The Girl Who Found the Sun

by Matthew S. Cox

  The same thing Raven had done after Dad disappeared.

  At least being eaten by cougars didn’t take him days to die.

  “Mommy!” shouted Tinsley from above before bursting into sobs.

  Raven jumped, startled out of a brief moment of unconsciousness. She strained to look up at the edge of the hole. No heartbroken six-year-old staring down at her. Only a dream. Hearing her daughter’s anguished cry, even in the haze of her pain-addled imagination, struck Raven across the face like a slap.

  “Grr. No. I’m not gonna let her wonder like I did.”

  She shifted her weight left, attempting to raise her body off her right arm. So what if trying to move hurt like hell. Better she kill herself attempting to escape than lay there accepting death. She’d made a promise to Tinsley and couldn’t walk away from it. Pain stabbing into her back and legs intensified to the point she could no longer resist screaming. Still, she pushed. The instant pins and needles erupted in her right arm, she tried to move it. Nothing happened. Shaking from pain and fatigue, she held position, waiting for her arm to stop tingling. Dirt dribbled on her face from the mound above her shifting. A scrape of concrete sliding over concrete came from behind.

  “Not gonna”—she gasped—“give up on you”—her protesting muscles shook, demanding she stop fighting the weight pushing her down—“like your asshole father did.”

  A stony dagger under her left shoulder blade felt as if it would burst out of her breast at any moment. Shuddering, she screamed past a clenched jaw, forcing herself to stay propped up on her elbow until finally, at long last, her right arm listened to her brain and moved. She shoved it straight out in front and let herself down on her chest. Debris shifted above her; the jabbing hunks of pavement eased off their assault—somewhat. Her left arm quivered from holding up all that weight for several minutes.

  Rasping for breath, she glared at the swirls of dust in front of her face.

  Raven held an image of Tinsley’s hopeful stare in her mind, concentrating on her daughter’s eyes instead of the pain and crushing weight pinning her down. She braced her hands on the concrete under her shoulders and pushed. Bit by bit, she wriggled sideways, shimmying, gradually expanding the shroud of dirt entombing her. Once she had enough room to shift herself a few inches to either side, she elbow-crawled forward until only her legs below the knees remained buried.

  Out of strength, she again collapsed along the bottom of the huge pipe to catch her breath.

  Gonna get home, Tins. Gonna get home.

  Her body shook from fatigue and pain. She summoned up a second wind from sheer determination, forcing herself to roll over and sit up. Though sore, her limbs appeared to have escaped major damage. Seven spots on her jumpsuit had bloodied, the largest patch only three inches across. She looked up from herself at the debris pile, then at the hole above. Roughly six feet of empty space separated the buried pipe from the broken road surface. Given the surprisingly low amount of dirt that fell in on her, most of it had likely been swept away by underground water, a sinkhole. She and Kyle had walked onto a stretch of blacktop suspended over a cavity.

  Oh, shit.

  “Kyle!?” she shouted, her voice echoing both ways down the pipe.

  Raven scrambled to her feet and rushed forward, grabbing larger slabs of former road and dragging them aside. He hadn’t been walking too far behind her. More dirt fell in toward the eastern part of the collapse, enough that no trace of him remained visible.

  “No… that’s not right.” She kept pawing at the rubble. “Dammit! Not right. I didn’t touch him. We’re not even in love. He’s not supposed to die!” Raven leaned back, sitting on her heels, and wiped sweat from her face. This is where the character screams don’t die, I love you, right? If I do that, he’s definitely screwed. She resumed digging. And I don’t love him. Just met him. Okay, he’s cute, but I don’t even know him. Chase is a complete asshole, but I don’t want him to die either.

  She leaned forward grabbing another hunk of pavement. Pulling it aside revealed the tip of the shotgun barrel.

  “Kyle!”

  Like a burrowing cat, she feverishly raked at the dirt, digging out around the gun and the hunk of curved concrete laying on top of it. The slab proved too heavy for her to move, so after a moment of futile tugging, she leaned down and tried to look under it.

