Ark-13: An Odyssey

by B. B. Gallagher

  “That sounds absolutely ridiculous,” Sigh Pritcher mumbled. Jim Booker was pleased to see the Chairman of the Council’s disbelief of the story.

  “Well, it’s true!”

  “Are you feeling okay?” Jim feigned concern as if questioning his mental stability.

  Jake continued to plead his case. “Look, I had begun to be suspicious so I ended up looking in his pod. His pod had a large computer console with multiple surveillance feeds and notes on all of us. He was watching us the whole time, reporting back to GENESIS.” His voice grew desperate.

  “I thought searching people’s pods was against the law… I thought you were expressly against that.” Jim Booker recalled Jake’s rejection of his initiative.

  “The fact of the matter is that Andrew Langford was a spy! For GENESIS! Why did GENESIS plant one of their employees among us?” Jake’s intonation grew dark and fierce as he slapped the table. The momentary loss of control was all the Assembly needed to write him off.

  “Even if what you are saying is true, what do you recommend we do about it?” Sigh asked through a hopeless exhale. Jake adjusted himself but did not answer, causing the others to shake their heads. After a silent pause in the room, Sigh continued. “What we need to do is to replace our Director of Resources…”

  “I can’t believe you guys are just going to let this pass!” Jake started again.

  “The world is different now, Jake… we have to wake up every day and face a harsh reality and that is that the world is gone. And along with the other twelve Arks, we are the only survivors of the human race…” Jim Booker lowered his voice from the typical emotional tone to a reasonable cadence. “GENESIS is not what’s screwing us, Jake… fate is.”

  Jake realized that the Assembly would remain as ineffective as the governments of Earth and that he would have to take things into his own hands.

  ⊶<>⊷

  After the meeting, Jim Booker followed Jake at a distance up and around the Loop and across the bridge to the Stacks. Jim kept his distance, careful to ensure that his tail went unnoticed. He watched as Jake ascended a series of ladders and made his way across the railing to a pod that was not his own.

  He slapped the door open and began talking upon entry as if meeting someone. Then Jim’s eyes moved from the pod to one located on the next level and down the row. It was Andrew Langford’s pod.

  Jim ascended the ladders himself and walked the catwalk to the pod. He slapped it open and was amazed by what he saw before him. He stayed at the entryway and allowed his eyes to wander the pod before entering it. Only after his initial scan was done he walked into the pod and inspected his surroundings as if it was a crime scene. He pressed random buttons on the computer console but it did not respond. He then flipped through some of the notes where he found random colonist names. The appearance of the pod confirmed Jake’s accusations but before he could connect the dots, his eyes turned to the wall. There taped up on the wall were the headshots of the Insurrection, labeled as such.

  Jim’s eyes widened at the discovery and then narrowed as if he had finally found the answer to his suspicions.

  “I knew it…” he gasped aloud to himself, upon focusing on Jake’s headshot as if it were a target. Jim tapped his communication device on his ear.

  “Peter?” he called his second in command.

  “Yeah, Jim.”

  “We need more enforcers, start recruiting. I have discovered a home grown terrorist cell.”

  Chapter 29

  Day 22

  “Andrew Langford was the spy?!” Junior Posey stepped forward with a clenched fist, unwilling to accept their most recent revelation. The Insurrection met in the same cornfield clearing. Each insurgent breathed through the respirators that the farmers used to block out the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere used to aid the crops growth.

  “That’s not all. We broke into his pod and found all of our headshots taped to his wall. We were even labeled ‘Insurgents’. He was onto us, which means GENESIS knows about us,” Danny reported.

  “They are going to take us… just like they took Meredith!” Lucy quivered.

  “They are going to kill us!” Zoe jumped to the conclusion.

  “Calm down, calm down. It’s too late to turn back. We’ve got to take the fight to them!” Junior stepped forward with a clenched fist.

  “He’s right,” Jake spoke up. As leader of the Insurrection, everyone fell quiet when he spoke. “We are running out of time to make our move. How has recruitment gone?”

  “I’ve recruited six people,” Elijah reported.

  “Four. I was able to get the other farmers,” Junior followed.

  “Good, so we got all of this area, we won’t have to hide anymore,” Danny concluded.

  “Only two… I’ve been taking care of Coop…” Lucy explained.

  “Twenty-three…” All members of the Insurrection gathered in the clearing stopped and turned to the quiet, timid Zoe Maddon. Incredulity encircled the clearing.

  “How many?” Danny asked again.

  “Twenty-three…” Zoe looked down, her toes pointed inwards toward each other.

  “So that puts our army at…” Elijah started, but Jake finished having already done the Math in his head.

  “Forty-two...” An irresistible smile crept over Jake’s face. Lucy stopped shaking. Junior nodded emphatically and clenched his hand into a fist, ready for action.

  “We can do this!” Elijah nodded with a relieved grin plastered on his face.

  “We need to spread the news about Andrew Langford organically. We don’t want it to look like propaganda. But something people will whisper to each other,” Jake noted, eyeing the two youngest of the Insurrection leaders – Elijah and Zoe.

  “Like spreading gossip?” Zoe asked to which Jake nodded.

