Bleaker

by Jacqueline Druga

  Was there anything that could be done? After all, a rogue planet caused it to all unfold.

  The questions slipped from her mouth, not intentionally, but as if she were secretly talking to President Lincoln. “Would anybody be able to stop it? Would it be worth trying?”

  Rey was staring so intently she never noticed Finch approach. He did a sideways lean into her and whispered, “I don’t think he’ll answer you.”

  Startled, Rey jumped a little with an “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, that’s okay,” she said. “I was just…thinking out loud, literally.”

  “About?” Finch asked.

  “Stopping all this.

  “Stopping…all this?” Finch repeated.

  “Could they?”

  “Who knows.” Finch shrugged. “I mean when we left, we had no idea it was a planet causing it. Maybe if they’d known a hundred years earlier…maybe science could have come up with a way.”

  “Or move people.”

  “Move people where?”

  “You heard Quinn,” Rey said. “There were areas never touched by the wave or disasters.”

  “Maybe we need to go to those places.”

  “I would think the Genesis settlers did already.”

  “He didn’t mention it,” Finch said. “Might be worth it. Could be an entirely different ball game.”

  “What else is there to do other than sightsee a broken world?”

  “It’s not broken,” said Finch. “Just different. What, um…were you asking Lincoln?”

  “Well, I was just thinking about a quote of his. It deals with fixing what you can for tomorrow.”

  “You can’t escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading today.”

  “Yes. That’s it,” Rey said brightly.

  “I know it well. Kind of fits. If you know something is going to happen tomorrow, don’t ignore it today.”

  “And we didn’t,” Rey said. “We were trying to find a future. My question about stopping it was to him. What if he knew?”

  “He wouldn’t have believed it. We would probably be burned at the stake as witches or something.”

  Rey nodded. “I know you made the decision that majority rules, but I still think we should have tried to go back. Just my thoughts.”

  “Me too.”

  Quickly she looked at him. “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah, I voted to go. You and I, and I am gonna guess Nate or Curt. But I made the call and we’re here. Who knows? Maybe everyone will change their mind before the Androski closes back up and we can—”

  “Finch!” Curt called from distance.

  Finch turned around to see Curt making his way toward them.

  “Hey,” Curt said, slightly out of breath as he approached. “Hey, we…” He looked up to the Lincoln Statue. “That’s cool.”

  “What is it?” Finch asked.

  “Nate wanted you,” Curt said. “You know how he said it has been a while since anyone has been in D.C.?”

  “Yeah.” Finch nodded.

  “Well, that’s wrong. Come and take a look,” Curt said, then turned and started leading them down the memorial stairs. “Not only has someone been here recently, it looks like they were camping out and are probably still in the area.”

  “Are they native to the area?” Finch asked.

  “Or maybe it was the other half of Quinn’s people,” Rey suggested. “He said they separated.”

  “He also said they don’t come near here. It’s the forbidden zone or whatever they call it,” Curt replied. “They avoid it because it was, at one time, dangerous.”

  “How can we be sure?” Finch asked as they approached where Nate and the others stood. He then spoke directly to Nate. “We were speculating that the Genesis group is here. The ones that separated from Quinn.”

  Rey added, “They could be dangerous.”

  Nate shook his head. “No, it’s not them. They were a larger group. This is one or two people, and it’s interesting enough that I think we need to find them. But they may be back for this.” He handed them what looked like a small handheld solar charger. “No dust, no wear and tear,” Nate said. “This is brand spanking new. Whoever it is came from a time close to us and, like us, they haven’t been here long. If they were part of the Genesis group, this would look older.”

  “If they aren’t Genesis, they have to be from the ARCs, right?” Finch furrowed his brow. “I mean…who else could it be?”

  PART TWO: LOLA

  THREE

  EARTH, 25 Years Post-Omni Mission

  Tucker Freeman was not the original. He was the third. His grandfather and father were both Tucker Freeman, but all three men were different. His grandfather owned a farm in the Dakotas, and it was one of the only farms in the area that hadn’t been sold to the government. He was a farmer. A no-nonsense man who focused on his work. Tucker’s father hadn’t wanted to be a farmer, he dreamed of bigger and better things, but his fast and furious lifestyle brought his life to an end by way of a car accident when Tucker was nine years old.

  Tucker and his sister went to live with his grandparents. He loved them and saw nothing wrong with farming. In fact, Tucker thought his grandfather’s farm was cool. And just at the end of the property, lit up like a stadium for the Super Bowl, was the construction site for one of the ARCs.

  When they first started building it Tucker didn’t live with his grandfather, and he recalled that they all believed it was going to be a mall.

  It wasn’t long before they realized what it was and suddenly it was exciting.

  Tucker remembered the day he moved in with his grandparents. It was the day before the Omni-4 took off to go through the Androski to check out the Noah, or the new Earth.

  At that young age, Tucker’s world stopped. Everywhere else was suffering disasters, but his world, with the loss of his parents, collapsed.

  He found a strange and obsessive focus on the Omni mission. He watched every bit of news, every social media video. Stories of the crew’s lives, what they would do. When he wanted to cry and get angry, he looked to the Omni and the hope they sought.

