Impact

Andreas Christensen

Impact

Copyright © Andreas Christensen 2016

Smashwords edition

All rights reserved

Cover design: Jason Gurley, jasongurley.com

Editing: John Robin and Elan Samuel, Story Perfect Editing Services, storyperfectediting.com

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, organizations, events or locales is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Impact

In 2072 an object from outer space was discovered that threatened human civilization. A race against time began, and in 2080 the starship Exodus left Earth orbit, saving a small piece of humanity.

This is the story of those left behind.

Prologue

Kirstie

Kirstie Holden was glad to be back in Oxford. She had traveled the world in her younger years, and she had learned that the sweetness of the new and exciting would never surpass the feeling of belonging. Not in the long run. She smiled and patted her German shepherd fondly. The dog wasn’t really hers, but Shaggy didn’t care. As far as Shaggy was concerned, Kirstie was Dianne’s mother and that was all the dog needed. Unlike most German shepherds, he wasn’t overly protective and bonded easily to more than one human, something Kirstie appreciated.

She strolled along Addison Walk, watching the water lilies bobbing on the surface by the riverbank, almost dormant, like they tended to be as autumn became winter. The gravel under her feet stuck to her boots, and the crunching sound it made was loud in the quiet park. Very few had chosen to come out here, something that surprised her. She would have thought more people would come here to face what could very possibly be their last day. She took a deep breath, savoring the taste of fresh air. When she exhaled a thin mist formed from her breath. She pulled her scarf tighter around her neck.

Most people were probably sitting in front of their TVs, or peering at some gadget or another, getting the latest updates and projections about Devastator. It was a relief to know that the long wait would soon be over. When Dianne had taken Brian to the community shelter, Kirstie hugged them both tightly and told them everything would be all right. But Kirstie knew better. As one of the last remaining astronomers to leave Switzerland, before the gates of the ESA closed shut, she knew all too well what would come, even in the best possible scenario. Which happened to be the least likely. No, she wanted nothing more than for her daughter and grandson to keep their spirits up until it all ended. Of course, having to leave her outside must have been awful for them, but everyone knew that nobody past forty would be allowed into the shelter, unless they were military or considered a special asset. It was the same all over Europe. She might have been exempted back in Bern, had she pulled the scientist card, but all she wanted was to be home when the end came. She was content with her decision. The Parks would be the perfect spot to face what the day would bring. Besides, who would have walked Shaggy if she hadn’t been here? No old or middle-aged people in the shelter. No dogs. She patted him again.

“You should have been a military dog. Corporal Shaggy, how does that sound?” She chuckled, before adding, “But I guess you wouldn’t last a day in the army, you silly dog. Too lazy.” She looked up. It wouldn’t be long now.

“I guess that makes two of us. You know, my father was a navy man. Sailed the world, he did. That was never for me though. I was far too bookish.” They walked on. It wasn’t as if she was walking toward something. She was just where she wanted to be.

The Parks were officially known as the Oxford University Parks, although nobody called them that. They were Uni Parks, or The Parks, or sometimes they were the University Parks. She wondered how many people in this bustling city really knew much about its history, or how long this place had been a sanctuary of quiet in a city, whose population grew to a million by the mid 21st century. But while the city had become a major metropolitan area, The Parks remained the same.

A flash in the southern sky startled her. Here we go, she thought. Another flash, then another. She knew what happened at once. It was breaking up. Way up there, in the upper atmosphere, chunks of rock would be spreading out from their original trajectories, and some of the smaller pieces would explode and burn up. Those were the flashes. The larger pieces would continue their deadly plunge.

The astronomer in her was calculating possibilities and probabilities, even though she wanted nothing more than to have some peace and quiet in her final moments. The flashes were all to the south and east of here. She didn’t see anything else though—just the light from the explosions. The point of impact would be further to the south then. At least on this longitude. Somewhere in Southern Europe, perhaps, or even Africa. As for the rest of the world, there was no way to know for certain. The trajectory could move in a straight line following the same latitude all across the world, or it could move north or south. There was just no way of knowing after the thing broke up. The folks in Bern would have updated info, of course. But with most networks down, and not really feeling like it, she abandoned the reasoning. It didn’t matter anymore.

She kept walking. It had been years since she had been in The Parks. While working in Bern, she had taken vacations; usually short, to see Dianne and Brian...and Chris, while he was still alive. She still felt the sting of guilt for not having seen eye-to-eye with him. He had been a good husband to Dianne and a great father to Brian. There was just this wall between them, and she suspected she was at least partly to blame. She had always prioritized her work, especially these last few years, knowing what was coming.

He had said once, “Kirstie, when time is so short, it’s even more important to put family first,” and she knew he was right. It was just that in Bern, she was actually making a difference. Her work might save people’s lives. Not hers and not her family’s—for which she had nothing but regrets—but some people might actually live through this and whatever would come after, because of her work.

The Great Flu had taken Chris. It was such a blow to Dianne, and even harder for Brian. Over just three months in late ́’79, while the world fought amongst itself over the tickets off the planet, hundreds of thousands died from a pandemic that barely made headlines. And in two short weeks, in bleak November, a boy lost his father and a wife lost her husband. Kirstie had taken a week off to be with them, but by the time they buried him, she was back in Bern, working. She suspected Dianne had never truly forgiven her for leaving, although her daughter had always supported her decisions, even her decision to make her work first priority.

The ground trembled, and bits of gravel jumped around her shoes. She stopped in place. That had to be an impact. No way to know where though. No way to estimate how big. Being on an island, she expected tsunamis to be the biggest threat, direct hits in the UK being unlikely because of its small size. She patted Shaggy reassuringly before they began walking again. Nothing to do about any of it, she thought, but there was a chill in her bones that didn’t stem entirely from the cold weather.

She kept walking until she reached the Flower Bridge. It stood pristine, preserved in its original condition, having been closed to the public for decades, except once a year, when people from all over Oxfordshire would gather to commemorate the fallen from the Magdalen College attacks. Thankfully, Britain had been spared the worst attacks in the Great War on Terror. There had been nothing like Seattle on this side of the Atlantic.

Magdalen was the exception though, a wound that had permanently scarred the nation. The college itself had never been rebuilt—it would be sacrilegious, most believed. So every year, in an act of quiet defiance, the people of Oxfordshire would come here and walk silently across the bridge in a line that went for hours, every one carrying flowers in every color of the rainbow. The flowers would be tossed into the Cherwell, filling the river with color. Kirstie had only attended a few times, but it had been a majestic experience, a testimony to the strength of people in the face of evil.

There was a deep rumble, followed by loud cracks and booms from afar. She turned halfway toward the sound before stopping herself. She would face this her way. She took a step toward the bridge.

“Come on Shaggy,” she said quietly, comforting the dog. Shaggy looked at her with those sad eyes, as if asking what was happening. The rumble got louder, and Kirstie set her jaw and took another step, then another. Shaggy hesitated before letting her lead on toward the bridge. Kirstie hunched under the noise and walked briskly until she reached the middle of the bridge. She followed the river with her eyes, and she saw the water was stirring.

The rumble grew to an overwhelming volume, and just as she began to lift her arms to cover her ears, she saw it. Just above the tree line, a wall rose quickly, shadowing her from the afternoon sunlight. She had imagined it would be blue, since the ocean usually looks blue, but it was a mix of grey and brown, dark colors that spelled doom. And so it is, she thought as the wall closed in on her. As Shaggy jerked loose and ran, all she could think of was Dianne and Brian-those shelters better be watertight.

The sea swept her along, as it swallowed her world.

COUNTDOWN

When the world learned of Devastator, most people shrugged and continued whatever they were doing, believing the government would find a solution. That solution, however, turned out to be sending a small number of people off to another world, leaving the rest of us to die. But the strangest thing was, people still kept coming in to work, obeying the rules, paying their taxes. Even though those last few years before Impact saw rebellions and civil war, most people simply went about their daily business, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

J.F. Salinger, The Final Days, 2104

Buchanan Publ. Library Press

1.

Jenny

Tom´s Diner wasn´t exactly the place to bring a date, or to take your family out for dinner. It sat right next to the road, where trucks would rumble by, sometimes stopping to grab a coffee or something to eat, but most preferring to continue on to the next small town. The exterior looked run down, and the paint, which was once a bright yellow, was faded and flaking. Only a few dusty cars stood outside, which was how it usually was, and once inside, a visitor would notice the sand and dust, especially near the door, that threatened to bury the place. The only thing that kept Tom´s Diner running was that it was old enough to be debt-free, and it had a few steady patrons who would tip nicely. It was a relic of the past, and working there was a dead end with no prospects whatsoever.

Jenny Salinger picked up the greasy plate, and stacked it up top of the others. The tip wasn´t much, but it would do. She put it in her apron pocket, and lifted the stack of plates to take out to the kitchen. The only customer left today was a regular, a trucker who stopped by once a week. She tried not to look his way, although she would soon have to go over and ask if the food was to his satisfaction. He wasn´t all bad, and he always tipped well, but he had a way of making her uncomfortable. Sometimes he would touch her arm or accidentally brush up to her just a bit too close for comfort—never anything worse. But then he would ask how she was doing, if she was lonely, or maybe she wanted to hang out after work. And those piercing eyes would scan her up and down, which was the worst. So she tried to avoid him as much as possible.

She looked out the window at what had once been a playground. At 26, she was too young to remember, but she had heard from Tommy, who had taken over the diner ten years ago when his father died, that the place used to be packed with people, families. The kids would swarm the playground back then, and if the timing was right they could pick oranges straight from the trees. She imagined that would be nice. But desert sand had overtaken the playground, and the orange trees were all dead. Last winter had been the final nail in the coffin. As if the summer drought that fueled the ever-increasing expansion of the desert hadn´t been enough. That winter had killed off a lot of people, and Jenny wondered if next winter would be as bad. She shook her head. They were paying a high price for the years of fossil fuels that their grandparents had enjoyed.

Not that it mattered; with Devastator on its way, they didn´t have much time left anyhow.

“Slow day, for sure,” Tommy said as she entered the kitchen and put the plates down in front of the dishwasher.

“Maybe someone will stop by later,” she said. It wasn´t likely, but it was possible.

She walked over to the old coffee maker and poured herself a cup. She sipped it and wrinkled her nose. Not only had it been standing too long, but it was the fake version—real coffee mixed with artificial flavoring. Pure coffee was hard to come by these days. Wars and failed crops made it an expensive luxury, and not something to be brewed in a run down diner in the desert.

“Remember real coffee?” she said, and Tommy came over and grabbed a cup of his own.

“Yeah...” He sat down where he could see the entrance, in case a customer would enter.

“Look, Jenny,” he paused. “I can take over for you. I know you don´t like that guy, and I get it.”

Jenny smiled. Tommy, almost sixty now, was like the father she never had. She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.

“Thanks, but I´m all right.” Tommy looked up at her.

“Why haven´t you ever finished that novel of yours?” he said. Jenny smiled back at him.

“What´s the point? I dropped out of college because there´s no point, and I´ll never finish the novel because there´s no point. In two years we´re all dead anyway.”

“Yes, but wouldn´t it be nice to have created something? To have completed something?” he said.

“I just... You know, Tommy, I´ve tried. I tried studying too, but I just couldn´t. And I´ve tried sitting down to write, but it just slips away, if you know what I mean. I just can´t finish a sentence. Feels pointless, I guess.”

“But what you showed me, it was really good. I liked it. I´d love to read it before...well, you know.”

“It was just a partial first draft.”

“Nevertheless. I am a reader, you know. I´ve read hundreds of books.” He waved his hand, indicating everything around them.

