28: Chloe – Once a Hero…

After showing me the giant space eye, and telling me not to name it the All-seeing Eye in the Sky, James led me away to show off another one of his toys, I tried to picture what a survivor on Earth would see. Would the shell of ice freeze the surface of the world, obscure the stars, or would it be a glass ceiling trapping the sun’s heat? Fast forward a week and a half, would the returning gravity condense it, vacuum sealing the planet, or would the ice crack into falling shards? They’d be as thick as cities, slicing valleys into the crust, miles wide, deep enough to fracture volcanoes into being. Oceans of lava would collide with oceans of water, a battle of fire and ice to rage across the globe, and all the while, we’d be up here, simple observers, detached and untouchable. Practically gods.

“I doubt anybody’s still alive down there.” James said. “Or I should say, I hope they aren’t. Call it a mercy.”

His eyes glazed over when he said that and the smile he wore faltered. He turned away to call the TurboLift and hit down without letting me see his face.

“I get you couldn’t take everyone,” I said. “But what about all the people you conned? You left them to die.”

The back of his head shook as he spoke. “We predicted this before the world wars, you know. The skyscrapers are a relatively new plan, inspired by the space race, but the bunkers we’d previously built were given to our benefactors as promised. You see, we didn’t have computers back then. Nothing that could calculate the weight of entire oceans collapsing on them. I’m afraid unless someone down there really likes them, anyone hiding in those shelters will be crushed to death.”

He composed himself before the doors opened, then guided me to a chamber larger than the lobby. It was a warehouse of six floors and a thousand crates being tossed around by workers walking on the walls in magnetized boots. The boxes were ten times their mass, but in zero-G, that was no problem.

“Welcome to the rations cache.” James said. “Here is where we store your food. You have a designated amount per day. Nothing overly indulgent, but enough to fill your belly. Each box holds exactly one a ton of Human Food.”

“Ugh, Human Food?” I said, as beakfasts with Holden flashed through my mind. “You couldn’t have stored anything more palatable?”

“Sorry we can’t offer you something more appetizing, but we are in zero gravity. The human stomach couldn’t handle it. Besides, these are just for our little excursion to space. Once we’re back to Earth, we’ll eat properly.”

“How long will that be?”

“Don’t worry, there’s enough to last us up to six months after resettling the Earth, if we’re careful. We also have a farm between us and your office. Controlled lighting for superior yields. It uses ninety-five percent less water than traditional farming methods, I believe, and it’s both pest and pesticide free. Although I believe we’re currently only growing certain mushrooms, nuts and potatoes.”

He guided me down to a disco-lit series of glass columns full of small trees and root veg. They hung from their midsections as a glowing, pink mist sunk around them. I whistled at the setup.

“This is some pretty fancy aeroponics, James. It must have cost a fortune. And you never did explain where the money came from.”

James waited for a farm crew to disappear around the stacks before leaning in.

“The Foundation lied to fund this ark ring.” He said. “That’s its official name now, by the way. Ark Ring, not ASSHOLE. Our agents infiltrated various groups, radicals, religious movements, fanatics who invest heavily in military technology.”

“Must have been one hell of a lie.”

“We told them we’d discovered how to manipulate the base forces of nature. Used hotspots of activity for our demonstrations. Of course we had no actual control over anything. We just knew where it would happen and how to amplify and nullify the effects”

“And what did the want to do with it?”

James snorted. “It’s funny, for people who want to obliterate anyone different from themselves, every group gave us exactly the same offer for the exact same weapon they thought we had.”

“More fool them. But you said you could nullify or amplify the effects?”

“Our more modern technologies could amplify the events on a small scale. Although I have to emphasize how small that was. It took an entire power plant to completely nullify gravity across a square meter table.”

“And how did the Mustache fit into it?”

“The Mustache? Oh, yes, yoir welcome wagon. He had to lead a coup against leaders who wanted his people dead, so he was understandably angry at the time. We may have provided him weapons. But now, instead of a master race like his former masters envisioned, the very people they wished to wipe out have outlived them. Probably should have told him you were with us. If you like, I can arrange five minutes without security cameras in the lobby and tell him to stand guard there unarmed.”

“Do I get a gun?”

“Good gracious, no! A gun in space? Are you mad?

I damn near considered his offer. “So why help a grunt like him?”

“Don’t mistake a lack of education for a lack of brainpower, Chloe.” He said, patting me on the back. “Mr. Mustache scored higher than you in our assessments. But apart from intelligence, there’s diversity. Diversity is humanity’s greatest strength. Think about sausages.”

I’ll admit he caught me off guard with that one. “Sausages?”

“Sausages. Do you like sausages?”

“No, they tend to be greasy.”

“Good, then you can be the hero of this story. Imagine you and I are eating. I eat sausages. You don’t. A few hours later, I get debilitating stomach cramps. The sausages were bad, you see? I end up sick and dying. So do other people. But you, the avoider of sausage, are able to inform the authorities of what caused the sickness, and the sausages are removed before they can be consumed. Thus, you have saved the lives of other sausage lovers before they had a chance to get food poisoning.”

“Because I don’t like sausages.”

“Diversity of taste. It isn’t just the obvious traits like the color of your skin or the language you speak. Our soldiers disarmed and disbanded over two hundred radical groups using the exact same method every time, without any variation, and it worked. Every. Single. Time.”

