Ark-13: An Odyssey

by B. B. Gallagher

  “I just think it’s… strange…” Jim turned on his own accord and slowly left the Sick Bay leaving the others to ponder.

  Chapter 25

  Requiem for Earth

  Log Entry # 10

  I remember my last night on Earth. The sunset was beautiful over the Gulf of Alaska. It was a swirling portrait of reds and oranges across the sky, as if it was one last encore performance before the end. I was sitting outside of the hangar under a tree by myself, so I had time to do some thinking.

  Cyrus Holder was walking my way.

  “Hello there…” He called to me as he approached.

  “Hey Mr. Holder.” He helped himself to a seat next to me against the tree.

  “Gonna miss it?” he asked, as if we were old friends catching up.

  “Yeah… I mean, this planet was pretty amazing when you look at it that way. We can breathe air. We can drink water.”

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “Can I tell ya something?”

  “Sure…”

  “Before you walked up, I was saying my first prayer in probably ten years. I don’t even know if God exists,” I admitted

  “Oh well, that’s normal,” Cyrus shrugged.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you looked at what the world has become lately? It started with cyber space and then came the nanos and here we are now with holographics and armports in our arms. People are suspended between humanity and technology. The lines are blurred so the question has become where does one end and the other begin? The problem is that line is so blurred now that no one knows what is real anymore…”

  I took a moment to digest his words.

  “So it is natural for you to try to make that critical distinction as you bid farewell to humanity as you know it. What are we really losing here?” I remember thinking of my family.

  “Do you think there is an afterlife?” I had to ask him.

  “It’s human nature to believe that our soul will go on after this life. It’s part of self preservation. That instinct is so strong in us that we have to ask the question, ‘what’s next?’”

  I wasn’t expecting him to get preachy about it.

  “What’s even more interesting is that if asking that question is in fact a naturally occurring phenomenon from within us, it indicates one of two things.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “That either our nature is lying to us, or it knows somehow beyond our brain’s capacity that an afterlife does in fact exist. As for me… I am a scientist. I have to see it to believe it and I soon will.” I sat up from the tree at hearing this and looked over at him with disbelief.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not going…” Cyrus said very matter-of-factly. “I am staying right here. In fact I will probably watch the end of the world from this very tree.” Again, I could tell he was as serious as a heart attack.

  “The cancer?” I looked down, saddened for the man.

  “Stage three… pancreatic… somehow all the tabloids got it right. I’ll be dead in a year anyway.” He gulped down with great difficulty and continued. “Everyone is asking what is going to happen to the company, they never stopped to ask what is going to happen to the world…”

  “But you did.” I raised my hand to his shoulder, offering as much comfort as possible.

  “I did… I was always looking out to the stars for what is next. And then I found the Pale Horse. It was my responsibility to build the Arks. My resources, my intelligence and my team. I had to do it because I was the only one who could.” He exhaled a long, troubled sigh. “But I have so many things to answer for. And I figured it’s about time that I did…”

  He patted me on the back and walked back to the Hangar.

  Cyrus’s words struck me to the core. I was never a religious person by any means. I wasn’t raised going to church at all. I had been a couple of times to Catholic mass with my grandmother, but no one really taught me anything. What I heard about the Church was mostly bad, but of course I heard it from the news and everything sounded bad when coming from the news.

  It’s just odd.

  My whole life I had thought the whole Jesus Christ thing was a story that weird people wearing Birkenstocks and creepy smiles told. I was not the guy to hold your hand and sing ‘Kumbaya’, I’d much rather listen to Coltrane and drink a six pack of beer. But as I sat there under the tree, I was praying. To what? To whom? I don’t really know. I guess people on Earth would call it God, so for prosperity’s sake I will too.

  Maybe that makes me a victim to some massive conspiracy that people call religion and faith. Maybe I’ve gone crazy. Maybe I’m desperate. That all could be true. But I can say one thing, though. In that moment, when I was looking out to the Gulf at the last sunset I would ever see, knowing that everything would soon be annihilated and that my friends were gone and that my family was gone. In that moment prayer was the only thing I had.