“I would have gone to college too, done something completely different, if not for this place. I had to help my dad, you know. And then, all of a sudden, here I am, pushing sixty, with two years left to go. That´s life, I guess. At least you could go out knowing you wrote a book. That´s not too bad.”

Jenny placed her still half full cup on the counter, and shook her head.

“I don´t know, Tommy, I guess I would do it if I could. I still try, now and then. Who knows?”

She steeled herself and walked out to face the trucker.

2.

Mark

Mark Novak considered the sorry state of his cabin, wondering if he should have brought some materials with him to replace the rotten boards on the south wall. While he would have if he had planned to spend more time here, he knew this would be the last time he ever came, and there was no use in spending time fixing up the place now. With just two more years to go, he´d be spending more time in the underground facilities, getting everything ready for the big day. The cryo technique worked, same as it had since before they sent the starship off, but there were still so much left to do. He had discovered something about the cryo sequence that might lead to a groundbreaking discovery, and he wanted to complete as much of his research as possible before Impact, since who knew what would be left afterward.

The view was still breathtaking though. The sun was slowly descending and the lake gave off an orange glow that bathed the entire area in light—like something straight out of a fairy tale. The deep forest surrounding Lake Roanoke, Virginia, one of the last preserves in the East, had grown thicker these past twenty years, and while the rest of the state was part of the ever-expanding metropolis stretching from Florida to New England, this was a place to breathe, to rest.

“I brought beer,” his friend called from inside the cabin, “but your fridge is busted. It´s leaked all over the floor, and something stinks in there.”

“We´ll just have to drink it all then,” Mark said.

Trevor came out to stand beside him on the porch, and placed the six-pack on the railing. He took one and handed it to Mark, and grabbed another for himself. Neither of them said anything as they opened the cans. Mark sat down on a rickety chair.

“Are you on the list? For the shelter?” he said.

Trevor nodded. “For now. My guess is that the list will change several times before Impact.”

Mark nodded, and took a big gulp from his can.

“Any word from the senator?”

Trevor shook his head, and frowned. “Nothing. My guess is he realized Thatcher would break, as would any man. And the best way to make sure nobody knew where he was going was to not tell anyone.”

Mark stared out at the lake again. Trevor had told him that when Richard Thatcher, the mastermind who planned the infiltration of the Exodus Project, was caught, he had been interrogated and probably tortured. Although everything was set up so that each member of the resistance knew only a handful of others, Thatcher´s capture had lead to the arrest of hundreds of people. Mark was still surprised that neither he nor Trevor had been arrested.

“I wonder what´s going to happen?” he said, absently.

“You mean to us, or to the senator?” Trevor asked.

“On Aurora,” Mark said. Neither of them spoke for a moment, and Mark began thinking about the starship and the people on board. Most of them would be asleep by now, inside their cryo chambers, as they would for more than a century and a half, until they reached the 55 Cancri System. Aurora, the fifth planet out from the primary star, would become the new home for a small part of humanity, a backup plan in case everything on Earth died. Mark knew he might have a chance still, to survive what was coming. He was one of the lucky ones to be on the list for the president´s shelter, but it was no guarantee. The ones landing on Aurora might well be the last humans in history.

“Speaking of humans in space...” Trevor said, and cleared his throat.

“You probably don´t know this, but right now, as we speak, there are several efforts to send people off planet. The Chinese are doing it, and India, among others. Most are like the Exodus Project, and there´s no way to know if they have a chance or not. There is one project that I think we need to look into more closely. It began as a joint effort between some of the biggest companies in Norway and Russia, and it has attracted some of the best scientists from the ESA. The European Space Agency has been working with us, as well as on its own project. It seems they´ve had trouble funding their efforts, and nobody believes they’ll be able to launch anything before it´s too late. It’s every country for itself over there, and the EU is losing ground to national governments bent on spending their money on ground-based shelters rather than sending people onto space.

“But the Norwegian and Russian project has been working steadily for years now, and they are funneling huge amounts of money into it. Lately, the governments of both countries have jumped on board, providing even more funding and resources. They’re on a tight schedule, but my sources claim that these guys may be able to save several thousand people.”

“How is that even possible?” Mark said. “We’ve poured everything we´ve got into the Exodus Project, and we were only able to send sixteen hundred people”

“Yes, it is impressive,” Trevor said, knowingly. “But they aren’t sending up a starship. They are building a base on the Moon, and they will shuttle people and supplies up there as long as it is possible to get anything off the ground.”

Mark nodded. It made sense, if they planned to return to Earth. If they believed Earth could become inhabitable again. “So it´s a gamble. They are hoping they will be able to return to Earth before their supplies run out,” he said.

Trevor nodded.

“Seems like it,” he said, “It´s all or nothing, of course, but if they do succeed, thousands of people will be saved.”

“Well, I guess we´ll find out. If we live that long.” Trevor said, emptying his can and grabbing another.

Mark looked at his friend. He thought about telling Trevor about his scientific discovery, but decided not to for now. If they both survived Impact, they would have plenty of time to talk. And if he managed to find a way to put his findings into practical application, they would have more time than either of them could imagine.

3.

Jenny

It was a day like any other at Tom´s Diner: sand everywhere, and a few truckers coming in from time to time. Tommy was out in the kitchen, but there wasn´t much for him to do, so he sat playing some game on the battered old computer. Jenny had already swept the floors twice today, but the sand kept creeping in, through air vents and every crack. She hated the sand.

A car pulled over and parked just outside the window, and a blond man with close-cropped hair stepped out. He was wearing sunglasses and a worn denim shirt that hung loosely over his jeans. Jenny could see he was fit, and something in the way he walked told her this was a man who knew what he wanted. He entered the diner and took off his sunglasses, revealing icy blue eyes that scanned the interior quickly, efficiently. He closed the door behind him and found a booth in a corner, sat down and pulled out a worn and tattered paperback.

When she walked over to take his order she saw the faded cover of the book. Starship Troopers, by Heinlein. She smiled. She’d read it years ago, a real classic.

“Loved that book,” she said. He looked up, and a smile appeared on his face.

“It´s my third read-through,” he said, “so I sort of know the ending.”

“So, what can I get you? Some coffee, a bite to eat?”

“Some coffee, please.”

She went and got him a cup of coffee. She put a little mint next to the cup, and a bag of sugar. She didn´t have any brown sugar left, only the white refined stuff.

Jenny put the cup down in front of him, and stood for a moment before he said thank you. Then she walked over to the counter, and began folding napkins.

Ten minutes later, he signaled her, and she walked over to his table again.

“Can you fix me a refill?” he said

“Of course, sir.”

“And one more thing,” he paused, while his blue eyes seemed to pierce through her.

“You said you loved this book,” he said. She nodded affirmatively.

“So, I don´t have many others nearby. In the genre, I mean. And now that you know what I like, do you know where I can get something else I might like?”

“Well, I have several of the classics, but they´re all at home, of course...” she trailed off as he shook his head.

“No. I mean, thanks, but no. I guess I´ve read them all at one time or another. Several times, most of them.” He laughed.

“No, I was just wondering if you could recommend something that´s less than a hundred years old.” It was her time to laugh then; she knew the feeling.

“Well, the only one I know of would probably be my own half-finished draft. No, seriously though, I can´t think of anything at the top of my head, but if you come by tomorrow, I guess I could see if—”

“Seriously, you´re a writer?” he said. She felt her cheeks grow hot, and nodded once.

“So, what do you write?”

“Well, it´s not finished. I mean, what´s the point...”

The man got a serious look, and stared into his cup for a moment.

“Of course, of course. I get it. Books from this century were frowned upon, even before most of them were banned. But what you have written, what would you call it? Mystery, thriller, sci-fi?

“Well, I guess it´s a sci-fi of sorts. But I don´t know if it´s any good.”

“Listen,” the man said, “Why don´t you let me read what you´ve got?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, sure. I´m not a publisher or anything, nothing illegal, so I can´t help you with that. And like you said, with Devastator...but I´d really like if you´d let me read it.”

Jenny thought for a moment. What did she have to lose, really?

“Promise you won´t laugh, at least not to my face,” she said.

“Of course,” he said.

“Okay then. I´ll bring it tomorrow.”

Jenny took his cup and went to refill it. When she returned to his table, he was getting up. He´d already left what looked like a good tip.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot all about the coffee,” he said. She waved it off.

“Don´t worry about it. Have a safe trip,” she said. He smiled back at her.

“Don´t forget the book.”

4.

Joe

Joe Buchanan climbed up to one of the lookout points above the valley and stared at the bustling activity below. With two years to go before Impact, trucks were coming and going, old houses and cabins were being renovated, and new ones were being built. People were milling about, everyone looking busy. He got a glimpse of his wife, Cecilia, as she talked to one of the foremen. He smiled, knowing how lucky he was to have her here, with him. It had been a very close call and, if not for her determination and help from a few good friends, she would be dead or imprisoned.

Cecilia had come here two years ago, and Joe remembered how she had told him the story of her harrowing journey. Every detail was so vivid; it was as if he had been there himself. It all started with a phone call. Neither of them could remember the exact words, but Joe remembered calling to tell her not to expect him to come home. That was the day he and Deacon Frost left the government compound in Arizona, to vanish from the authorities, after his involvement with the insurgency had been revealed. Cecilia claimed she had heard something in his voice, something that disturbed her. Moments after hanging up she left the house, knowing that something was wrong. From a nearby alley, she watched the FBI enter their house in Columbus, Ohio. She immediately called Frank, a friend of Joe’s. Then she threw away the phone, and went to their agreed-upon meeting place. Half an hour later he came to pick her up, and not for the first time, Joe felt grateful for their friendship. Frank had paid a high price for his loyalty though, more than he deserved.

Frank was one of Joe’s oldest friends, and when Cecilia told him what was going on, he had insisted she come with him. Frank had no family, so leaving Ohio was an easy decision for him. Cecelia still wasn’t sure what was happening, but it was obvious that the government was targeting Joe. So they left the city, driving for a few hours until they reached an abandoned lodge where they could hide out for the night. They used Frank’s phone to try to contact Joe, to no avail. They drove west over the next couple days, into Michigan. The area was crawling with armed men, both government forces and rebels. They kept driving, not knowing which group would hold the checkpoint around the next bend. Joe could only imagine the tension. They often heard smatterings of gunfire and explosions in the distance. Sometimes they would see flashes over the treetops. When they reached a checkpoint, they tried to talk themselves through, or they would have to turn around and pick a new route. Near the border from Michigan into Minnesota they had to stop at a rebel-held checkpoint. A man who looked ready to burst from tension came over to speak to them. Cecilia had described him as rude, brash, and endlessly inquisitive, and it became harder and harder to keep all the lies straight. But they had to be careful. Two more rebel soldiers were there, backing up the man who questioned them.

Frank grew more and more nervous, and suddenly he pulled out the gun and shot the man talking to them. Cecilia had been too startled to react as Frank jumped out of the car. Frank managed to take down one of the others, but the third man got his rifle up. Frank shot him, too, but the rebel soldier managed to squeeze off a few rounds, and hit Frank in the thigh. Cecelia jumped out of the car and dragged Frank into the passenger seat. He was bleeding, badly. She thought the wound was arterial. Cecelia drove straight through the checkpoint, waiting for shots to be fired from behind. But the men had obviously been alone, since none came. Still, she kept driving away as fast as she could.

Frank looked pale, and even though Cecelia tied off the wound with a tourniquet, the blood kept seeping through. After a while Frank seemed to relax. Cecelia pulled over and checked his pulse. Nothing. She didn't know what to do, but she pulled him out and laid him behind a few trees, just a few steps away from the road. She took Frank’s phone and typed a quick message to Joe—the networks had been wonky, with skirmishes knocking out base stations—and kept driving until she found a quiet place, deep in the Minnesotan woods, where she parked. The fuel cells where all worn out and she had no way to recharge them. She checked the area around the car. The car was hidden from the main road, and a nearby stream had fresh water. When she checked the car’s storage compartments, there were only a couple of raisin and nut bars that Frank had grabbed on the way out of Columbus. She still had the gun, and a few more bullets, so she could protect herself.

