Home Planet: Apocalypse (Part 2) (9 page)

Luker felt numb, detached from his body as though this was all happening to someone else. Except it wasn’t. How quickly his life had changed from everything going right to
this.

The words of the ER doctor played over and over in his mind as he sat in the small family room, the clinician’s stony face delivering what he must’ve done many times before.

“I’m deeply sorry, Mr. Luker, but we were unable to revive Juliet. We’re still trying to save the child. Again, we’re all deeply sorry,” the doctor had said.

So why the hell aren’t you in there doing your work,
Luker thought, but didn’t say.

Instead, he just nodded stoically and said, “Okay.”

Perhaps they replaced the doc,
he decided with the first clear thought since the first responders had called him.

It’d been an hour now since the ambulance had arrived at the ER. His thoughts returned to the darkness of this living nightmare. They’d rushed Juliet straight to surgery. No, they’d rushed
Ryan
, straight to theater. Luker recalled his feeling of utter helplessness as they rushed past with Juliet already covered up as if she were gone. His little boy, capable of life outside the womb, just four weeks away from a natural birth, was now fighting for his life. Such evil inflicted on him before his life had even begun.

And he knew exactly what had happened. The first responder was his friend. The words stuck in his mind, words he’d never forget until the day he died.

“Juliet’s been shot, Dan. I’m—I’m so sorry. It doesn’t look good. The paramedics are trying to save them. We need to join the manhunt and catch this bastard…”

Why had this happened to her? She was a good person.

No tears had come to Luker. He was too numb for tears. His brain knew the devastating facts, but they hadn’t truly sunk in. It felt as though he was detached from his mind, as if he was witnessing all this from somewhere a few feet away. Once the tears started, he feared they’d never stop. He would miss Juliet forever. Now, the best he could hope for was a life together bringing up their son. A little boy born from his mother’s dead body. It was a deal Luker was forced to accept over the unbearable alternative.

The first seeds of revenge had already put down their roots. In time, he knew that seed would grow into a mighty oak of wrath. He would go to the ends of the Earth to get the sick bastard who did this. Luker had lived his entire career trying to deliver justice. Right now, he only thought of revenge.

He watched another minute reach conclusion and he threw his heads into his hands.

“God no… Why?” he muttered.

Please, oh Lord, kept our tiny Ryan safe from harm. Please, God, look after my Juliet in heaven. This is all I ask of you, nothing more.

The door opened and Luker looked up. It was the same doctor. He closed the door and sat beside Luker as he searched his face for signs of hope. All he saw was sorrow and regret. The doctor put his hand on Luker’s shoulder, looked down briefly as though steeling himself, then looked him in the eyes.

“I’m deeply sorry, Mr. Luker …”

Luker heard nothing else. They were both gone, their lives snatched away for nothing more than some junkie’s high.

In the course of a few hours, Luker’s life had changed forever. Evil had come to take away his loved ones’ futures and to ruin his. For the first time in his life, he was a truly broken man. He
had changed forever and didn’t know if he could ever rise again.

The lifepod’s cameras showed an icefield devoid of life—no trees, no plants and no animals. No signs of civilization. To the south, east and west a thin sliver of blue ran between the thick white cloud and the horizon. A snow-covered ridge skirted the northern vista, the upper reaches blending into the white sky. Watching the upper slopes, I saw them fade in and out of resolution as strong winds drove the varying densities of snow clouds. Occasionally a gust-induced howl breached the lifepod’s walls and reached my ears. The capsule sat almost vertical and stable. Before launch, landing in a frozen lake or river had been one of my fears.

I checked Professor Heinz’s watch, which read 11p.m. Whatever time zone he’d set it to wasn’t here as evidenced by the daylight. If I was in North America, then maybe it was on GMT. The terminal told me that I’d landed nineteen miles east of the radio transmission site, the one with the guys speaking some other language that even Laetitia didn’t understand. As well as English, of course. They’d told me if I had something to trade then I should know where they are. So did that mean they were operating some sort of trading post or they were traders in a city? I hoped there was such a thing as a city in this barren place.

The terminal divulged some other important things. The atmospheric composition was virtually the same as 2070 Earth except for the slightly elevated levels of carbon dioxide. I somehow doubted that was due to industrial activity. It could’ve been a result of the impact, whenever that happened. Gravity and air pressure were normal, but the outside temperature was a frigid minus nineteen Celsius—minus two Fahrenheit in old money—in North America in July. Even the far north of Canada wouldn’t have seen those sorts of temperatures in summer. But that was 2070, this was 2584.

I sat staring at the year on the watch: 2584. I still couldn’t get my head around it. In many ways, I was a time-traveler, catapulted forward to a different age. Did the people here even know about the great civilization of the twenty-first century and all that led up to it? Would they treat me as a teacher, a messiah or just a deluded mind? After all, if someone had turned up on my doorstep in 2070 and told me they were from the fifteen hundreds, what would
I
have thought?

