Benny doubted she would return, but he might be wrong. He hoped he would be.
The professor agreed and gave her the time and didn’t go out looking for her. But the next day he and the boys went out into the smell. The professor said they had to do something.
Benny knew that feeling as well.
But it was one damn big city out there full of dead people, so he held out no hope.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GINA JUST HAPPENED to be at her screens, watching the survivors green dots when one of the five from the big building in the center of town left. The other four didn’t seem to be moving.
She focused her scan down on the moving survivor, surprised to find she was watching a young college-age girl wearing a mask against the smell, winding her way through the dead bodies on the street.
The young girl seemed to be staggering more than walking and Gina didn’t like the looks of that at all.
Gina focused in on the girl’s face as much as she could and could see the look of shock and despair in the girl’s eyes. This girl was going off to die, Gina had no doubt.
And there was still a good five days until the rescue.
Gina followed the girl for the next hour as she worked through the bodies, finally entering a large building with no survivors in it.
The girl went up the elevator to the eleventh floor and into an apartment there.
Gina could see there were two bodies in the apartment, both still in fairly decent shape because the air-conditioning in the apartment must have still been working.
Gina watched as the young girl sat down on the couch facing where one man sprawled on the floor and a woman lay sprawled in the kitchen.
The girl sat there for a few minutes, then went down the hall to a bedroom and crawled into a bed that must have clearly been hers before the disaster.
She pulled the blankets up to her chin and closed her eyes.
Gina knew exactly what had happened.
The young girl had gone home to be with her dead parents.
Gina switched back to the four others in the big building and for the first time focused down on them.
Two were young boys about the girl’s age, another was a man with long hair, and the fourth man just flat took her breath away.
It was if an electrical shock had come through the screen and pushed her back in her chair.
He was clearly the one in charge. He had short dark hair and had shaved, something many of the survivors had not done. He wore jeans and a muscle shirt that clearly showed off how strong he was.
She glanced back at her records. He was the one that had first started cleaning out the building on his own.
She just stared at him, stunned that she was having such a reaction. Normally a man never really caught her attention. Over the last few centuries, there had been a few that had twisted her heart, and a dozen or more short relationships, but never had she felt a reaction like this to just seeing a man.
After a short discussion as Gina watched, they all nodded and seemed to go back to work.
Gina figured that they knew where the girl had gone and were going to give her time. That was the right decision for someone in shock and mourning as that young girl clearly was.
Gina followed them, becoming more impressed by the minute that all four of them were fine, now working to build a future in the big building.
As she followed them, they went out into the city streets and worked to get more bedding, more food, more supplies from nearby stores.
All four of them had carts and they worked to stock floors where they did not live.
Clearly one of them, more than likely the man she could barely keep her eyes off of, was setting up the big building to hold a lot more than five.
Wow, he was good-looking.
And clearly smart.
She spent the next hour just watching him like she was beside him.
And for the first time, she actually wanted to be down there, in all that death, talking with him, getting to know him.
How was that even possible?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE POWER CUT out on the tenth day and, as Benny had expected, the heat started to climb to oppressive levels, making going outside into all the death just about impossible.
All the bodies along the sidewalks were bloated inside their cloths and impossible to look at. Benny again just thanked the luck that the rats and other rodents had all been killed. Otherwise, there would have been no staying in the city with the rats having unlimited food supply.
Benny had them all go to using propane lanterns and climbing stairs. He didn’t want to take any chances at this point on elevators run by a generator until they tested everything. They could do that tomorrow.
Benny had set up a portable generator on a balcony outside of the office suite that he had converted to a very large apartment, with a big screen television and a movie library that would take him ten years to watch if he never stopped.
He had all the staircases boarded and sealed on his floor except for one, and that one he had steel bars locking it at night. And he had no doubt he had enough firepower to hold off a pretty good-sized attack.
Not that he thought one was coming. He actually doubted it was, but in the Gulf he had seen his share of the underside of humanity. And New York clearly had its share as well. He had survived this, which meant scum might have as well. Not everyone was going to be nice guys like the professor and his kids.
When the power went out, Benny made sure all outside and front doors were locked again, then set up alarms in the security room that would ring on his floor and the professor’s floor if anyone banged on the outside door.
He also set up the exterior and lobby camera systems with motion sensors to run on generators. If anything at all moved near a door, the alarm would sound and they would see who it was.
Four days before, while it was still fairly cool out, the professor and the boys had gone out looking for Candice. They had come back depressed and smelling so bad, Benny just let them go take showers without a word.
