The Girl Who Found the Sun

by Matthew S. Cox

“Flat areas that look like stone. There could be cavities underneath them that will cave in. I don’t have any idea why people put huge concrete pipes under them, but they’re there.”

  Still gawking at everything around them, the security team—and a reluctant Noah—followed her back to the spot where the road collapsed. About a half hour later, everyone gathered around her at the edge of the hole.

  “This is why I’m all scratched up. Noah, you should probably stay up here since you don’t have any shoes.”

  “Where did you get those?” Ann crouched, finally noticing Raven’s boots. “They look almost new.”

  “Oasis.” She leaned over the hole. “Kyle?”

  No answer.

  Noah frowned. “Are you happy now?”

  “He’s hurt. Probably passed out.” Raven crouched next to the hole and shouted, “Kyle!”

  A groan rose up from below.

  Noah blinked.

  “Oh, shit…” Jose lowered himself over the edge. “There’s someone down there.”

  “I told you.” Raven climbed into the hole.

  Marco, Ann, and James dropped in one after the next. Raven guided them to where Kyle lay pinned. Noah hovered at the top, watching the five of them drag chunks of pavement and concrete pipe aside.

  “That was faster than I expected,” said Kyle.

  “Son of a…” Noah jumped down, pale as a ghost. “That’s a person…”

  “Yeah. Like I said. There’s a whole village.” Raven grabbed another piece of concrete.

  For the better part of an hour, they worked to clear debris, until finally, they made it to the giant chunk of road. Noah, Jose, James, and Marco braced the edge and lifted it a few inches while Ann and Raven dragged Kyle out from under it.

  He lay on the base of the pipe, looking up at everyone around him. “Hello. You must be those friends Raven told me about.”

  “He’s not feral,” whispered Noah.

  “No. Ran into a group of them on the way here, though.” Kyle grunted and sat up.

  “Are you hurt?” Raven squeezed his shoulder.

  “Give me a moment. It’s a little hard to say right now. Everything below the waist is major pins and needles.”

  Marco crouched to examine Kyle’s legs. “Looks like a bunch of scratches. No breaks. That left foot looks like an odd angle. Maybe a sprain.”

  “Damn lucky,” said Ann.

  Kyle winced, then chuckled. “Lucky would have been not falling into a sinkhole.”

  “Can you stand?” Raven pulled at his arm.

  “Sec. Still tingling.”

  “We should, uhh, get him to the doc.” Noah wiped a hand down his face.

  “Better to bring the doc to him.” Raven stood and looked around at the others. “How’s the air out here smell?”

  “Odd, actually.” Jose sniffed. “Kind of sweet.”

  “We’re all used to breathing air that’s been reprocessed millions of times. It’s laced with chemicals leaking from the hydro farm. It’s going through a monoethanolamine substrate so gunked up with crud it’s useless.”

  Kylie held up a finger. “That’s one of those giant words that goes straight over my head.”

  “Yeah…” She choked up a little, perhaps too happy that he appeared to be okay. Crap. I’m gonna be stupid, aren’t I? “Umm, yeah so… you’re smelling clean air.”

  “Let’s get him out of this pit before it caves in more.” Noah crouched to help Kyle up.

  He stood with assistance, but found his balance. After picking up the rifle and slinging it over his shoulder, he managed the climb on his own, limping only a little once on the surface. Raven tossed her backpack up to Jose—no sense leaving it in the hole—and made her way out as well.

  “So…” Noah looked Kyle up and down. “This oasis I’m hearing about. It exists?”

  “He thinks I hallucinated it.” Raven smirked.

  “Yeah. It’s real. I was born there.” Kyle explained how a biodome made by scientists weathered the worst of the environmental disaster, eventually expanding into a village once conditions had improved. “Around 140 years ago, a whole bunch of people showed up that we think came from your arcology.”

  Raven rested a hand on Noah’s shoulder. “The dead people and bullet holes on level one… most of the Arc wanted to leave. Some didn’t. They fought over lies and panic. The ones who stayed were like you, convinced they’d die out here. But no. That’s not true. It’s time for the rest of the people in the Arc to leave it behind. Our shelter is old. It’s dying. The Earth is ready for us again.”

  Noah squinted up at the sky. “It’s worth thinking—”

  “No. Not thinking. Doing. I’ve already told you how many of our systems are inches away from total collapse. Oasis has food, water, power, and thousands of people. Going there is not completely without risk, but staying here is absolute doom.”

  “What risk?” asked Ann.

  “Mostly ferals and cougars on the way there.”

