The Fall

by J. L. Wood

Mary looked around the room and picked up Ariel, still comatose, and placed her behind the pile of stuffed animals. There was no way she could carry both girls, and she reasoned that Ariel would have a better chance of survival since she was asleep. “I’ll come back for you,” she whispered as she covered the girl’s still body with stuffed animals and pillows.

  Mary felt terribly guilty leaving her like this, but it was the only way they could even attempt to escape. Mary climbed out of the window first and then held her arms out for Missy to pass her Lois. Reluctantly, Missy passed the child through the window. Holding Lois on her hip, Mary ran behind Missy to the opening in the fence. Once there, they crawled through the opening and ran through the open field, following the trail of freshly laid tire marks.

  “How much further?” Mary panted. Lois was becoming unbearably heavy in her arms.

  “Just a few blocks down,” Missy replied. “We can walk the rest of the way.” Another gunshot erupted in the distance, coming from the direction of the school. The two women looked at each other. “Don’t think about it. There’s nothing we can do now.”

  *

  Someone banged on the gymnasium door. “Open up! We only want the medicine. Start no trouble, and you’ll get no trouble!”

  Chris sat on the other end of the door, deciding what to do next. The gang had made their way past the officers and barricades. They were defenseless.

  He waved for everyone to back up behind the makeshift barricades at the other end of the gym and then crouched behind his own, which was closest to the doors—the gym teacher’s old beat-up wooden desk. He grasped the gun in his hand and kept both of his eyes open as he aimed at the door, lining the gun’s front sight with the average height of a man. Although he had a full clip, he knew he had to be on point and precise with each shot.

  “Chris! Don’t do it!” he could hear Ms. Brackenridge yell beyond the door. “Help is on—”

  There was a smashing sound then a loud plop, which Chris assumed to be Ms. Brackenridge’s body hitting the floor. Then silence. Chris’s gut wrenched. It was happening all over again. He had just met these people, and he knew he would lose them. He thought of Nancy’s face. The terror. Her wide eyes, pleading.

  “Okay, Chris, open on up!” the man yelled. The door handle rattled. “Seems like all of y’all want the hard way. Well, we’ve got that. In fact, we’ve got plenty of that! Hope you enjoy!”

  Chris tried to drown out the cries of those in the gym. His right hand shook and his heart raced. He didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not after he’d escaped death once. It was too soon. Only one day had passed, and he was once again the man behind the desk. Now he understood why Dr. Katz had no mercy. You couldn’t have mercy. Not with people like this.

  The gym doors erupted, and metal was flung into the gym, along with smoke and bloody tissue. Horrified screams of those in the gym filled the air. “Ms. Brackenridge?” Chris whispered, horrified, as he saw a lump of flesh resting on the edge of the desk. As the dust settled, a woman, Officer Merin, and a cowboy entered the now-exposed gym, walking over rubble and pieces of the principal.

  Chris peered over the edge of the desk and fired one shot directly at the cowboy. He was lucky with his first shot, catching him unaware. The bullet entered the cowboy’s head just above his ear.

  “Got you, shithead,” Chris whispered.

  As the cowboy fell forward to the ground, the officer and woman began shooting sporadically into the gym, unsure of which direction the single bullet had come from. Lost without their leader, they continued to fire directly into the barricades, some of the bullets tearing their way through and injuring those in hiding. The people behind the barricades screamed in terror, and many tried to run. A few lucky individuals made it to the door while others fell in the middle of the gym. The assailants took advantage of the easy targets, and as soon as one fell, at least a few more were ready to try it as well. They were sitting ducks otherwise.

  Chris peered from behind the desk again, this time getting the officer in the leg. He dropped his gun and grasped at his wound, trying to stop the blood from pouring out. He eventually fell to the ground, unable to stand. “I’m shot!” he yelled at the woman at his side, but she was so fixated on killing fish in a barrel, she hadn’t even noticed.

  Behind the assailants, another man ran to the entrance of the gymnasium but didn’t dare enter. “They’re coming, you idiots! Grab the stuff! We gotta go!”

