Home Planet: Apocalypse (Part 2) (8 page)

Back at the lifepod, I assembled my gear on the upper deck close to the cockpit ladder, then went down below and climbed into the storage hold using the flashlight. After locating the nearest ATV, I checked that it worked—it did. Then I checked the other three in case I needed them. All but one still had a nearly full charge. Maybe that was just because they sat in the Juno’s power grid—they might quickly drain once launched, given they were so old. It just gave me even more incentive to avoid missing the landing zone. A snowmobile would’ve been more suitable for the conditions, but it was either the ATVs or walk. While inspecting them, something glinted in the light. Focusing the flashlight back on the tires, I smiled.

“Someone prepared well,” I murmured happily, rubbing my fingers lightly over the long steel studs covering the tire tread. “These should work.”

The remaining time I spent up in the cockpit, familiarizing myself with the controls. It seemed like a long time ago since the simulator training in Houston. It
was
a long time ago. Thankfully, Laetitia had programmed the autopilot to do most of the work, but the chance of manual intervention remained.

Ten minutes before launch, while thinking man and his robot had deserted me, I heard the gruff, grumbling voice of Reichs from the corridor outside.

“Peasant! Oh peasant, you still on board the good ship
Juno
?”

He coughed from inside the upper deck as I climbed down the ladder.

“Of course I am—you’re in the lifepod aren’t you?”

“Yes, well you might have taken a different one.”

I looked to Laetitia, finding it bizarre that I connected with her far more than the dirty, gray man.

Looking at my watch, I said, “What time do you have? Mine says 10:12p.m.”

“I do not need a watch. I have synchronized a timer to your watch, Mr. Luker. You have eight minutes before the ideal launch time. You should release as close to 10:20p.m. as possible. Release can only be accomplished manually.”

“Yeah, so they said in training. But hey, thanks. Keep a channel open for me.” I said.

“Yes, once we move to the higher orbit to avoid drag we will still be within transceiver range. We are continuing to work on the shuttle and launch tube.”

She nodded politely, then returned to her neutral, default expression.

“Now, cowboy, you make sure you keep us
appraised
of what you find down there. We’ll be glad to give you a ride in our shuttle once it’s working. This place may be a purgatory, but it can take us to heaven. We need as many helpful people as you can find to fix this ship. Think you can do that for us, after all we’ve done for you?”

“What are you
talking
about? I don’t think they’ll be in a position to fix a leaking faucet from what I’ve heard—they’re too busy surviving!”

I exhaled, shaking my head, moderating my tone.

“Look,” I said, “let’s see what I find. Maybe you’ll come join whatever civilization is going on down there. Just let me know if you get that shuttle working, okay?”

Another crazy smile grew on his, face and he thrust out his greasy palm.

“Peasant, it’s been real good knowing you.”

Returning a tight smile, I shook his hand, still wondering how much of his persona was an act. My gut told me Reichs was a slippery character and the thing with his missing wife was a giant red flag. I mean, even in the technological age from which we’d come, it was strange.

Who the hell replaces their missing wife with a carbon-copy android?

Many guys may have wanted to, but how many really would and had the means to do so? One, as far as I knew. Somehow, though, I didn’t think whatever police existed below would still want to pursue a five hundred year-old cold case. If there were any police.

I reached out and shook hands with Laetitia, still wondering how self-aware she was.

Checking my watch again, I said, “Okay, this is me. You two better leave unless you want a one-way trip to the snowball.”

“Godspeed, Mr. Luker,” said Reichs.

“Goodbye,” said a detached-looking Laetitia.

They left and shut the airlock doors while I secured the capsule’s hatch before climbing back up to the cockpit.

Two minutes and counting.

The four-point seat harness went on and I brought up the saved autopilot program.

I took a deep breath and placed my left index on the red operate button on the console below the terminal.

One minute to go. Looking up, I reached for the red lifepod release lever, feeling the cold, hard metal chill my palm.

Time seemed slow as I got ready to say goodbye to my home of the last five hundred and fourteen years. The timescale was still beyond real comprehension.

Deciding to go with tradition, I counted down, “Ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-three-two-one.”

