by Tom Abrahams
“So, it is Karen.”
“No. I just—I—it’s—”
Rick squared his shoulders and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “This is it, then.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Rick. I’m staying with Jackie until her husband comes back or she decides to leave. We’ll catch up with you at the compound near Austin.”
Rick nodded. He looked away from Nikki, back to the blackened remains of the houses, and closed his eyes. He drew in a breath and inhaled deeply through his nose. The dank air didn’t hold his interest anymore.
He’d always known he lacked self-awareness. That was part of his problem. He hadn’t, however, counted on feeling so stung by Nikki’s decision. He’d just met her. She was hard to read. Half the time he thought she was into him and the other half she’d just as soon drop-kick him and choke him unconscious with her delectable thighs.
With his eyes still closed, he exhaled. “It’s fine, Nikki,” he said. “Probably better for both of us.”
He opened his eyes to see Nikki standing in front of him. She looked up at him with glossy eyes. She stepped into him and slid her hands around his waist. Fingers spread, she gripped his back and pulled her head into his chest.
Worried she’d sense him trembling, Rick steadied himself and put his arms around her. He put a hand on the back of her head, the dampness of her hair soaking into his cold fingers.
“We’ll see each other again,” she said, her voice muffled in the fabric of his shirt. “If I’m right, it’ll be sooner than you think.”
Rick held her, reluctant to let go. Her hair was fragrant, her embrace comforting. It felt natural, as if they’d held each other countless times. She rubbed his back, which he took as a signal to release his hold, and he stepped back. His hands lingered on her shoulders.
“Are you crying?” Rick asked, thumbing a tear from the corner of her eye.
She laughed through the tears. “I’m not as tough as I look.”
“I figured you for tougher.”
She teasingly slapped her palm on his chest and held it there, leaning in to kiss him on his cheek. “You gotta go,” she said. “Everybody’s eating. It might be good if you were there.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Rick said. “You go ahead.”
Nikki patted his chest and walked back to the house. Rick watched her for a moment and looked up toward the setting sun. It was a smudge of light behind a thin patch of pink-hued clouds drifting across the sky.
He lifted his hand to his cheek, touching the spot where Nikki had kissed him. He knew she was wrong. This was more than a glitch. He prayed, however, thinking about the comfort of her embrace and the softness of her kiss, that he was the one who was wrong.
CHAPTER 17
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2020, 5:06 PM MST
DENVER, COLORADO
A sharp turn awoke Vihaan Chandra from his dream. His head banged against the bus window and he snapped open his eyes, disoriented at first. An instant later, his shoulders dropped when he realized where he was and remembered what had happened. He squeezed his eyes shut and adjusted his hips in the seat. He tried to return to the final, fading image of his dream: a warm, sandy beach, the tendrils of the tide washing over his sinking toes. The sun beat down on his neck, stinging the slight burn from a day spent playing in the surf.
Treadgold nudged Chandra, interrupting the brief return to happier times. “Hey, we’re almost there.”
Chandra sat up and looked out the window. In the distance, he saw the familiar white peaks of the Jeppesen Terminal of Denver International Airport. The bus swung off E-470 and slowed onto Peña Boulevard.
“The airport?” he asked his boss and took his attention from the window.
Treadgold was leaning forward in his seat, one leg in the aisle. He nodded. “Yep,” he said. “You seem surprised.”
“I am. You never told me where we were headed.”
Treadgold smirked. “You’ve got a PhD. I would have thought your powers of deductive reasoning might have figured it out.”
Chandra rolled his eyes. “They didn’t. Are there planes still working?”
The bus decelerated as it neared the main terminal building. That expansive structure sat in the middle of fifty-two square miles in northeast Denver and was the largest airport property in the country. Its runway was the longest public runway in the nation at sixteen thousand feet. The main terminal building was capped with white, Teflon-coated woven fiberglass designed to mimic a Native American encampment sitting on a bluff. It was iconic. It was also overkill, Chandra had long thought. It was too much for the Mile High City. Even if the former airport, Stapleton, was too small and too noisy for nearby neighborhoods, the newer DIA was like cracking a nut with a sledgehammer. Chandra looked back at Treadgold, awaiting an answer about their next destination.
