“Would you like some coffee? I can call Doris…” I dropped my hand to the intercom, but Cyrus’s hand waved it off. He adjusted himself nervously.
“No, no coffee and in fact…” he gritted his teeth for a moment. “I’m going to need you to dismiss her right now.”
“What?”
“She is your only employee?” he asked. I nodded my head, affirming his assumption.
“I need you to send her home.” Oddly, he seemed serious, deadpan and direct.
“Okay…” I kept my eye on Cyrus to ensure he remained as forthright as he was. I pressed the intercom button.
“Doris?”
“Yes sir!” she responded, eager to help in any way possible.
“Why don’t you take the day off…” At first there was an odd silence.
“Are… are… are ya sure?”
“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow—” Cyrus shook his head disapprovingly at these words.
“I’ll see you when I see you, I’m not sure if I’m coming in tomorrow.” I tried to make it sound like less of a question, but I’m sure my confusion came through the intercom.
“Well…well… okay then! Have a good day.”
I looked up at one of the world’s most powerful and influential people.
“Can I call you Cyrus?” I asked trying to get comfortable with his presence.
“Mr. Holder will be fine.” I remember thinking, ‘what the hell is up with this guy?’ I took a moment to adjust myself amidst the awkwardness building in the room.
“What can I do you for?”
“You have been selected for Ark-13…” A wild smile came over Cyrus’s face. I remained nonplussed to say the least.
“Ark-13?”
“Yes, Ark-13. The last voyage of humanity’s life boats,” he spoke as if I was supposed to know what was going on.
“I am not following…”
“Jake, GENESIS discovered three years ago that an asteroid would be hitting our planet. It will destroy everything and it is scheduled to strike in seven days…” I sat still and looked him over. Again, he was the same contortion of awkward seriousness.
I had heard what he had said, but it didn’t register. It just bounced off as ridiculous.
I laughed out loud – I wasn’t even polite about it.
“This is some messed up prank my dad is pulling…” but then I realized my dad does not joke, especially in the mist of our current relationship.
But Cyrus’s cemented expression did not crack.
“Wait, wait, wait… you are telling me the world is going to end?” I tried to figure out the meaning written on his face.
Cyrus offered one small and steady nod, not taking his eyes off mine.
“Get outta here…” My laughter had mutated into anger and I stood in an attempt to usher him out of my office. But the man before me did not flinch. He only looked up, disarming me with heavy eyes as I processed the information.
Cyrus did not stand to leave, rather he pulled out a file. The file had a telescoped photograph of a jagged rock. He handed me the file as he prepped his laptop.
“The Pale Horse, that’s what we are calling it, is 32 miles wide. The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was only 8 miles wide. The Earth will be engulfed in flames, everything will die. Everyone you know, your mother, father, sister and Doris will die. There is no escaping it.” The words finally began to settle as I flipped through the stack of photographs showing the measurements of the asteroid.
Cyrus flipped his laptop around to show me an illustration of the asteroid’s trajectory. The muscles in my face slowly began to loosen as the information seeped in. Cyrus continued as if there was nothing wrong. He was very matter-of-fact about it. And he laid it on thick.
And then tunnel vision settled in.
“You have more satellites in the sky than anyone...” I realized aloud. Cyrus affirmed with a glance.
Then an image of Georgetown, SC bursting into flames flashed before my eyes.
Then things spun.
My head lost its center of gravity and my grip loosened on my coffee mug.
And then it dropped.
The coffee splattered on the floor, the mug shattering on impact. My eyes fell to the pieces scattered across my office floor. After a minute of deep, heart-wrenching reflection I lifted my eyes back up to the strange face of Cyrus Holder. He looked down the bridge of his nose at me.
“Now… now… You didn’t let me explain the good news…” I raised my hand to my head, rubbing it in hopes that the newly learned information would smear away.
Cyrus helped me take a sip of water as I reestablished my bearings. I lifted upright and focused on my breaths.
“How is there good news…” I exhaled with difficulty. “You’re telling me the world is going to be destroyed.”
“Yeah… but you aren’t going to be on it when it is destroyed…” I turned my head to eye the man before me.
“What?” Cyrus opened another folder for my viewing. Atop the small stack of papers was a letter with the Presidential Seal on it. The first line read: “From the Office of the President of the United States…” the letter went on to congratulate me on my selection for the project. I shuffled the letter behind the stack to reveal another photograph.
It showed a large gray ship, encased in solar panels and surrounded by a large ring. It was upright on a launch pad with multiple large rockets attached to its underside.
“This is Ark-13. The twelve others have already taken off from different points across the world. We have worked with a number of governments, including our own, to plan a coordinated evacuation of Earth. Launch is in 4 days. We need to be at a safe distance from Earth for the Armageddon,” Cyrus spoke as if he had said it many times before. The words had no meaning behind them anymore; rather they were just muscle memory.
“Are you serious?” I couldn’t think but to ask the obvious question. With one more stare through his glasses he met me eye to eye from human to human.