I yanked the lever and felt the clunk of some heavy mechanism feedback through the handle. Moments later came two loud percussive, sounds:
voomp
,
voomp
, as the mothership ejected the lifepod like a tiny floating seed released from a gigantic plant. The video feed from the top camera showed the
Juno Ark
resolving into fullness on the display. The one next to it displayed the bottom camera feed and the arc of the frozen Earth and the blue atmospheric haze against the blackness of space.

I tapped the autopilot program, initiating the five-second countdown before the roar of the thrusters kicked in. Their effect was immediate, pushing me back into the seat as the capsule homed in on the two things Laetitia had told it to—the landing zone coordinates relative to the
Juno
and the radio signal we’d picked up.

After about three minutes, the thrusters died down to almost nothing and the next minutes saw just short pulses of burn as the capsule honed its trajectory. This went on for another five or so minutes before the first signs of re-entry came to the lower camera feed. Soon, the entire vignette saw a veil of orange flame grow in density and ferocity, until the whites of Earth gave way to the fiery canvas. All four flank feeds soon shared the same view as the flames consumed the majestic planetary arc framed with black. The rush grew to a deafening roar, which continued for some time until it gradually died away. I watched the camera feeds as they emerged from the furnace of re-entry in perfect working order—another miracle of late-twenty-first century technology. The last fires of atmospheric friction faded to make way for white clouds, thick and impenetrable, spread out miles below as a blanket that ran as far as the horizon.

Another fine day on Earth,
I thought, uneasy at what I was getting myself into.

The human instinct for exploration and discovery ran strong. This was my home world, my homeland, the place I hoped to find the truth. And as perhaps the only survivor to make it back, I had a duty to teach the history as well as learn it. As the capsule flashed past the cloud tops and into the consuming whiteness, I thought of home, the people I’d left, and the woman that had departed me. It was all so long ago, but it hurt like it was yesterday. Now, I was about to enter a world that may as well have been an alien planet. Alone and with no idea of what awaited me, I’d need every ounce of strength and guile to make it in this brave new world.

The lifepod scythed through the thickening atmosphere at supersonic speed. As the air density rose, the knots fell away and rapidly approached terminal velocity. The feeds still showed an all-consuming whiteness, almost as though I’d reached heaven without ever having known what happened. The roar of the retrorockets roused me from the daydream as my body seemed to double in weight with the deceleration. The burn was brief and just seconds later the pilot parachute deployed, followed by the four main ones, slowing the pod to a relative float. I checked the terminal display and realized I was still falling at thirty miles an hour—nothing compared to before, but still as fast as an urban car.

The cloud outside was still as thick as ever as the capsule swayed beneath the bloom of parachutes below which it hung. Buffeting by the wind seemed to be the cause of the sway. Wind was also one of the factors Laetitia couldn’t correct for—no such thing as a weather forecast anymore. On checking the projected touchdown coordinates, I realized that the prevailing wind had blown me off course. Even with parachutes deployed, it wasn’t too late to adjust the course—I’d just need to be careful.

I thought back long and hard to simulator training which taught every colonist the basics of lifepod operation. Altitude was vital and I only had five miles to play with. That meant less than ten minutes until touchdown. I selected manual mode on the terminal and vectored the thrusters against the wind. Before engaging them, I had to ensure the power setting was right, so I went for ten percent and tapped the screen. Next, came delay of a second or two, then a gentle growl as the thrusters eased the capsule westward, toward the landing zone. The projection updated, but still put touchdown at over sixty-five miles from the intended spot. With the anticipated Arctic conditions, that was no trivial distance, even with a functioning all-terrain vehicle. If the ATVs failed, it could add many days to my trek with no guarantees of what I’d find when I got there. I reached for the manual throttle down to my right and eased forward, watching the digital display match the terminal’s readout of eleven percent moving toward twenty. I rapidly explored the data and found the parachute tension readouts—four lines, all of them only at sixty-two percent of their maximum. The process continued until thrusters reached twenty-nine percent, where I left it until reaching thirteen thousand feet. Tension was still a healthy seventy-four percent and I was confident there was a fat safety margin as with most engineered things. The landing projection still showed an unsatisfactory fifty-four miles, so I ramped up the thrusters, watching the line tension climb steadily.

