Escaping Darkness (Book 4): The Fallout

by Richards, E. S.

  “What?” Jadon repeated, anxious to know what Mia had discovered. “What does it say, Mia?”

  “They knew this was going to happen,” Mia whispered, her hands starting to shake as she gripped the page, her knuckles starting to blanch from the pressure. “They could’ve warned us. They could’ve saved millions of lives.”

  “What do you mean? How did they know?”

  “These are the results from their most recent drill,” Mia explained slowly, still finding the words difficult to believe even as she said them out loud. “The figures speak for themselves. They caused a tectonic plate shift. These numbers are only recorded when one thing is about to happen: an earthquake. They knew they had caused a quake and I’ll bet that everyone that worked here knew that would then affect Yellowstone. There’s no way anyone could understand these results and not see that coming. There’s no way…”

  “You’re kidding me,” Jadon exhaled, finally coming to terms with what Mia was saying. “They can’t have—”

  “They did,” Mia interrupted, the color that had drained from her cheeks slowly returning as she pushed herself to her feet. “They knew what they had done, and my bet is they dropped everything and ran. This man…Jacob Turner. He could’ve saved so many lives. He could’ve saved the world.”

  “Is there any other explanation?” Jadon questioned, desperately trying to find any other reason why the site had been abandoned. He couldn’t deal with knowing that they could’ve all been warned about what was about to happen, nor that there was someone who made the decision not to try and save the millions of lives which had been lost.

  Mia shook her head. “I’m sorry, Jadon,” she whispered. “This is the only explanation.”

  The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds, neither comfortable with the information they had just learned. Mia reviewed the words and figures on the page again, checking for the third time that they were correct. They had to be. The explanation on the page in front of her might not be the one that she had wanted; yet it made perfect sense.

  On the Tuesday before the eruption, the illegal fracking site had conducted a routine drill, breaking into the earth’s surface in search of sustainable fuel. Why the site was still in operation was still a mystery to Mia, although it was an answer she found herself caring about less now. Why they had drilled down didn’t matter—the important factor was that they had drilled down. They’d drilled on Tuesday and then Yellowstone had erupted on Wednesday. Less than twenty-four hours occurred between the two events. A correlation—though not necessarily a causation—printed in black and white on the page in Mia’s hand.

  She knew it was likely that the drilling had caused a chain reaction of some sort that ended with Yellowstone erupting. She could see it on the page: the measurements of the fractures growing larger and larger until they just stopped recording them. Evidence that the people working on the site had finally realized something had gone wrong. The data didn’t lie and that looked like it had sparked the chain of events that led to the eruption. As a volcanologist and someone who had seen the effects of the eruption firsthand, that was more than enough information for Mia.

  “What do we do now?” Jadon asked, looking to Mia for both support and guidance. She might not have all the answers, but she knew a great deal more than he did and, in that moment, Jadon felt like he just needed someone to tell him what to do—someone to take charge and lead him away from all the madness.

  “I—I don’t know,” Mia replied, feeling a sudden emptiness inside her. She hadn’t known what she’d expected to find when she entered the fracking site, but now that she’d found out the truth, she had no idea what to do with the information. Technically, they had someone to blame. Technically, they had a cause for everything that had happened. And there was absolutely nothing that she could do about it. She was just one person and clearly Jacob Turner—whoever and wherever he was —had much more power over what was happening than she did.

  “Is there any information here we can use?” Jadon continued to ask questions, the young man quickly coming to the same harrowing conclusion that Mia had. He hated it. He didn’t want to accept that even though they now knew what had caused everything, they were completely powerless to do anything about it. It was a sickening feeling and Jadon desperately wanted Mia to come up with an answer that made the feeling go away. “There must be something we can do.”

  “I really don’t know, Jadon,” Mia sighed, leaning back in the cushioned desk chair where she now sat. “We have no idea where this guy is and even if we did, how could we bring him to justice?”

  “We don’t need to bring him to justice per se,” Jadon replied, thinking on his feet. “Surely we can just whistle-blow? Tell the truth and let everyone else make the decision for themselves.”

  “Who would we tell? And why would anyone believe us? It’s still too early in the disaster,” Mia shook her head. “A discovery like this shouldn’t have happened for several weeks.”

  “Well, it has,” Jadon pushed himself off of the wall where he leaned and stood over Mia, his large frame towering over her in a slightly intimidating manner. “We have to do something, Mia,” he pleaded with her. “What was the point in even coming in here if we’re just going to complain about what we’ve found and not do anything?”

  Mia looked up at Jadon, challenging him with her gaze for a moment. The young man held strong though, resilient in his mindset. Deep down, Mia knew he was right. He’d said it perfectly: why had they bothered to set foot on the fracking site if they were just going to ignore everything they had found there? Whether it seemed to make an immediate difference or not, they had to at least try and do something. Jacob Turner hadn’t, and now the world was dying—if even one good act could come out of his office, Mia was certain she would be doing something new.

  “Okay,” she nodded, standing so she could look Jadon in the eye. “You’re right. I’m still not sure exactly what we can do with this information, but you are right. We have to at least try and make a difference.”