“Yes, I am…”
“Why me?”
“The Ark Project would not have been possible without your father. One of the selected colonists unfortunately took his own life at the news, providing a vacant seat. We need someone on Ark-13 with a legal background, because you along with the other colonists will be creating and governing a society indefinitely.”
“What next?” I wanted to kick him out of my office but I decided to ask the question off the top of the stack, just in case he was serious.
“You need to first disseminate your cover story to everyone you know. Put it on your Facebook wall, your Twitter or whatever. Your cover is that you have decided to go on a mission trip to help build houses in Haiti with our non-profit Alliance. You will be gone for two months. There will be no phone or internet connection, so you will be off the grid. It is imperative that you don’t tell anyone about the Ark or about the Pale Horse,” he said pointing to the photographs of the asteroid.
“What?! Not tell anyone.” Cyrus leaned back in his chair and sighed. “How can we not tell anyone?”
“It will endanger the launch, not to mention everyone would kill each other before the Pale Horse hit. Panic would spell the last days of Earth. We don’t want that for the human race.”
“But that is not right. They have a right to know that their lives are ending!” Somewhere along the way a tear welled up in my eye.
“Did they know when their life was beginning?” Cyrus asked plainly. “Why would it be any different for when their life was ending?” I was speechless. The full weight of the information again weighed down on me. I leaned back into the small couch and stared at my office ceiling.
“Where do I go? What do I bring?”
“I cannot tell you where you will be going. We can’t risk word getting out about our launch site. It’s nothing personal but we’ve been building the Ark for three years and some colonist with a loud mouth will not be ruining our efforts. As for what you can bring… you can br
ing anything that fits in this box.” He handed me an empty personal parcel. “No weapons. The details are contained in this file here, which also has your chartered plane ticket. You will be on the first flight tomorrow which gives you the rest of the day to make your amends and disseminate your cover.”
Over the following two hours he answered almost every question I had in detail and tabled the others for orientation, which would be the following day. After finishing my questions about the functioning of the Ark and the details of the launch, he gathered his things in a disorderly way and said his goodbyes.
He began to leave but I called after him.
“Cyrus…”
“Yes?”
“Why are you calling it the Pale Horse?
“I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hell was following close behind him… Revelation 6:8” he nodded and exited the office, leaving me to the full weight of our impending Apocalypse.
Chapter 14
Day 20
Jake lapped the Loop the next afternoon, as he did every day. He usually surveyed the colonists to see if there were any signs of discord, but now that he had been overwritten, he allowed his thoughts to flow freely, unafraid of GENESIS’s recourse. He knew they were still watching from the surveillance cameras posted throughout the Ark, so he made sure his movements appeared innocuous to the onlooker.
Jake ventured through his favorite room of the Ark – the Gallery, a large room with white walls. Benches formed a square where people could sit and face the blank walls. Plug-in docks stood next to either end of each bench. A couple of people in the Gallery viewed a projection of different pieces of art on the walls.
Jake entered the Gallery and found a lonely bench, where he pulled his holographic out of his pocket and inserted it into the plug-in dock, laying the other end in his flattened palm. A holographic display menu shined up before him from his hand.
Books
Movies
TV Shows
Art Work
Music
Places
People
Sports
With a command of a waving finger, he selected Music and a full digital library populated the hologram. He typed a search for Frank Sinatra and then selected the word, ‘Download to Holographic’. The download bar on the hologram quickly filled and Jake selected play. From his other pocket he pulled out two ear buds which he inserted in each of his ears. With speakers on each one, the cordless headphones began playing Frank Sinatra.
Jake then selected ‘Places’. He then typed a search for Georgetown, SC, his old hometown on Earth. He selected ‘Project Images’ from the menu and the plug-in dock shined the images from the database onto the wall before him. Jake swiped through a few of the pictures until he found the one he was looking for. It was a still shot of the harbor. Seagulls hovered overhead and the morning light illuminated the bay.
With Frank crooning “I Got the World on a String”, Jake exhaled and momentarily transported himself to the memories of his morning routine. He breathed easy for the first time since he overwrote his vitals. He grew comfortable with his mental rebellion against GENESIS. It was not only an emotional tug that he had finally allowed himself to have, but he also rationalized it by the laws of justice. He was at peace with his decision as he soaked in the picture and bobbed his head side to side along with the melody.
For the moment he was home.
⊶<>⊷
After a few songs before the nostalgic image, Jake continued his walk up the Loop until he came to the Archives. He opened the door and greeted the man at the front desk.
“Good Morning, Justin…” Justin Cusick was a scruffy, mess of a man. He was overweight and his hair had grown long and nappy. He had dark rimmed glasses that slid down his nose at every nod of the head.
“Hey, Jake! What’s up?” Justin perked up excited to see someone. He worked alone in the Archives and just performed routine maintenance of any servers that would go down. The Archives was a server farm full of information accessible through the different plug-in docks throughout the Ark. It was the Ark’s hub of digital data from the world’s former internet.
