Before I could scroll down to the next candidate on my list, an email popped in the bottom right corner of my screen. I didn’t recognize the sender, but the subject read: TAKE MY SON AND YOU WON’T REGRET IT. I forwarded it to my junk folder, where thousands of similar emails remained in purgatory.
“If only I could,” I whispered.
I reached under my desk to grab a half-empty bottle of whiskey and refill the glass sitting by my keyboard. It was the only thing I could do to quiet the voices of everyone I was planning to reject from bouncing around in my head. I was inches away from having a much-needed sip when my door swung open.
My assistant, Kara, froze in the entrance. Her expression soured when she noticed the glass in my hand. She’d been with me since her parents died in a car accident and left her an orphan at only ten years old. My company was working on implementing the automated vehicle network at the time, so I legally adopted her. At first it was simply a publicity stunt, and then I wound up loving her as much as any father should.
I always found myself shocked when I realized what a beautiful, intelligent young woman she’d grown into. She had the brains to take over Trass Industries from me one day, and if not for the asteroid, I’m sure she would’ve.
“I thought I told you to knock?” I grumbled. I didn’t mean to take such a harsh tone with her, but the whiskey’s pungent aroma was wafting around my nostrils and all I wanted was a drink.
Unable to take her eyes off of my glass, she said, “I did. Three times.” I was glad she didn’t comment on it for once. I had too much on my mind without worrying about disappointing her again.
“Oh... Is everything alright?”
“Fine. I just wanted to let you know that your next appointment is almost ready. She just passed her physical.”
“You could have buzzed me.” I noticed her eyes drift away from the glass in my hand and scan the entirety of my messy office. “Checking up on me again?”
“It’s almost five.” She took a few long strides into my office and picked up a pile of loose papers. “You need to eat, dad.”
“I’ll find time for that eventually,” I said.
She bit her lip, but decided to move on. “How did Mr. Drayton do?” she asked.
“You know I can’t tell you yet.” I never allowed her or anyone else to be involved in my decisions. Truthfully, I didn’t even want her to have the burden of knowing their names, but I couldn’t run both the interviews and the physicals all by myself.
She stopped cleaning and looked at me. “I can help you if you’ll let me,” she said. “I’ve met thousands of candidates. I know what you’re looking for.”
I shook my head. Out of the corner of my eye I could see someone in the desperate crowd beyond the fence of my compound standing on the back of a truck and flashing a sign large enough for me to read: LET ME IN. “No,” I said. “It’s my responsibility and mine alone.”
“It doesn’t have to be. You’re not Noah, you know. There are hundreds of us who’ve been here with you every step of the way.”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is anything like some fable, Kara,” I scolded. “His task was easy. The animals he marched two by two couldn’t speak to him. They couldn’t beg, or offer their billions for a spot. They couldn’t send in pictures of their children who now have less than seven days left to live!” I slapped the glass off my desk. Kara yelped when it shattered on the floor. I went still.
For a moment neither of us made a sound. Layer upon layer of silence folded over each other until the tension in the air had my neck itching.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
I bent over from my chair and started picking up the pieces until I felt her slender hand fall upon my shoulder. Immediately, my racing heart began to slow. She had a way of calming me which I’ll never understand.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said.
“It’s not you.”
“I just want to help as much as I can.”
I patted her hand. “You are. More than you’ll ever know.” I stared into her bright green eyes. “It’s not because I don’t trust you, Kara.”
“I know.”
“Every person I say yes to just means there’s another one who won’t be coming. I can run across the solar system to Titan, but I’ll have to remember everyone who sat across from me and didn’t make the cut. I’ll hear their voices and see their faces every time I close my eyes. You don’t deserve to have that on your conscience.”
By the end of my venting, Kara was sitting beside me on my desk, the brow of her freckled face furrowed. “And you do?”