  Chapter 26

  Day 21

  Danny jumped out of his seat as Jake entered his pod.

  “Where have you been?!”

  “I got held up…” Jake explained, trying to calm him down as he brought out his holographic. Danny snatched it from his hand and began feeding the data into his computer, shining on the wall.

  “I think Booker knows about us.”

  “What do you mean?!”

  “He’s sniffing something.”

  “Do you still think he’s the GENESIS mole? Colonist #309?” Danny brought up the colonist list.

  “Let’s just see…” Danny scrolled through the list through the 100’s and the 200’s. He slowed the scroll with a flattening of his hand as it approached the 300’s.

  And then colonist #309 appeared.

  Jake and Danny gazed in disbelief at the name next to colonist #309.

  Upon reading the name, Jake’s mouth dropped in incredulous shock. His face fell numb, vapid of all expression other than disbelief. He exhaled abruptly, having to remind himself to breath and his eyes dried as they remained fastened to the name of the spy among them.

  “It can’t be…”

  “The mole is a councilman?” Danny tried to make sense of it.

  “The day before Launch… he already had his armport…” Jake recollected as his eyes focused on the name before them.

  ANDREW LANGFORD

  “He is the Director of Resources. GENESIS planted him to be guardian over the supply drops,” Jake postulated. “Resources are everything. That is why we don’t have access to the water, electrical or food plants.”

  Together they spent a moment lost in the sight of the name – mentally exploring its implications. Strategies began to form and change as Jake had prepared to see Jim’s name but not Andrew’s.

  “How do you want to go about this?” Danny asked after a muted minute. “Do you want to bring him in? Junior can beat whatever we want out of him!”

  “No, no, no… we need to watch his movements and see what he leads us to,” Jake suggested from his contemplative stance.

  “Let the rat lead us to the cheese?” Danny smiled, arching his eyebrows.

  “You mean mouse?” Jake asked, causing Danny’s smile to fall.

  “Like rat… get it? I was going for a pun…” Jake’s face remained static. Danny cocked his head to his shoulder and went on the defense. “That was funny and you know it.”

  "Does he have a pod?" Jake returned to business.

  "Yeah... want to take a look?" Danny's fingers were already combing through the surveillance server for the feed. After scrolling through the hundreds of cameras, he came to the pod feeds - each labeled by a name of a colonist. He navigated to the L's and found Langford. After clicking on the surveillance feed, a window popped up from the selection.

  SURVELLAINCE FEED UNAVAILABLE

  "What?" Jake asked upon seeing Danny's confusion.

  "They’ve blacked it out.”

  "Whatever is in there… they don’t want anybod
y to see…” Jake marveled.

  "Tomorrow is the harvest. He will be busy logging the crops brought for sale in the Stalls."

  Danny brought up a camera feed of the Stacks that showed the pods for the colonists. With a wave of the hand, the feed zoomed in on the outside door of Andrew Langford’s pod, as if he was a sniper locking on his target.

  "Alright then... we go in tomorrow!"

  "Do you want me to call in Junior and the others?" Danny asked.

  "No... they need to begin recruiting..."

  "You are going to love this." Danny adjusted himself in his seat and turned to immerse himself in the computer shining on the wall before him.

  “I can match the names from the same map to the vital signatures I had previously discovered. I logged all colonists with higher cortisol levels, which is the main hormonal indicator of stress. They call it the fight or flight hormone. Then I accessed the brain activity to find colonists with high subgenual anterior cingulated cortex, which is responsible for fear management.”

  “How did you figure all of that out?” Jake leaned back impressed with his acumen.

  “Found a Biology textbook in the Archives…” he shook his holographic, before turning back to the screen on the wall.

  “Now by focusing on these two vitals, I was able to narrow down our colonists to those who are pissed off and courageous enough to do something about it. These are the people our insurgents will approach about joining us. So without further adieu, allow me to present to you…” Danny’s fingers tapped out a few more commands and with one more hit of a key, a long list of colonists began streaming down the screen.