Joe looked at Cecilia again from his lookout point. She was so confident, so competent. He had almost lost her. In fact, he had been prepared to lose her when he placed that final phone call. He recalled her story of how she had remained in the car for the next few days. Occasionally, she would send another message to Joe, but there was no reply. She would only leave the car for water and taking care of her personal business. She was always hungry, but she tried preserving the snack bars for as long as she could. A week after stopping, though, she ran out, and went looking for berries, leaves, or edible roots. Anything she could eat, even if it had no nutritional value. But mostly she stayed in the car, waiting for the days and nights to pass.

On the eleventh day after Joe’s first call, the battery on Frank’s phone was almost depleted. A loud bleep made her jump. She checked the phone. It was a short message from Deacon. Joe, having received one of the earlier messages, immediately sent Deacon Frost out to look for her. She had later told Joe that she worried that the message was fake. But after thinking about it for a few minutes, she decided to take a chance. Carefully, she typed in the GPS coordinates, and pressed send. After a few seconds the phone beeped again. The message was short: “Stay put, coming to get you. D”

The phone died less than hour later. Cecelia was back to waiting again, not knowing whether Deacon would come and get her, or if it would be the FBI. In any case, she had a feeling she might die before anyone reached her.

Two days later, Cecelia didn't even have the strength to go outside for water anymore. She was certain she was going to die. Joe shuddered at the memory of her calm realization that she was dying. She had dozed off, something that had been happening more often. She told Joe that in her dreams, she would be back at home with him, or off on vacation. She even dreamed of their honeymoon in Greece, once. But as soon as she woke up, the reality of her situation would kick in, and all she wanted was to go back to sleep.

The sound of a twig breaking startled her awake. She didn’t know if she was still dreaming, but soon enough someone pulled the door open. It was Deacon. He gave her water and food. He administered a shot, which gave her renewed strength.

“It’s vitamins and carbohydrates and a few things I'm not sure of,” he said, and grinned, “military secret.”

Deacon helped her into his car, which was parked right behind hers. As they drove off, he had told her they would go west, to where Joe was organizing his supporters.

“They even gave it a name,” he had said, “They call it Buchanan's refuge.”

Joe wrinkled his nose. He hated that name.

5.

Jenny

The next day Jenny brought her half-finished novel to the diner. The first half of the day went by, with customers coming and going, Jenny sweeping the floors, trying to keep the sand out, just like any other day. She kept her novel in a brown envelope in the kitchen, and when Tommy asked her what it was, she told him.

“Are you really going to show it to that guy?” he said.

“Yes, I know it's crazy, but who cares?” she said. Tommy shrugged, and went back to whatever he was doing. Jenny walked out the kitchen wondering what was taking the man so long.

She was beginning to think he wouldn't show up, when his car drove into the parking lot and stopped in the same spot as before. Jenny felt butterflies in her stomach. He entered, closing the door behind him, and walked over to the same table as the day before. Jenny hesitated for a second before walking over to him. She smiled when he looked up at her, and he smiled back.

“So, what can I get you?” she said.

“Just coffee please,” he answered. She went and got him a cup of coffee, and as she was walking away from him again, he spoke.

“You got the novel?”

Jenny spun around. “Yes,” she said, her cheeks growing hot. “Sure you want to read it?”

“Absolutely.”

“It’s not edited. And I haven’t even gotten to the ending yet. In fact, I’m not sure what the ending will be like.”

He grinned at her. “I like that. So what’s it about?”

Jenny thought for a second, before answering. It was a difficult thing, to describe the contents of an entire novel in a sentence or two.

“It’s about what happens when an asteroid hits Earth, and a thousand people have to survive in a shelter underground for decades. Then they have to rebuild. Some of them have never seen the sun, since they were born in the shelter. And then there is a conflict, since not everyone wants the same things, you might say. Who will survive, and at what cost?”

The man got a faraway look in his eye, but he didn't say anything. The silence was getting uncomfortable when he asked in a low voice, “Do you think it would be possible?”

“What?”

“To rebuild, after such a disaster?”

“Absolutely. But most people will not have a spot in an underground shelter. Most people would just die,” she said, knowing that she wasn’t just talking about the book. With Devastator on its way, they only had two years left, and that was it. She believed some people might survive, and that, in time, some people might be able to rebuild, but it wouldn't be her. She handed the thick envelope to the man, and her hands were shaking. Was it that somebody was going to read what she had written? Was she afraid that he would think it was crap? He took the envelope, and laid it on the table, next to his cup.

“I’ll read it. And then I’ll let you know what I think.”

She was about to go, when he cleared his throat. She turned.

“I guess I haven’t introduced myself.” He extended his hand she took it.

“Deacon Frost,” he said.

“Jenny Salinger.”

He held her grip for a moment before releasing her hand. She smiled briefly and turned away. As she walked into the kitchen, she was thrilled. He’d be her first reader, aside from Tommy, of course. And pretty soon, she would receive her first review.

6.

Kirstie

“So what you are saying is that one of the Indian target planets seems able to support life?” Kirstie said.

Carlos, her superior here in Bern, nodded eagerly. “Yes. I cannot believe we didn't see it before. I know there’s been a lot of secrecy, or rivalry, between the countries that are trying to send people to the stars, but we have been observing the skies for so long, discovering new planets every year,” he paused. “There are hundreds of habitable worlds out there, Kirstie. Most of them are being discovered as we speak, in these final years. I´m surprised though, that the Indians managed to keep their secret for so long. If only the Chinese had cooperated...they are truly headed for disaster.”

Kirstie thought of the Chinese generation ships. It would take them a long time to reach their destination, and the disappointment they would find, once they reached their target, would be a disaster. The scientists in Bern had known of it for a while, but there was no way to warn off the Chinese. Even now, the ships could have been diverted, aiming for one of the prospect planets the ESA believed to be habitable. But no, the Chinese would not have foreign interference with their plans; they placed no trust in ESA research whatsoever. She cursed inwardly. At least they expected the Indians to stand a chance—and a good chance at that. Kirstie sighed, and began summarizing.

“So we know the US effort, the Indians, and the Lunar project all stand a good chance of succeeding. The Chinese will not listen, they prefer to condemn their own people instead.” She made a face, before she continued.

“What about the smaller nations?” Kirstie asked.

“The Japanese and the Koreans don’t share much information with the rest of us, but if European intelligence is correct, they might make it as well. Who knows?” Carlos shrugged. “Also, the international corporate initiative might stand a chance, with support of the Australians and the European investors, although I have my doubts. There will be so few of them, and they are going so far away. There are significant weaknesses to their plan. First of all, it will be a miracle if the ship survives the journey, and an even greater miracle if the colonists manage to develop into a viable population.” Kirstie nodded again, knowing that this had always been deemed the weakest effort from the outset. The investors had strengthened the project, but it still had to be considered a desperate measure by some of Earth's richest people—to use whatever resources they had on something that might or might not save them.

“I wonder what happened to the space station initiative,” she said.

“Well, there will of course be the usual astronaut crew, but as we all know, surviving Impact is one thing; surviving the long winter that all probability tells us is coming is quite another.”

Kirstie's phone buzzed in her pocket. She picked it up and looked at it; it was Dianne. She considered for a moment, and then put the phone back in her pocket without answering. She hadn’t spoken to her daughter for a few months. She felt a pang of regret, as usual, but she just didn’t have time—her work was too important. They were trying to save lives. They were trying to make sense of massive amounts of data, and to aid the efforts that were being made to save humanity in any way possible. And not just the efforts that involved sending people off to the stars or, as in the case with the Russians and the Norwegians, to the Moon. They were also trying to aid the efforts by governments, agencies, organizations, and communities to build shelters, deep bunkers, and isolated strongholds, to try to ride out the storm here on Earth. With just two years left, they were so busy, she sometimes didn’t go back to her apartment, sleeping on the couch in the office. Dianne would have to make do.

Still, in the back of her head, Kirstie wondered if it was the right choice, knowing that in these last years before disaster struck, she would not get to see much, or speak much, to her daughter and grandson. But that was something she would have to live with.

7.

Jenny

A week had gone by, with Jenny looking out the window every day, waiting for Deacon to show up. By the seventh day, she resigned herself to the chance that he might never reappear. He might not have liked her novel, or forgotten about it, or maybe he moved on, never to return. So she busied herself with work, trying to stay on top of the mundane task of keeping the diner above water. People would come in, and she made them feel welcome so they would leave a decent tip on the way out, and hopefully return another time. She swept the floors, fighting that never-ending battle with the ever-present sand, dusting and cleaning, serving the patrons, always with a smile on her face. She was in the kitchen chatting to Tommy when the door slammed shut. She hadn’t noticed anyone coming in, so she walked out to see what she could do for whoever it was.

Deacon had already found his regular table, only this time he was not alone. A gentleman of sixty-something sat opposite him, checkered shirt loose above worn blue jeans. He took off his baseball cap and set it aside on the table, revealing close-cropped grey hair with a bald spot on top. He could have been Deacon’s father, but Jenny sensed that wasn’t the case. Deacon had this particular bearing, not stiff, but formal, somehow. His friendliness was not fake, but maybe it was forced. This man, on the other hand, seemed to be chatting about something funny, and leaned back in his seat, leisurely, his body language much more relaxed than the younger man’s. They turned toward her, and Jenny got a vague feeling that she had seen the older man before, but she couldn’t remember where. Maybe he was a movie star, but then again, what would a movie star be doing all the way out here?

“Good afternoon, gentlemen, how are you today?” she said, smiling.

The men smiled back. “Chicken burrito for me,” the older man said, “and a tuna sandwich for my friend here.

“Anything to drink?”

“I´ll have a cold beer. Deacon here is driving, so he can have a coke,” he said, his smile widening. “Oh, and do you have real coffee?”

Jenny nodded.

“Excellent, we´ll both have that.”

“How are you?” Deacon said. Jenny was taken by surprise by the sudden change of subject.

“I´m good,” she said. “You?”

“I´m fine. Can´t wait for some more of that coffee,” he said.

Jenny went and gave Tommy their orders, and soon after the men were digging into their lunch.

Once they were done, Deacon waved her over.

“How was the food?” she asked.

“Very good, very good,” the older man said. He looked at Deacon for a moment, before his eyes returned to her, fixing her with a steady gaze.

“So, you are Jenny,” he said. “Deacon has told me all about you.”

Jenny raised her brows.

“He told me you are a writer,” he continued, and Jenny cringed.

“It’s just a half-finished— “ she began, but the man waved her off.

“It’s a draft, sure, and you’ve got a lot of work to do before it’s anything near finished. But it’s good,” he said. “Deacon showed it to me.”

Jenny felt a flash of anger. How dare he? She felt her cheeks grow hot.

“He wasn’t supposed—” she began, but once again, the man waved her off and she fell silent.

“You’ve got something there, Jenny. Even though it’s obviously a first draft, something about it touched me,” he said. “It gave me a lot to think about.”

“It’s only fiction,” she said.

“Nevertheless, it brought me hope. Fiction can do that, and more. I guess that’s why most books have been banned for decades, it’s too powerful to control,” he said.

Jenny looked around, unconsciously. Speaking like that could be dangerous. The man didn´t seem to notice though, because he kept speaking.

“It is a valuable thing, this book, and I wonder...maybe we’re not recognizing the value of art, of the written word, in these troubled times. Maybe we have become too utilitarian, thinking only doctors and engineers and scientists have anything of value.”