Then without warning, the capsule started falling, faster and faster. When Parachute Two’s tension had dropped to zero, the other three had shot up above a hundred percent as they took the full weight of the lifepod. A series of jolts marked the remaining three parachutes’ failure. My stomach lurched with the acceleration, sending the lifepod into freefall.

“Shit!” I said, reaching for the manual stick.

The readout told of a terminal velocity of nearly two hundred miles per hour. I vectored the thrusters downward and then pulled on the throttle giving full power in the fight against gravity. Falling velocity dropped to nothing, but then the lifepod became unstable spinning end over end. It forced me to kill the thrusters once more and allow aerodynamics and to right it. With only a mile left and falling fast, I had some choices to make. Hitting the ground at terminal speed would almost certainly be fatal. My mind worked at lightspeed. A plan emerged. The first reasonable plan, so I grabbed it.

Carefully watching the altitude melt away, I kept my right hand on the throttle and my left finger on the airbag deployment lever.

Fifteen hundred feet, twelve hundred, nine hundred … the barren snowscape flashed into view from the camera feeds; six hundred, five, four hundred … the ground detail resolved and grew at a dizzying rate. Then, at two hundred feet, I pushed hard on the throttle, unleashing terrifying noise and deceleration. Two seconds later, I killed the thrusters and simultaneously inflated the airbags, inducing a few seconds of gyrational wobbling before smacking down to earth then bouncing back up goodness knew how high. But the capsule stayed upright and each bounce felt softer than the last until eventually the thing settled.

I threw my head back and exhaled a long overdue breath. A smile grew on my face. The exhilaration of survival was hard to beat and I felt every ounce of the good hormones flowing through my body. Noticing it for the first time, I wiped sweat from my brow then rested for a few minutes. The lifepod sank gradually as the airbags vented their contents to the frigid planet’s atmosphere. I was in one piece and home—technically, anyway.

Home is where the heart is,
I thought.

This was the place where many centuries ago, events had torn my heart apart, sending me on the road I now traveled.

***

For Juliet, what had been a rollercoaster ride of emotions would soon give way to a new era in their lives. An era of sleepless nights and dirty diapers but also of joy and of wonder. At thirty-three weeks pregnant, she already felt a new kind of love for the tiny baby growing inside her. She and Luker already knew it was a boy and knowing the fact somehow made him more of a person already, less of an abstract. As she sat in the comfortable leather seat of her private auto-car, she accessed a high-definition scan of his face. She marveled at his tiny features—his delicate little fingers and button nose. The pre-natal education lesson with Dr. Sommers always brought her closer to the little man she carried. As Juliet and the educational specialist had spoken through the transmitter to her baby, it still amazed her that he responded to the lessons. Some of her work colleagues thought the whole pre-natal education and music therapy weird but she didn’t. She and Luker wanted to give their child the best start in life and both of them believed wholeheartedly in the power—and the joy—of learning. Besides, he seemed to enjoy the music and it can’t have been much fun having no one to talk to in there.

Her pregnancy hadn’t all been plain sailing. Unfortunately, Juliet’s morning sickness had afflicted her right into the third trimester compelling her to take pills to quell its effects, despite her desire to stay free of such pharmaceuticals. Yesterday, she’d ran out and now, with bedtime only a few hours away she knew it wouldn’t be long before the nausea returned. The whole tragedy of thalidomide and the birth defects it had caused set a far more conservative approach to medicines during pregnancy than before. When Luker had told his mom about Juliet’s decision to take the new generation of pills, she had serious misgivings. And boy did she let Juliet know.

If you’ve ever felt morning sickness, you’ll understand
, she thought as the auto-car sat at the stoplights.
The nausea makes you feel like you want to die, but you know you won’t get off so lightly.

The in-car phone rang and she tapped the accept button on the display. A video hologram of Luker materialized, a 3D, semi-translucent image of the handsome daddy-to-be.

“Hey darling, what you up to? Expected you back already,” he said, looking relaxed and happy.

“Dr. Sommers’s class overran and then I needed to divert to go to the drugstore—ran out of the pills again. Be home in fifteen or twenty, I guess.”

“Early night tonight?”