  “Do I even want to know what kind of mutant a cougar is?” asked Noah.

  She laughed in his face. “Wow. You did go to school right? It’s an animal. Big cat basically.”

  “You can’t expect us to just pick up and move everyone in an instant.” Noah scratched at the back of his head. “Even if I say I’m completely convinced that going to Oasis is the right thing to do, it’s going to take some planning.”

  “No. It really isn’t. Everyone packs up their clothes and whatever stuff they can carry. We take all the food from the farm that’s edible, and we go. It really is that simple. The hard part is going to be talking everyone into setting foot outside. But you’re a natural leader, Noah. You can do it.”

  A distant cry of joy echoed from the north.

  “What the heck?” Noah twisted to look in that direction.

  Raven smiled. “That sounded like Benjamin… he probably came up there to see what made the entire Arc shake. Maybe it won’t be that hard to get people outside after all.”

  43

  Outside Hope

  Some people say ‘everything happens for a reason,’ but that’s a load of crap. Life is a roll of the dice, and they don’t always come up on winning numbers. But, sometimes, they let ya break even. – Ellis Wilder.

  Raven sat in the grass in front of her housing pod watching kids run around chasing a ball.

  The dress she decided to try on that morning felt all kinds of weird. Light, airy, and it exposed her arms, shoulders, and almost as much leg as her inside clothes. However, in the heat, with the wind in her hair and grass in her toes, she found it far more comfortable than the jumpsuit and boots.

  Fortunately, by the time she returned to Oasis, she’d had a chance to clean up. Tinsley never saw her face covered in bloody dirt. Sienna got the full story of what happened and made her swear she wouldn’t go more than a quarter mile away from the village until after Tinsley turned twenty—unless someone would die otherwise or she brought the whole group with her.

  Raven still wanted to see the ocean at least once, but that could wait. Living outside on the surface already felt like an adventure since almost every day brought new experiences and new faces. Perhaps her father hadn’t possessed a wanderlust so much as a need to escape the Arc. She figured he might have been happy here.

  The survivors from Arcology 1409 had made the three-day trek to Oasis suffering only minor injuries. They spotted cougars on the way, but the cats didn’t dare approach a group that large. If any ferals had been around, they kept an even greater distance. People brought clothes and a few personal items with them, as well as the mature vegetables from the farm and the seed stores—using the push carts they’d taken from the place where she’d found the filters. Raven didn’t have much she cared to keep, but did bring Dad’s storage trunk full of notebooks plus Tinsley’s cache of stuffed animals, old dolls, and all the little decorations her daughter had made. Those, she’d already hung up in their new home.

  Chase didn’t even try
to speak to her or go near Tinsley, continuing to act as though neither of them existed. She decided not to care, ignoring him back. Soon, she’d be meeting with Jordan, the guy in charge of the maintenance people here. Rumor had it that Benjamin and the rest of the tech team would still be working together here. Keeping Oasis running would be a challenge, but a challenge she eagerly awaited. Sienna already helped out at the school, for now as an assistant to one of their experienced teachers. Adjusting to separate grade levels by age and a specific lesson plan to follow came as a shock to her method of ‘winging it’ and teaching whatever seemed important.

  She debated suggesting another trip back to the Arc to transfer the contents of the library as well as the doc’s medical books, though the medical team here had as good or better information. As far as she knew, Preston would probably end up working there. She hadn’t seen Noah since they arrived, nor did she really feel an urge to go find out what he’d end up doing. Her world consisted entirely of Tinsley, Sienna, Josh, Xan, Cheyenne, and Ariana.

  And maybe Kyle. He’d stopped by once or twice to check on her. When he’d asked if she could fall in love yet without someone dying, she laughed. That she hadn’t blushed might mean something. Sienna certainly seemed to think it did.

  The laughing pack of kids ran by the other way, all scrambling to kick an inflated ball around the grassy meadow. Trees at the far end of the field rippled in response to a brief surge in the wind. White fluttering insects glided in drunken spirals over an ocean of green dotted in wildflowers.

  Raven’s seven-ish days away from Oasis gave Tinsley a serious case of the clings upon her return. No doubt the girl would be surgically attached to her side as soon as the kids finished playing, but seeing her finally back to a state of pure happiness put a huge smile on Raven’s face.

  A long bug with two pairs of wings and a glinting green carapace swooped in and landed on her knee. Raven held still, not wanting to startle or injure it. Seeing bugs proved the world well into the process of healing. Perhaps the entire planet hadn’t completely recovered. It most likely wouldn’t for many human lifetimes yet to come.