  The woman turned around to run, and Chris tried to focus his aim on her. He slowly let out a breath, steadied his aim, and shot her in the back of her shoulder, but she only yelped and kept running.

  “Wait for me!” Officer Merin screamed. “Don’t leave me!”

  But the two were gone. The remaining gym inhabitants stayed ducked behind their makeshift barricades, the gym full of cries for help and sobs.

  A dozen sirens filled the air, along with the sound of wheels spinning, burning out, trying to get away. Another series of gunshots erupted, a long succession from the police, followed by a short return from the gang. Chris stood up behind the desk and walked over to the officer crying for help on the floor. Fueled with rage, he kicked the officer’s gun away, then knelt, pinning the man’s arms to the floor. He was too weak to fight back. The blood was still pouring out of his leg, and Chris pushed his knee into the open wound. The officer gasped in pain.

  “Why did you do it?” Chris asked, pushing his knee deeper into the officer’s leg.

  The officer laughed through the pain and looked directly at Chris. “Because I have two sick girls. Why should some get everything and others get so little?”

  Still crouched, Chris grabbed Officer Merin’s shirt and lifted him up so that they were face-to-face. “What you did here today was set everyone back. You don’t know anything, do you?”

  The officer looked away, and Chris released his shirt, dropping him to the floor. Chris stood, the gun firmly clutched in his hand, and pushed his tennis shoe into Officer Merin’s chest.

  The officer stared, wide-eyed. “Whatever you do, you can’t take it back.”

  “Good,” Chris replied. This was his choice. He hadn’t been able to save Nancy when she needed him, but he could save the world from Officer Merin. He slowly lifted the gun and shot one bullet into the officer’s horrified face. Chris was no longer the evenhanded man behind the desk, nor was he the coward in the bathroom. He was someone else. He would do whatever it took.

  – 13 –

  Arrival

  Jessica watched Don through one of the large video feeds inside the hub. He swayed back and forth in his seat, his arms limp, letting the zero gravity move him as it pleased. “I’ve got a visual,” she announced. She glanced at Don’s heart rate monitor. It was still going strong.

  Justin leaned his head back and looked at Jessica. “It’ll be a few until he comes to. Come back, let’s finish this game.”

  It had been twenty-four hours since the Pitch entered the portal, and Jessica and Justin had been anxiously waiting, trying to keep themselves busy playing gin rummy with an old deck of cards they found in a desk. Every so often, they would check the cameras to see if the static cleared from the transmission and Don had exited the portal. They took turns sleeping during the night on one of the wooden benches in the skybridge, which was Jessica’s idea when she felt Justin’s eyes on her as she tried to rest in the hub. He was growing on her, and their short time together had forced her to see him in a warmer light, but she still felt vulnerable while she slept and therefore requested privacy.

  The stars from the skybridge were beautiful, which let her mind forget the hard wooden beams on the bench worn smooth from years of others enjoying the same view. While dozing off, the back of her head on one of the constellation pillows, she named the stars like she did with her father, made-up names and fairy tales from the deepest sectors of his imagination. There was Karyin, the mother of all to be; Demaris, the widow who held the fountain of loneliness; countered by Xeryin, the warr
ior of acceptance.

  Her father had been a simple man, a runaway at fifteen, a truck driver who spent many lonely nights on the road and who only wanted the best for her—to give her the things he could never have, starting with a loving home. Although he didn’t know much about the stars, he instilled in her stories of hope, the heroine who saved the sun from burning out, the gift of a million hopes, and about as many dreams. One that could potentially be fulfilled today.

  Jessica sat back down near Justin and picked up her cards. “It’s your play.” She took a bite of her Twinkie while she watched Justin grab the top card in the trash pile. His eyes lit up, and she knew she had lost again.

  “Gin!” he cried with a huge smile.

  “I think you’re cheating. Fess up.”

  Justin laughed while throwing his hands in the air. “Don’t be jealous. I am the GIN RUMMY KING!”

  Defeated yet again, Jessica threw her cards down and finished her Twinkie, savoring the last bite. “Never thought I’d ever eat one of these things again.”