“Yeah, I’m beat and there’s a lot on tomorrow.”

“You’re working from home. Can’t you have a lie-in?”

“No can do, mister shift pattern. We’ve got the first batch of beta testers coming out of the world tomorrow and I need to be online to interview them.”

“So what, they’ve been living in this
virtual world
for how long ... two weeks?”

“Yeah, it varies, but two to three weeks.”

“And then what, you sit them down, ask them what it was like?”

She sighed quietly, but patience won out and she re-explained it to Luker. It wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to get your head around.

“We interview each beta tester along with their AI avatar, which is essentially an upload of their mind. The
avatar
has been living in the virtual world—the
Forever World
as we call it—for two to three weeks, not the person whose mind we scanned and uploaded.”

“And there I was thinking the head-freezers were crazy,” he said, referring to the early attempts at cryogenic preservation that were now largely disproven. People paid tens of thousands of dollars to get their head or their entire body frozen and kept in secure facilities until future technology could revive them.

“It’s not
crazy,
Dan, this is the future. The
Forever Project
—what was codenamed
Arcadia
—is about to go public and become our main revenue stream for the foreseeable future. There’s no other game in town right now. Sign-ups are already past twenty-thousand and that’s—”

“I don’t know, darling. Not sure I like the thought of hackers getting direct access to my entire mind map. They’d be able to predict every move I’d make, how I’d respond to anything.”

She held her hands up, still smiling.

“Look, when I get some time I’ll show you at home. Then you’ll feel differently. Did the boss approve your paternity leave?”

“Yeah, he gave me the old speech about missing one of his finest and all—”

She laughed at Luker singing his own praises.

“Yeah, yeah, Dan. You’re the greatest. A crime-fighting hero the likes of which L.A. has never seen before,” she said, jovially.

“You seem okay for someone with morning sickness.”

“Dan, you
know
it comes on at night and lasts ‘til morning—especially if I don’t get these meds.”

Luker changed the subject to baby names.

“So, I’ve been thinking about the shortlist. Here’s my top three. Drum roll please,” he said, beaming. “In at number three is Connor ...”

She made a
maybe-
face.

“In second we have, Quentin ...”

“
Quentin?
” she said, almost choking before bursting into a fit of giggles.

“What? It’s
distinctive
and the name of my favorite classic movie director.”

“Okay, if you say so ...”

“Anyway, it’s number two. And in at number one is Ryan!”

She smiled. “Ryan, huh? Ryan James Luker. Yeah, kind of has a nice ring to it.”

“So is that a keeper, Juliet?”

“Yeah, I think it’s time to settle.”

She held her bump and looked down.

“What do you think little guy?”

She felt him move.

“Hey, I think he likes it. Ryan. Yes, our boy will be called Ryan.”

“I’ve got dinner on for when you get home.”

“Okay, cool. I’m coming up to the drugstore now.”

The auto-car pulled into the spot outside.

“Juliet, you have arrived at your destination,” said the computerized voice.

She smiled at Luker’s hologram—a warm, loving smile that came so easily with the man she planned to marry after the baby was born.

“I won’t be long, darling. Did I ever tell you you’re the best guy a girl could ever wish for?”

“I’m the lucky one ... I love you.”

“I love you too,” she said sweetly before giving a little wave and switching off the holophone.

She opened the car door onto the brightly lit but deserted sidewalk outside the drugstore. It was Sunday night and most people were already home in this part of town. No other cars occupied the small strip mall lot—not uncommon now that all cars were autonomous. In reality, her private auto-car was a luxury rather than a necessity but she liked the idea of it being a personal space where she could choose the coffee, the seat settings and leave stuff lying around in the spacious cabin. It’d be even more useful once the baby came along and they could permanently install the infant safety pod.

She hauled herself from the car. The baby had added a good fifteen pounds and she felt it every time she got up, every time she walked. The glass doors to the small drugstore swished open. She’d not been to this particular store before, but the chain she knew well. Directly ahead was the counter and a white-jacketed pharmacist with a receding hairline, wearing round, dark frames.

He nodded amiably and said, “Good evening ma’am. What can I help you with this evening?”

She approached the desk and pointed to her baby, smiling.

