Damnation

by Ken Barrett

  “Well, praying to an old god won’t get the lights back on,” Liam replied. “But I can go up to the Command Center and see if I can get our backup power supply online.”

  *****

  Night had come, and Liam sat on the dining hall floor beside Denise, while his sister snuggled with Keith nearby. Across the dining hall, he saw that Tiger, with a fresh cast on his left forearm, was with Alice and her family.

  “It’s good to have the lights back on,” Keith said as he lightly stroked Rose’s hair.

  Rose frowned slightly. “We need to do something about the air though; it’s getting stale.”

  “Maybe you’re just smelling me,” Keith remarked.

  His sister giggled. “No, I missed your scent. This is something different; I don’t think the ventilation system is working.”

  “Yeah, you’re right Sis,” Liam said. “It’s not a matter of just turning it back on though. The reserve power supply runs on banks of lithium batteries, which is really old technology that can’t hold a charge for long, and they’re not too powerful even when they’re new.”

  “Why did they use old fashion batteries?” Rose asked.

  “Most of these people don’t trust anything new,” Denise whispered. “It has something to do with the Stickman thing they talk about sometimes.”

  “Yeah, what’s that about?” Liam asked.

  “I don’t know much about it,” she answered. “A lot of the people here are from the mountain tribes that sprung up after the fall of the old USA. They blamed the end of civilization on technology, so they gave it all up and began living simple lives. Most became farmers that lived like people did a long time ago, without electricity or anything modern.”

  “But what’s a Stickman?” Rose asked.

  “I’m not sure, because they don’t say much about it to strangers, but the picture they draw is of a man inside a circle with his arms and legs spread out. I’ve heard that it’s supposed to symbolize mankind living as part of nature, rather than separate from it.”

  Liam sighed. “Well, Stickman or not, the air will eventually go bad. Reality will smack you regardless of what you believe.”

  “And it’s getting hot in here too,” Denise added.

  “The human body generates a lot of heat, and with everyone jammed together, it’ll get unpleasant pretty fast.”

  “What can we do?” she asked.

  “We need to get the ventilation system running again, but that takes a lot of electrical current, and I don’t think the batteries can handle it for long.” He sighed. “And then there’re the outside vents themselves; if they’re clogged with debris, running the fans won’t help much.”

  “Well, at least the earthquakes have ended,” Keith said. “Maybe we can spread people out by moving back to the upper floors.”

  “It’s nighttime, that’s why the quakes have stopped,” Liam stated.

  “Why does that matter?” Keith asked.

  “It’s after sundown, so the sun is on the other side of the planet. The flare could still be happening and we wouldn’t know it,” he answered. “For now, all we can do is wait and see what the morning brings.”

  *****

  Someone touched Liam’s shoulder as he waited in the breakfast line.

  “Liam and Rose,” Commander Davis said. “I’m glad I found you.”

  The floor shuddered, and the people around them gasped and held on. The quake passed quickly though, and the line began to move again. “Yes sir, what can we do for you?” Liam responded.

  “We’re running low on food, so I want you and Rose to raid the cafeterias on levels six and nine for supplies.”

  “Why are you sendin’ them up?” Patrick asked. His family and Tiger were behind them in line. “We all just got down here yesterday; send someone fresh.”

  “Rose and I know the way, and we’re good at finding things in the dark,” Liam replied.

  Commander Davis nodded vaguely. “Yes, that’s so.” Of course, the man in charge of their shelter knew they were androids, and therefore well equipped to carry heavy loads and find their way through the dark.

  “Aye, I suppose that’s so,” Kelly responded. “Still, shouldn’t some of us go with ‘em?”

  “We’ll be fine,” Rose responded. “We were going to go down to level thirteen and look for Tiger’s parents, Dale and Elaine Cho. So, Commander Davis, maybe you could send someone to search for them while we’re gone?”

  The older man shifted his feet restlessly and frowned, then glanced at Patrick and his family. “Yes, I suppose I could do that,” he replied quickly, then walked away.

  “What the feck was that about?” Patrick asked.

  “The commander doesn’t like us,” Liam responded. “But he agreed to look for Tiger’s parents, so at least we got that from him.”

  *****

  The ramp abruptly shifted sideways beneath their feet, and the structure popped and groaned around them while a shower of fine dust fell from the already fractured ceiling. “Do you think this place can be repaired?” Rose asked.

  “Pretty much anything can be fixed, it’s just a matter of whether the effort is worth it,” Liam replied as they continued up the ramp to level nine. “I don’t think the world outside will be too accommodating for a long time after the solar flare dies out, so, restoring this place is something we’ll just have to do.”

  The shaking eased just as they left the ramp and walked toward the deserted cafeteria. A few overhead lights flickered erratically; the area was otherwise clothed in darkness. “Is anyone here?” Liam called, and from somewhere either within the cafeteria kitchen or possibly among the maze of halls and apartments, he heard movement.

  Rose glanced at him, then walked across the rubble-strewn expanse toward the abandoned food line. “Hello?” she called. “Is someone there? Do you need help?”