Treadgold sat back in his seat, tapping his foot in the aisle, and whispered, “We’re not flying anywhere.”
Chandra wasn’t sure he’d heard his boss correctly. “What was that?”
Treadgold fidgeted in his seat, unable to contain a smile. “We’re not flying anywhere.”
“Is this a way station, then?” Chandra asked. “Are we picking up more passengers?”
“This isn’t a way station,” said Treadgold. “This is our final stop. This is where we’re staying.”
“The airport?”
Treadgold’s eyebrows arched and his lips snaked into a smile that sent chills up Chandra’s spine. The boss raked his teeth across his top lip and stopped tapping his foot.
“It’s much more than an airport, Vihaan,” he said. “All of those rumors, the ones rampant on the Internet and fueled by BuzzFeed years ago? They’re all true.”
“Wait.” Chandra shook his head. “What rumors? What are you talking about?”
“You really are a hermit,” said Treadgold. “You’ll learn soon enough. No point in spoiling the surprise.”
Treadgold seemed gleeful at the prospect of rebuilding society within the confines of an airport.
In the distance, out of his window, Chandra could see the cobalt-blue airport mascot: a four-and-a-half-ton, thirty-two-foot-high sculpture of a horse called Blue Mustang. Locals had come to call it Blucifer because of its demonic-looking red eyes. He looked past the statue to the rows of unmarked buildings beyond it.
Rumors? BuzzFeed? What is he talking about?
The bus lurched to a stop and hissed. They were curbside at Departing Flights. Chandra couldn’t see any activity beyond the entrance doors. His attention turned to Van Cleaf at the front of the bus. She tugged on her folded uniform sleeves, trying to lessen the creases, and keyed the microphone.
“Okay,” she said, her breath heavy. “If I could have your attention, please. We have arrived at our destination. We need everyone to exit in an orderly fashion. Wait at the curb for everyone to exit the bus. Then we will move, as a group, inside the terminal.”
Hands shot up across the bus. Whispers became discontented grumbling.
Van Cleaf huffed. “I don’t have time to answer questions right now. Everything will become evident as we move through the process.”
Chandra elbowed his boss. “Answer one question for me,” he whispered.
“What?”
“How long has this been in the works?”
“The Descent Protocol?”
“Yes. How long?”
Treadgold sighed and chewed on the inside of his cheek. “To be honest, I don’t really know. All I can say is that it’s not something they thought up in response to the CME two days ago.”
The bus swayed and Chandra looked toward Van Cleaf. She was guiding passengers off the bus one row at a time. She pointed at each person as he or she passed, counting silently. One by one, people shuffled along the narrow aisle and stepped down from the bus onto the wide sidewalk at the terminal’s entrance.
Treadgold stepped into the aisle when it was his turn and Chandra followed. He braced himself with his hands on th
e seat backs as he moved one foot at a time. The woman behind him kept bumping him with her bag. She seemed anxious to get off the bus and begin the rest of her life in relative captivity. Finally, he reached the front of the bus, noticed Van Cleaf mouth the number forty-nine, stepped down, and exited the bus.
A gust of wind hit the side of Chandra’s face as he crossed the short distance to the crowd gathering near the doors. He followed Treadgold to the far-right side of the gathering and tucked his hands into his pockets. It was colder here than in Boulder. The pinkish sky had given way to the sharper colors of sunset, and clouds moved in thick patches, accelerating the approaching night.
Chandra huddled with the others, noticing the deep creases in their brows and their pursed lips. Eyes darted from one to the next, searching for explanations or perhaps comfort. Chandra sensed the fear, the uncertainty of what lay ahead.
Treadgold, however, lacked the same consternation. He was relaxed, confident. He ran a hand through his hair, pulling up the collar on the light jacket he wore. He caught Chandra looking at him and winked.