  Justin grabbed his bag of potato chips and popped one in his mouth. “You’re very welcome, m’lady. You know, as the gin rummy ki—”

  Jessica scoffed, interrupting him. “Gin rummy dork, you mean. But anyway, thanks for scavenging for the snacks. They’re barely even expired. How’d you manage that?”

  Justin smiled. “The observatory team occasionally used the satellites here up to about a year ago, so that side of the building was the last to shut down. And for the record, if anyone asks about the broken snack machines, it was like that when we got here. Now, how about another round? I might even let you win this time.”

  The intercom buzzed, bringing their card games to an abrupt halt. “Hey, guys, you there?” Don asked.

  Jessica jumped up and ran to the intercom, a flood of empty Twinkie wrappers falling from her lap and littering the hub floor. “We’re here, and we saw that you’d made it about twenty minutes ago. How was your slumber?”

  “Terrible, as usual,” Don replied. “That part of the trip never gets okay, no matter how many times you travel it. I’m going to get set up here.”

  Jessica grabbed her notebook from the small table. “Okay, we’re going to verify the coordinates.”

  She flipped the notebook open and handed it to Justin while staring at a monitor of Don preparing the ship for travel. The Pitch’s wings and tail slowly pulled out and locked into place, making it whole again.

  “All right, guys, are we good to go?” Don asked.

  Jessica verified the route on her computer screen while Justin looked over her shoulder.

  “Looks good, buddy,” Justin said. “Route is clear.”

  Jessica could tell Don was nervous. His right hand wavered over the controls as he accepted the coordinates. She was nervous too, about what they might find, about Don’s flight, but she knew not to show it. She needed to stay strong and keep focused. When she heard Don announce that he was heading out, she checked in with Justin, who was frantically searching through the map of Lerner 4.

  “Jess…looks like we missed one,” Justin said, pointing at the transmission from the ship. “On Lerner 4d, see it?”

  Jessica jotted down the coordinates from the computer and verified them on her laptop’s interactive map. “Must be new,” she replied. “There were originally eight. Is this the only one?”

  Justin returned to the computer that was set up to monitor the FRBs and printed a report. Hastily, he pulled the chair from the table and sat, greedily working through the data and marking up his map. “Yeah…” he muttered while marking the new FRB with a star. “Just the one. How’d we miss it?” He passed Jessica the map. “Maybe there were always nine, and this new one was just too weak to reach us. What do you want to do?”

  Jessica traced her finger along the map to the different FRB locations. “One…two…three…extra,” she said. “Okay, what’s the strength of the new one?”

  Justin returned to the computer. His eyes scanned the screen until he found what he was looking for. “Same strength. Identical and same frequency and repetition. But that’s not all,” he said while pulling up a photo on his computer. “See that? Lerner 4 had a white dwarf. That’s why it wasn’t part of the second home missions.” He pulled up another photo. “But look. It’s an active star now.”

  The intercom buzzed. “I’m nearly there, guys. Where am I sending Junior?”

  “Don’t bring the star up,” Jessica said to Justin. “It’s been a long time, and he’s probably forgotten. Also, it doesn’t matter. We’re investigating FRBs, not stars.” She grabbed the papers and returned to the intercom. “So, Don,” she said, “we’ve found an extra FRB on Lerner 4d. But we should continue the original plan. Let’s investigate FRBM83-L4I since it is closest, and decide what to do from there. Again, Lerner 4i is the destination. We’re sending the coordinates to the satellite now.” Jessica began typing in the coordinates while Justin hovered over her.

  “Something’s a little strange about this,” Justin said. “In fact, no, it’s really strange. We should have picked both of those things up. You know, actually, I don’t have a great feeling about this anymore. We should pull Don back and leave Junior. He can run on his own for a few without the Pitch, so maybe we can just work with that.”

  Jessica held out her hand to hush him. “We didn’t just sacrifice everything for a few minutes. There’s a lot of distance between Don and Lerner 4i. If we don’t get what we came for, this will have all been for nothing. I’m making this call. Plus, from the readings, the additional FRB is identical to the initial eight, meaning if we weren’t worried then, we shouldn’t be worried now.”

