Mind's Horizon

by Eric Malikyte

  Ira found herself creeping into the tunnel, inching toward the source of her brother's one-sided shouting match. She had a pretty good guess who he was yelling at.

  "You better hope they're salvageable," Nico said. "Or I'll have half a mind to send you off into the ice wearing nothing but your long johns!"

  She stood at the edge of the tunnel, peering into the den where they'd had their argument earlier. Nico's face was twisted into a scowl, and Hugo was sitting on one of the couches, his eyes half-open and drowsy.

  "Called it," she said. "I knew he'd fall asleep on watch."

  Her brother's damaged angry blue eyes stabbed through her. "This isn't funny, Ira. This dumb son-of-a-bitch just cost us three generators."

  Her heart sank.

  "Hugo was supposed to check the ventilation, but instead, he decided to take a nap, even though I ordered him to get back to work."

  "Man, I said I didn't mean to," Hugo said.

  Nico grabbed him by the cuff of his long johns. "I don't give a damn what you meant!"

  "Nicola," Ira said. "Maybe we should worry about making sure the other ventilation ports are clear, and fix the three that are broken, before you bash his skull in?"

  She watched her brother stew in his rage for a few moments, his other fist shaking. He tossed Hugo back against the wall of the couch and approached the ham radio, held the receiver to his lips.

  "This is Nicola." His voice echoed throughout the entire shelter, carried over a crude PA system. "I need everyone in the northern den in less than ten minutes. Anyone who's late goes without rations for the morning."

  It took all of five minutes and thirty seconds for everyone to file out of their rooms and park themselves in front of Nico. Ira paced around them, finding Eddy. She poked at his back, and he acknowledged her presence with a slight nod.

  "Hugo here has something to say," Nico said. "Don't you?"

  Hugo looked up at Nico and shook his head. "No way, man, they'll kill me."

  "Too bad," Nico said. "You're the one that fell asleep on watch!"

  Hugo sat forward and cupped his hands together, exposing his pasty white palms. "We lost three generators..."

  "Tell them why." Nico paced back and forth, like an angry General.

  Hugo stirred in his seat, popping his knuckles one by one. "I fell asleep...and snow got clogged in the vents...and they exploded."

  Ira saw Eddy's shoulders pulsing with his increased pace of breathing; she could practically feel the heat radiate off his body. He turned around, faced her, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. His ritual for calming himself.

  "Now, despite our collective desire to beat Hugo into an unrecognizable bloody mess," Nico said, "we have a job to do, and we have fuck all time to get it done. Three generators is not enough to power the heaters in this place, we're going to see a considerable loss of heat within hours, so we've got to take initiative and find a way to replace, or repair, the damaged ones."

  Eddy turned back around. "I'll have to inspect them, but if I get the parts—and the damage isn't too extreme—I can make repairs."

  "I passed one of them on my way here," Mathias said. "I can't be sure, but it looked like the block exploded. Now, I only minored in engineering, but I'd say you'd be better off replacing the whole of the unit."

  "You'd be surprised," Eddy said. "If the block is the only thing that's broken, then I can probably still fix it."

  Nico nodded. "We've got two snowmobiles, so fuel them up, and take them to either end of the city."

  "We'll need to search for anything that can be useful, broken-down cars, lawn mowers, anything," Eddy said.

  "Are we forgetting that there's a storm going on outside?" Lena raised her hands up, palms facing the ceiling pipes. So dramatic. "We'll be lucky to see our own feet out there!"

  "Knees," Ira said. "You'll barely be able to see your knees. Snow, remember?"

  Lena rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

  "That's enough chatter," Nico said. "Fan out and get suited up! I'll inform you who you're traveling with before we set out."

  Ira saluted her brother, and the irony was most likely lost on him.

  2

  Ira pulled her snow pants up to her waist and fastened them in place. There came three knocks at her door. She opened the door to find Eddy geared up in his blue thermal coat—and freshly shaved.

  "The beard!" she said.

  He rubbed his chiseled jaw; there were bits of paper covering the areas where he'd accidentally cut himself. The beard always brought out his rich amber eyes. "Shush, I had to."