Only one-way to find out, I reminded myself as I released the harness and climbed down to the upper seating level. I checked out the gear I’d secured to the deck and saw nothing had been damaged by the chaotic descent. The hatch to the lower level came up easily and I continued down the ladder to the lower level and onward into the storage hold below via another hatch. On went the flashlight and a quick inspection showed no damage here either. After going back up and donning my cold-weather gear and grabbing my backpack, I went down and powered up the ATV, confirming it still worked. Next, I tried the mechanical release on the flip-down exit door opposite the vehicle. The idea was that it could drive straight out. Nice idea, assuming the door would open, but embedded in the ice it parted only inches at the top. There was no forcing it and the other three doors were the same. So I had a choice: either walk or get out the shovel and dig a way through.

I acted fast. There was snow on the ridgeline and I had no idea how heavy it could be or how bad the drifts were. The last thing I needed was to dig down to the cargo hold door only to have it filled back in with a fresh snowdrift. After locating the shovel—not a snow shovel, unfortunately—I opened the lower passenger level hatch, pushing against the biting gale trying to keep it closed. Looking down, I could see the icy ground six feet below, so I threw the shovel then jumped. The vicious cold hit me immediately with the intent of sucking every vestige of warmth from my body. I regretted not having worn the ski mask
before
jumping out and grasped for it in my pocket. Reluctantly, I pulled down my hood and ski goggles and donned the mask, replacing the hood and goggles seconds later. With the shovel in hand, I crunched through a thin layer of snow overlaying ice, making my way around to the cargo hold door. I dug away the mound of ice and snow around the embedded capsule and found the top of the door only a foot or so below the surface. The ATV would need a slope if I were to drive it out, so I stepped back and started digging along a gradient toward the door. The muscle-generated warmth felt good in the Arctic conditions, the likes of which were all the encouragement I needed to work fast. Forty-five minutes later, I stood back and admired my work before trying to walk down the slope to the door. Even using the shovel, it was slippery and I found myself wishing I’d thought to bring snowshoes or something better than the boots I wore. The shovel blade did a good job of levering open the door, which had seemed to have frozen stuck. Using the shovel as an arm-extension, I hooked the handle behind the doors and yanked it down. Its pneumatic cylinders eased it slowly to the ground, forming a ramp for the ATV.

I still had work to do before driving off over the horizon, but it was imperative to get the ATV out and shut up shop before the snow invaded the cargo hold. So I got in the large six seater machine, closed the Plexiglas door, sealing the transparent canopy against the weather. The electric motor awoke silently but then purred to life as I accelerated rapidly up the slope and onto the icy plain. I sat in the enclosed windbreak of the ATV. Although it was still cold, it felt infinitely better than being outside in the wind.

If this is summer, God only knows what winter’s like,
I thought as I reluctantly left the ATV and headed back to the lifepod to get the transceiver.

The long-range transceiver sat on the snow in the lee of the capsule. Its circular form allowed much of the wind to skirt around it then mix in turbulent eddies on the other side. But I’d found a sweet spot with less buffeting. This time, I hadn’t lain the antenna on the deck as on the
Juno
but had elevated it vertically into the air. Despite its sturdy design, it wobbled and bucked in the gusting gale force winds. But it held. I dialed in the 165 kHz frequency and struggled to hear over the howling wind as the static gave way to a voice.

Crouching down, I cranked the volume up to the maximum and listened.

“Warning, this is the reserved frequency of Angels Station. Only authorized personnel may use this channel. The maximum penalty for transgression is death,” said the imperious-sounding male. Then it repeated, “Warning, this is ...”

A recorded message, by an unfriendly sounding local.

Death for using a radio frequency? What kind of place is this?
I thought, incredulously.

I was glad I’d come armed, even if it was with just a pair of handguns and a knife.

However, it was a signal nonetheless, so I set about resolving its location.

The bearing I got wouldn’t be perfect, but it tallied with what we’d learned from orbit. It measured 18.3 miles west on a heading of 268 degrees. It still wouldn’t be exact, but I hoped the antenna or some buildings would reveal the location of the so-called
Angels Station.
It could’ve been anywhere in North America, but the rough latitude we’d managed to derive from the Earth’s curvature and spin was somewhere between thirty-two and thirty-eight degrees north. The name,
Angels Station
... Could it have been derived from
Los Angeles,
the ancient mega-city that perished in the apocalypse? It seemed a strong possibility. Perhaps I’d get my wish and return home, whatever had become of it.

A survey of the other frequency bands turned up nothing, once again underlining what a desolate place this was. So I packed up the transceiver and withdrew to the warmth of the lifepod.

Next was to check in with Reichs and Laetitia using the lifepod’s comms set while the power cells still had some juice. Using the terminal, I placed the call. The seventy-minute wait told me I must have just missed them as their orbit took them around the planet and below the horizon. When I finally got through, it was more like a phone call than the crackling, hissing uncertainty of the transceiver.

Laetitia answered—presumably from one of the few functioning terminals.

“Hello, Mr. Luker. I trust your descent went smoothly.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say
smoothly,
but I’m okay. Hey, how’d you answer so quickly?”

