned skyward. Plenty of blue peeked out from the clouds and beams of sunlight bathed her face. If she closed her eyes and ignored the frigid temperatures, she almost felt warmth.
She finally opened her eyes and scanned above. She hadn’t laid her eyes on the Main HASS since the day she’d flown away, but she could still imagine it up there, she could almost see what it looked like from the outside, she could see the outer entrance and the hallway and her room. She could still see Ashley’s sneer for whatever plan Carli was forming, and she could still see the way her father watched her with equal parts doubt, curiosity and amusement. He’d always been wary of her and he’d always had good reason to be, but in hindsight, Carli knew her father loved her.
Ashley, I’m not so sure of, she thought with a smile, aching to see her sister’s sneer one final time, wondering if she’d gotten married to the McConnell boy yet, wondering if her escape from the Main HASS had led to strained relations with other HASS leaders, wondering if—
The wind suddenly died down, allowing her to hear the unmistakable crunching of footsteps in the snow. Carli hopped to her feet, rushing to slip the jetpack back over her shoulders, turning in a circle to look for whoever was out there. Instinct told her to mash the power button and fly far away, but curiosity—and boredom—kept her grounded.
“Hello?” she called out.
Seeing nothing, she expected the sound to go away. It wouldn’t be the first time her mind played tricks on her while searching the empty world. But the crunching grew louder—as if rushing closer—and she hurried to fix the straps of the jetpack, which had become tangled. She ran, not certain what for, not certain if she was running toward danger or away from it, but the sound didn’t fade and her breathing came in heaving gasps. She turned her head from side to side, only whiteness filling her vision. Once she secured the pack, Carli pressed the power button, hoping to launch herself into the safety of the skies, where she could scan the surrounding area for what was out there.
Nothing happened. Carli stopped and looked down at the button, shaking her head over and over.
“No,” she muttered. “Don’t do this. . . not now. . .”
She felt the urge to be sick, an urge that grew
stronger when the jetpack’s engine remained silent. During the last few weeks, she’d had a few moments where the engine sputtered while flying or failed to engage at liftoff, problems that had only lasted a few seconds before righting themselves. Afraid that Wyatt would insist she stay at the Comm HASS, she’d ignored the pack’s issues, also not wanting to distract him from the real task at hand, not that he’d made much progress the last few months. Carli finally tapped the button more lightly, increasing pressure with each tap, feeling the jetpack’s engine sputter with greater intensity. When the engine finally whirred, she mashed the button and shot skyward.
She screamed, tears filling her eyes within her helmet, a scream that carried for miles and unleashed months of frustration. She tried to search the ground for the source of the crunching, but her vision blurred and she no longer cared what was out there. She held down the power button and straightened her body upright, soaring higher and higher through the lowest clouds, higher than she’d been since standing atop the Main HASS. The temperatures became so cold that she had trouble breathing, but she no longer cared about anything, including where she was going.
“Daddy!” she screamed, high-pitched and maniacal, her voice absorbed by the wind whipping around her.
She finally leveled out and hovered several thousand feet above the surface, turning her head one way and then the other, finding no sign of any HASSes. For weeks, a part of her had wanted to search for her home and her family, a desire she’d forced herself to suppress. Now, she couldn’t hold back. She flew among the clouds, trying to head in the general direction from which they’d come. She knew the HASSes drifted in the sky, but they couldn’t have gotten far. She thought about the moment she’d land on the Main HASS’s platform, the moment she’d see her father and sister again, the moment she’d sleep in her bed. She was even prepared to see her nose-picking future fiancé, if that match would still be required of her.
And what about Wyatt? an annoying voice asked in the back of her mind. You’d just abandon him?
She tried to tell herself that she didn’t care about Wyatt. She tried to tell herself that he would survive in this world without her. She tried to tell herself that Wyatt wouldn’t even notice if she was gone. But once her explosion of self-pity faded and reality returned to her mind, she understood that she’d been lying to herself, that she couldn’t return to the Main HASS even if she found it. Exhaling deeply, she released the jetpack’s power button, angling her body down as she lowered through the clouds.
The moment her vision cleared and she looked down, she spotted something on the ground far ahead. Any other thoughts vanished from her mind. Whatever was out there was far ahead but also very large, larger than any scraps she’d found so far. At first, she was confused, thinking it looked like the downed Comm HASS. Am I farther off course than I realized?
It wouldn’t have been the first time Carli lost her sense of direction. In the first days she’d flown away from the Comm HASS to search for parts to fix the GPS, she’d barely traveled far enough to lose sight of their home. But with each subsequent day, she’d flown farther and farther away, several times becoming lost or turned around, panic nearly keeping her from ever finding Wyatt or the HASS again. But she’d grown a sixth sense for direction and now flew hours and miles from the Comm HASS—much to Wyatt’s consternation—without ever struggling to find her way back.
Now, she knew she wasn’t close enough for the Comm HASS to be a few miles ahead. Still, the object looked more and more like a HASS as she flew closer, but not just a single HASS. Several appeared to be pushed together on the ground and an awful realization hit her: did the Main HASS crash and pull down the rest of the HASSes around it?