Jenny didn’t have a reply. What was the point anyway? They were only two years away from the final countdown, and here was a man who said her novel had brought him hope. What hope could there be, with Devastator coming?

“Jenny, I’d like for you to come with us. There’s something I’d like to show you.” He extended his hand. “I’m Joe, by the way.”

8.

Mark

Mark Novak fiddled with the sat-phone that Richard Thatcher had given him so long ago. It was the kind that the government couldn't hack into, a piece of equipment that would lead to his arrest, should he be discovered with it. Not many of these remained after the government crackdown on all communication devices that didn’t have onboard surveillance chips installed. But Thatcher stashed away several of them, which he had later given to trusted members of the underground movement. Mark was one of those. In two years, he would most likely be among the few that President Andrews would bring into the Appalachian facility, where they would, if possible, ride out the impact of Devastator.

Mark had a special number typed into the sat-phone, and once he pressed the green button, there would be no going back. If someone were to find out that even the slightest trace of this communication had taken place, it would brand him a traitor. His finger hovered above the button, hesitating for a moment.

Then he pressed it.

The device pinged once, twice, three times. There was a click in the other end, and a voice answered.

“Yes,” the voice said

“Is this Luna?” Mark said, not knowing how his call would be received.

“It is,” the voice said.

“This is Mark Novak. I represent a common friend. His name is Richard,” Mark said. The voice hesitated for a moment before answering.

“This is Erik Lunde. How are you Mark?”

“Well, considering that I just committed what could be considered high treason, I guess I’m pretty good,” Mark said, chuckling to hide his nerves.

“That’s good. So, it is on then?” the voice said.

“It is.”

“I guess we will be speaking to each other again later.”

“I guess we will.”

Click.

9.

Jenny

Jenny sat quietly by the window, watching as the trucks brought their supplies and drove off empty, peering at the people building row upon row of cabins, wondering about the armed guards greeting them at their checkpoints on their way there. Everyone seemed to know Deacon and Joe, so they never had to show any credentials. After driving through the bustling valley they ended up in front of a huge gate that led into the mountain. The gate was open, and Deacon drove inside. They continued until they reached an enormous cavern that looked like it was still being excavated.

She had already begun to realize what kind of place this was. How was it possible that she had never heard of it? The diner was less than two hours away by car, and she must have served all kinds of people on their way here.

Deacon parked the car, and they stepped out.

“This way,” he said, and led her toward what looked like an elevator hatch, only, with no elevator. A makeshift stairway led them down into the deep, and they walked in silence as they descended the dimly lit stairs. Once they reached the bottom, they stepped out into a cavern where five armed men sat at their ease, guns on their laps, guarding another hatch.

“Pretty tight security,” she said. Deacon nodded, but nobody else said anything. The men greeted them with cheers and smiles, and motioned for them to continue. Jenny, Deacon, and Joe descended the second set of stairs, which took them even deeper into the mountain.

“Well, this is it,” Deacon said as they stepped out into a large cavern with hallways that lead in every direction. Signs indicated where to go to reach the living quarters, the recreation quarters, and a dozen other places. There were a few other people here, but she suspected most of what would become the inhabitants of this place were those men and women working outside. One of the hallways was blocked, and a “No Entry” sign stood next to the opening.

“They’re still excavating that way,” Deacon said.

A boy and a girl came running after a ball. The ball stopped at Joe’s feet, and he kicked it back to them.

“Thanks Joe!” one of the kids said. Joe flashed them a wide grin, before they ran off again.

“Why me?” Jenny whispered, still stunned at the size of this place. It was Joe who answered.

“Because you, through your fiction, are able to imagine a future. After. Because of your voice. Because you moved me. Because you moved my friend, Deacon.”

Deacon smiled at her.

“When I read your manuscript, all I could think of was that the senator had to see this. He needed to read your vision of humanity overcoming the end of the world. Because that’s what we’re trying to do here.”

Jenny looked at Joe again, and a flash of recognition hit her. “I remember seeing you on TV... You were in charge of the Exodus project. Senator Buchanan, that’s who you are.”

Joe nodded.

“That’s me, and yes, I did head the Exodus project. But not quite the way the president wanted. I, and a few others, wanted those we sent off to the stars to be free, not puppets of the will of those in charge here. Also, we wanted to give Earth a second chance, and with the almost unlimited funds we had for the Exodus project, we were able to siphon out a steady stream of funds for this.” He motioned with his hands, indicating the stone surrounding them.

“The star farers are now on their way, and meanwhile we face Devastator,” he murmured. “So, two years ago, Deacon and I barely escaped the FBI, who finally figured out that we were subversives. To make a long story short, we’ve spent the last two years getting this place up and going, and we’ll probably spend the next two as well. Hopefully, we’ll be ready, or as ready as we can be.” Joe paused, and motioned for her to walk toward one of the side tunnels.

“Well, truth be told, the wheels were in motion even before that, so we knew exactly where to go, and we had people take care of everything, so once we were gone from the project compound in Arizona, we were gone from the face of the Earth, as far as the FBI was concerned.”

They walked a bit further, until they reached a big cavern where a set of computers stood against the far wall. Boxes stood stacked on top of each other in a corner. Deacon indicated the computer-lined wall.

“This will be our command center,” he said. “We have some of the best hackers in the world working with us, and they will ensure we have access to every satellite, and quite a few surveillance cameras as well. On Impact Day we plan to monitor everything. If we survive, we’ll have a decent idea of the state of the world.”

“Do you expect others will make it through?” Jenny asked.

Joe shrugged. “We don’t really know if anyone will. But aside from this place, President Andrews’ holdout in the Appalachians probably has the best odds on this continent.” he said. “If he manages to ride out the storm with his supporters, and, I suspect, a sizable military contingent, I bet he’ll have plans for rebuilding this country, or even the world, in his image, once the storm passes.”

“After everyone else is dead or dying,” Jenny said. She wasn’t very political, but she had known people who disappeared, and she knew better than to speak out if she disagreed with the government. Now, she realized the consequences of President Andrews and his loyal supporters being the only ones alive after Impact. It reminded her of a book she read once, and it frightened her.

“You asked why we chose you,” Joe said, and looked into her eyes.

“I don’t expect President Andrews plans to fill his bunker with artists. But art is important; it’s who we are. I wish I could save more, but at least now I have the chance to save at least one living writer, one person who will continue creating art even after the world has gone to hell.”

“Now you have a choice, Jenny,” Deacon said.

“I can take you back to the diner right now, and you will promise not to speak of this to anyone. Or you can stay here.”

Jenny thought of Tommy, who would probably wonder what happened to her. He’d be sick with worry, poor man. But it was either that, or...

“I’ll stay,” she said.

10.

Kirstie

Kirstie tossed away the shabby sweater. She didn't need it anymore. She looked around the unkempt apartment and saw that it needed cleaning. There was dust all over, and clothes were lying around everywhere. She picked up another item—an old blouse she got from Dianne a few years ago. She folded it, and put it in the suitcase.

On the TV, some reporter was droning on about Devastator, but she had heard it all before. Kirstie knew all there was to know about Devastator; it was like the damn rock had become a family member. She chuckled and tossed another item into the half-full suitcase. Something on the screen caught her attention. A tired-looking government representative was speaking.

“We are currently in the process of selecting key personnel for the shelters. There will also be a lottery, in which every citizen will have an equal chance to win.”

Kirstie grimaced; everyone was tired these days. There was just too much to do, and too little time. Devastator was less than six months away, and everyone who got tickets to go off planet had done so a long time ago. Kirstie sometimes regretted not jumping on board when she had the chance. The Russians had asked her to join their efforts two years ago, and had she joined them back then, she would've been on the Moon right now, watching the end of the world, safely tucked away on their Moon base. From what she had heard, the scientists and tech personnel working for the Moon base project had been allowed to bring their families as well. Had she known that, she would not have hesitated, not for second. Dianne would've been safe, and more importantly, Brian would have had a future. Still, something had held her back. Perhaps it was her work-ethic, or some idea that she could make more of a difference here to all those who weren´t lucky enough to get a ticket away from what was coming.

“Every citizen up to the age of forty will be entered in the lottery. We have estimated twenty thousand available seats spread around different shelters, and we expect to hold the lottery within three months.” The BBC reporter was about to ask another question, but the representative turned and walked away.

Kirstie shook her head. While it sounded like a fair chance, she understood how unlikely it was. She was too old, of course, and that didn’t bother her as much as it had in the past. But what were the odds of Dianne and Brian winning the lottery? Slim to none, and she knew it.

Whatever happened, Kirstie wanted to be with them in the end. She looked around at the apartment again. Bern was a nice city, especially for scientists who worked for the ESA. But she didn't feel at home here anymore. She had booked a flight to London, and it was due to depart in a few hours.

“What am I doing? I don’t need any of this,” she said to herself. She closed her suitcase and picked it up. It was small and light. She could probably carry it as hand luggage on the plane.

It was amazing to consider, that there were still regular flights between every major city in Europe. Many had expected anarchy and riots, which is not to say that hadn’t happened elsewhere in the world. But except for a few minor events in Paris and Berlin, people seemed to stay calm. At least for now. Nothing like Brazil, or the US

Kirstie took the suitcase and exited the apartment. She was about to lock the door, but stopped for a moment to think, and then turned away, leaving the apartment open for anyone to use. She walked down the hallway, down the stairs, and out to the waiting taxi.

A tall Indian wearing a large turban—a Sikh, she thought—met her and put the suitcase in the trunk. She sat in the back of the car and let out a deep breath. She was going home.

“To the airport please,” she said. The driver looked in the mirror, and their eyes met.

“Ah you are English. Are you going home now?” he asked.

Kirstie nodded.

“You are a scientist, right?” he continued. His voice was friendly, and Kirstie smiled. She didn’t need to answer; everyone who could was leaving, to be with their loved ones these last few months.

“It’s time to be with your family. That's what I will be doing,” the driver said.

Kirstie wondered what would happen to this man and his family. For the matter, what would happen to her family? She hoped that even in the darkest times, people will be thinking the same thing, and stay with their families until the end. When disaster struck, that would be the only thing anyone would have to fall back on.

It took an hour to reach the airport. There were lines reaching out into the streets, and for a moment she wondered if she would make it to the plane in time. But the lines were moving forward, slowly but steadily. And she had plenty of time before takeoff. She noted that everyone looked calm, and whenever they were given instructions, to let a man in a wheelchair pass, to let a single mother with two kids pass with an airport employee, everyone complied. The time for panic had not yet arrived. It would, and then there wouldn’t be lines anymore; there would be pushing crowds, there would be violence. When that time came, she hoped they would close down the airport. That would be better than seeing people killing each other for a seat on the plane, only so they could go somewhere else to die.

The driver placed her suitcase on the curb, and she paid him. She gave him a handsome tip, and he thanked her before getting back in his car. Kirstie turned to go stand in line for the next few hours.

11.

John

John Rawlins felt more powerless as an inmate of the detention camp than he had ever felt in his life. He had been in the camp for a long time, but he had yet to adapt fully to this idle existence, with no purpose and nothing to do. He had always been a man who liked having a goal, something to work towards, and here, with no contact with the outside world or prospects of ever getting out, life was just a miserable period he had to endure.

The prisoners had little contact with each other, and John had few friends. One of them was Derek Hewitt, who had once been a renowned heart surgeon. Like so many of them, he had been part of the selection process for the Exodus project, where candidates were being chosen for a seat on the starship that would take some sixteen hundred people on a voyage to settle a planet more than forty light years away. The great project to start a human colony on a new world, to save a small piece of humanity when Earth faced disaster. What nobody had told them was that those who were not chosen were sent to detention camps like this one. Derek had become a depressed and broken man, and would go catatonic for days. John worried that he would either starve himself to death or make a desperate run for it, despite the consequences, so he tried to do whatever he could to cheer Derek up, despite struggling to keep his own spirits up.