  Zoe shrugged and said, “We can do that.”

  Chapter 30

  Day 24

  Two days had passed and the Insurrection had grown. It was no longer a secret that the rebellion existed, which led tensions to run high across the Ark. Isolated scuffles between members of the Insurrection and the enforcers began to pop up, like fizzles before an explosion.

  “Any word from Langford?” Junior asked.

  “No…he’s gone. I’d be surprised if he comes back.”

  “How’s our army coming along?” Jake asked up at the former boxer, pacing alongside him.

  “We have doubled in size. Closing in on 100 members. Funny thing about these teenagers, they are as contagious as a virus. As soon as it’s the thing to do, everyone hops aboard.”

  “Good…” Jake’s eyes got lost in the distance. “Are they being trained?” An echo of grunts sounded in the distance. Jake turned to the cornfield and walked with Junior through the stalks until they arrived to the clearing where the sound was coming from. There before them were two teenagers sparring in melee combat.

  The two insurgents traded strikes and blocks with basic fundamentals. The full weight of the Insurrection came over Jake at this sight – young men training for the basic freedoms left behind on Earth.

  Upon seeing Jake, the fighters released each other and turned to their leader. They lifted a fist with their armport exposed. The gesture of respect shot Jake to the core much as the sight of them training had. Jake and Junior rolled up their sleeves, revealing the implant in their forearms and raised a fist in response. It was the Insurrection’s salute.

  After lowering their fists, the trainees continued their combat and Junior leaned in close to Jake’s ear.

  “What’s next, Boss?” Junior asked, wondering as many of the Insurgents were.

  “We need to declare war…”

  “What? How?” Jake cracked a smile.

  “Just tell everyone to meet on the floor of the Stacks tonight. A supply drop should be coming and I think we want to be there to send our message.”

  ⊶<>⊷

  That night the 97 members of the Insurrection gathered on the ground floor of the Stacks,
awaiting the scheduled supply drop. The living pods towered over them to each side. Colonists lined the railing of the catwalk and looked down at the demonstration below them with mixed emotions. Before the Insurrection stood the large wall with the main monitor of the Ark. The chutes lined the ground floor of the door – the Drop being the most prominent of chutes.

  The Insurrection was lined up, standing at attention like soldiers of a battalion. They faced the Drop and awaited the supplies. Jake stood at the front of the formation. The original members of the Insurrection were standing at either side of their leader and then behind was the army they had recruited over the last week.

  Jake’s eyes roamed the Stacks. He knew the announcement would send waves but he also knew that it was his duty and responsibility to declare war before waging it. Jake found Sigh Pritcher leaning on the railing, rattled by the sight. Further down the catwalk, Sophia Chen looked on in admiration and Jim Booker watched in apparent disgust, alongside Peter Gambit.

  The supply drop was approaching, as Jake read the time on the monitor. Then the cycling surveillance feeds came to the feed of the Stacks. The whole Ark could see the gathered Insurrection, standing at attention in militant formation.

  Jake raised his fist in the air, exposing his armport. At this, the rest of the army raised their fist in unison, declaring war on the corporation behind the wall they stood before, with this one simple yet unified action.

  And then a sound echoed through the Stacks. The hundreds of colonists lining the Stacks became bewildered at the sound and sights of the drop. From the beginning, it did not sound or look like a typical supply drop. Jake squinted as the Drop chute opened, but no supplies came through. Rather an amorphous figure slowly materialized before them.

  And then Jake’s expression twisted into an exhibition of shock as he realized who it was.

  There was Meredith Jones.

  Her short blonde hair fell in greasy clumps and black bags hung under her eyes. Her face sallow and weak, her body trembling as if cold and beaten. She stumbled out of the chute, the door snapped behind her.

  Her eyes were lost in the darkness.

  Jake broke formation and ran to her, catching her as she collapsed to the floor.

  “Meredith! Meredith! Are you okay?!” It took a moment for her to lift her head to him. And then when she met him, it was with blank confusion.

  “Who are you?” There was no glint in her eye, only the vapid emptiness of an erased memory.

  Then Jake looked down at what hung around her neck. It was a sign with an ominous message scrawled out on it.

  Tomorrow Night It Will End

  Chapter 31

  Day 25

  “How is she?” Jake gnawed on his thumb as he assessed the newest patient of Sick Bay. Coop Nolan was still healing from his wounds in one of the beds but all tests indicated that he would make a full recovery. Meredith, however, sat upright at a perfect ninety degree angle, but her expression was hollow –a vacuous visage.

  “She’s not so good,” Lucy explained. “She doesn’t remember anything from the Ark. She has no idea what happened to Earth and just wants to go home to feed her dog.”

  They stood in the back office and spoke over their growing apprehension.

  “How are her levels?”

  “That is where everything gets strange…” Jake turned to Lucy, picking up the worried tone in her voice.

  “What?”

  “So, Meredith’s vitals were never overwritten,” Lucy began.

  “Yeah…”

  “And so her vitals are accurate.”

  “Yeah…” Jake repeated.