  "But why!"

  "It's a liability out there, didn't want it turning into an ice cube."

  The beard made him look at least ten years older than her, when they were only a few years apart. Ira hadn't seen him without it in months; she’d almost forgotten what his face looked like underneath that bush. She grinned.

  "What?" he said.

  "Nothing."

  They stood there for a moment; Ira avoided eye contact.

  "Hey, Eddy," she said, sitting down on her bed.

  "Yeah?"

  "You ever wonder what woulda happened if we left with the others?"

  "Haven't we had this discussion before?" He took a seat next to her; she felt his weight sink into the mattress. "There's no way any of us here would have been able to afford a ticket."

  "Yeah, but, just pretend for a moment."

  "Pretend." She heard him sigh, and felt him lay on his back, shaking the bed. "Okay, well, at the time, I was still fighting. I was an enemy of the state, technically, so, it's just hard to imagine for me..."

  "What if you weren't?"

  "I'd still be too poor."

  "Ugh, forget it." She lay back next to him, and his arm wrapped around her. Her ears felt like they were burning.

  They locked eyes. Ira’s heart started to pound.

  She wanted him to pull her closer, wanted to feel his lips on hers.

  Nico will never approve, she thought.

  "Once when I was stationed near here at the end of the war, we got word about the ships," Eddy said, tearing his eyes away from her. "We knew, all of us, that we'd never be on one of those ships."

  "Yeah..."

  He was right, of course. Back then, when the war was starting to grind to a halt due to the impending crisis, scientists came out and announced that the equator would be the safest haven for humanity for the time being. The rich and the powerful had been first in line to take up residence in those areas. The native populations had protested, but such protests had proven moot against the will of the most powerful governments in the world.

  It was a trickle-down effect, really: first the rich left, then the politicians, then the upper class, and by the time it got down to the middle and lower classes, the demand for tickets leaving the Northern Hemisphere was so great that no one could afford one. Overpopulation in the equator became an issue as well, which hiked prices even higher.

  In a way, it had been a death sentence.

  "You know," Eddy said, "they're probably suffering the cold now too."

  "You think?"

  "Yeah, eggheads on TV said this wasn't a normal ice age. Thinking about it that way, the overcrowding and all, maybe we're the lucky ones."

  "That's so depressing."

  "That's life now."

  Unable to find the words that would clear the awkward and depressing tone that they'd set, they lay there for a while. There was a stillness in the air that drove Ira half-mad. She sat up and grabbed for her black fur coat, slipped it on.

  "We should get going, Nico's probably waiting," she said.

  She reached for the acrylic thermal monitor, slipped it into one of her pockets, and patted herself down. She might not get a chance to investigate, considering their situation, but she felt it might come in handy.

  She walked past Eddy, and he followed closely behind.

  "Yeah," he said. "Maybe with Hugo's fuckup, he'll forget about yesterday."

&
nbsp; Ira scoffed. "Like hell, he'll hold that over your head for at least a month."

  "Guess we better find something good, so he forgets."

  "There's an idea."

  They arrived to find the hatch to the surface open. It was roughly the size of a manhole cover, and inside of it was a ladder and a vertical tunnel that led to the warehouse on the surface where they kept the snowmobiles.

  Ira looked up the tunnel, grabbed the ladder, then hoisted herself up. The sound of hands slipping over pipes reverberated through the tunnel as she climbed up. The others had already gathered in the building: Nico was rigging up the two snowmobiles with tow cables and a sled; Hugo was standing in the corner sulking like a puppy that'd just been hit with a newspaper; Lena wasn't far from Hugo, playing with her nails.

  "Lena, Ira, Ramirez." Nico stood up and clapped the dust off his hands. "You'll be in group one, the rest of us will be in group two."

  "Ugh, why do I have to go with them?" Lena asked.

  "So you and Hugo don't get shot." Nico patted at the side-arm he kept holstered around his waist.

  Lena crossed her arms and avoided Nico's stare.

  "I'll be taking my group west," Nico said. "Ramirez, you'll be taking your group east."

  Eddy nodded.