The next day, because the two boys were still depressed, Benny and the professor went out again, without luck.
Candice had vanished.
Benny felt bad, but it didn’t surprise him. Some people were survivors, others were not.
On the day after the power went out, over a light lunch, they got talking about what had happened again and what was going to happen.
“The aliens will come to rescue us,” David said.
Benny shook his head and asked David, “Why would you say that?”
David shrugged. “They’ve been taking our kind to another planet for centuries. They knew we would be destroyed. They planned for it and will come back to help us.”
“And you know all this how?” Benny asked as the professor just smiled, clearly having heard all this before.
“He doesn’t,” Freddy said. “If the aliens caused all this, they just missed a few of us and will be back to finish the job so they will have the planet to themselves.”
“No, they will rescue us,” David said.
“Kill us,” Freddy said.
The professor said nothing.
Benny quickly changed the subject.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FOR THE LAST four days before the rescue, Gina no longer dreamed of death, but of the man with the black hair, dark eyes, and strong arms.
He seemed almost scary smart in how he went about preparing the big building. She was so looking forward to meeting him, but she wasn’t sure what she was going to say. And that made her feel like a young kid again back in school.
She hadn’t felt that way in two hundred years.
Besides what could she say after he had lived through those ten days? “Hi, I’m an alien and I’m here to rescue you for only a few hours before putting you back?”
She would have to think of something much better than that.
A lot better.
And then after s
he went to the surface to help them, she would have to think of yet another way to meet him.
But meet him twice she would. She was going to make sure of that.
Three days after the young girl left the group in the big building, it was clear she was never going back. The long-haired man and the two younger boys went out looking for her wearing gas masks to help hold back the smell.
Gina watched them carefully every step.
The first place they had gone was to where the young girl was hiding. They clearly had known her home address.
When the young girl had heard them coming, she had hid under her bed, curled inside a blanket. She did not want to be found.
Gina yelled at her screens, trying to shout through space that all they had to do was look under the bed. The girl was there and she needed help.
The long-haired man and the two boys didn’t see her and left.
For an instant Gina considering jumping to the girl’s apartment and making a lot of noise so the long-haired man and the two boys would return, but all the people in her job had strict orders to not go to the surface until after the rescue.
So she just watched.
When they left, the young girl got back out from under the bed and crawled back into bed, pulling the blankets over her head.
She had been eating some, so she would survive until rescue, but not much longer. Gina would try to do something to help her after rescue.
Gina looked at the tally of the green lights in her area. Just over two hundred and eighty survivors left.
But over half of those were alone just as the young girl was. They would make it to rescue, but not much longer after that when they were returned.
After the rescue, when Gina embedded on the surface, she might be able to find and help more of them besides the blonde girl. But she wondered if they even wanted help.
She would have to figure out which ones did want help during the rescue. And work with those. Maybe get them to the big building run by the most handsome man she had ever seen.
On the day before the rescue, she went to the big banquet-like room where all the survivors from her area would be transported. It would hold them, without a problem.
She double-checked on setting up showers that had special chemicals in the water to kill the smell. She made sure that all of them would have fresh clothing if they wanted it. And she worked with the medical staff to make sure there would be enough help there for the injured and those who needed to be sedated.
The extremely injured and near dead would not be sent back to the surface, but instead would be taken as refugees to another nearby planet. But everyone else would be sent back.
One wall of the big room was clear and looked out at the beautiful planet below. That view would help some of the survivors realize where they were.
Others, she knew, that view would shock. Again, medical would be ready.
Almost all of the survivors in her area would be asleep when they were taken, since the time would be right before sunrise. That would help some as well, she hoped.
The entire rescue was going to only take about ten hours.
Ten very long hours for some survivors, ten very short hours for others. But none of them would remember it.
She went back to her apartment and got ready for the rescue, making careful notes of the locations of everyone and what they looked like so she could talk with them when they arrived.
If she was going to help these people, she had a lot of work to do both before and after they arrived in that big room.
THE RESCUE
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ONE MOMENT BENNY had been sound asleep on the big bed he had managed to get into the top floor office complex, the next he found himself standing beside the professor and the two boys with hundreds of other very tired and scared-looking humans who had survived the destruction of the world.
Some were wearing full clothes, others were wearing very little. Clearly all of them had been as asleep as he had been.
Luckily, he had been sleeping in sweat pants and a body shirt just in case. The light carpet under his bare feet was warm and slightly soft.
The room, at first glance, seemed like a normal hotel banquet room.
He looked quickly around him, but saw no real danger, just a bunch of very confused, sick, and smelly people.