  Kyle lay mostly on his back beneath a tangle of road and pipe chunks. The slab of blacktop across his midsection looked far too massive for one person to move. A dozen small cuts smeared his face in bloody dirt, but he still appeared to be breathing. The earth that fell in on top of him cascaded over the pieces of pavement and pipe, diverted mostly to either side, leaving a hollow around his upper body. Hundreds of pounds of concrete and road fragments would need to be cleared away for him to go anywhere.

  “I’m gonna need help,” she whispered, then yelled, “Kyle?”

  He moaned.

  Raven flattened herself out and stretched an arm in under the hunk of concrete, not quite able to get her fingertips in contact with his head. “You’re alive.”

  “What… happened?” He shifted his head side to side, squinting. A hand burst up from the dust much closer to her, so she grabbed it and squeezed.

  “The road fell out from under us. There’s too much debris on you for me to move.”

  He tilted his head back, looking at her upside down. “Dammit. Are you okay? You’re a bloody mess.”

  “Back atcha. Yeah, little cuts. I’m fine. Bit dizzy, but no bones broke. What about you? Anything broken?”

  “Uhh. Don’t think so. Can’t move much. Leg hurts. That’s a good sign, right? Guess my spine didn’t snap.”

  She cringed.

  “Where’s your pack?”

  Raven blinked, not even noticing her backpack had vanished until he said that. “Uhh… no idea. Gotta be down here somewhere. Gonna find it. You need water. I can run to the Arc for help. If they’re already gone, I’ll go straight to Oasis without stopping. Sleep is for losers.”

  He mumbled something incoherent. She scurried back to where she’d been trapped, digging until she unearthed her backpack. The straps had torn out from the right side. A heavy hunk of pavement must have hit it on the way down, shearing it off her. Perhaps the pack saved her life; the slab that speared it probably would have impaled her otherwise. She rummaged all five of her remaining water bottles out and passed them to him, each about twenty ounces, plus the rest of her trail mix. If she had to go back to Oasis without him, she would not be stopping to eat.

  He had plenty to survive for a few days.

  “Hang on. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

  “I’ll be here… if this pile doesn’t shift and crush me.”

  “Don’t say that.” She closed her eyes, then stood.

  “Heh. I’m gonna be okay. We didn’t make love, right?”

  Raven bowed her head, too sad to laugh but grinned despite the situation. “Yeah. Something like that.”

  41

  Breaking the Seal

  How do we know this water is good if it’s the only water we’ve ever tasted? – Ellis Wilder.

  Raven climbed up to stand on the outside of the giant concrete pipe. The collapse exposed a smaller six-inch diameter line about halfway between it and the surface. She grabbed it and hauled herself out of the hole.

  Once again in full daylight, she looked down at herself, covered in dirt and blood. Multiple sore spots riddled her body, but none hurt bad enough to be crippling. Somehow, the katana remained dangling from her hip. Her jumpsuit had a few rips, but the new boots took the pummeling in stride, dirty but undamaged.

  She moved off the street, running alongside it to the tower at the end, which stood on a patch of gravel surrounded by the remains of a long-ago-destroyed chain link fence. Without a care to its stability, she scrambled up the steel lattice until she could see over the treetops. The windmill farm stood off in the distance, north and east of her. They had gone off course, though n
ot as badly as she feared. The tower would serve as a landmark to find Kyle again, as the crumbling road led right to it.

  After making her way back to the ground, Raven ran for the windmills, compass in hand to keep her going in the right direction. Eventually, she ran out of steam and slowed to a determined walk, weaving around collapsed houses, old driveways, and one strip mall. The sword proved useful for powering through a stretch of densely overgrown forest rather than going around it.

  She hacked her way out of the woods to a bare dirt field in the shadow of a huge artificial hill. A too-perfect shape and sharp angled sides made it obviously the product of human engineering. Two concrete walls flanked a large square opening in the south-facing side right in front of her, leading to a tunnel. The passage followed a downward angle underground.