His only other friend in the camp was Johanna Peters, and she was one of the strongest people he had ever met. She was one of the inmates who’d been here the longest, more than a decade now, since failing one of the first tests, back in '74. John admired her. Johanna always had a joke or nice comment on hand. John wondered if he could have taken ten years in this place as well as she had.

The guards, who were in fact ordinary soldiers, made sure they never stepped out of line. Some of them were all right, obviously uncomfortable in their guard roles, and would at times be cordial, even sympathetic. But most had adapted to the role with disturbing ease. John had seen what they would do to someone suspected of causing trouble. Murder was commonplace, and while lesser offenses would bring harsh punishment, escape attempts were punishable by death. He’d seen quite a few executions, which had rattled him to the bone. If one inmate broke the rules, there would be mass punishments doled out to all of them. That could be anything from having to go hungry for a day, to standing in the sun all day, to lashing, or executing such punishment on each other. In some cases, the guards had picked an entire barracks only to make them march until one prisoner broke down. The other inmates would be forced to club the unlucky one to death, usually at gunpoint. John remembered once, when one of those made to kill another inmate refused. Once he was dealt with, lying in a bloody heap, kicked to death by the guards, the next one obeyed without hesitation.

John had been a soldier once, and he was ashamed at what these young men and women could make themselves do. Not in his wildest dreams had he imagined he’d see young Americans turn into this.

John, Derek, and Johanna had all been part of the Exodus project at one point. For John, learning of the reason behind the project made him instantly regret joining up. He had thought of it as an adventure, believing it to have something to do with space engineering or something similar, since he was an engineer by trade. But once he realized he would have to leave his wife and children behind, he had withdrawn without blinking. What he didn’t know was that anyone who left the project, whether they were kicked out or left voluntarily, would be sent to detention camps such as this one. And it didn’t seem like anyone would be leaving it alive. Especially now, with just a couple of months left before Impact. One of the friendlier guards had kept him up do date.

“Something is up,” Johanna suddenly said, pointing at the nearest gate. He couldn’t see any guards anymore, and when he looked closer he saw that the gate itself was ajar.

“The gate is open,” John said.

“What the—is this some trick?” Johanna murmured.

John hesitated for a moment, until realization finally seeped in. “No. No trick this time. I think—I think the guards have left...”

12.

Joe

Joe Buchanan, former Senator, now a fugitive, wanted dead or alive, stared after the building crew as they left the meeting. It was one of a million such meetings, where details of every kind were discussed and settled in mere minutes. He knew he had several others to attend before he could call it a day, but he decided to stop for now. He needed a break, although he probably didn’t have time for one. The valley was bustling, like any other day, but he noticed people seemed more in a hurry, with Impact quickly approaching. Supplies were being loaded from trucks into the smaller vehicles that would take them deep into the underground shelter. The more they could store, the better their chances would be, afterwards. If they survived Impact, of course. Even now, all across the valley, cabins were being erected, while the old ones that had stood there for decades, were being refurbished and fixed so they could be inhabited the day they dared to surface from their shelter. It was like a small town. Of course, Joe had no idea how the surface structures would fare, but all depended on where Devastator would hit, whether it would remain whole, or break apart, causing several smaller impacts.

From what he could remember, there was a rather high probability of it breaking up in the upper atmosphere. That would mean impacts all over the world. In some ways that could be worse. More people would die from the impacts than if Devastator only hit in one spot, where the initial damage would be contained to one continent. The long-term prospects of several impacts were better though. Some experts claimed that if Devastator stayed intact it would mean extinction, or close to it. Of course, that was because of its enormous size. However, if it broke up, there would be pockets of survivors here and there throughout the planet. Yes, the damage would still be on a scale close to what the dinosaurs had experienced, but people were better equipped to deal with such disasters. Joe was no scientist, but it made sense to him; no dinosaur ever built a shelter, and only humans were able to store food for decades.

The bustle of this small town, which the valley had become, was impressive. Everyone seemed to have their set tasks and worked together toward the same deadline. With only weeks left, all they could do was spend the time they had as well as they possibly could. In one way or another, Impact Day would determine their future, or if they even had one to look forward to. He turned and walked towards the next group of builders who wanted to speak to him. Before he reached them, Deacon Frost arrived, jumping out of the first of a column of trucks. There were even a few armored personnel carriers. The truck beds were filled to the rim with troops, and Joe thought they had to be from the nearby Army base, which he had believed to be abandoned months ago.

“Senator, sir. I have a hundred and fifty men and women here, armed to the teeth. They want to swear allegiance,” Deacon said. The leader of the soldiers, a Hispanic woman, with Sergeant Major’s distinctions, came up to him and saluted.

“Sergeant Ramirez, Sir. We are yours. Tell us what to do, and we will do it,” she said.

Joe extended his hand, and she took it. She had a firm grip, and Joe immediately took a liking to her.

The Sergeant Major barked an order, and every single soldier lined up next to the column. Then Joe walked over and shook the hand of every one of them. Afterward Deacon led the troops away to get them some hot food.

Joe watched Frost and the soldiers as they left. He smiled, thinking how lucky he was to have Deacon, this young man who had been with him from the beginning. A good man. Deacon was there when the former senator learned of the threat from the authorities, and he had stayed loyal, even when it meant putting himself in mortal danger. When the insurgent leader, Thatcher, was arrested, Deacon fled with Joe. The former scramjet pilot could probably have gotten a seat on the Exodus, but Deacon had chosen to stay. Joe remembered the frantic days when he had to flee the project because the FBI was on to him. Joe Buchanan had been working with Thatcher, infiltrating the Exodus project, working against the government’s plan, until he was almost caught. When they fled they were stopped at a checkpoint just west of the compound. Frost had shot the guards and saved Joe’s life.

The years that followed had been busy. Joe had to draw on every resource he had to get supplies, to establish false-front companies to hide his involvement, always working on tight deadlines. He bought this land using funds funneled away from the Exodus project into secret accounts. In these mountains, he had found the perfect spot. There were natural cave systems that had been excavated and reinforced, before filling them with housing areas, recreation facilities, storage and supply areas, a command center and everything else they would need.

Deacon was his most loyal colleague, and his best friend. Apart from his wife, Cecilia, there was nobody else he would have had beside him during these demanding years. And now, as they approached the end, there were nobody else he would have had standing by his side than these two, to face what was about to come.

13.

Robert

Robert Marsden looked at the box of signal flares to his right, then to the can of fuel to his left. He had to choose, no way around it. The minivan was chock full; they would have to sit with their rolled-up sleeping bags on their laps. Robert had room for only one more item, and he didn’t have a clue what to leave behind. The fuel would come in handy, since it could be used for the vehicle when fuel cells were worn out, but he had already stashed three cans in the trunk, while he didn’t have a single signal flare. He cursed silently, grabbed four flares and stuck them into his already fat jacket pockets, before putting the box off to the side. He loaded the can of fuel and eased the trunk shut. There. They were ready to go.

His phone rang again, but he ignored it. His boss was probably furious, and unless they hit the road soon, someone would come pick him up. The FBI didn’t accept shirking, especially now, in the face of disaster. And if they knew he was leaving for good, he would likely be incarcerated. He’d already heard of others, even from the local department here in Columbus who had been taken away to some undisclosed location after being caught planning their escapes. The rules had definitely gotten tougher these last few years, especially now that they were nearing the end. Order must be maintained was the FBI’s mantra.

“Liv, kids, let’s move it!” he shouted, wondering if they heard him. The garage door was open, so they should have. He checked his gun, strapped to his belt as always. It was loaded; he was ready for anything. If the FBI came for him, would he use it? That was one question he couldn’t’ answer. He’d served loyally for years, ever since he left college, and he felt like he was betraying not only his employer, but also himself.

But he had a family, and for the first time, he realized, he was putting them before his job. He grimaced. It wasn’t as if the entire FBI stood staunchly by, protecting the nation anymore. Director Barron had disappeared, probably off in some bunker with the rest of the big brass.

“Liv! We haven’t got all day,” Robert shook his head in frustration; didn’t she understand what was at stake here? He stepped out of the moldy garage and into crisp, cool daylight. His oldest son, Kevin, stepped out in front of him. At seventeen he looked almost a man. You’ll be a full grown man by the end of the month, if you live that long, Robert thought.

“We’re good to go, Dad,” he said. Robert smiled. Kevin probably had both Anne and Ryan in tow. As he looked over at the house entrance, he saw Ryan standing with Mr. Teddy hanging from his hand, and Anne, his ten year old diva, standing beside him. All the kids wore clothes made for camping and hiking, from their boots to their caps, but Anne wore hers just a tad more smartly than the boys. He fought back a lump in his throat. No time to get sentimental. He nodded in approval, and got back into the minivan. He backed it out of the garage, and stepped out again.

Liv was outside, standing behind the kids. She had been crying, he could see, and he felt bad for shouting. How was she supposed to cope with what might be not only the end of the world, but also the end of her own children, her own flesh and blood? Robert had been pushing the reality of it aside for years. He was the agent, the father, the one who had to remain strong, no matter what.

“Alright, let’s get out of here,” he said, watching his family squeeze into the minivan. He walked back to the house and locked the door, then got back in the minivan. He pressed the starter and the engine began humming smoothly. He pressed another button, and the garage doors closed.

“Why do you bother?” his wife asked.

Robert shrugged, and thought for a second. “I don’t know. Who knows? Habit, I guess.” It wasn’t as if he expected to ever return. Even if they survived Devastator, they had nothing to return to. Still, it didn’t feel natural to leave with the doors unlocked.

They drove off, taking the shortest route to the interstate headed north.

Within thirty minutes they regretted not taking the side roads. The interstate was jammed.

“I should have guessed,” Robert said.

“Everybody wants to get out of here,” Liv whispered beside him. It was funny in a strange way, that so many people were trying to flee at the same time. Where are they all running? He thought. Will anyone find safety, or are we all just going through the motions, to feel like we’re doing something—anything?

14.

John

It was the third day since they left the detention camp. Everyone was taken by surprise when the guards left the camp wide open and abandoned the prisoners. John Rawlins and his friends had been quick though, and managed to stock up on supplies. They were on their way before the remaining prisoners started fighting amongst themselves over what little food and supplies hadn’t been taken. That first night, while John and Derek waited inside an abandoned shed, Johanna went back to make sure they weren’t being followed. What she found frightened them all.

Although nobody seemed to notice their departure, the scene that she found had been something out of a nightmare, and once she finished telling the story John could see it had shaken her up.

“The buildings were all burned. Some were still on fire, and the air smelled of ash, and something...else,” she said, before she explained that some of the prisoners had been tied to stakes and set alight along with the buildings. Informers, perhaps. Or maybe just people who had become unpopular for some reason. Either way, enough bodies littered the walkways inside and the fields outside the camp that it was obvious there had been some major fighting among groups of ex-prisoners.

And in the midst of this infernal scene, a group of former prisoners were gathered, feasting, drunk and heavily armed. Johanna snuck out then and returned as soon as she could.

John had a hard time believing it had gone so far, and yet, this was exactly why they had made sure to leave as soon as possible. With no order, even that of the ruthless guards, anarchy would prevail, and in such situations there would always be someone without moral barriers, someone who thirsted for power.

“Man always wants to be king,” Derek said quietly.

They had been very careful to stay undiscovered as they put more miles between themselves and what had been their prison for years. Besides, they didn’t know what would happen if they were discovered by government forces. Now that the Exodus project was finished, there was no need to keep former participants locked up, but John didn’t trust anyone anymore, other than his closest friends. He’d seen too much for that.