  “…our soldiers.”

  Chapter 27

  Day 22

  The next morning Jake leaned against the entrance to the Stalls. The colonists shopped through the different vendor booths as the week’s harvest was now for sale. Danny had distributed the names of prospective recruits to Elijah, Zoe, Lucy and Junior. They had already begun approaching the candidates in the most discrete way possible. But Jake had different plans, as his eyes found Andrew Langford in the crowd.

  Andrew milled about his business as usual, jotting the amount of crops each vendor was able to harvest for the week. He smiled and laughed with the colonists manning each booth. He was a favorite among the colonists and not viewed to be an out of touch war mongrel like Jim Booker.

  “Alright… I’m going in,” Danny spoke to Jake through his comm.

  “Roger that, I’ve got eyes on Langford, you’re all clear.” Jake reported back and slowly followed Andrew through the stalls.

  ⊶<>⊷

  Danny rounded the corner and headed for the Stacks. His eyes first climbed the high metal wall that separated the colonists from the Resources. The large monitor towered overhead, flashing the different surveillance feeds from around the Ark. After tracing the rows and levels to Andrews’ living pod, he started for it.

  Danny climbed four levels and walked seven pods across until he arrived at Andrew’s pod. Before entering, he turned and surveyed the Stacks floor – the coast was clear.

  He slapped the enter button outside the door but the door did not budge.

  “What the?” he hit the button again, but the door remained locked.

  “Jake, do Councilmen have locks on their pod doors?”

  “No… he’s heading toward the Stacks… I’ll stall him, hurry up and get in there!”

  “Working on it!” Danny responded. Danny ripped off the enter button from the wall and began sifting through the wires that sprawled out from behind it. Danny began splicing wires, as if hot wiring a hovercar.

  ⊶<>⊷

  Jake jogged over to Andrew and cut him off from the exit.

  “Hey Andrew! What’s up?!” At first, Andrew leaned back on his heels, taken aback by Jake’s sudden approach.

  “Just logging the harvest…”Andrew noted, as if stating the obvious.

  “How’d we do this week?”

  “We did okay, next week will be better,” Andrew nodded and started toward the Stacks, but Jake persisted in the conversation.

  “Hey! I wanted to apologize for not being able to meet you and Sophia for drinks last night. I wasn’t feeling well at all. I heard about Coop, though! What happened?” Jake asked, trying to engage Andrew.

  ⊶<>⊷

  Sparks flew as two spliced wires connected. Andrew’s pod door snapped open, revealing a startling sight to Danny as he stepped through the doorway.

  “Holy…” Danny surveyed the contents of the pod. There was nothing standard about it, rather there was a bank of computer monitors and a desk littered with notes on different colonists. Upon stepping forward, Danny noticed the computer monitors showed the surveillance feeds from around the Ark. He zeroed in on the one showing Jake speaking with Andrew at the entrance to the Stalls.

  And then he noticed something behind him in the reflection in the glass. He turned to meet a shocking sight before him – seven headshots, taped to the wall of the pod labeled ‘Insurgents’. The headshots belonged to Jake, Junior, Zoe, Lucy, Elijah, Coop and lastly him.

  The realization hit him.

  “He knows…” Danny spoke through a gaping mouth. He then turned back to the feed, worried for Jake, who was still speaking to Andrew.

  ⊶<>⊷

  “Yeah, Coop just went crazy… I guess you can never really know who someone truly is on the Ark.” An ominous smile spread across Andrew’s face.

  “Yeah… I guess not…” Their eyes met in stalemate. Then Jake heard Danny’s voice in his ear.

  “Jake! Listen carefully. Langford knows… he knows about us!” Jake dropped his head upon hearing the message. His eyes wandered as if trying to find the words meaning on the ground.

  “Are you okay?” Andrew’s tone grew darker.

  “Yeah… yeah… I’m just still getting over that bug I had last night,” Jake improvised.