“Better me alone than all of us.” I forced a smile. “Now, I think I’ll take you up on that dinner offer. Why don’t you pick something up for us from the café? We can eat after my next appointment.” I’d been sick of the food in my compound for months, but since we were in the middle of the Arizona desert and I couldn’t leave, options were limited.
“I’m on it.” She started toward the exit, then stopped and glanced back at the wet spot on the floor. “Would you like me to pick you out another bottle?” she asked.
I didn’t have to work hard to smile after hearing that. “Make it two,” I said. “It will be a long week.”
“Don’t push it. I’ll have security send the next candidate in on my way down.”
“Thank you, Kara.”
The door shut behind her, and I got to my feet and stretched my old legs. I spent so much time in my chair that sometimes I wondered if I’d pass the physical necessary to make it onto the Titan Project. I stepped over the spill and opened a cabinet where I kept more glasses. I grabbed one and held it up to the light. The bottom was a little dusty, but it was clean enough. I carried it back to my desk and filled it until the whiskey bottle was empty.
There were three knocks at my door as I sat back down, along with another email on my computer begging me to take somebody. I closed my eyes and took as long of a sip as I could handle. When I was done, I wiped my mouth and pulled up the next candidate’s information. Jillian Stark was a nuclear physicist who worked directly beside a Nobel Prize winner back when that was a thing people cared about.
“Come in,” I said.
24 Hours Until Impact…
A single day remained before the asteroid would hit Earth, and the Titan Project still wasn’t off the ground. The finishing touches to the ship took longer than expected, and the candidates were finally beginning to be loaded into their pods.
I stood on one of the highest decks of the tremendous vessel. The inside was little more than a ring-shaped corridor wrapped by glassy sleep-chambers, with a lift in the center. Every habitable level except for the command deck was identical. The highest deck was the only place I could go where I couldn’t hear the echoes of gunshots and screaming. As the orange mark in the sky grew, the mob outside of my compound’s walls intensified. I had to divert every member of security I had to keep them back.
I ran my fingers along an empty sleep-chamber as I strolled by. Exhaustion had them trembling. For the previous week, sleep had proven difficult no matter how much I drank. I found myself up every night, watching the few remaining newsfeeds as they talked about the chaos rampant throughout the planet. From America to China and everywhere in between—the entire world was tearing itself apart. Just one night earlier there were reports that a Russian Space Station scheduled for launch into Earth’s orbit had been ripped to pieces by a mob. Now, just such a mob stood outside my compound, seeking to do the same.
“It’s going to work, dad,” Kara said behind me, her voice echoing throughout the wide, vacant hall.
I quickly reeled in my hand and turned to her. Dirt covered her face and clothes, but my eyes shot to the drops of dried blood on her right cheek. I saw no wound, which meant the blood probably wasn’t hers.
“It’s not the journey I’m worried about,” I said. “How is it out there?”
“Not as bad as I look,” she said, smiling. “We
’re holding. Security is sticking to your orders for now. Just warning shots.”
“So you came here to check up on me again, did you?”
Her lips pursed and she looked to the floor. “No. There’s been a complication with one of the candidates. He smuggled…. Well, you’d better come see for yourself.”
I surveyed the empty level and its lifesaving compartments one last time and nodded. I stepped toward the central lift, but Kara placed a hand on my chest with enough force to stop me. Her features darkened.
“Is everything okay?” she questioned.
I didn’t need to see my reflection to know I looked terrible—every bit my age. My eyelids felt like they had stones tied to the bottom of them. I managed a smile and said, “I’ll be fine, Kara. Nothing a few drinks can’t handle.”
I ignored her disapproving scowl as I brushed her hand away and continued on my way. The lift carried us to the lowest deck where the ship’s exit ramp awaited. There, the sleep-chambers were busy being loaded by my trained Trass Industries staff.
A line of candidates extended down the ship’s exit ramp and across the compound grounds. They appeared as exhausted as I was.