  For the first time in her twenty-two years, Raven Wilder felt excited for the future.

  fin

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you for reading The Girl Who Found the Sun!

  The idea for this book came from an article I saw some months ago written by an entomologist regarding alarming rates of insect population decline and what that meant for humanity. Perhaps the real world argument was overstated, perhaps not. Either way, it made for a good inspiration for some science fiction. I wish I could remember the source so I could thank the researcher for the inspiration, but alas.

  Additional thanks to Ricky Gunawan for the amazing cover art and interior illustrations. Also, thanks to Lee Sheridan for editing.

  About the Author

  Originally from South Amboy NJ, Matthew has been creating science fiction and fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Since 1996, he has developed the “Divergent Fates” world, in which Division Zero, Virtual Immortality, The Awakened Series, The Harmony Paradox, and the Daughter of Mars series take place. Along with being an editor at Curiosity Quills press, he has worked in IT and technical support.

  Matthew is an avid gamer, a recovered WoW addict, Gamemaster for two custom RPG systems, and a fan of anime, British humour, and intellectual science fiction that questions the nature of reality, life, and what happens after it.

  He is also fond of cats.

  Visit me online at:

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MatthewSCoxAuthor

  Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/mscox

  Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/matthewcox10420/

  Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7712730.Matthew_S_Cox

  Email: mcox2112@gmail.com

  Other books by Matthew S. Cox

  Divergent Fates Universe Novels

  Division Zero series

  Division Zero

  Lex De Mortuis

  Thrall

  Guardian

  Harbinger

  The Awakened series

  Prophet of the Badlands

  Archon’s Queen

  Grey Ronin

  Daughter of Ash

  Zero Rogue

  Angel Descended

  Daughter of Mars series

  The Hand of Raziel

  Araphel

  Ghost Black

  Virtual Immortality series

  Virtual Immortality

  The Harmony Paradox

  Prophet of the Badlands Series

  Prophet’s Journey

  Divergent Fates Anthology

  (Fiction Novels - Adult)

  The Roadhouse Chronicles Series

  One More Run

  The Redeemed

  Dead Man’s Number

  Faded Skies series

  Heir Ascendant

  Ascendant Unrest

  Ascendant Revolution

  Temporal Armistice Series

  Nascent Shadow

  The Shadow Collector

  The Gate to Oblivion

  Vampire Innocent series

  A Nighttime of Forever

  A Beginner’s Guide to Fangs

  The Artist of Ruin

  The Last Family Road Trip

  The Phantom Oracle

  How Not to Summon Demons

  Ordinary Problems of a College Vampire

  A Vampire’s Guide to Surviving Holidays

  Standalones

  Wayfarer: AV494

  Axillon99

  Chiaroscuro: The Mouse and the Candle

  The Spirits of Six Minstrel Run

  Sophie’s Light

  The Far Side of Promise anthology

  Operation: Chimera (with Tony Healey)

  The Dysfunctional Conspiracy (with Christopher Veltmann)

  Of Myth and Shadow

  The Girl Who Found the Sun

  Winter Solstice series (with J.R. Rain)

  Convergence

  Containment

  Catalyst

  Alexis Silver series (with J.R. Rain)

  Silver Light

  Deep Silver

  Silver Quarrel

  Samantha Moon Origins series (with J.R. Rain)

  New Moon Rising

  Moon Mourning

  Vampire For Hire series (with J.R. Rain)

  Moon Master

  Dead Moon

  Lost Moon

  Maddy Wimsey series (with J.R. Rain)

  The Devil’s Eye

  The Drifting Gloom

  Dark Mercy

  Samantha Moon Case Files series (with J.R. Rain)

  Blood Moon

  Immortal Operative series (with J.R. Rain)

  Broken Ice

  Young Adult Novels

  The Eldritch Heart Series

  The Eldritch Heart

  The Cursed Crown

  Evergreen Series

  Evergreen

  The World That Remains

  The Lucky Ones

  Nuclear Summer

  Standalones

  Caller 107

  The Summer the World Ended

  Nine Candles of Deepest Black

  The Forest Beyond the Earth

  Out of Sight

  Middle Grade Novels

  The Adventures of Ubergirl series

  My Dad is a Mad Scientist

  Aliens Ate My Homework

  The End of all Halloweens

  Tales of Widowswood series

  Emma and the Banderwigh

  Emma and the Silk Thieves

  Emma and the Silverbell Faeries

  Emma and the Elixir of Madness

  Emma and the Weeping Spirit

  Standalones

  Citadel: The Concordant Sequence

  The Cursed Codex

  The Menagerie of Jenkins Bailey

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