  A CGI generated animation speculated about their entire mission through the wormhole. When he missed his parents, he watched that video. The animated likeness of the teacher reminded him of his mother, and ‘The Clutch’ looked exactly like his dad. Acted like him, too. He was dashing, personable. He imagined his parents were on board the Omni. That they didn’t die at all, they went on a mission.

  When the news reported the Omni didn’t return as scheduled, everyone was sad. But not Tucker. He knew they weren’t dead, that there hadn’t been an accident, but they had found a home and just like that old satellite, were having a hard time getting back.

  They would return, he believed, eventually.

  Until then he looked to the sky, did his homework, and watched more omni videos; someone turned that one mission animation into a short video series.

  In one episode they landed, in another they faced trouble, and in the finale they encountered friendly alien life.

  It was fiction, though not in Tucker’s mind.

  Now, as he stared at the recent colonist rejection notice, Tucker thought back to a conversation he’d had with his grandfather one night while watching the ARC’s construction. It was nearly three years after the Omni had left Earth.

  “Do you think I’ll get on that ARC, Pap?” Tucker asked.

  “Well,” his grandfather exhaled. “You see that ARC there won’t go up for at least another fifty years. That’s a long time. Now mind you, I think you’ll be plenty healthy but fifty-nine isn’t young. I reckon they’re gonna want younger people on that ARC. Not saying you won’t get picked. You just never know.”

  “I want to go up there,” Tucker said looking up to the sky. “I want to be like the crew of Omni-4.”

  “You know they never came back.”

  “There’s still time,” Tucker said.

  “That’s
a good answer.” His grandfather patted Tucker’s knee. “That’s optimism.”

  “Then I’m gonna be positive I will go up there.”

  “You’re a pretty smart fella,” his grandfather said. “Maybe if you come up with something really big and really important, something they need, then maybe they’ll have no choice but to ask you along.”

  “Yeah, I can do that. I’m smart,” Tucker said. “I’ll invent something. But I’m staying right here to do it.”

  His grandfather laughed a little. “Not much inventing for science can be done here in North Dakota. Got to go to a good college, too.”

  Tucker shook his head. “This is one of the safest places on Earth. I need to stay here so I can make sure nothing happens to my invention.”

  His grandfather furrowed his brow. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because of that, Pap.” Tucker pointed to the ARC. “That is to save humanity. To stop man from going extinct. To move them elsewhere.”

  “Correct.”

  “Well, would they build the hope for mankind in a place it could be destroyed?”

  His grandfather looked at him. “Forget what I said about you being pretty smart. You’re more than that. You really are. I believe you will come up with that invention.”

  “Now if I could just figure out what it would be.”

  “Want my suggestion?” his grandfather asked.

  Tucker nodded.

  His grandfather pointed to the ARC. “Figure out a way to get that thing off the ground. You do that…you’ll have a seat.”

  Tucker’s grandfather wasn’t doing that family thing, pumping sunshine into Tucker, overly stating how smart he was. His grandfather didn’t need to because Tucker was smart. In fact, he was a genius. Always ahead in school, graduating at fifteen.

  But as astute as he was, Tucker was grounded. He didn’t act like a scholar; he was a home-grown farm boy. He acted it and talked like it.

  In his mind, his entire life boiled down to getting the ARC off the ground. He knew from news stories and articles that was holding it up.

  It was his mission.

  One he didn’t want to fail, but he did.

  As smart as Tucker was, as technologically and scientifically inclined as he seemed to be, he wasn’t able to figure out the propulsion problem of the ARC. He tried, but it was above him and he wasn’t able to grasp what would make it work. So he focused on what he knew: growing and farming.

  He was, however, able to figure out a way to have a sustainable farming system that would not take up too much room or weight on the ARC. It was to be utilized immediately in case for some reason the ARCS weren’t able to land.

  He was praised, even awarded, because he was only twenty-two when he patented his invention. From there he joined the air force search and rescue, but worked mainly in agriculture, salvaging areas hit by disasters.

  From inventing for space to inventing on the ground, his next breakthrough was the biggest yet: the floating farm system. The Sharm.

  The Department of Navy proudly announced as much on Tucker’s twenty-seventh birthday.

  The prototype set sail three years later.

  He only wished his grandfather had been alive to see it.

  Sadly he had passed one year before the announcement. At least Tucker was able to share his idea with the man who had influenced his life the most. He’d received his expert feedback as he designed it.

  With rising oceans, seaboard cities disappeared, and farming land was hit hard by earthquakes, floods, and other ravaging natural disasters.

  The world was starving.

  Food was scarce and rationed.

  The way things were going, most of the human race stood a chance of starving before the ARCs even lifted from the ground.

  His invention was a floating farm the size of a five-hundred-foot aircraft carrier. In fact, they reconditioned an old carrier for the prototype. Staffed with a skeleton farming, harvest, and ship crew, the farming system was a hydroponic growth system which utilized a desalination system aboard each floating farm.

  The Chinese had been creating an ARC that not only would lift off the ground and make it through space, but would float once it landed on the new planet. The US Navy immediately started to reconfigure their designs.