The next candidate in line to be put under addressed me. “Director.” She bowed her head deferentially.
“Good to see you again—” It took me a second for her name to come to me, but I remembered. “Ms. Stark.”
The staff slid her assigned chamber as far out as it could go. They stowed her bag below and began to hook her up to IV tubes and restraints. Two years and plenty of dreams later, she’d be woken within the orbit of Saturn.
I received a similarly reverent nod from every candidate I passed. They probably didn’t think I knew who they were since there were so many, but they were wrong. Every face had been ingrained on my mind. I nodded back to all of them until Kara and I emerged from the ship.
My cheeks were instantly blasted by the cold Arizona night air and pricked by sand caught on a strong breeze. The spotlights of security drones filled the dark sky, aimed over the manned wall surrounding my compound at an unruly crowd of thousands.
I stopped and looked up. The moon glowed in the night sky as it always did, but off to its side was an orange-hued glob larger than all the stars around it. The asteroid had only recently become easy to spot, but now it was impossible to miss—an eye of condemnation staring down upon all of us.
“This way, Director,” Kara said, addressing me formally since we were in public.
She tapped me on the arm and began to lead me at a brisk pace in the direction of the dormitory where my candidates were staying. It was the only building in the compound with lights still on. The line of candidates snaking down from the ship toward it offered me their regards.
We passed the compound’s only gate. A line of heavily armed soldiers stood in front of it. A rioting mob of angry citizens of Earth stood on the other side. The bobbing sea of heads extended as far as I could see, illuminated by car fires. They flung rocks, bottles and whatever else they could at the gate. Warning shots resonated from manned watchtowers along the wall and from automated drones zipping over their heads, but the mob had a mind of its own.
Their glowers turned on me as we passed, causing the crowd to swell against the bars of the gate. “Coward! Taking your friends and running!” someone shouted, as if I could be blamed for a stray asteroid. A rock pelted me in the shoulder. I stumbled, and would’ve fallen if Kara hadn’t caught my old body and yanked me into the dormitory’s security post.
“Animals!” she gasped. “Don’t they understand?”
I rubbed my arm and gave it a good stretch. “Would you?” I asked, groaning.
Kara blinked, and then signaled to two of the guards inside the room. They parted, revealing Frank Drayton. He was crouched down, arms wrapped around a tiny girl who couldn’t be older than four. She hid her face in his chest.
“One of the candidates, Director,” Kara said.
“I know,” I replied.
She tossed a medium-sized duffle bag at my feet. The zipper was ripped open. “He snuck out of the compound last night somehow,” she said. “When he attempted to get back in, security found the girl stuffed inside of this. Someone out there tore it out of his hands and she fell out. Half of the mob is made up of candidates you didn’t accept, so they know the rules. They nearly stoned him to death because of that, so I had him brought in for you to deal with.”
I stared at Mr. Drayton. I remembered the look on his face when I told him he was coming to Titan. Presently, his body was quaking. Only it wasn’t just out of fear. His face was bruised and his clothes were torn to reveal fresh cuts. That explained the blood on Kara.
I crouched in front of him. “Mr. Drayton,” I said. “What’s going on here?”
He looked up at me, pupils dilated from shock. “You remember?” he asked, his voice so raspy it sounded as if he’d swallowed a mouthful of sand.
“Of course I do.” I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Drayton, who is she?” I knew the answer, but I had to hear it to believe it. Every passenger was invited to bring one bag full of possessions to Titan, but I never expected anyone to smuggle a person.
“She’s…” Mr. Drayton swallowed so hard I could see the lump in his throat bob up and down. “She’s my daughter.”
The breath fled my lungs. I glanced between him and the child at least a dozen times. “How?” I questioned. “I looked extensively into every candidate’s background. There were no children.”
Mr. Drayton smirked until stretching the fresh cut on his lip made him wince. “I didn’t mention I was as good with computers as I am with plants?”
“This is no time for jokes,” Kara reprimanded.