  "You'll keep going till you've filled that sled with at least one piece of usable machinery. You know what you're looking for."

  "Naturally," Mathias said.

  Eddy pulled his facemask up and slipped his gloves on. "Well, we gonna do this?"

  Nico walked over to the shutters that kept them safe from the harsh winter weather and pressed a button on the side panel; the shutters creaked and rattled as they were dragged up into the interior of the wall. A blast of arctic wind and snow filled the warehouse like a river spilling from a dam. Ira quickly covered her mouth and slipped her gloves on. The others did the same.

  Eddy sat at the front of the snowmobile, Ira sat behind him, and Lena reluctantly took the third seat behind her. Eddy checked himself over, made sure he had a clear line of sight of his compass.

  The loud buzzing sounds from the snowmobiles filled the chamber. Nico, Mathias, and Hugo headed out first. Eddy revved the engine, laughed like a madman, and let the snowmobile carry them into the blizzard.

  If it was morning, Ira couldn't tell. The storm had blocked out the sun and cast a shadow across the city. The buildings and ice structures were silhouettes in the falling snow. Before the space cloud, people called had called it a whiteout, but now, it seemed more like a gray shadow swallowing everything whole and plunging the world into chaos.

  The winds smacked and tugged at Ira's clothes; she hugged Eddy's waist tight, then she felt Lena's arms wrap around her, like a snake wrapping its length around its prey, ready to constrict and strangle the life out of her, and a shiver crawled down her spine.

  Shadows raced by them; they appeared to be traveling much faster than they actually were. The snow was so deep that Eddy had to constantly edge the nose of the snowmobile up to keep from getting stuck. It was soon very clear that trekking out into an ice age winter snowstorm was a terrible idea.

  3

  Nico twisted the handlebars to the left and guided the snowmobile down into a ditch, temporarily hiding them from the storm. Patches of snow had begun to stick to his jacket, which would make moving any considerable distance difficult. He opened his satchel and pulled out a set of binoculars, raised them to his face, and attempted to peer through the thick snowfall.

  "Man, I can't see shit," Hugo said. "How we supposed to find anything when you can't see your feet?"

  "Interesting question," Nico said. "Should have thought of that before you decided to nap and destroy the one thing keeping us alive out here."

  Mathias stirred behind Nico and sank his boots into the snow.

  "What are you doing?" Nico asked.

  "Stretching my legs," Mathias said. "I trust that's allowed?"

  "Suit yourself."

  Nico returned to surveying their surroundings.

  "It strikes me that we'd have better luck finding anything of use near the old RTA bus depot," Mathias said.

  Nico dropped the binoculars back into his satchel, clasped it shut. "It's not far from here. Sounds like we've got an idea."

  "We can use GPS to get us there," Mathias said.

  "Those satellites haven't seen repairs in years—who knows if they're even working," Nico said.

  "Who cares?" Hugo waved his hands above his head. "We gotta do something quick, B, before we get froze solid!"

  "He's right," Mathias said. "Even if the signal from the GPS isn't precise, it's still better than going out there blind in this storm."

  Nico revved the engine and waved for Mathias to get back on; Mathias nodded and hopped between the other two. Nico guided them out of the ditch and back into the storm. Stirring movement and fidgeting in the middle seat told him that Mathias was getting his GPS out. There was something odd about taking directions from a machine high above the Earth's surface. He wondered if anyone had been left stranded on the ISS when the ice came.

  Which death would be worse, Nico thought. Freezing on Earth, or dying of starvation in space?

  The GPS wasn't accurate, but it helped them get within one thousand feet of the RTA bus depot; they used the buildings and frozen landmarks to guide them the rest of the way. It got more than a little irritating, listening to Mathias's shrill voice, barking out locations and directions.

  Nico found a place to park the snowmobile, but kept it running. The winds were getting worse. They swept waves of falling snow like claws raking the surface of the earth. They coiled like serpents in places, kicking up miniature ice tornadoes. The street must have been at least five feet beneath them. Nico tried not to think about his sister.

  This was no place for people.