“I read those reports. In comparison, you had to become quite creative when rounding up the children and their families.”

“And speaking of diversity, especially that of taste, make sure you chronicle this.”

James clicked his fingers and the room grew bright. Trays of potato, as far the eye could see, lay suspended in sealed aeroponic stacks of glowing purple. Across the other side lay a ring of cows asleep in plastic cocoons, drip lines embedded in their necks. After that, tanks of chickens, rabbits, piglets and ducks, followed by tanks of fish and seaweed, and other animals found on farms across my homeland.

“We’ve kept them in induced comas since the third Event.” Kinsley said. “It cuts down on air recycling, feeding, etcetera. Besides, it’s kinder. They wouldn’t understand what was happening or take kindly to being trapped in cages.”

I shot him an accusing look. “Are you planning on battery farming them?”

His smile softened. “Of course not. We have pop-up compounds ready to deploy. All free range. Within a certain range.”

“And how quickly will you be deploying these pop-ups?”

“We have a Day One schedule for when we return to the surface, dependant on how fast the world settles. It shouldn’t take any longer than a week to find suitable spots.”

“And these compounds, they’re kits?”

He fished out a tablet from his back pocket and showed me a schematic.

“It’s called Concrete Canvas. Inflate and add water. The whole farm will be up in a few hours. In two days, it’s ready for use.”

“Your promo video said you were abandoning the surface. That we’re going to colonize other planets and live in sky cities.”

“That’s the goal of some individuals, but unlikely shared by everyone. Virtually every plant and animal we saved was chosen purely to satiate the needs of the human race or our livestock. With no natural predators, most will probably be set free to populate the world. We have drones to disperse plant life as far as we can, as well.”

“With you sitting above it all, controlling everything.”

James laughed and shook his head. “With us, Chloe. With us all sitting above it.”

We reached the department exit and James flashed his badge to a security guard. The guard opened the door and I saw his arm was injured, strapped to his chest in a sling to keep it from floating away.

“Hey,” I said. “I know you?”

“Yeah, I got shot in your room.” The guard said. He grunted and lifted his slung arm. “This was not how I imagined my first day on the job.”

“You saved Holden’s life.”

“For all the good it did. Your boyfriend got kicked out ‘cos he wasn’t registered with us. Wasted my shoulder saving him.”

“Ugh. He’s not my boyfriend. And wait, you saying you regret saving him? What’s your name?”

The guard massaged his shoulder. “Chris, and of course I don’t! I’m proud of it. And I’d feel proud every time I saw the scar in the mirror if it weren’t for the fuckin’ fact this asshole here threw him out into a goddamn inferno.”

He jabbed James’ chest, hard, hard enough to send him flying backwards. James spluttered and fell into a tangle of tubes, and got tangled further when he fought to get free 

“I didn’t know about it at the time.” He said. “I assure you if I had, I’d have seen to it he was extended an initiation test.”

“I saved his life.” The guard said. “I left my family and friends to die, but then I got a taste of what I was living for. I was a fucking hero and your rules took that away from me.”

“I’m sorry, son. But this isn’t about you.”

“No, it’s not, is it? It’s about us. That’s why I’m still here. And I’ll stay here, doing what I need to until the plan’s complete. I’ll make sure the passengers get to set foot on the Earth again, especially the kids, that these animals are taken care of until they’re back on the farm and all this maintenance and vigilance is no longer necessary, and then that’s when I’ll call for you, James Kinsley. And you better fucking answer.”

James unhooked a tube from his neck and leg, and jumped back over. “And what exactly would you ask of me?”

“I’m not asking anything. This is a straight up demand. You come, you bring a spade and you dig six feet down. And then you can lower me into the hole and fill it back up.”

James scoffed. “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Of course it’s fuckin’ dramatic. It’s a fuckin’ statement. You sit up there on your goddamn throne, never looking the people you’ve sent to their deaths in the eye. We lived ‘cos others died, and you were the one who made them that Repose. As far as I’m concerned, that makes you the biggest mass murderer in history. You killed the whole fuckin’ world with that. Well I kept one for myself and when I take it, you’re gonna be there. You’re gonna be the one to feed it to me, you’re gonna dig my grave, watch me die and you’re gonna bury me, ‘cos I won’t let you get away with keeping your hands clean while mine get bloody on your behalf. Door’s open.”

James didn’t say anything, though his expression held a dozen questions. He backed away from Chris, through the door, his mouth set in a grim line. I didn’t follow straight away. Instead, I took Chris’s shaking fist and squeezed it.

“Look, I know this doesn’t help much,” I said. “But thanks for trying. Holden never got much in the way of human decency growing up, so it means a lot.”

“You’re welcome.” Chris said. “But your right, it doesn’t help.”

“Yeah, but you also helped save me. So if I can make a difference here, you’ll have had a hand in that. Maybe that’s what we need right now.”

He held the door open further and gestured with his head for me to enter. I left him in his funk and he slammed it behind us. James floated against a far wall and shook his head.

“He’s wrong, you know.” He said. 

I eyed the back of the door as we resumed the tour. “What about?”

James put his hand on my shoulder.

“He’s still a hero.”