“Just doing my morning stroll.”
“All in order?” Jake nodded, although the word ‘order’ struck him with disgust.
“How are the Archives today?”
“Everything seems to be fine today.” Jake’s eyes rose to an air conditioning duct that ran the length of the ceiling.
“Well, I’m just going to take a quick look around, if you don’t mind.” Jake was already walking the aisles. There was a low hum from the cooling units that kept the server cabinets from overheating. Different colored lights blinked on each server and a maze of winding cables connected each unit. Each server cabinet was labeled with a letter. He walked the alphabet until he reached the Q drive. It was connected to the other server cabinets but was locked by keycard port. He knew that his councilman keycard would work, as the Q drive was only restricted to the public, but not to all colonists.
Jake spun and looked around the aisle as a thought struck him.
I can’t believe this is what a museum of Earth looks like…
His eyes lifted back to the ceiling where they followed the air conditioning duct down the aisle and into the back of the Archives. Jake arrived to the restricted section – a glass encased cube that was partitioned from the rest of the Archives. Above the door the cube was labeled as, ‘the Vault’. Inside was a server cabinet labeled with an X.
There’s our X drive…
A keycard reader with a red shining light was posted at its door. He shrugged and tried his keycard. The light blinked red which indicated that it was rejected.
He wasn’t surprised that it didn’t work, as they were told that there would be restricted areas where even council member keycards would not work – the Vault being one of them. Danny had said that the server would have to be hacked manually, due to its level of security.
But how are we going to get in?
Jake then saw a vent in the ceiling of the Vault. He cocked his head sideways and considered its presence. His eyes then followed the air conditioning duct in the ceiling. He traced the network that was overhead, which connected the Vault to the rest of the Archives.
Jake spun on his heel as his plan began to hatch. He walked back down the aisle and out of the Archives. When he exited the room, he could not immediately see the air conditioning duct, but he looked around until he found a recess in the hall near a public restroom. There near the bathroom was a large air conditioning vent. Jake visualized the duct climbing the wall, turning the corner and lining the hall until it turned into the Archives.
That’s our way in…
Chapter 15
Day 20
Jake broke through the Cornfield into the clearing. Four others were waiting for him with respirators over their faces. Each of them appeared uneasy by the meeting, as it was a more formal measure of their rebellion. They consulted the corners of the large chamber that was the Fields, as if searching for an exit or a GENESIS employee who may have decided to come down from the Bridge.
Jake looked over his fellow Insurgents.
Each of the Insurgents had their own visible quirk. Junior cracked his knuckles as if he was preparing for a boxing match. Coop stood hunch-backed over his cynical smile that showed just how fed up he was with everything and everyone. Lucy locked her hands in front of her and stared at the space between her feet. Her respirator fogged quicker than the others, as her breaths hurried in a nervous panting. The two people that Jake had not met were younger. Elijah Johnson was erect and broad, his black hair frizzed up into a flat top, framing his brown eyes and grave expression. His dark skin began to sweat as the tension built in the cornfield clearing. Zoe Maddon had short, straight black hair. The part in her hair caused her bangs to cover one of her eyes. The one visible eye looked up with an intensity that would pierce anyone who met it.
“Where is
Danny?” Junior asked.
“I don’t know…” Jake admitted through his respirator.
“You mean he ain’t with you?” Elijah asked, as if they already knew each other well.
“No…”
“Did he get caught by GENESIS?” Lucy quivered, imagining the worst.
“I’m sure he’s fine. He knows where we are. If he’s not here, I’m sure it’s something important.” Jake pressed the air down in front of him, signaling for them all to calm down. They settled and awaited word from Jake. Jake cleared his throat and cracked his neck.
“We all have something in common. We have taken the leap. We have overwritten our vitals so that GENESIS can no longer monitor us. Make no mistake, this will be viewed as an ‘act of treason’.”
Jake noticed the general mood before him. He knew he would have to rally the troops before they even got started. He cut his speech short and changed his approach. He pulled his respirator down from his mouth, so his voice was clear and unfiltered.
“When we were recruited for Ark-13, we were each given a role to ensure we became a self-sufficient society. But we were told that we would govern ourselves. And now they are taking us if we don’t feel the way they want us to!” Jake’s voice grew grave. He took an oxygenated breath from the respirator as carbon dioxide swirled about.
“If we sit back and don’t do something about this, before we know it, they will take all of us and probably dispose of us until all there is left are the colonists that abide by their rules. I’d rather have died on Earth with the rest of them than be subjected to a life of this emotional slavery. I would’ve told them to leave me behind…”
Jake surveyed the expressions around the circle. Coop nodded as he reflected on his words and Lucy straightened up empowered by the words.
Jake pulled his sleeve up, revealing the armport, and raised his fist.
“What is the difference between a machine and human?” All eyes rose to his.
“A human thinks and feels for himself.”
Ark-13: An Odyssey Page 5