  "All right, Hugo." Nico got off the snowmobile and slung his pack from the sled to his back. "You're going to stay with the snowmobile, keep the snow off of it, the sled too."

  "Man." Hugo's shoulders sagged.

  "Mathias," Nico said.

  "Yes?"

  "Let's go."

  4

  Ira was growing impatient. Eddy had taken them near the border of Riverside and Colton; the hills were hazy, white silhouettes in the distance. They found a few car parts here and there along the way, but judging by Eddy's lack of enthusiasm she didn't think they'd made much headway.

  "What if Nico hasn't found anything either?" Ira asked.

  "What!" Eddy said.

  She repeated herself, shouting this time.

  "Don't think like that. Try to stay positive." He was shouting as loud as he could, trying to overcome the howl of the wind.

  "No, seriously," Ira said. "If none of us manages to find something to repair those generators, we're screwed."

  "We just have to hope that—"

  "What if we had another option?" Ira asked.

  "What are you getting at?" Eddy said.

  "Just keep driving for a second," Ira said. "I'll show you."

  She tried to feel out the shape of the heat monitor near the small of her back. Lena was still holding on for dear life; she couldn't retrieve the monitor with the other woman attempting to strangle the life out of her.

  "Stop," Ira said.

  "What!" Eddy turned his head as far as he could without losing sight of the snowmobile's nose.

  "Stop the snowmobile!"

  Eddy brought them to a full stop. The snow was coming down in massive clumps. The howl of the wind came from high above in the darkened clouds, like some eons-old eldritch beast, casting its shadow on the Earth.

  "Now, let go of my waist." Ira gestured to Lena, and she complied.

  "What's wrong with you now?" Lena asked. "You know we're gonna freeze if we sit here for too long, right?"

  "Shut your trap for a moment." Ira unzipped the compartment that held the monitor and dragged it out. The other two stood up and crowded around her to get a better look at the scre
en.

  The homing signal was all the way north, in the mountains. It would be feasible to reach it if the storm broke part way. If not...they'd all probably die.

  It would take quite a bit to convince them to follow her on this.

  "What's that blip?" Eddy asked.

  "It's a heat signature I picked up last night," Ira said. "It could be worth checking out."

  "That's all the way in the mountains, Ira," Eddy said. "It could take all night to get there if the storm doesn't let up."

  "Won't we die?" Lena asked.

  "We'll freeze to death if we don't get parts for those generators, right?" Ira shook her head. "But even that's a long shot. Eventually they'll break down and need to be replaced, and supplies are becoming more and more scarce within the city limits."

  "I don't see how venturing out to the mountains to check out a dot on a screen helps us," Lena said.

  Ira rolled her eyes. "That dot is a massive heat signature, idiot. It could be a power source of its own, and if it is that means heat. Warmth. And if that's the case, we can relocate."

  "What if it's a complete waste of time?" Lena asked. "What if it's another camp of survivors?"

  "Then we barter with them." Eddy pumped his fist. "Get the parts we need."

  "Unless they're cannibals!" Lena kicked at the snow.

  "It's the best shot we have, Eddy," Ira said.

  Eddy took the monitor in his hand, stared at it for a moment, probably considering his options. It seemed like an eternity, waiting for his reply; then, he nodded.

  "We'll go," Eddy said.

  "This is bullshit!" Lena stomped her feet in the snow, kicking icicles up into the air that got swept away into the wind. "Of course you'd listen to her!"

  "Get on the snowmobile," Eddy said.

  "No!" Lena said.

  "Now!" Eddy pointed at the snowmobile, towering over her. "Or we can leave you behind, if you'd prefer."

  Lena stood there for several moments, looking back and forth between Eddy and Ira, before she finally stomped over and took a seat on the snowmobile. Ira followed, and Eddy took the front seat again; the engine gave a sharp buzz, which cut through the constant cracking of the snowfall and wind.

  Ira watched the progress on her monitor and gave directions. The snowfall started to let up after about an hour of constant travel. Lena didn't make a peep for the final leg of the journey. The outline of the San Bernardino mountains crept into view, and before Ira knew it, they were starting to drive uphill.