  This is the front door…

  Seeing the Arc’s primary entrance felt like witnessing a myth come to life. She ran down the tunnel until she reached a massive door some forty feet in from the opening, its metal surface stained green and brown in splotches. Crud gathered around the edges of the numbers 1409 embossed a half-inch deep, and also collected in a vertical seam splitting the gargantuan portal in half. Unfortunately, her hopes for finding a way to open it from the outside fell as dead as the computer terminal screen on the wall to the left. Whatever substance stained the door had melted the keys and display screen. She started to open her tool satchel to grab a screwdriver, but decided against it. Any tinkering would require electrical power that probably no longer worked.

  Level one has radiation… but the doc said it’s not too dangerous in a brief dose, like running straight from the stairs to the door. Maybe I can get it open from the inside.

  Better yet, once she convinced Noah to abandon the Arc, her entire tech team would help find a way to open this door. It wouldn’t matter if they activated the emergency backup. So what if the door could never be closed again?

  Grumbling, she whirled around and ran out of the tunnel, heading north toward the windmills. It bothered her that only a few weeds grew on the dirt above the Arc, but she didn’t waste time thinking about the implication the soil here might be toxic. Roughly a mile from the main entrance, she spotted a square slab of metal—the hatch.

  Hands balled into fists, she jogged for it.

  She’d been gone for six days. What if someone had secured the wheel mechanism? Her father never complained about being locked out. Could the security team be so afraid of the myths of poison that they wouldn’t even go down the tunnel? Jose almost fainted when he learned the seal failed a long time ago.

  Standing there staring at the hatch and worrying what would happen wasted time. Raven grabbed the handle and pulled, shouting in delight when it opened. The blast of foul air that hit her in the face nearly made her throw up. Everything down there from the sad little stuffed bear she’d hugged as a child to clothing stank like chemical poo. Living in it constantly made the smell unnoticeable.

  Choking on each breath, she clenched her jaw and forced herself to climb down onto the ladder, not knowing if it would end up being a one-way trip. Lack of oxygen would disorient her too much to escape if she went too far. A plan formed as she rushed down the ladder.

  At the bottom, she faced into the impenetrable darkness, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted, “Jose? Ann? Is anyone still alive in here?”

  Her voice echoed back to her.

  After a moment of receiving no response, she repeated the shout.

  When she again got no reply, her heart sank. Not only did it suggest everyone had already died, it meant she’d have to marathon back to Oasis without food, water, or rest to find help for Kyle.

  Shit. Too late. Raven slouched, head bowed.

  Something thudded in the distance, almost like a knee banging into a steel desk.

  She popped upright. “Hello? Is anyone here?”

  The overhead lights flicked on, revealing the graffiti-lined passage in all its dingy glory. Seconds later, Jose opened the door at the end, shining a puny crank light in.

  “Jose!” she yelled, shaking her fists overhead in triumph. The air hasn’t turned lethal!

  “What’s all the damn yelling about?”

  She ran down the hall toward him.

  “Raven?” He blinked at her. “What the hell happened to you? You fall down the ladder? And what are you wearing?”

  “Jose…” She grabbed his arms, staring up into his eyes. “I found a village. Thousands of people. I think they’re the ones who left the Arc long ago. One of them came back with me to warn everyone here. The ground collapsed, we fell in. He’s trapped. Need help.”

  “You need to see the doc.” He reached for her hand.

  Raven darted around him and sprinted into the hallway. “Not now!”

  “Hey, wait.” Jose ran after her.

  She raced down the admin corridor, rushing by the security station and straight to Noah’s office. As usual, he’d been hunched over his logbook and nearly jumped out of the chair when she booted the door aside. He leaned back as she stormed across the room and planted both hands on his desk, looming over him.

  “It’s time to stop being stupid. I found them. A whole village. Thousands of people. We have to get out of the Arc before it kills us.”

  He stared at her for a while, the initial shock of her appearance giving way to a suspicious squint. “That’s blood, isn’t it? What did you do to your daughter and the others?”