“What the hell?” Benny asked, more to himself than anyone.
“We’re in orbit above our city,” David said, pointing at the big wall.
Benny turned and damn near dropped to the floor as his knees got wobbly.
They were in orbit.
Holy shit!
How had he got here?
Or someone had done a pretty good fake show of being in orbit on a huge wall. He wanted to try to believe that, but he knew he couldn’t.
He was in orbit.
He could see that sunrise was working its way across the Atlantic toward the East Coast and there were very few clouds in the sky, meaning it was going to be a hot summer’s day below if what he was seeing was real.
A very large if.
His mind would not accept it.
Could not accept it.
“That’s amazing,” Freddy said, his voice almost a whisper.
“I was right,” David said. “The aliens are here to rescue us.”
“Perfect,” Benny said, staring out that window as more people around them noticed the view as well. “Are we in the frying pan or in the fire?”
“I’m guessing fire,” the professor said.
“We’re lunch,” Freddy said.
“I doubt they have a cookbook,” David said.
Benny had no idea what they were talking about, but it didn’t sound good that they suddenly found themselves in orbit in a ship and the two kids who liked science fiction were talking about aliens eating humans.
The noise and the smell stunned him as the people in the room started to shout and panic a little.
Numbers of people just fainted or dropped to the carpeted floor and sat there, their hands covering their faces.
Benny made himself take a deep breath and actually look around.
Except for the giant wall looking out into space, this room could have been any banquet room in any hotel. High ceilings with off-white paint, overhead lights, carpet on the floor.
Benny pushed back the feeling of panic trying to creep up his throat. He wasn’t sure what there was to panic about, since most of the planet below had already been wiped out.
He honestly wasn’t sure what could be worse, but he had a hunch he was about to find out.
Then one of the doors on one side of the room slid back and a dozen more people strode into the room.
They were far from alien.
In fact, one woman looked directly at him and then nodded and smiled as if she knew him.
He managed to catch his breath.
He was on an alien ship, after the world had ended, and he was having a reaction to some woman who walked into the room.
A real reaction.
A lust reaction.
All of the new arrivals looked as human as he was, only they were all clearly more rested and clean.
The woman wore a white blouse with the sleeves rolled up, jeans, and tennis shoes. She had really short, black hair and skin that contrasted with the black hair. She didn’t seem to be any older than he was.
And she clearly worked out.
Around Benny the room quieted and calmed some as everyone turned to watch the new arrivals.
The woman with the short black hair stood to one side of the stage, clearly concerned as she looked around at everyone. One man jumped up on a low stage. You could have heard the old pin drop in that room, even on the carpeted floor.
The guy looked totally human. He had on a dress shirt, business slacks, and dress shoes. He could have been one of the Wall Street clones on a day off for all Benny could tell.
“Fine people of the great city of New York,” he said in perfect Engli
sh. “Very sorry to startle you like this from your sleep. What caused the disaster you have been living through was a pulsar blast of intense electromagnetic radiation. The next, and final wave off the pulsar will be hitting Earth in just under four hours. We have almost a thousand ships circling the planet pulling all who survived the first pulsar wave to safety.”
“Pulsar?” someone shouted.
“Yes, a very powerful electromagnetic wave from a nearby star is what hit your planet ten days ago. All of you survived because you were protected in some fashion, either underground or behind thick steel walls.”
Benny nodded, as did others around him. As he figured, the vault had saved him.
“How come you couldn’t get here before the first wave?” one guy shouted.
“And who are you, anyway?” someone else shouted.
The man looked pained and Benny could see a deep sadness in his eyes. He clearly felt the loss of life as much as anyone.
“Let’s just say I’m as human as the rest of you,” the man said, “and from a very distant place. We were not able to save anyone or block the first pulsar wave, but we can save all of you who survived and let the second and final wave pass with no more deaths. Then you will all be put back on Earth to rebuild.”
“What happens if we don’t want to go back to that graveyard?” one woman shouted.
A lot of people shouted “Yeah, what happens?”
Again the man smiled and said, “We’ll come to that problem when the time comes. But for now, there is food and drink against the far wall and cots to take naps. There are showers for those of you who would like one, and fresh changes of clothes. This entire process will take about ten hours. Please relax and I will be back to talk with you as soon as I can. I have other rooms of survivors I must address.”
“One last question,” the professor beside me shouted at the man. “How many survived the first wave?”
“Worldwide,” the man said, smiling, “almost two million. And we’ll get them all, I promise.”
High Edge: A Seeders Universe Novel Page 5