  It was brilliant, he was told.

  Not only did he solve a huge food shortage problem on Earth, he may have potentially solved one on the new planet, which was close to seventy percent water.

  So with all that accomplishment at such a young age, why did he get rejected as a colonist?

  Tucker had done everything he was supposed to do.

  Everything to get on the Genesis and be part of their colonist mission.

  Each step was preplanned. He applied and was accepted to the Space Corps, he did his training there. Then he went through their rigorous process of applying to be a colonist or crew member.

  Tucker believed he had every qualification. He was trained, and having lost his grandfather, and then his sister to the Seattle Quake, he had no family attachments on Earth. Plus, he’d invented the Sharm. He made it to the final selection process and was confident he would be one of the two dozen crew or one of the hundred colonists. Maybe he had been too confident, because he felt blindsided when he got the letter.

  He excitedly opened it, thinking it was his orders. After all, they were waiting until three weeks before takeoff to announce the colonists.

  But he knew when he read the opening line, “We regret to inform you…”

  He felt as if he had been hit with a ton of bricks.

  The final paragraph was a small consolation. It stated because of his achievements and contributions to the continuity of humanity he was assured a place on one of the ARCs. Tucker didn’t want to wait another twenty-five years, he wanted to go now.

  There were private expeditions, some would probably face disaster before even leaving the atmosphere, but Tucker didn’t try to get on one of those, he had placed all his eggs in one basket with Genesis one and two. There wasn’t even time to apply for one of the private ones anymore.

  He felt defeated. His entire life’s goal, all that he’d done, worked for, was to get on the next mission out, and it didn’t happen.

  Tucker was about to quit it all, just go back to the farm, screw it, then the phone call came.

  “Captain Freeman?” a British laced voice spoke on the other end. “My name is William Marshman, I am the director of the European Space Agency. We were just informed you didn’t make the cut for the Genesis twin ships.”

  “Wow,” Tucker said. “I just got the letter. You guys are good.”

  “We asked to be informed,” Marshman said. “You’re a vital part of the future.”

  “Yeah, well, unfortunately not vital enough to be on the Genesis.”

  “Their loss is our gain. I have a proposition for you.”

  “I didn’t think the ESA was doing a Noah mission.”

  “We’re not. It’s a government and civilian effort involving several countries. Are you interested in hearing what I have to say?”

  “Does it involve me going through the Androski this cycle?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  Even though Marshman couldn’t see it Tucker grinned, and in the same breath turned on his professional side. “Mr. Marshman…I’m all ears.”

  FOUR

  Paradise, WV

  Decades earlier, it been the training facility and launch site for Omni-4. The site had been chosen because it never experienced any of the natural disasters that plagued the nation. Even after all those years, the facility was untouched by nature’s fury and then became the site for the Genesis Mission.

  Joshua Quinn was proud to be there. It was an honor to be on the same ground as the crew of the Omni-4. Their pictures graced the entrance hallway of the main building. He felt their presence, their bravery, and he took from that.

  He was also proud to be not only part of the Genesis Mission, but comman
der of both of the vessels that would take colonists, crew, and supplies to the Noah, the second Earth.

  It had been a long, hard journey to get that position and it was one he wasn’t going to take for granted.

  He also didn’t take for granted Tom Waite.

  Tom was a vat of knowledge and one of the most respected individuals that Quinn knew. Tom was a man in his forties when he led the Omni-4 mission and watched it take off. Now he was pushing retirement, but he was still a strong figure.

  Tom was the head of it all. He once told Quinn that it felt very personal to him. Because he knew those who were on board the Omni. That was the day, two years earlier, when Quinn had arrived at Paradise, newly named as commander of the mission. Before he had a crew or even passengers. But he’d had one thing. A sealed silver case that Tom had been holding onto for decades. It was something that he handed over to Quinn to take care of personally. It was for the crew of the Omni-4, when, not if, Quinn met them on the new planet. Tom was certain they’d arrived, were safe, and were just never able to return home.

  “So we’ll be moving the colonists into Buildings A and B,” Tom said as he and Quinn walked the main road of the complex. “They start arriving tomorrow for training.”

  “You think three weeks is enough?” Quinn asked.

  “We had Reyanne Harper trained in two. She had no experience. These colonists have a lot.” He handed Quinn a computer tablet. “Take a look.”

  “I’m glad this wasn’t my decision,” Quinn said as he swiped through.

  “I had very little influence, if you can believe it.”

  “No, not really.” Quinn paused in swiping, then he moved his hand up and down. “He’s not here. Did he turn it down? I thought for sure he wanted to go.”

  “Who?”

  “Tucker Freeman.” Quinn handed the tablet back to Tom. “Or did I miss him?”

  “You didn’t miss him. He’s not on here. He wasn’t selected.”

  Quinn stopped walking. “Are you kidding me? He’s a good man, prime candidate. He’s a genius, no he’s an agricultural genius. These people really, some of them don’t even compare. What the hell, Tom? I got it when he wasn’t named crew. I figured you didn’t want him busy with that, but not a colonist? That makes absolutely no sense to me.”