  She punched him hard enough to send him flying sideways out of his chair. “How could you even think that, much less ask me if I killed my own child? She is perfectly safe at Oasis.” Rapid breathing and likely tainted air already made her feel sick and light-headed.

  “Oasis?” rasped Noah, cradling his face. “Do you even realize what you sound like? You took your child to an oasis where everyone is happy?” He pushed himself upright. “Not satisfied with that, you took the other children, too. Thanks to you, humanity is doomed.”

  “I didn’t take anyone. Sienna watched the kids passing out right in front of her. Acting drunk and delirious. She knew the air in the Arc has become dangerous. They snuck out and followed me.”

  “To this Oasis…” He frowned. “I hope they didn’t suffer.”

  Raven drew the katana and pointed it at him. “Accuse me of murdering my daughter and the children one more damned time.”

  “Threatening violence is not a great way to convince me that you haven’t been violent.”

  “This is my blood. From a damned cave-in. We fell into a hole when the ground gave out below us.”

  He pushed himself back to his feet.

  Jose, Ann, Marco, and James—all security officers—entered the office behind her.

  “Whoa.” Jose reached for her. “Set the knife down, hon.”

  She spun a quarter turn left, putting her back to a bookshelf and the blade between her and the security people. “He’s not listening. Noah’s going to kill all of you. Topside is not full of poison. The Arc is!”

  “Calm down, dear.” Ann moved closer. “You’re clearly upset.”

  “I’m not crying. My eyes are watering because of the shit in the air.” She shot a glare at Noah. “I’ve been out there for six wakes—no six days. To hell with hours in darkness. There is night and day. People do not belong underground.”

  Noah raised a pausing hand at the security team. “I thought you said you took your daughter to this oasis, now she’s buried underground?”

  The security team glared at her.

  “No. Tinsley is alive. Sienna, Josh, Xan, Cheyenne, and Ariana are all alive. The blood all over me is mine.”

  Hostility among the security people eased back to confusion.

  “You said ‘we’ fell in a hole.” Noah picked up a rag and dabbed at his bleeding nose.

  “Oasis is real. It’s the name of a village. One of their security officers went with me to come back here. He’s trapped under a mound of concrete. I can’t get him out on my own. The
ventilation system here is going to fail. Our windmills are one storm away from collapsing. No power means no air. The scrubbers are already useless. Do you want to end up all clustered in the hydroponic farm desperate for oxygen as you slowly suffocate?”

  Jose and Ann exchanged a glance, doubt etched in their cheeks.

  “She’s been exposed to something out there that’s given her vivid hallucinations.” Noah walked around the desk and took two steps toward her. “Note the manic gleam in her eyes? I’m sure she believes she’s found a settlement of other people out there. But the sad truth is that we are the last people on the planet. Only the Arc is keeping us alive. Our world is no longer suitable for human life. It will never be again. Put the sword down and let us help. Preston has medicine that can make you stop hallucinating.”

  “I’m not hallucinating. I look messed up because I’ve had six days of clean air and now I’m back in toxic soup. Did any of you ever wonder why you always feel tired? Constant headaches? Ever feel like the room’s swaying from side to side? Ever stop short in the middle of doing something and forget entirely what you’re doing or why you started doing it?”

  James scratched his head. “Uhh, yeah.”

  “Oasis is not real, dear.” Noah crept closer. “Where are the children?”

  She edged back against the bookshelf, the administrator and four security people gradually closing in on her. James seemed to have a little doubt. Anna’s eyes radiated pity. Marco hadn’t quite stopped looking at her like he believed she’d murdered five children. Jose, the only one who’d noticed her new clothes, reached for her hesitantly while mostly looking at Noah as if seeking approval.

  They think I’ve gone nuts. Her need to save the lives of everyone in the Arc exploded into singular focus on a different goal: escape and return to her daughter. She would not deprive Tinsley of her mother in a doomed effort to save people committed to being idiots.

  “Move!” shouted Raven while slashing the air over the security team’s heads.