  Justin stepped forward and assisted in sending the commands to Pitch Jr. Shaking nervously, he spoke into the intercom, “All right, buddy, Junior is ready. Send him out. Let’s plan for a quick scouting mission, then we need to head home. I bet you’re starving.”

  Don confirmed the coordinates on his screen to the FRB on Lerner 4i. “Sounds like a plan,” he said as he gently maneuvered his ship to Junior’s destination. He then pressed the release button for the satellite. “Now sending Pitch Jr. out.”

  The small hangar underneath the ship unlatched, the base lowering to form a ramp, causing a brief rattle to the Pitch. The satellite unlocked from its safety harnesses inside of the hangar, and its lights illuminated as it slowly powered on and received its coordinates from the ship. Jessica watched through the ship’s camera feed as the satellite slowly began to drift forward, and once away from the vicinity of the ship, Don activated its boosters, which sent it flying toward Lerner 4i.

  “My heart’s about to explode,” Jessica whispered, staring at the feed from Pitch Jr. from the hub. A minuscule amount of self-doubt began to settle in, causing her to question her decision of sending Don out. They had gone too far for her to pull out now, but that doubt stayed in the back of her mind, bugging her, nagging her about this being a failure. She tried to ignore it, but it continued to grow as she watched the satellite approach Lerner 4i.

  The screen lit up in a colorful array of pinks, purples, and blues in a loose swirl, suffocating that tiny voice inside her head. The view was impeccable, and even though she had seen it nearly a dozen times, it was unique and personal to her—a gift all of her own. Two people would never absorb the same sight; it was made only for her and only for this moment.

  Jessica utilized the satellite’s feed to zoom in on Lerner 4i with the control ball on the hub dashboard. The controls were outdated and difficult to use, but after a few times, her hand remembered the motions, and she scrolled until she could pinpoint the exoplanet that appeared to have a brown ring around it.

  “Check this out,” she called to Justin, taking a screenshot of the view.

  Justin brushed over Jessica’s hand as he took command of the control ball, effortlessly surveying the area. “Hmm…it’s like an asteroid belt. Weird. Lerner 4i wasn’t documented to have one.” He leaned forward and spoke into the in
tercom. “Hey, Don, looks like there’s an asteroid belt around 4i. Once Junior gets out there, we would like to get some good feeds on it.”

  “You got it,” Don replied excitedly, pulling up the feed of the FRB. “Sending him in now.” The thrusts halted on Pitch Jr., and it continued to soar effortlessly through the open space toward Lerner 4i. Several hatches on its body flung open, and through the hatches emerged small satellites and cameras to better survey the area. The cameras slowly rotated, providing a full view of the asteroid belt. “How much feed do you need?”

  “What the heck is that?” Justin asked, peering into the core of the belt.

  Jessica gently pushed him aside and reviewed the feed. The belt seemed to be made of millions of small asteroids that circled and swarmed around the exoplanet, some going forward, some backward, with no rhyme or reason. Some collided with others, increasing their size, while some broke apart and formed with others. She took a screenshot then spoke into the intercom.

  “Don, it needs to get in the belt. Can you maneuver it through those rocks? There’re some abnormalities in the movement of the belt, like some sort of energy field, and we need to get a closer look.”

  Don watched the movement of the asteroids from the video feed. “Junior could get banged up really bad. We could lose the satellite. Our mission is to find the source of the transmission, not check out a belt. We should bring Junior into Lerner 4i’s thermosphere to try to get visuals of the surface.”

  Justin pressed the button to the intercom. “No, we need imagery of the belt first, then we can find the source of the FRBs. The belt isn’t in the initial documentation from the twenties, so this could be related to the transmission. You can dip Junior in the belt, then pull him out once we get imagery. Then move him closer to the exoplanet.”

  “This might be the last trip of his life,” Don replied. “Going in.” He pushed the control wheel for Pitch Jr. down, causing it to descend. He held the wheel tight in his hands until Junior was nearly inside the asteroid belt. The control wheel resisted as he continued to descend, causing him to apply the thrusts to push it into the belt. “Is that a cloud of dust?” he yelled, dodging the outliers of the belt, his eyes fixed on the screen ahead of him.