One day, after setting up camp, Derek managed to devise a makeshift radio out of scavenged parts. But even though they listened to it every night, there was little information to glean from the mind-numbing shows that were the only thing being broadcast. John knew the media was tightly controlled, but he expected there would be at least some useful news on Devastator. Not so much though. Only light entertainment to keep the masses in check, to make people act as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

So instead of listening to bland music and no-brained show hosts talking, they got their blankets rolled out, and while Derek took the first watch, John leaned back and tried to get some sleep. He looked up. Auroras danced across the clear sky, and the stars seemed to dim, heralding what was to come. John didn’t know the exact day Devastator would strike, but as he watched the sky he knew it wouldn’t be long. He didn’t think he’d reach his family in time; all he could do was hope they would be safe, in some shelter. He wasn’t even sure it would be possible to survive, however deep a shelter was, but if there was even the slightest chance, he’d hang on to hope.

15.

Robert

Robert was driving slowly along the narrow, curvy road. His back was sore from the bumpy ride, and he looked forward to taking a nap, since he had been driving for twelve hours straight. Still, he remained vigilant, since they had seen too many armed men, not only police, but some “prepper” types and survivalists. There was no way to know what would be around the next bend.

Getting out of Columbus had taken almost two days. The roads were chaotic, and only when they managed to get off the interstate did it become more tolerable, meaning that the lines happened to be moving as opposed piling up. Robert vividly remembered several instances of shooting before they’d gotten off the interstate. Police patrols had come and taken entire families away, and Robert wondered if it would have been the same for him if he had stayed on. He also thought about Director Barron, who had gone missing a while back. It was always like this; the bigwigs get protected, while the little guy takes the fall.

They were closing in on the cabin by the lake. It was secluded, with its own water supply, and a stock of supplies built up over years. Robert had given it a lot of thought in the past few years, and he thought he had a decent idea of what was to come. If they got lucky, and Devastator let them survive, they might stand a chance. The cabin even had guns and a huge stash of ammo stowed away. Staying in the cabin would be much safer than remaining at home. Even if anyone survived in the cities, they would become war zones.

They turned the final curve, and the cabin came into view.

“It looks empty,” Liv said. Robert didn't answer. He was scanning the surroundings, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The cabin was locked, of course, and hidden from view. Nevertheless, breaking in would not be impossible, or even particularly hard. Robert parked the car where the road ended, a hundred meters or so from the cabin.

“Stay in the car,” he said.

“I'm coming with you, Dad,” Kevin said.

Robert knew there was no way to hold his son back. “Keep the shotgun ready,” Robert said. Kevin nodded, and grabbed the shotgun from the overhead rack. Robert took out his own gun, clicked off the safety, and began walking toward the cabin.

They were half way to the cabin when four men and one woman stepped out the door. Two of the men held rifles, while the woman had a shotgun that looked just like Kevin's.

“Stay right there,” the tallest man said.

Robert and Kevin stopped dead in their tracks. They both held their weapons ready, but not aimed, trying not to threaten the others.

“This is our cabin,” Robert said.

“Not anymore,” the man said, licking his lips. Robert could see beads of sweat on his forehead.

“Look man, there are enough supplies for all of us. You can have some, and then be on your way,” Robert said. He glanced over at Kevin, who looked nervous.

“Easy, Kevin,” he said. “Take your finger off the trigger.”

He looked back at the man who had spoken.

“We don't want any trouble,” Robert said.

“Then don't start any. We’re not giving the cabin away,” The man nodded toward the woman. “You see her? That’s Emma, my wife. She's carrying my child, and I mean to protect them both. So you get the hell out here before I shoot you and your son.”

Robert didn't really believe the man would take the chance on starting a firefight, but he couldn't be sure. So he motioned for Kevin to stand down, and take a step back.

“All right, let's all be very careful here. We all have people we love, so let's all stay calm, and nobody gets hurt.” Robert had been in similar situations before, and knew that even the slightest spark could set off an explosion of violence, even when nobody meant to. But he needed to ask one more question, or they wouldn’t get much further.

“Just one thing, our fuel cells are all but spent. I know you have a few spare ones inside, so do you think you can spare one or two?”

The tall man seemed to be thinking, but the woman nodded affirmatively.

“Of course, sir. We'll go get it.” She motioned for the two unarmed men to follow her into the cabin. Moments later she came out and stood beside her husband.

One of the men came carrying two fuel cells, while the other carried a crate of supplies. Both walked over and set everything down in front of Robert and Kevin, while the men by the cabin still trained their guns on them.

“Thank you,” Robert said.

“That's the least we can do,” The woman replied. “I'm really sorry, but it's everyone for themselves now. We’re just doing what we can to survive, and to protect the little one.”

What about my kids? Robert thought, but he refused to let despair getting the better of him.

Robert and Kevin took the supplies and secured them on the roof of the minivan. Then they got back inside. Robert set the car in reverse, and slowly backed up. As soon as they were out of sight, he found a place to turn around, and drove off, away from the cabin.

“What are we gonna do now?” Liv said. Robert shook his head. He had no idea. All their plans had gone up in smoke, but at least they were alive, and unscathed. For now.

16.

Joe

Joe had been waiting for something like this to happen. One moment everything was normal, with delivery trucks coming and going, people working on one thing or another, and a mood of industry hanging over everyone in the valley.

Then everything changed. Suddenly, the screams of hostile scramjets were piercing his ears, with the wail of an emergency siren competing for attention. Within seconds, rockets homing in on their targets changed the valley into a carnage, a fiery hell, with death and destruction reigning.

“They’re attacking the south gate!” someone screamed. Joe looked around, and saw Deacon running off, leading a small band of soldiers and armed builders, anyone who could handle a weapon, toward the south gate. Someone managed to activate one of the anti-aircraft batteries, which began firing their rockets at the enemy.

“How many planes?” one woman shouted at a man scanning the sky with a set of binoculars.

“Four, five perhaps. I think they are all done, dropped their payload right on top of us. They’re leaving now,” he said. It had taken less than a minute.

“We got one of them!” someone shouted excitedly.

“What if they come back?” another said.

Joe’s ears were ringing, but he tried to keep focus on the bigger picture.

“They won't. I guess this was just a final push.”

“A feint, to keep troops away from the south gate, I think,” Joe said. Luckily, Deacon had taken charge, or nobody would have gone to reinforce the guards out there.

A half hour later, Deacon returned, with half the people he had taken to the south gate.

“We drove them back. But we lost more than fifty men and women. Sergeant Major Ramirez is dead as well,” Deacon said. He had a mix of spattered blood and dirt on his face, but Joe didn’t think it was Deacon’s. At least not most of it.

Ramirez had seemed like a good soldier, and she was gone. Joe took a deep breath while looking at the men and women passing by, dirty, bloody, but not beaten.

“But you held it,” he said.

“Yes we did.”

“Do you think they will return?”

Deacon shook his head. “No, I think this was a last effort to take over this place. They don't have the manpower anymore, the scramjets were probably just the few that remained, flown by the pilots who didn't have a family to return to, in these last few days.”

Joe nodded, and looked at the destruction around them. Half the aboveground structures looked like they were ruined beyond repair, but they still had the shelter. This actually could be considered a minor victory.

“Okay. Still, let's not take any chances. Double the watch, and increase the patrols,” Joe said, finally feeling like he was on top of things again. A close call, but it could have been worse.

17.

Robert

Robert felt his heart sink as he stopped the minivan. They were at the Canadian border on Wellesley Island and there were hundreds of cars in front of them. After a while, it seemed they were letting cars through one by one, and for the first time in days Robert began to actually believe they would make it across.

He finally let his shoulders slump, and managed to relax a little. He looked back, and saw the kids seemed to have somewhat lifted spirits as well. Liv smiled at him, and he smiled back. They had been through so much, and they weren’t out of it yet, but so far, so good. If the border crossing went well, they wouldn’t have to worry about the FBI anymore. There was nothing to do about Devastator, but in Canada they would at least be rid of whoever might be searching for them. Robert thought back on the journey so far.

After leaving their stolen cabin behind, they wondered where to go next. They decided to find a way to cross the border into Canada and leave the country. That was the only place they would have a chance at surviving the aftermath—if it proved to be survivable.

The Michigan route would have been clogged. The rebel force that held most of Michigan and Wisconsin for some time had been beaten a long time ago, but there were still pockets of insurgent activity, and the government seemed to have decided that now, just two weeks before Impact Day, it was time to crush them.

With Ann Arbor reduced to rubble, just like the area surrounding it, they either had to go further west, which seemed even more violent, or through Detroit. On the radio there were reports that Detroit was filling with refugees, and Robert felt more and more certain there was no getting through to Canada that way. Lake Ontario was out of the question. The only vessels left after the fighting were small and hardly seaworthy. Even if they had managed to find one that could take them across, the price was so high that only the wealthy could pay for it.

So they had turned east, hoping to cross the border near Buffalo. As they were approaching, they found that the entire metropolitan area had been closed down. Heavily armored soldiers stood guarding every entrance to the city, and Robert saw a burned out wreck in a ditch nearby, peppered with bullet holes. These guys were serious, so when the soldiers ordered them to leave, Robert was quick to turn around and drive off. Liv suggested that they go to Niagara Falls, and since that was their quickest way to the border right then, they did. Once they got closer, they met people who had camped by the road, and spoke to a couple of them.

“The border is closed,” one of them said, and Robert wasn’t surprised. It looked like the entire New York-Canada border was closed off, and even if it wasn’t, the only option left was heading even further east.

They camped with the others that night. They were good people, just trying to escape the impending doom. None of them dared speak of the future. Devastator wasn't meant to leave a future, so speaking of one was practically anathema. There was good food and drink though, and for a few hours Robert and his family were able to forget the coming disaster.

The next day they drove east. They reached the outskirts of Rochester, and from there they took the back roads. They avoided Syracuse altogether, since the radio had said that an explosion had stopped all traffic going through. So they took a long detour around Syracuse, and Robert noticed that most cars headed east took the route south of Oneida Lake, so he chose the northern route, and soon they were driving toward the coast of Lake Ontario. They followed the coastline to Black River Bay. From there it was straightforward until they reached Saint Lawrence River, near the intersection of I-81 and the Great Lakes Seaway Trail. Traffic moved slowly across Collins Landing and Thousand Islands Bridge, but a few hours later they reached the border. And now they were hoping that this would be the break they had hoped for.

Robert got out of the car. On the US-side of the border there seemed to be only rudimentary controls. Soldiers, who didn’t seem to care anymore, were walking alongside the line. When they passed by Robert’s minivan, he held his breath, but the soldiers didn’t even look his way. The Canadians, on the other hand, seemed to be tightening up security. Canadian Mounties were checking every car, and only letting the Americans pass after thorough questioning, one car at the time. Sometimes they would turn somebody back. Robert noticed that many of those seemed to be the ones with the nicest cars, those who looked the wealthiest.

“Not rich enough for the bunkers, and not poor enough for the Canadians,” a man beside him said, chuckling. Robert had heard there were bunkers scattered through the US, where the rich could buy space for themselves and their families. Most of the bunkers seemed to be scams though, and wouldn’t hold up through even a moderate earthquake. A colleague had told him there were officers investigating such cases a while back, but for the last six months the FBI had stopped their investigations. Better to let the people have their false hopes, perhaps.

He knew the Canadians were skeptical of the US government and their employees and associates. That was why he forged his paperwork—so that his involvement with the FBI could remain secret. But he was nervous, since he didn't know if the papers would hold up under scrutiny. I guess we'll see soon enough.