  “So, I was able to access her backlog and noticed that the days she was gone she was filled with extreme fear but physically she was kept in good health. She was well fed, she was not physically beaten, nothing. It was like she relaxed on the Bridge but watched a Hitchcock movie. Her hormonal levels fluctuated gradually, until the day she was returned.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “So, our emotions and physical levels are fluid, they are shifting like the tides of the oceans as the body reacts to its environment. This morning, her vitals jumped crazy. Her fear decreased, her confusion increased, her sadness increased, everything just went haywire this morning according to the backlog,” Lucy explained.

  “Any idea?”

  “Here is where it gets weird…” Jake leaned forward.

  “Her vitals this morning match the vitals she had on the first day she had the armport put in – the day before launch, when we gathered in the hangar on Kodiak Island. Her vitals match those perfectly. It’s the oddest thing, because her memory can’t remember anything after that day. It is like she has been reset…” Jake’s face furrowed into a trench of confusion.

  “Reset?” he repeated.

  “Yeah, reset. It’s pretty creepy if you ask me.”

  “I wanna go talk to her.” Jake stepped forward, Lucy didn’t stop him.

  He stepped into the Sick Bay through the exhaling door and toward the patient sitting on the examination table. At first she didn’t look, but rather stared out of the window at the stars in the distance.

  “Where am I?” her voice was robotic, trying to compute what she saw.

  “You are on Ark-13. Earth has been destroyed by an asteroid.” Only then did she turn to face Jake.

  “What?” her incredulous expression told Jake that his words were news to her.

  “Three days after we launched we watched as an asteroid destroyed Earth. Everything and everyone we know is gone…” Jake’s voice trailed, remembering the stark reality at the crux of their existence.

  Her eyes searched him for confirmation. Upon finding it, her face clenched into a fistful expression and tears flowed over it. She began shaking her head in disbelief.

  “No, it hasn’t!”

  “Yes… I’m afraid it has.” Jake grabbed her shoulders and brought them into his, embracing her with as much comfort as he could muster.

  “What did they do to you?...” Jake whispered over her shoulder aloud.

  “I don’t know…”

  ⊶<>⊷

  Eclipse night club was closed for the evening but Jim Booker held a meeting as he recruited Luke Payton to his cause. He stood on the higher platform with fifty colonists encircling him. Jim delivered his speech with passion, pacing the perimeter of the circle.

  “I would like to thank you all for coming and volunteering to fight the good fight. The world is gone. And we must fight for the order that can sustain this society. We were saved by GENESIS Enterprises. So we oppose the Insurrection that plans to defy them. You are outnumbered but will be better armed!” he gestured to a rack in the back of the club with electrostaffs lined up.

  Lucas Payton broke through the crowd and grabbed one of them from the rack. He examined it in his hands and then with the pressing of a button, activated the spark at the end of the staff.

  “This is our home… we must defend it from enemies both foreign and domestic,” Lucas joined Jim’s rallying cry.

  “When do we get to fight?!” a voice called from the crowd.

  “Yeah!” the crowd of colonists joined in, growing more unruly.

  “We will defend the Drop tomorrow night. The Insurrection plans to take control of the Ark’s resources. If they take control of what we depend on, they will have control over the whole ship.”

  “Long live the Ark! Long live the Ark!” the chant continued as fists rose in the air along with their battle cry.

  Chapter 32

  Requiem for Earth

  Log Entry # 11

  It was launch day. We didn’t know where we were going, all we knew was how we were getting there. And the Ark was how…

  I remember standing with Meredith and gazing down into the valley where the Ark stood. Its massive structure sized up to the importance of its mission. Exhaust came out from under the rocket as its engines were being tested and prepped for launch. All systems go.

  “Maybe
we don’t find a new place to live…” I remember telling Meredith.

  “Maybe not…”

  “That ship will become our new planet – our home. Who knows but that might be the only place our descendents know.”

  “You have to write this down, Jake.” She turned to me hearing the implications in my voice. “Promise me that you will write this down.”

  “Why don’t you?” I asked.

  “You’re a lawyer, you know what an eyewitness account is supposed to be like. We will need indisputable proof that this place existed… for our children and future generations.”

  I put my arm around her shoulder and comforted her the best I could.

  “Promise me…” It was a weak directive but it carried a weight. I nodded to her. If I hadn’t made that promise, these entries would not be logged and the Earth would slowly fade to black in our memories.

  Later that night, we boarded the Ark. I remember we walked in a single file line up a jointed stairwell and then across a connecting bridge to the Ark as if we were astronauts. We were all dressed in the Ark issued clothes and no one said a word. GENESIS scientists helped direct the traffic.

  I stepped into the Ark, following the waving hand of a GENESIS employee. For the first time the Stacks opened up before me. I was amazed by how large it was. The height of the ceiling. The large monitor. And the Drop. The supply chute at the base of the large wall separating us from the resources. I was instructed to climb the ladder a GENESIS employee pointed to and like directing cars into a parking lot, we were all guided to our designated living pods.

  My white living pod opened up before me as I smacked the entrance button. There was a bed, a closet and a desk. It was very quaint and would be my home from now on. I snooped around and saw that my personal parcel had already been delivered to the closet. It was stored underneath all of my standard issue clothing.