  A young girl with dusty brown hair wearing a ragged dress that hung to her knees over a pair of pants cautiously ventured out from behind the counters. She was about ten years old and covered with cuts, scrapes, and dirt. “My brother Bobby needs help,” she said quietly. “It’s too dark; he stopped talking to me, and now I can’t find him.”

  Rose slowly moved forward, then knelt before the child. “It’s ok, take us to where you last saw him.”

  The girl led them into a lightless hallway and past the open doors of abandoned apartments. They soon found Bobby laying on the floor, pinned beneath a large rock. The boy was dead and had been so for a while. Liam gently lifted the massive boulder off his tiny body and set it aside. “I’m sorry, but your brother is gone,” he whispered.

  The girl’s weeping echoed through the hall.

  The floor was crowded with boulders that hid a number of crushed parents and their children. The sight of the tragedy hurt Liam’s heart. “What happened here?”

  “We were all ok ‘til late yesterday.” The girl sniffed, stifling a sob. “I was still eating lunch; Mama always says I eat too slow, and everybody else was already going back to their rooms.” She slowly collapsed to her knees. “It’s my fault ‘cause I was eating so slow; I shoulda been with them.” She put her hands over her dirty face. “The shaking came and the lights went out, and I heard a big crash, but the floor was moving so much that I couldn’t walk. When it ended, I went back and found Bobby… he could hardly breathe. I tried to pick up the rock but it was too big for me. We talked a little, but after a while he got quiet, and I was so scared.”

  “You did all you could,” Rose said gently, then pulled the little girl close and hugged her. “What’s your name sweetie?”

  “Jackie,” the child answered.

  “Ok Jackie, do you know who these other people are?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that’s my Mama and Daddy, and my sisters, Sarah and Joan; and over there’s Dale and Elaine, they were helping us.”

  Liam began removing the rocks that had buried an Asian couple, then sighed and lowered his head. “I think we’ve found Tiger’s parents.�
��

  “Oh, hell,” his sister said, and it seemed as if all the life and energy left her with those words.

  “Rose, would you take Jackie down to level twelve and get her cleaned up and taken care of?” Liam asked. “I’ll start moving these others up to level one, and we’ll find a way to take care of them later.”

  *****

  Liam made his final trip late in the day, depositing yet another heavy crate of food at the base of the level twelve ramp. He had searched every floor of the shelter and hadn’t found any more survivors. Bodies of the deceased were plentiful though; he had carried many of them up to level one, placing them near the inner vestibule door to wait for an outside burial after the flare ended.

  The influx of food rations had brightened spirits, and among those that helped him carry parcels to the kitchen, he frequently heard the phrase, at least we won’t starve. He tried to smile along with them, but the task of taking so many lifeless bodies to the upper floor had stolen any possibility of joy.

  “Are you ok Big Brother?” his sister asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s been a rough day. How’s Tiger?”

  “Not in a good way, but he’s with Alice and her family. He’s hurting, but he’ll be fine eventually.”

  “Well, it isn’t as if any of us have a choice.” He sighed. “All we can do is make the best of what life hands us.”

  “You’re low on power,” Rose said. “Go get something to eat; you’ll feel better once you’re restored.”

  He walked across the room, took a plate, and got into the cafeteria line. “Thanks for bringing all that stuff down for us,” a tall and thin blonde woman said from behind him.

  “Well, we need to eat,” he replied.

  “I don’t see how you could do all that on your own.”

  “It was just a matter of pacing myself. I have good eyesight and can find my way in the dark, that’s why the commander sent me up there.”

  “It doesn’t look like you even broke a sweat.”

  “That’s just the lighting in here, I’m actually a mess.” The woman was asking too many questions. He and his sister didn’t perspire because under normal circumstances there was no need to affect that level of false humanity. If scrutinized though, his true nature might be discovered. He wasn’t sure what would happen if that occurred, but considering the abhorrence many had of technology, he wasn’t interested in finding out. After his plate was full, he smiled and said, “Well, enjoy your meal.”

  He had hoped to escape, but the woman followed him out into the maze of tables. When it was apparent that she wanted to eat with him, he picked a spot well away from his sister and their friends.

  “You’re not mountain folk, are you?” she asked as they sat down.

  “No,” he answered reluctantly.

  The woman narrowed her eyes and stared. “Well, where are you from then?”

  “Flatiron City originally.”

  “So, you’re not a Socialist then?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “But the Socialist Army blew up Flatiron; that’s what I heard anyway.”

  “Yeah, they did.” He saw no way to avoid talking about his past. “A few of us were captured and forced to walk all the way down to Pike City.”

  “And they made you work for them?”

  “Yeah, they did.”

  “What work did you do?”

  Crap. What could he say? Lies breed and multiply and can become tangled. He sighed; it was probably better to just tell the truth and not have to worry about maintaining a lie. “I worked in the technology center.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Technology was the ruination of our world. It destroyed the environment, and brought wars and starvation.”

  He glanced around the noisy cafeteria, hoping not to be overheard. “Maybe, but engineering built this shelter and is keeping us safe right now.”

  “Yeah, but what if your technology made the fires happen?”