Chandra stepped to his side and spoke under his breath. “You’ve been here, haven’t you?” he asked his boss.
Treadgold’s eyes flashed for an instant, a tell that Chandra had hit on something. Then the flash disappeared and Treadgold shook his head. “No,” he said. “First time. Like everybody else.”
Chandra knew Treadgold was lying. What was more, he knew Treadgold knew he knew.
Van Cleaf stepped from the bus and marched to the crowd. Her eyes danced across the crowd, surveying the offloaded passengers. Another bus pulled to the curb, its brakes squealing and hissing as it came to a stop. The diesel engine idled loudly and Van Cleaf cleared her throat. She tucked her clipboard underneath her arm and cupped her hands around her mouth.
“Attention, please!” she called. “I need everyone in a line. We need to be in numerical order. Let’s start right here in front of me with number one.”
The crowd grumbled but began assembling in a line. It reminded Chandra of queuing up for a Southwest Airlines flight. Everybody was in a hurry to go nowhere, and they were insistent their numeric positions be respected.
Behind Chandra, a uniformed woman dressed the same as Van Cleaf peeked her head out of the bus ahead of the passengers stepping from the cabin one at a time. They carried with them the same hunched shoulders, self-conscious shuffle, and wide-eyed confusion he’d seen from his own traveling party. A particularly sad-looking man acknowledged Chandra with a weak nod, extending his chin slightly. He was unshaven and gray. His eyes were sunken above bruised-looking swollen semicircular pillows. He was thin and his jacket hung on him as if he’d borrowed it from a much larger person. Chandra smiled at the man, hoping to offer some comfort.
“Forty-nine?” snapped an irritated voice. “Forty-nine. We need forty-nine up here, please.”
“Vihaan,” called Treadgold, “that’s you.”
Chandra spun to see his boss waving him into the line. Others sneered their disapproval of his inattention and he bowed his head, hurrying into his spot between Treadgold and a young bespectacled man tagged number fifty.
“Sorry about that,” Chandra muttered to fifty. “Got distracted.”
“No worries,” said the man in what Chandra interpreted as an Australian accent. “I’ve nowhere else to be.”
Chandra chuckled nervously at the young man. He was well-dressed, with spotless shoes and neatly pressed pants. He wore a trendy barn jacket over a collared shirt buttoned to the top. One hand was tucked under the strap of a leather backpack he had slung over his shoulder. He was clean-shaven and his hair was neatly cropped. He stood out among the burgeoning masses.
“Name’s Bert,” said the man, extending his hand. “Bert Martin.”
Chandra shook the man’s firm grip. “Vihaan Chandra.”
Bert’s eyes widened. “Chandra?” he asked with his brows arched. “Like the observatory?”
“Similar. Yes.”
“So, what got you the golden ticket?”
Chandra shrugged. “I’m an aeronomist. I study the Earth’s upper atmospheric weather conditions. I also specialize in space weather. You?”
“I’m a security system analyst,” said Bert. “I design and construct security systems like the—”
Treadgold stepped into the conversation, extending his hand. “I’m Chip Treadgold. I work with Vihaan here. Who did you say you were? I missed it.”
Bert glanced at Chandra. “Bert Martin. I’m a security sys—”
“Security,” Treadgold cut in. “I heard that part. Nice to meet you, Bert.”
“What’s your specialty, Chip?”
“I’m Dr. Chandra’s boss.”
“You’re a scientist too, then?”
Treadgold laughed and shook his head. “No, not me. I’m more of an administrator. A facilitator.”
“You carry yourself like a soldier,” said Bert. “I see it in your eyes, your gait. You’ve taken orders before.”
Treadgold’s eyes narrowed. His jaw clenched. “I’m not a soldier,” he said in a tone much less hospitable than the one with which he began the conversation. Chandra watched the two men eye each other, searching for a weakness in the other. Van Cleaf unwittingly ended the standoff.
“Let’s move,” she said, waving the line into the terminal. “One at a time, please. Once you enter, follow the uniformed guards’ directions to the escalators. Then descend one level.”