After hours of excruciating waiting, they reached the Canadian checkpoint. Robert gave the passports to one of the Mounties, who took his time going through every detail.

After a while the Mountie nodded in approval, and stamped each of their passports.

“Okay then, you may pass,” the Mountie said. “You are only allowed to stay on the highway, until you reach Québec. Once you reach it, you may move around freely. I'm not going to tell you about registration and so on, since, frankly, we have no time. But if you have network connection, you might want to download a course or something, to brush up on your French. Because where you're going, that's the only language you're going to need.”

18.

Ed

Ed Walker was driving, way too fast. The last few weeks had been hard on him. Once a successful nuclear scientist working as a well paid civilian specialist at the strategic weapons research plant, he had reached an all time low. The research plant had shut down in preparation for Impact Day, and nobody expected it to start up again, ever. So everyone who worked there had been laid off and ordered to go home to their families. But Ed didn’t have a family to go home to. His wife left him a long time ago, when the news of Devastator broke, and though he had never quite recovered from the breakup, he still had his job. He became a workaholic to keep the loss at bay.

Now, without the work to escape to, he was helpless. That was probably the reason why, after the plant shut down, he’d spent every afternoon in one bar or another, getting drunk, and sleeping in late the day after.

This afternoon he walked into a bar, aiming to get good and drunk. Somebody made a remark, he couldn’t remember what, that made him want to leave. After he downed one final shot and finished his beer, he stumbled out to his car. Now, swerving from side to side, he was feeling the effects of the alcohol, half asleep at the wheel, not even caring if he made it back in one piece.

He was jolted awake by a crashing sound, and realized he had bumped into the car in front of him. While the other car sped up and drove off, his kept spinning until it ended up in a ditch on the side of the road. Ed was disoriented, but he knew he had to get out before anything bad happened. This wasn't like in the old movies, where the cars exploded whenever they hit something. Cars nowadays didn't run on fossil fuels, and the fuel cells were quite safe. The thing Ed feared was getting picked up by the police.

He managed to get the door open, and stumbled out. His hands were shaking. After a few moments, he concluded that he had no serious injuries. The crash had sobered him up, just a little, enough for him to be thankful to be alive. What do I need this piece of crap for? Ditching the car, he started walking home. Ed Walker just realized, for the first time, that the world was ending. And he had to get ready.

19.

Robert

Robert took one final look at the minivan that he’d parked, for the last time, on the big lot near the refugee relocation center. They weren't allowed to take the car any further. Originally, they had been told they could drive until they reached Québec, but after just thirty minutes’ of driving into Canada, they had been directed to this place. After filling out a dozen forms, each of them had to go through a brief medical check, before they were directed toward the buses that stood ready to take the refugees away. From here on, they would have to go by bus, since the amount of cars would clog up the roads and make the resettlement of people less efficient. The bus Robert and his family had been put on was headed northeast, into Québec, as were several other buses. Others would go west, and a few of the buses would be headed straight north.

Little Ryan sat on his mother’s lap, while the others were lucky enough to have separate seats. Robert felt some of the stress from the previous weeks slowly beginning to wear off, and after a few minutes started dozing off. An hour or two later the bus hit a pothole and he awoke with a start. He looked at the others, and saw they were all sound asleep. Outside, it was getting dark, and he was about to fall asleep again, when he heard someone whisper behind him.

“...Damn lucky. The buses going west are heading straight into one of the projected impact zones. And the ones headed north will end up too far away from anything, except the sea. Whether they are hit or not doesn't matter. The tsunamis will kill most of them, and once everything freezes over, they’re all going to die anyhow.”

Robert turned around. Two people were sitting there, a couple in their early 60s. The woman had a round face and was slightly chubby, with gray speckled blond hair. The man was a balding professorial type, with thick glasses that made his eyes seem to pop out. The man extended his hand, and Robert shook it.

“Ethan Rollins, Department of physics, LSU.”

“Tigers, eh?” Robert said. Ethan nodded, grinning.

“That's right,” he said, “had to get away.”

His wife, Barbara, presented herself, and Robert shook her hand as well.

“We’ve lived in Louisiana for almost forty years. Unfortunately, the entire state is deep within one of the projected impact zones,” she said.

“We might get lucky, of course. No one knows for sure what’s going to happen, really,” Ethan said.

“How do you know so much? I never heard of any projected impact zones,” Robert said.

“Well, I thought everyone knew. Guess it’s just because I’ve been working so intensely on this for the last few years,” Ethan said. “Calculating projected trajectories, impact zones, and so on. It's likely Devastator will break up, you know, into several pieces. We expect at least two, maybe even more impacts, just here in North America,” Ethan said. “When it breaks up, it will create a huge belt, with impacts all around the globe.

“If I had a choice I'd be in South Africa, Australia, or maybe South America or Siberia. Much better odds than here. But, first of all, it's too late. There’s no way to get out of here anymore. And second, even though these projections are just one week old, anything could happen. Besides, even Australia, Siberia, and parts of South America might be in grave danger, from tsunamis caused by oceanic impacts.”

“That's a lot to think about,” Robert said.

“I guess we'll just have to hope for the best. But we do need to learn to speak French,” Barbara—she insisted he call her Barb—laughed, a soft, rolling laughter that made Robert smile. He liked these two, and hoped they would spend more time together in the days to come. He turned around and leaned back in his seat. With just days left before Impact, all he could do was hope for the best.

IMPACT

We watched nervously as the moment we had been preparing for approached. Everyone knew this was the moment of truth, and if we survived this, all bets were off. Whatever came next didn´t matter. Yes, we had prepared for a long winter, stocked up on provisions, and taken measures to ensure long term survival. Yes, we knew that even though we survived this event, many might not make it through the times to come. But Impact Day was the moment where everything hung in the balance. We gritted our teeth, braced ourselves, and steeled our nerves for what was about to happen. Days became hours, hours became minutes, minutes became seconds. Then everything changed forever.

J.F. Salinger, The Final Days, 2104

Buchanan Publ. Library Press

20.

Ed

Ed Walker was watching TV, chuckling. The old cable was still reliable, even though the satellite TV was down, due to the atmospheric disturbances. Now he was watching as every talking head, every commentator, everybody who had an opinion on anything made their projections, shared their views and their ideas of what was about to happen. He checked his watch, and compared it to the countdown timer on the bottom of the screen. Less than an hour to go. For the last few days he had been loading up his basement with canned foods, tanks of water—anything he could think of that that could be useful. The TV had to stay up here in the living room, though. The reason for leaving the TV up here was something laughably simple: he did not have a long enough cable to connect to the wall. He had no outlet in the basement, so he would watch from the living room, until the last minute.

What is everybody else doing? he thought. The streets were empty, not even the straggling looters were out there. He wondered what had happened to his ex-wife, not for the first time, and he chided himself for even caring about the woman. She had been unfaithful. She had run off with her lover. She had left him. She didn’t deserve his concern, and yet...

The two things he had decided not to bring down to the basement were his last six-pack of beer and the contents of his small bar. After the accident, he decided not to touch alcohol. Not that he thought it made much of a difference, but somehow, abstaining made him feel better, more alive. He focused on the TV.

“There is still no conclusive evidence that the breakup is, in fact, going to happen. We can only hope, since we all know that if it doesn't, this will mean the end of us all,” one of the talking heads said.

“But we don't know what will happen, even with a large impact. What we do know, is that people are now holed up, in every corner of the world, deep within their shelters, whatever they may be. Some may survive, but civilization as we know it is going to end.” Another voice, another point emphasized in grave tones.

“What about the rest of us? Do we stand a chance? Is there even a remote chance that those of us who are not lucky enough to have a place in the shelters can survive?” This was the voice of the people, where there was always someone thinking that what was about to happen as unfair, and saying so, loudly. Ed sighed. He’d had enough of all opinions. He just wanted to be alone, to hear his own thoughts.

“Well, that's another thing we cannot—” click.

It was time. He got up from the sofa, looked around at his living room. Then he walked over to the stairs, and went down into his hideout.

It would be a long hour.

21.

Joe

Joe watched as the huge sliding doors closed. The last few stragglers stood inside, panting.

“That was a close call. Didn't think we’d make it.”

The entrance to the bunker was at the end of a long tunnel, which sloped downwards, leading deep into the mountain. Joe walked alongside the final stragglers and the armed guards who had stood watch for the last few hours until the doors closed. It took them twenty minutes by foot to reach the end of the tunnel. It opened up into a spacious cavern, at least twenty meters from floor to ceiling and a hundred meters in every direction. Vehicles of every kind, excavators, jeeps, armored and unarmored personal carriers, trucks, all sat lined up here, and in the other caverns, hidden behind closed doors. The walls and ceiling were reinforced to withstand a lot of damage, but even so, they had decided early on that no one was to remain up here. They could lose the vehicles, but people were irreplaceable, and soon there wouldn’t be many left in the world. They entered the next set of doors, equally huge. Inside, an elevator big enough for twenty people took them down. There were two sets of stairs on either side, just in case the elevator was damaged. But for now, it was a relief that the elevator would take them the next ten stories down into the deep. Joe checked his watch. Two more hours. Or, at least, that was what they thought.

Once they reached the bottom and the doors of the elevator slid open, his wife came to meet him. They embraced. Joe looked around. Deacon Frost was there, along with several of Joe's closest associates. Jenny was there as well, taking notes. Joe smiled briefly. How could the woman appear so calm? Perhaps the note-taking helped her?

“So, are we ready?” Cecelia said.

Joe shrugged. “Well, I guess we are as ready as we can be. Not much more we can do anyway, no time.”

The group walked together toward another set of sliding doors, and another elevator took them even further down. On this level were the living quarters, mess hall, more storage space, and the recreation areas. And of course, the control center, a large space filled with computers and screens, and more than fifty people, each of whom had a specific job to do.

“We are tapped into the satellite network,” one uniformed man said. Joe nodded his acknowledgment.

“The Appalachian bunker seems to have closed their gates,” another said. Joe knew that would be President Andrews’ holdout. Of all the bunkers around the world, that one was the one most likely to survive Devastator. Joe walked up to a table where a map had been laid out. Three men and a woman already sat at the table, and Joe took a seat with them. Cecelia came over and sat down next to him. She took his hand, and squeezed it.

“What's the latest?” Joe said, and a man in jeans and a half-tucked in shirt that had once been white, took off his glasses and ruffled his hair. He wiped his glasses on his shirt, before speaking.

“Sir, the Europeans think it'll break up, and I agree. It is possible it could survive entry in one piece, but atmospheric entry is a huge strain, and even the slightest irregularity, which is quite likely, will increase strain even further. So as I said, I believe it will break up. How many pieces? No idea. But either way, this will increase our chances.”

Joe thanked him, and looked at his watch. When he looked up again, he addressed everyone in the room in his booming senator voice.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready. If anyone survives today, there is a good chance we will be among them. Although nothing is certain, we have done everything we can to save as many as possible. When this day is over we will all be either dead, or alive. And if we are alive, then that is when the real struggle begins. For we must rebuild and repopulate the Earth. Most people on this planet will die today, and it will be up to us to see that humanity survives.” He saw a few nods, and even a couple of smiles. Good, he thought. They are ready. Cecelia laid a hand on his shoulder, a small sign of affection. He turned and looked at her.

“I am glad we got to do this together, whatever may come,” he said. She smiled, leaned over and kissed him.

22.

Robert

Robert's back was sore after three days on the bus. He and Liv had been chatting on and off with Ethan and Barb, and Robert enjoyed their company. Right now, Liv and the kids were sleeping, and he looked out the window. There was an eerie moment of silence before the storm. Auroras were dancing across the sky in broad daylight, and he could see streaks of lightning high up in the atmosphere.