“This little guy’s
still
giving me morning sickness and I’ve run out of
Nausease.
”

“Okay, no problem. If you could just place your chipped hand under the reader and we’ll see what we can do for you.”

She placed her right hand under the RFID reader and the light on the top turned green.

“Your family doctor is Dr. Hardy, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And I see here that, indeed, he’s prescribed—”

The pharmacist looked up, past Juliet’s shoulder toward the entrance, his grin melting away, frown lines appearing on his forehead.

As Juliet turned around, he called out nervously, “Err, sir ... sir, can I
help
you?”

A thin guy in filthy jeans and a dark hoodie, came striding into the store, his hands in his pockets. Juliet watched his snarling, pale face complete with dark circles and blackened teeth as he approached the counter. She backed away to the side to get out of his way. Everything about this guy rang alarms bells.

The pharmacist repeated firmly, “I
said
can I help you, sir?”

What he meant was,
You don’t belong here, but if I treat you civilly maybe you’ll do the same.

Hoodie reached the sales desk and leaned over, causing the pharmacist to back away.

“Now I’m gonna ask nicely,” he said, before banging his fist on the counter. “Open that fuckin’ door now and let me get what I need.”

She watched the pharmacist start shaking as the blood-shot eyed junkie reached around behind. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the handgun tucked into his waistband.

“Okay, so you don’t wanna play nice you four-eyed motherfucker? Well, how about this?”

And he drew his gun, pointing it right at the frightened man’s face. She raised her hand to her mouth, the other instinctively covering her baby as she edged away hoping to get closer to the exit without him realizing. He spun around, aiming the gun at her head, sending her stomach lurching.

“Bitch, stay where I can fuckin’ see ya!”

She nodded, terrified of the unstable monster.

Then, before he turned back to the pharmacist, a loud rushing noise came from nowhere as the security screen rose up from the counter top, sealing the pharmacist behind it. Simultaneously, Juliet made a break for the front door but couldn’t outrun hoodie in her pregnant state. He grabbed her hair and yanked hard sending her to the floor on her rear.

“Get the fuck up, bitch. I ain’t done here yet!”

He pulled hard on her long blonde hair forcing her to stand to relieve the pain. He grabbed her around the neck with his foul-smelling breath polluting her face.

“You’re gonna get me what I need, bitch!” he growled menacingly in her ear as she tried to turn away from him in disgust.

She was too frightened to speak and started shaking, the tears welling in her eyes.

“Wh-whatever you need, just... Just don’t hurt my baby.”

He held out the gun, covering the staff entrance and shouted, “Hey, four-eyes... You better come out right now before I waste this nice lady all over your drugstore!”

He held the gun to her temple, sending a new wave of fear pulsing through her.

Looking up at the camera dome, he screamed, “Come on you cowardly motherfucker, before I waste the bitch and shoot out yer goddam door!”

Then the staff door flew open and the pharmacist stood there holding a shotgun, but he hesitated when he saw she was the scumbag’s human shield.

Juliet closed her eyes and said a silent prayer as Luker’s face appeared in her mind. Tears streamed down her face and she felt the warm liquid start emptying from her bladder, soaking her pants. She opened her eyes again as the assailant pointed the gun at the pharmacist and snapped off two shots. Time seemed to slow down as the first hit him in the chest, sending him backwards as the shotgun exploded into life, sending its slug into the ceiling. The second round had missed the pharmacist, but he was down anyway. The junkie shuffled forward to stand over the dying man who was now clutching the red bloom on his chest, gasping for air.

“Shoulda just let me in four-eyes,” growled the sneering junkie.

He pointed his gun at the poor man’s head and pulled the trigger, sending Juliet into a fit of sobs and hyperventilation.

“And then there were two,” he said, pushing her to the floor in the corner beside the dead man.

She raised her hands and whimpered, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“You think people like him give a fuck ‘bout people like me? Do you give a fuck? No, you
don’t
, so I’m getting what I need and I don’t need no witnesses.”

A sadistic grin filled his face as his last words sank in. He raised the gun as she pleaded, “No, please don’t ... please, please ... no.”

Then he pulled the trigger and darkness descended upon her.

***