  “Oh… well here, let me check your levels for you.” Andrew’s holographic was already in hand. His grip on Jake’s arm was tight. He plugged it in, moving aggressively. A holographic screen shined between them, but their eyes remained locked on each other through the hologram.

  Andrew gritted his teeth as he scanned Jake’s levels.

  “That’s odd… your immune system activity is low. Temperature is normal. Blood oxygenation is fine. By the look of it, you aren’t sick at all…” Andrew’s grip tightened on Jake’s arm. And then his eyes focused through the hologram onto Jake’s.

  A moment hung in the air as Andrew’s expression grew fiercer.

  And then Andrew’s fist broke the screen and collided with Jake’s face. Jake crashed to the ground as Andrew sprinted off through the Stalls in the other direction, leaving his holographic in Jake’s arm.

  And the chase was on.

  ⊶<>⊷

  Danny watched the cameras in Andrew’s pod and followed the chase as it hopped from screen to screen through the Stalls. He sat at the computer and began drilling into Andrew’s personal hard drive. Hundreds of documents flashed before his eyes, each faster than the last. They were all addressed to Dr. Langford.

  “Jake, he’s been receiving hundreds of directives from GENESIS. We only caught one of them.”

  “Where is he?!” Jake shouted over the comm, having stumbled back up to his feet. Danny swiped the inbox aside and refocused on the security feeds. Jake had lost ground on Andrew as he pushed his way through the busy marketplace of the Stalls.

  “He’s heading toward the Loop and back tracking, turn right now! You’ll cut him off!” Danny watched as Jake scrambled out of the Stalls, meeting Andrew and tackling him across the Loop. Andrew maneuvered out of his grip and continued running up the Loop like a hamster in a hamster wheel. Jake gathered his feet and continued his pursuit.

  Andrew looked up at a nearby camera with a look of concern. Then he pulled a remote device from his pocket as he ran by and pressed the trigger mechanism on the device. The screen Danny watched went black, while
the other monitors on the wall flashed the word “Abort”. The hundreds of messages deleted before his eyes and sparks began to fly out of the sides of the console.

  “No! He’s fried his hard drives! I’m blind now Jake! Don’t lose him!” Danny shouted into the comm.

  ⊶<>⊷

  Jake sprinted up the Loop, pushing colonists out of his way as he trailed Andrew. They ran passed the Archives and the Recreation Deck until they twisted across the bridge leading to the center of the Ark - the Stacks. They ran through the crowds, alarming any colonist they passed. The living pods towered on either side of them as Andrew headed for the main supply drop chute. Andrew tapped his ear and shouted, Jake could just barely make out what he yelled over his heavy breathing.

  “This is Andrew Langford requesting extraction!”

  Twenty yards ahead, the main chute snapped open. Andrew slid through the opening at a full sprint. The chute then shut immediately after Andrew passed through it. Jake came to a halt and slapped the window to the Drop. Andrew found his feet on the other side and locked eyes with him.

  Jake fumed as Andrew raised one gentle hand and waved a farewell.

  Andrew then zipped upwards through the chute and out of sight, as if being pulled up to the Bridge.

  Jake raised a lone fist to the window and beat on the glass as he met another dead end. After catching his breath, he noticed a ladder in the Drop. He wondered if it led to the Bridge and he knew he would have to climb it to find out.

  Chapter 28

  Day 22

  The Assembly met in the same dark room as usual and listened to Jake’s account of Andrew’s disappearance. He tailored the story to exclude the Insurrection’s hacking of the X drive and spying on him.

  “So he just punched you in the face and ran?!” Jim Booker challenged the assertion.

  “He must have thought I was on to him or something… but yeah, he ran the Loop and across the Stacks to the Drop. I heard him, clear as day, say into some sort of communication device in his ear, ‘this is Andrew Langford requesting extraction’. And then the Drop opened allowing him to pass through and then it snapped shut behind him. I could see through the window to the door, he then flew upwards as if being pulled by some sort of magnet,” Jake explained.