“I had my intercom node patched through to the emergency lifepod comms.”

“Reichs with you?”

“No, Arnie is busy working on the shuttle launch tube. We have rigged up the hydraulic pumps to the cylinders, but have stumbled upon some problems in the—”

“Okay, well doesn’t matter, I’m sure you’re on top of it. Look, I just wanted to check in with you guys and let you know I landed nineteen miles east of the transmission site. The place is called
Angels Station
... that mean anything to you?”

“I have searched my databases and have found nothing relevant. At least, nothing in 2070 when I last synchronized to the internet.”

“Okay, thanks, Laetitia. I’m signing off now to preserve power. You may not hear from me for a while. Give my regards to Reichs. I like him much better when I’m down here,” I said, grinning.

“Copy that, Mr. Luker. Good luck down there.”

“You too, Laetitia. You too.”

I clicked off and took one more look outside on the camera feed displays. The light had faded and in the tenuous sliver of sky, the blue now wore hints of orange in the west, casting a warmer glow over the barren world. I switched on the flashlight and shut down the lifepod’s main power. The temperature would steadily equalize with the cold outside, so I retrieved the sleeping bag and ate my ration pack quickly. With my thermal coat and pants still on, I zipped up the sleeping bag and checked the safety on the holstered 9mm that I still wore. I guessed the risk of hostiles coming at night was near zero, but I knew so little about this place that I could assume nothing. My watch said just after 2 a.m.—probably GMT, not local. I couldn’t sleep yet, so I thought about my mission here. Survival was the first priority, of course. Then after that came satisfying my desire for the truth, knowing what had happened to Earth, to my loved ones drove me onward. I couldn’t rest until I knew. Then after that? Well, I guess starting again. A new life. There’d been so many fresh starts in my life already: going to London full of hope at a career in top-flight soccer. Then coming home to Idaho, full of bitter disappointment at losing my dream through injury. Starting as a cop. Moving to LA. Losing Juliet and Ryan and running away from the hurt and sorrow. Then, finding myself back here, alone on what was essentially an alien planet.

Tiredness came quickly and, despite my efforts, I napped until the alarm went off at 4 a.m. Prof. Heinz time, not local. I got out of the sleeping bag and went by flashlight to the cockpit, turning on the main lifepod power. I could’ve opened the hatch, but I wanted to be miserly with the warmth inside, so I used the camera feeds instead. Dusk had settled over the icefields. The sun had recently set initiating some simple arithmetic in my mind. At this latitude in late July sunset would be around 8 p.m. I knew because L.A. was at about thirty-two degrees north—within the estimate range Laetitia had calculated. So perhaps Prof. Heinz time
was
GMT as I’d guessed. Not that it mattered. I’d decided here was 8 p.m., so adjusted the time back six hours because it made more sense that way. I thought back to my L.A. summers and what time the sun rose this time of year. About 6 a.m., I concluded. After shutting down capsule’s main power again, I went back to the sleeping bag in the noticeably cooler air. The alarm on the watch was set for 5:30 a.m. to get on the road at sun-up, maximizing daylight hours. That’d give me the best chance of finding shelter before nightfall. I didn’t want to sleep in the ATV at night if I could avoid it.

Exploration of this now alien planet would need to wait until morning. I closed my eyes wondering what this place had become.

***

The 5:30 a.m. wakeup call ended my dreamless sleep before I came to my senses and remembered where I was. My nose was numb and the air in the capsule was a super-cooled gas that caused thick plumes of fog with every breath. I reached for a cold ration pack and a chocolate bar and washed it all down with some energy drink before rolling up the sleeping bag and securing my pack.

Dragging the transceiver outside, I set it up and tried again to hail Angels Station. Only the recorded message filled my ears—the one warning of my impending execution for use of their airwaves. Once I’d rigged down the transceiver and stowed it, I secured the lifepod doors. I checked my gear inside the shelter of the ATV cabin. I was traveling light, so it didn’t take long. Maybe it was the improved weather—still overcast, but less windy—or maybe a good night’s sleep, but my mood had definitely lifted since yesterday. There was the feeling of anticipation and of finally contacting new people—hopefully, more normal that Reichs. The sun must have been rising behind me on the eastern horizon, but all I saw was the veiled glow of its brilliance from behind the omnipresent cloud. Just as I looked down to power up the ATV, something caught my eye hovering over the ridgeline to the north. In the distance, a single bird silhouetted against the cloud. A broad smile grew from the inside and out.

“Well, would you look at that,” I whispered. “There is
life
over them there hills.”

It was too far away to tell what kind of bird—a seagull was my best guess. It swooped around in an arc, headed back toward the ridgeline, and disappeared into the low cloud. I watched for a time more, but it had gone. What if it was a seagull? That meant the sea must be around here. But then I saw the outside temperature was minus twenty-two. Seawater froze at minus two or thereabouts, so how
could
it be? Whatever kind of bird, it was a good sign. Life had a habit of finding a way, even in the harshest of climates. And where there were animals there was food—after air and water, kind of vital.