Right after the words left her lips, an earsplitting explosion rang out. I grabbed Kara and dropped to the ground. Mr. Drayton’s daughter cried while he squeezed her and repeatedly promised her everything was going to be fine. Outside, the volume of the mob amplified, becoming so loud that Kara and I immediately scrambled to our feet so we could see what was happening.
I’m not sure how, but one of the drones had been taken down and had crashed right outside of the gate. The force of the explosion busted one of the hinges enough for people to crawl through one at a time. Before the officers inside could reinforce it, one person from the mob squeezed through and sprinted toward the Titan Project.
“No children!” the incensed man shrieked. “That’s my spot!” He didn’t make it far. A gunshot rang out from somewhere on the wall. This one wasn’t a warning. A bullet tore into the back of the man’s skull and he toppled forward in a heap of tangled limbs.
Everybody went silent.
The guard on the wall who had fired stood completely still, smoke rising from the end of his rifle’s blistering muzzle. If Mr. Drayton getting caught sneaking in a child had roused the mob, this was sure to ignite them.
I was no military commander, but I did the first thing that came to mind. I grabbed my head of security, who was positioned just inside the dormitory monitoring the transition, and said, “Get everyone to the ship now!”
“Director, it takes time to load them into the pods,” he answered.
“Sort them on the ship! We need them alive!”
He nodded and began transmitting orders over his radio. Moments later, every candidate started rushing across the compound toward the ship. They were so terrified. Guards poured out of the watchtowers to reinforce their comrades by the damaged gate. There were no more gunshots, but rifle butts cracked bones as the mob stuck their flailing arms through the bars.
I turned to Kara, Mr. Drayton and his daughter, and shouted, “Let’s go!”
Kara didn’t move at first. Her petrified gaze was fixed on the mob. I’d never seen her so rattled. I shook her by the shoulders to snap her out of it and we took off. Mr. Drayton picked up his daughter and followed.
We didn’t make it far from the gate before a bottle shattered next to my feet. I hopped out of the way
of the shards, but Kara tripped over the legs of the man who’d been shot. As she slid across the dirt, her hands dragged through the blood leaking from a gash in the back of the corpse’s head. Again, she froze. The dead man’s blank eyes stared.
“C’mon, Kara!” I yelled as I hoisted her back to her feet.
We crossed the large expanse of dirt between the dormitory and the ship without suffering any more setbacks. I helped her onto the ship’s entry ramp, and once we were at the top, I fell against the wall. My lungs were filled with dirt and I couldn’t stop coughing. Once I was able to catch my breath, I scanned my compound. A few hundred yards away, the guards at the gate were struggling. The mob had started to climb over the gate, and I knew with all of their weight pressed against the compromised area, it wouldn’t last much longer.
“Recall the men,” I shouted to my head of security, who was positioned by the bottom of the ramp. He nodded.
I could no longer recognize any of the people I’d rejected in the mob. Everyone was covered in dirt and blood, and they were all so riled that they might as well have been foaming at the mouth. The officers received the order and immediately broke ranks to sprint to the ship. Most of them had fought in wars, but gunning down innocent people wasn’t in the job description. When the gate failed, they’d have no other choice. The last thing I wanted was my followers to be reduced to savages like the rest of the people on Earth.
“Daddy, what’s going on?” Mr. Drayton’s daughter asked, her voice so frail I could barely hear her over the commotion.
He didn’t respond. He was busy staring at the chaotic scene below. “I didn’t think I would cause this,” he muttered.
“You didn’t think?” I said, my glare boring through him. “Three thousand spots, Mr. Drayton. Life support doesn’t allow for any more. Do you suppose that I only chose people with no connections for my health? A man is dead because you didn’t listen!”
“What does it matter!” he snapped, startling me. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “He would’ve been dead tomorrow. They’re all going to be dead tomorrow. Nothing we do can stop that.”
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