Van Cleaf repeated herself as new groups of people moved into the building. Chandra passed her, stepped into the terminal, and blinked to adjust his eyes to the change in light.
While darker than he remembered, Chandra’s eyes widened at the available light in the cavernous terminal building. There were spotlights illuminating the path. Standing under the portable lights were the uniformed guards Van Cleaf had mentioned. They stood at their posts, emotionlessly waving the traffic in the proper direction.
He was as struck by the lack of humanity as he was the lights above them. What was powering them? Nobody had electricity. He tapped Treadgold on the shoulder as he walked past the first guard.
“What’s powering the lights?”
Treadgold kept moving, but spoke to Chandra from the corner of his mouth, his voice hushed. “Generators,” he answered. “Big underground generators.”
“What’s fueling them?”
“Storage tanks. There’s three million gallons of diesel fuel stored there. It’s not far from the terminal.”
Chandra moped past the second guard and shielded his eyes from the bright light as he passed. The farther he walked into the terminal, the tighter his collar felt at his neck. This setup wasn’t something snapped together in a few days, let alone a few hours. “How long has this been in the works?” he asked his boss.
Treadgold glanced over one shoulder. He spoke from a clenched jaw, through his teeth. “I told you I don’t know. You already asked me about that.”
Chandra mimicked Treadgold’s secretive tone. “Not the protocol itself. This. The lights. The guards. The buses.”
Treadgold sidled up next to Chandra. His heavy brow shadowed his eyes, but Chandra could sense the seriousness of what Treadgold was about to tell him. They passed a third guard, who motioned them to the escalator. The men stepped onto the moving steel steps beside one another. They were descending into the darkness of a lower level.
“I should clarify,” he said. “And this is the last thing I’m going to say until we’ve checked in and much of this becomes clearer to you and the rest of the chosen few.”
Treadgold looked Chandra in the eyes, holding his gaze until the aeronomist dug a finger into his collar and tugged at it. When he finally spoke, Treadgold’s voice was soft and measured, every word enunciated with precision.
“When I said, the protocol was activated today, I misspoke,” he said. “It’s been active for decades. Today is when it was declassified for those invited to participate.”
&nb
sp; Chandra searched Treadgold’s face for more of an explanation. What was Treadgold really saying?
“C’mon, Vihaan,” he said, his voice lilting with disappointment and a touch of condescension. “Do you really need me to spell it out for you?”
Chandra looked at his feet, at the steps sliding mechanically downward against the reflective sidewall of the escalator, and then nodded to his boss. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out through his nose. A knowing smile crept across Treadgold’s face. The corners of his lips curled upward cartoonishly, as if he could barely contain his glee.
“The CMEs aren’t the reason we’re here, Vihaan. They’re the excuse.”
CHAPTER 18
MISSION ELAPSED TIME
73 DAYS, 16 HOURS, 09 MINUTES, 11 SECONDS
JASPER, ALBERTA, CANADA
Clayton sat with his back against a service counter labeled “Explore Rockies.” His legs were splayed out in front of him as though he were about to reach for his toes and stretch his hamstrings. Next to him were two survival packs and an empty can of Russian pearl barley porridge called Perlovka.
His limbs were loosening up, even though it was only a few degrees warmer inside the building. With thawing fingers, he keyed the transmit button. “This is Kilo Delta Five X-ray Mike X-ray calling Victor Alpha Six Charlie X-ray X-ray. Please reply. Over.”
Nothing.
Clayton held the Yaesu FT2DR radio to his mouth and repeated his call. There was static and then a voice.
“This is VA6CXX,” said Steve Kremer. “Victor Alpha Six Charlie X-ray X-ray. I hear you, KD5XMX.”
“Hi. Steve, this is Clayton. I’ve confirmed my location.”
“Hello again, Clayton. That’s good news. Your signal is very weak. I can barely hear you. Where are you?”
Clayton scanned the empty, dim space. His voice echoed against the gray tile floor. “The Columbia Icefield visitors’ center,” he said. “I crashed next to the Athabasca Glacier.”