  “That’s not possible.” He stabbed a piece of formed meat on his plate that had come from a can. It was a delicacy called ‘Spam’ that he enjoyed.

  “Some say we’re being punished for our arrogance. Shaping the world to our liking with no thought of the other creatures we share it with was wrong,” the woman said. “We rose above our station, and are being put back in our proper place.”

  He took another bite of Spam. There was no way to argue with an irrational belief, so he simply nodded as he chewed and said nothing.

  “You was workin’ for the Socialists at their tech center, you say?” A weatherworn man had listened to their conversation and sat down next to the woman. Others were watching, and a crowd was beginning to gather.

  “They forced me to do it,” Liam replied. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “What did you make for ‘em?” the older man asked.

  “I worked on the spaceships they were building in orbit.”

  “Spaceships,” another woman said from within the crowd. “We heard about them. So, you helped the Socialists get away?”

  “Well, not exactly,” he answered. “I programmed their computers.”

  “But they got away,” the woman insisted.

  “They did go somewhere, just not where they thought they were going.”

  “What do you mean?” the older man asked.

  “I sent them to a place that’s so far away that they’ll never find their way back.”

  The older man frowned. “You shoulda just killed ‘em all. I dunno, maybe send them into the sun to burn.”

  He thought for a moment, considering various ways to respond. “The destruction of a soul is a terrible thing that I want no part of. By killing them, I’d eliminate their children and their children’s children, and all of the good that might have come from them. If one apple is bad, you don’t chop down the tree.”

  The small crowd murmured while considering his argument.

  Liam sighed. “The Socialist Army killed my family and most of my friends, I hate what they did, but can’t bring myself to murder their progeny because of it.”

  *****

  Night had come and the earthquakes had again subsided. Liam and Rose sat with Denise and Keith in a darkened corridor far from the cafeteria, where too many had become curious about them.

  “You gotta understand,” Keith said. “Everybody that was in Pike City was their enemy.”

  “Yeah,” Liam responded. “I was trying to keep a low profile, but got snagged in the food line.”

  “Yeah. That was Nadine, she’s a smart one,” Keith remarked. “She was an Artillery Commander in the Tribal Army. Not much gets past her.”

  “Will anything come of it?” Liam asked.

  The sound of footsteps echoed from further down the hallway. “Hi Roxi,” Rose said.

  “It’s weird how you guys can see in the dark,” Keith muttered.

  “It comes in handy,” Rose replied.

  “I heard that you had an interesting conversation in the cafeteria,” Roxi said while easing to the floor across the narrow hall.

  “Yeah, it made me think of our old days in Flatiron City,” Liam replied. Others might be listening, and he wanted to avoid talking about their past. “Whatever happened to your husband Sam? When the army attacked us, he was heading to Nederland Village with a bunch of kids, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Roxi replied. “But Nederland was destroyed by the Socialists at about the same time that Flatiron was, and I don’t know what happened to him. For a long time, I waited for him to show up here, but weeks turned into months and months to years.” She sighed. “Now, I just hope that it was quick when the end came for him.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Rose slipped across the hall to hold Roxi’s hand. “Sam was a good man.”

  “Best not to dwell on such memories,” the older woman said. “Sorrow is best kept locked away deep inside.”

  Chapter 4: Recovery

  Liam’s internal clock alerted him that the sun had risen. His extern
al senses shifted from the background to the forefront, and sight, hearing, and most importantly touch returned. He lay quietly in the darkness with his back pressed to the cold granite floor. Something had changed; he detected no vibration. “Rose,” he whispered.

  “I know.” In the lightless corridor, she gently pulled away from her boyfriend’s embrace and sat up. “Has the solar flare finally ended?”

  “It’s too early to know for sure, but I think if we get through the next few days without tremors, then we’re probably in the clear.” Beside him, Denise turned in her sleep, mumbled incoherently, then began to breathe deeply again.

  Rose stared at her sleeping friend. “What do you think their dreams are like?”

  He shrugged. “We’ll never know; dreams are the only experience that truly belongs to them. Within those visions, there is no pretense, what they see is a reflection of themselves and nothing more. They are the most private and intimate aspect of their personas.”

  “What’s goin’ on?” Keith sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  “There are no earthquakes this morning,” Rose answered.

  “So?” Keith shifted his body backward and leaned against the hallway wall. “Maybe the sun’s just sleepin’ in.”

  She chuckled. “It came up a few minutes ago.”

  Keith squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his face. “Huh? It’s too early to think; just say what you mean.”

  “I mean the solar flare may have finally played out,” Rose said. “The storm might have ended.”

  “Really?” Keith sat up abruptly. “Are you sure?”

  “No, not yet,” Liam answered. “Give it a few days, and I’ll be more comfortable. I do think we’re past the worst of it though; spotty activity will probably continue for a while and will slowly decrease.”

  He leaned forward. “You see, normal sunspot activity follows an eleven-year cycle, but what we’ve been dealing with is something much more severe than that. Fossil records show periods where solar activity increased dramatically, causing extinction events every fifty million years or so. The last was sixty-five million years ago, so we were overdue.”