She pushed the jetpack to full speed, ignoring her earlier problems with the pack, uncertain whether to hope the downed HASSes were or weren’t what she feared them to be. Though she wanted to reach them as quickly as possible, she couldn’t ignore the uncomfortable sensation that she was being watched. Before she got too close, she lowered to the ground, landing at the slightest of jogs, approaching the last half-mile on foot in case anyone was waiting to ambush her.
She rubbed the top of the power button, panic filling her, uncertain if that panic was caused by a fear of what waited ahead, a fear of who waited ahead, or a fear that the next time she pushed the button—especially if she needed to push it in a hurry—the jetpack would not respond. Within minutes, she saw that the objects were indeed HASSes, but none were the Main HASS or any others she’d spent so many years staring at. No, these were other HASSes.
Carli knew the history of her family’s home, knew the history of the Ellisons and their plans to continue human life following Earth’s great cooldown. She hadn’t heard of her family building other Sky Stations, nor did the tales of other survival arks include those from in the sky. Besides, Carli assumed another HASS floating in the general vicinity of her home would’ve been spotted during the hundreds of years since the Ellisons first took their followers skyward. That left only one possibility, and the truth suddenly obvious.
These are the other HASSes severed from the Main HASS long before I was born, she knew with certainty. Though she’d known the Comm HASS was the sixth to be cut free, Carli had never been taught their history. She’d asked her father about them on several occasions, but Stephen Ellison was never forthcoming with information he felt shamed about. He’d always brush aside her questions and remind her to focus on the future instead of the past. What her father didn’t know was that Carli found old photographs of the original HASS stations on her tablet, as well as information about what each of them had been used for.
Though the HASSes on the ground were partially covered in snow, she counted four distinct shapes arranged together in a square. Some appeared more dilapidated and broken than others, and it was clear to see which had been on the ground longer. Even though she had a general idea of what they were and when they’d landed, how they’d ended up pushed together was a bigger mystery. Even if they’d been severed at the same time—unlikely as that might be—there was no way all four could’ve drifted to the ground and landed so closely together. In Carli’s mind, that only meant one thing.
After touching down, they were purposely moved here by the survivors.
Had the Comm HASS housed more than just Wyatt, Carli had little doubt those people would’ve survived the slow—albeit frightening—descent to the surface. She imagined the same for the people of these HASSes, who must’ve lived long enough to find one another and arrange their HASSes so closely to each other. A rush of excitement filled her at the prospect of her HASS ancestors surviving on the surface, a rough life certainly but one that might not have been too different from the HASSes in the sky, as long as they were able to maintain their small grow houses.
I’d better keep my last name quiet in case my grandparents were responsible for severing these HASSes, Carli thought.
She neared the first HASS and slowed to a stop, searching for the slightest sign of movement within but finding none. Next, she scanned the surrounding snow for footprints; nothing but flat, undisturbed whiteness. A chill rushed through her that had nothing to do with the cold and snow. Taking a deep breath, she pushed forward, ready to fly away at any moment. She reached the outer platform of the first HASS, its metallic floor slick with snow and ice, most of its railing still intact. The entrance door was cracked open less than a foot, a sheet of ice connecting the open door to its doorway, obviously untouched for a long time.
Too long for anyone to be left inside, Carli thought cryptically. She squeezed the jetpack controls even tighter, unable to decide if she felt more anxious or less to fly away and never come back. Maybe this HASS isn’t in good condition. . . maybe people are living in the others. . .
Snow stuck to the outer wall, but a sudden gust of wind blew some of it away, exposing words underneath. If Carli had ever needed a signal about what to do, this was it. She inched forward, crossing the platform until reaching the wall, brus
hing aside the rest of the snow to expose a pair of words: Cultural Center.
Carli still recalled reading the description of this survival station, which had been built to house information about humankind’s greatest works of culture, including art and music. Apparently, this had been the first HASS severed long before Carli or her father had ever been born, its contents deemed least important for long-term survival. Carli often dreamed of this place, often wondered what music sounded like or what art looked like beyond the photos she’d seen on her tiny screen. In her mind, the Cultural Center had always seemed magical.
This place did not. Still, she considered how many electronic systems each of the HASSes contained and she didn’t imagine this one being any different. Expecting a wealth of potential parts inside—and without knowing exactly what would best serve Wyatt—Carli considered flying back to the Comm HASS to retrieve him. He’d undoubtedly want to see this place, too, and he’d be far better off scavenging exactly what was needed to fix the GPS. But with his jetpack out of commission for the time being, a return walk across the surface would take hours that Carli couldn’t bear to endure.
No time for that, she convinced herself. It’s a miracle I found this in the first place. I can’t risk losing it without ever setting foot inside.
“Hello?!” she called out, taking a step back from the platform to see if anyone tried circling around from the other HASSes. “My name is Carli. . . I’m from the Comm HASS. We were also severed from the Main HASS. My friend and I managed to survive, but we really need your help. Hello?”
She turned her head in one direction and then the other, calling out her message several times without a reply. She considered circling to the other HASSes but doubted she’d find anything different. She approached the door again, knocking and calling out “hello,” cracking away the icy exterior. She tried to peer through the small gap in the open doorway but saw nothing inside but darkness. Sliding her hands into the crack, she yanked at the door, which was either frozen or rusted in place. It slid a few inches, just enough for her to squeeze her legs through. Her upper body was different, or more specifically, what was attached to her back.