  “Really?” Jadon asked, his surprise not hidden by his tone or expression.

  “Yeah,” Mia answered. “I still want to try and get home to Houston—I’m not forgetting my family because of this—but there’s no reason why we can’t spread the word along the way. I don’t think anything will come from it until we’re a few more weeks down the line, still there’s no harm in trying to start early.”

  Jadon grinned, pleased he had been able to get through to Mia and happy that she had come to the same conclusion as he had. After everything he had experienced with her, Jadon had the utmost faith in Mia’s abilities and knew with her on his side, they would be able to achieve things he previously wouldn’t have even bothered trying.

  “We should go and find the others, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” Mia had almost completely forgotten about Jorge, Jesse, and Marcus, the three of them also hidden away somewhere on the fracking site in their search for answers. “How long have we been down here?”

  “I have no idea,” Jadon shrugged. “A couple of hours, maybe?”

  Mia could only guess whether Jadon was right, knowing she had a tendency to lose track of time when she got lost in the data. It used to happen to her all the time when she was working, often missing meals or forgetting to do things because she was so wrapped up in her task. By the time she and Jadon made it back to the previously agreed meeting point, she found that it had happened again.

  “Mia!” Jorge finally stopped pacing the hallway and lurched toward his friend, thankful to see her safe again. It had irritated him to no end that both Marcus and Jesse had agreed it was better to stay put rather than go and search for Mia and Jadon, the vast size of the fracking site deterring the both of them. Jorge wasn’t having the best day, so just the sight of his friend made him feel more relaxed again. “Where have you been? Are you all right?”

  “Ah man,” Mia rubbed a hand across the back of her neck. “I guess we’ve been gone f
or more than a couple of hours, right?”

  Jesse laughed, “I’d try closer to five if I were you.”

  “Five hours?”

  “Give or take,” Jorge confirmed with a smile. “None of us really know what time it is anymore.”

  “Wow, I’m sorry,” Mia replied, embarrassed that she had lost track of time by so much. She didn’t think she and Jadon had been in the professor’s office for that long, but from the expressions on everyone else’s faces, they clearly had.

  “De nada,” Jorge replied. “I take it you found something if you were down there for that long. We’ve got some news as well.”

  Mia looked at Jorge and could tell that her friend was bursting to tell what he had discovered, though there was something uncomfortable about his expression too, like he wasn’t happy with what he was about to share. She wasn’t surprised. Mia would much rather not have made her discovery as well. It was always a burden to be the one to reveal bad news.

  “Yeah,” Jesse spoke up before Mia could ask what Jorge had found. “Marcus and I found out why this place was still in operation.”

  “What?” Mia spun to her left and looked at Jesse, surprised by what the young man had just said. Now she understood it. Jorge wasn’t disappointed by the news that had been uncovered; he was annoyed that he hadn’t been the one to find it. Out of all of them, he was the most interested in following up the leads around the fracking site. Mia could tell from his expression that his own search had been fruitless and that was what irritated the Spaniard the most.

  “Yep,” Marcus joined in, the two young men both clearly proud of their findings. “It’s government funded. We found some paper trails that seem to be coming from pretty high up.”

  “Government funded?” Jadon repeated, confused by what his friend had just said. “But…that doesn’t make any sense. If it was the government, why wouldn’t they tell?”

  “Tell? Tell what?”

  Four pairs of eyes turned and looked at Mia simultaneously, the four men all waiting for her to explain what she and Jadon had found downstairs. Mia was still getting her head around it herself. Nevertheless she couldn’t keep the information from them. Especially not Jorge. Speaking as slowly as possible, she began to recount it all. The figures they found. The data that explained it all. The story of Professor Jacob Turner and how he could have saved the world.

  Jorge, Marcus, Jesse, and even Jadon all listened silently, their faces morphing into expressions of shock and horror as Mia explained what the data she read had told her. She revealed the figures related to the growing fractures and explained in simple terms to the three college boys exactly how that could trigger a chain reaction that would lead to the eruption. She did her best to paint a picture of how she believed it had happened, her emotions flooding out of her as she pictured Jacob Turner finding out about what was about to happen and simply packing up his laptop and going home. She wondered where he was now. What he was doing. He would have undoubtedly found a way to survive the disaster—a fact that made Mia angrier than she cared to admit.

  By the time she had finished her story, she could tell that same anger was seething in Jorge as well. Jesse and Marcus both stood with their mouths open, struggling to wrap their heads around the information, but Jorge had already processed it all. He understood the facts and figures just like Mia did and he couldn’t comprehend how someone had allowed all of this to happen.

  “Is that it?” Jorge asked in a low voice, pointing to the printed page that Mia still held in her hand.

  Nodding, Mia held it out to her friend, passing on the information and allowing Jorge to see it with his own eyes. Everyone knew now. The information was out there and somehow, that made everything seem more real. There was no going back from this. They had found the cause of the eruption and Mia knew they couldn’t ignore it. Looking at Jorge, she knew he shared the same feeling. They weren’t going to let this go. Someone had to pay for what had happened.

  Chapter 3

  “We have to do more than that!” Jorge was determined to make everyone else see things his way. He refused to let it go, Mia and Jadon’s suggestions of whistle-blowing just irritating him.

  The five of them sat in what had been one of the break rooms on the fracking site, a few couches and soft chairs circling the room with a table and coffee machine positioned against one wall, alongside an old vending machine which they had managed to break into. Bags of chips and chocolate bars scattered the table in front of them, though, despite his hunger, Jorge had barely eaten a mouthful. Now that some time had passed since Mia had told them what she’d discovered, Jorge was finally ready to discuss their next steps. He wasn’t happy with what he was hearing.

  “What more can we do?” Mia argued back, her body already feeling the effects of the sugar she had just ingested, becoming wired with energy. “We can’t exactly report this to anyone—especially not with the government funding it all?”

  “Not all of the government,” Jorge reasoned. “There will undoubtedly be people we can go to. People who didn’t know this was happening.”

  “And how do we find those people? In case you’ve forgotten, there’s no cell reception anymore because of the ash cloud, and we can’t just go online and look up where the president is hanging out. I want to do something about this Jorge, you know I do. But I don’t know if there’s anything we really can do aside from tell the people we meet along the way.”

  “There has to be more.” Jorge refused to believe Mia’s explanation, shaking his head and gesturing wildly with his arms as he spoke. “We can’t just do nothing, Mia.”

  Mia sighed. They were going around in circles in this discussion, both she and Jorge refusing to budge in their opinions. It wasn’t that Mia didn’t agree with Jorge—she was on his side for the majority of things—it was just that she was being realistic about what was possible. “Give me a plan, Jorge,” she tried to speak more calmly. “Give me a plan and I’ll do it. I won’t just go off running after some random professor when I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing. Not when I know my family needs me.”

  That was Mia’s bottom line. Her family. She saw the expression on Jorge’s face change when she mentioned them—even if it was just for a second. He thought that the greater good was more important; he thought spreading the message about what had caused Yellowstone was worth more than going back to Houston to the old farmhouse where Mia had grown up. That was the key difference between the two scientists: Jorge was a scientist above all else. To an outsider, it might appear that Mia was that as well. She was dedicated to her work and would spend hours focusing on one tiny detail if she thought it might make a difference to her research. But she would abandon everything if it meant she could be there for her family. She would gladly never look down another microscope again, never put on a lab coat or walk down the university halls as long as she had her family to go home to at the end of every day. Jorge wasn’t like that and while Mia understood why, she still felt sorry for him. It was a sad life and one that she simply couldn’t live by.

  “All right guys,” Marcus interjected, he and his friends tired of listening to the argument over and over again. “Can we just drop it for a bit? This conversation is getting old.”

  Jorge looked at Marcus, a disappointed look on his face. Mia wasn’t sure if her former colleague was going to snap or not, a vein dangerously pulsating on the side of his head as he stared Marcus in the face. In the end, nothing happened, Jorge finally looking away and sagging in his seat. Mia felt sorry for her friend; she didn’t want to upset him and she didn’t want him to feel like he had lost in any way. She just wouldn’t give up on her family in order to chase the fame that might come from their discovery.

  Jorge felt angry. Looking out of the window in the break room, he watched the clouds swirling outside and felt his anger increase inside of him. The blanket of ash covered everything he could see outside and he knew the effects would reach much further than he could observe. They were still o
nly in the infancy of the eruption too, the more devastating effects like mass starvation and dehydration yet to come.

  By now, all crops across America would be destroyed. The ground would be infertile for months—maybe even years—little chance of anything new growing or providing sustenance for ages. The human race would have to rethink how they survived, right down to their very basic needs like food, water, and shelter. It didn’t matter how far technology had advanced in the past hundred or so years, all of it was now useless. The ash cloud blocked the signal from all satellites, meaning nothing electronic would work now that everything had been upgraded to the new system. They were back in the Dark Ages and things were going to get a lot worse before they got better. But Jorge knew there was one thing that would always unite the human race. Throughout history, people had always found someone to blame and through that, they had come together. In his own twisted way, Jorge truly believed that finding someone or something to universally hold responsible for what had happened was the first step toward healing the planet. It made sense to him; he just couldn’t understand why Mia and the others didn’t see it as well.

  “Are we going to spend the night here?” Jesse asked, sucking Cheeto dust from his fingers as he spoke, several bags of the snacks now lying empty in front of him.

  Mia looked outside like Jorge was, analyzing the weather and how it continued to turn from bad to worse every single day. “I don’t think we have a choice,” she answered. “It’s getting late and besides,” she paused, “we still don’t really know where we’re going next.”

  At Mia’s words, Jorge looked up at her and raised his eyebrows. He didn’t see the point in her trying to humor him and suggest they might not be heading straight back to Houston. He knew she would never abandon her family, just like she knew he wouldn’t give up on the fracking leads. The two of them had reached a stalemate and it was going to be interesting to see which one of them—if either—broke first.