It's happening soon, he thought. This was the day. He didn’t know exactly when it would happen, or where it would strike, but it would be some time today, that much was certain.

There was very little conversation on the bus; most people were just staring out the windows at the auroras or sleeping. If he looked hard enough, he could see small flashes here and there that would light up, like little stars, and show themselves for a second before disappearing again.

“It's the dust, or small pebbles, pieces of stone and ice and metal, gathered in a wide cloud around Devastator. Some of them are drawn into the atmosphere as Devastator gets closer,” Ethan said. Everyone knew that signaled Devastator´s arrival. It was a question of hours, or maybe minutes. They reached an intersection, and the driver pulled over.

“All right folks, Let's stop here,” the driver said. Nobody spoke. People were looking at each other wondering what to do, what to say. Some craned to get a better view while others tightened their seat belts, closed their eyes and murmured prayers. Time slowed down, and Robert felt his breathing slow as he braced for what was about to come.

White lights suddenly filled the sky, and the interior of the bus. Robert looked out the window squinting, trying to make out something, anything. It was like the sun had exploded. Somebody screamed, and soon more people joined in the panic. Someone managed to open the doors, and people scrambled out, taking cover wherever they could find it. A minivan raced by, heading east.

“Trying to outrun Devastator,” Ethan shouted above the rising noise. A rumble, more felt than heard. And then louder, overwhelming all other sounds. Robert felt a pain in his chest, like his heart would burst, and forced himself to breathe. A smell of ozone, like after a thunderstorm, and then the pain in his ears overwhelmed everything else.

Suddenly everyone and everything were tossed around. Robert opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. He rolled around on the ground, having no control of his movements, and all he could do was hang on to little Anne. He held his hands protectively around her, covering her head from stones and debris flying around. Something hard, a broken branch whirling through the air, struck his back, before it continued. He saw Liv holding Ryan, covering his ears while she screamed. Kevin had grabbed his mother’s coat, and hung on to her, trying to comfort his mother, although he looked like he needed comforting himself. Ethan and Barb lay a few meters away, holding each other. Robert looked into his wife's eyes for a moment. Soon it would all be over. Whether they lived or died, this moment would decide. Through the cacophony, Robert heard a loud squeal as the bus turned over, crushing a group of people who had been covering beside it. Robert tried to breathe, but the air felt heavy and all he could do was heave for breath. He knew it was the panic. Then the ground cracked open, and he barely managed to avoid falling in. Somebody wasn´t that lucky, and a family of four all toppled in, disappearing into the Earth.

And then, just as quickly as it began, it was quiet again. Robert stood, uneasy, although the ground was still. His legs were shaking, and he had to make a conscious effort not to fall back down. He looked around. Liv was there, sobbing but unharmed, holding Ryan in a firm grip. Kevin stood shaking, but seemed fine as well.

“You all right?” he said to Anne, who nodded.

“I’m good, Dad,” she said, her voice shaking.

“Be ready for the aftershocks,” Ethan said, as he helped Barb get to her feet. People were slowly getting back up, some with minor injuries; others seemed more or less okay. Nine people were missing, swallowed by the Earth or crushed by the overturned bus. After a while people began talking, asking questions.

“How far is it until we reach people?” someone said, but nobody could answer, not even the driver. No one knew where people had survived; no one knew where Devastator had hit.

“We have to get to a shelter,” someone else said. Robert agreed. This was no place to be. In fact, the more he thought about it, an urge to get moving pulled at him, beckoned him to take his family and get as far away as he possibly could.

Some people wanted to stay behind, waiting for help. The bus driver was adamant that people would come for them, people who knew they were there. He said that was arranged at the refugee center, and that every bus had a GPS tracker which would lead search and rescue parties in the right direction.

“There will be no help,” Robert replied. “Everybody's got enough with themselves right now.” He thought about mentioning that GPS might not work at all anymore, but decided to leave it alone. They wouldn´t understand.

In the end, most decided to stay by the bus. Robert and his family, on the other hand, along with Ethan and Barb, decided to leave, to try and find others who had survived. A family of three, a mother with two children, joined them, and against the protests of the others, they began walking.

23.

Mark

The silence in the room was overwhelming. This was it, the moment they had been waiting for since Devastator first appeared, back in 2072. This was Impact Day.

Mark stood staring at the big screen with President Andrews, his cabinet members, and several generals, scientists, and other key personnel.

“It's breaking up,” someone said. A collective sigh of relief swept across the room, this was what they had all been hoping for. Still, this was only the first many tosses of the die, and Mark knew they had to get lucky every time, if any of them were to see another day. A few more minutes went by, and nobody spoke, except for technicians sitting by their computers staring at numbers, images, graphics, making predictions, adding new data as they came in. Low murmurs, a few longer statements, but mostly silence.

“Oh man, there goes the Middle East,” one of the scientists said. Mark looked at the console where the graphic representation of the impacts was shown as the data came in. This first part of Devastator to reach the ground had done so somewhere between Iran and Jordan, creating a massive crater. This one would flatten almost everything all the way into the Mediterranean.

“Shit, that's going to make a hell of a tsunami,” one of the cabinet members whispered.

“Spain is hit. Direct hit, near Madrid.”

“Two impacts in North Africa. Looks like Egypt and Algeria.”

“Another one, Mexico. Shit, that was close.”

Hopefully, that would be as close as it got. Not likely. Most projections said there would be several hits in North America. Still, Mark hoped.

“Moscow is silent. It's like it just disappeared.”

“Man, that was a big one. Beijing and Shanghai are lost.”

Mark shook his head. A billion people lived in that area. Most, if not all, would be dead already, just from the direct impact.

The ground shook, and the voices became louder. Somebody screamed. Mark had a hard time remaining on his feet. He turned, and saw one of the scientists was bleeding from his head.

“Oh crap, that was close, just west of the Appalachians, it barely missed us. Big one too.” Mark knew they had been lucky. A direct hit had been what they feared the most, since that was probably the one thing the bunker didn´t stand a chance of surviving.

A few minutes went by, and things look like they were calming down. Mark wondered if they had seen the final impacts.

“Another hit, ocean this time. In the Pacific, off the California coastline. That tsunami is going to be huge.”

“Another one on the continent, Northwest Canada. Hmmm, Alaska won’t survive that one.”

“Damn unlucky. The Australians were just hit. A stray one, completely wild trajectory, nothing like we expected. Hit the southeast, where most people live.”

That should be the last major impact, Mark thought. But that didn’t mean it was over. Now the reports were pouring in; earthquakes, tsunamis, firestorms.

“Oh, there's a big earthquake going on out in—Mr. President, California is breaking up! The San Andreas is splitting open!”

“Another huge quake. North of the Mediterranean, Turkey's gone, just gone! Oh man, Italy is breaking up, Pakistan and northern India are going as well.”

“It’s opening wide!” A fault line going from Italy, through Turkey and the Middle East all the way through Pakistan was opening up, swallowing everything.

“The sea is rushing in, can't be any survivors.”

“How many people live there?” somebody said.

“I have no idea. A billion? Two billion?” Mark stood shaking his head. Billions. Billions were dying. It was impossible to fathom.

“That ocean impact in the north Atlantic. The resulting tsunami just flooded Ireland. All of it! It’s going to swallow the lowlands of northern Europe.”

“There’s a wave forming in the south Atlantic too, looks big enough to flood most of South America, except the Andes and the highlands.”

Mark was dizzy. Voices were competing with each other, every report worse than the last. He sat down and covered his face with his hands.

“Africa looks bad. That northern impact really got them. Only part to remain relatively unharmed is the southern African Highlands.”

“Japan is gone, man. All the cities are gone. Only the mountains remain above water. Once that wave recedes, there will be nothing left.”

“Sir, a tsunami is rushing in toward the East Coast, it may even reach as far inland as here,” someone said, and everybody stopped to listen.

“This place is completely water-tight though, right?” That was President Andrews.

“Yes, but everything else will be gone. The wave is already a hundred meters tall, and rising.”

“Do we know anything about the central states?” the president asked.

“Sir, the sea is rushing in through the rift caused by the closest impact. In fact, the continent is split in two. Also, between the two continental impacts, the devastation will be nearly complete.”

“How long until we see the effects on the climate?”

“We don´t know, sir. But we are definitely looking at a long winter.”

24.

Kirstie

Kirstie was being violently tossed around in the water. Her still being alive was nothing short of a miracle, but she didn´t expect it to last much longer. She already struggled to remain conscious after repeated hits from all sorts of debris. She could see entire trees and parts of buildings swirling around beside her, as she was dragged along with the current, far, far away from where the wave had reached her. This is it, she thought as the currents pulled her under. This is the end. She was out of air, and instinct forced her to inhale. Water filled her lungs; muscle reflexes trying to force it back out. Her vision blurred, and everything darkened. She tried to focus on a sliver of light in front of her, but it was getting more and more difficult with every second that passed. Something hit her side, and she grabbed at it. Then everything went black.

AFTERMATH

I was fifteen when my father sat down with me and told me the full story of his journey. I remember it as if it was yesterday, because it made such an impression on me. Many have asked me what have been the greatest influences on my ideas around government, nation building and the future, and I can truly, without doubt, say it was my father´s journey. His courage and determination, along with his unrelenting and unwavering sense of right and wrong are ideals we should all aspire to, no matter the circumstances.

Pres. N. Rawlins, Life and Liberty – A Memoir, 2136

Buchanan Publ. Library Press

25.

Jenny

Jenny's head was ringing as the rumbling faded. The earth still shook, but nothing like it had for the last hour or so. Still, she knew there would be aftershocks, which could be just as dangerous as the big quake that has passed. When the reserve generators kicked in and the lights flickered back on, she could see the damage around her. She crawled out from beneath her bed, where she had hidden from the debris that rained down from the ceiling. Only Joe and a few others, technicians mostly, had stayed in the control room, while Jenny and most others were sent to their rooms just a few minutes before Impact. She dusted herself off, raising a gray cloud around her. She walked to the door and opened it. Her room was close to Deacon’s, so she decided to go see if he was still okay.

The hallway was a mess. The air was thick with dust. She looked down at her hands—still dusty—and when she looked around and saw more people emerge from their rooms, she saw they were covered in dust as well. Yet they were alive.

Deacon appeared, looking as if he were in a hurry. She joined him.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To the control room. Joe will be there,” Deacon said. On their way they saw some people who were wounded, although most seemed okay, except for being shaken by the experience. A wall had given in, and they had help clear the rubble before they could continue. Half an hour later they reached the control room.

“Deacon, Jenny, you are all right,” Joe said.

“We are just going through reports on the damage to the facility. We expect to know more about the world outside shortly.”

One of Joe's associates came over and joined them, his face grave. They sat down at the table.

“Okay, hit me,” Joe said

“The facility is intact. There were a few cave-ins on the upper levels, and some damage to the outer hallways. The main gates are broken. There were two casualties, crushed by rocks that loosened from the ceiling. Other than that, it seems we have made it through.”

“So, what do we know so far?” Joe asked.

“Well, we do know there were two continental hits. One to the East, and one in northwestern Canada. Also, there was one off the California coast. There will be huge tsunamis on the East coast, and the West coast is already ruined. The Northwest impact caused the San Andreas Fault to open. We don't know the extent of the damage yet, but you can imagine,” he paused. “We have no word from the east.”

The table shook again, and Jenny started. Seconds later, it had passed.

“Aftershocks,” someone said, and another chimed in.

“There will be several of them. They can get bad enough, but for now, it seems we are okay.”

Jenny couldn't believe it. For years she had lived without any hope beyond this day. She had known she would die, along with everybody else. And yet here she was, still alive, in the reinforced facility, deep underground.

The door opened, and a few more people, technicians and scientists mostly, walked in. She heard crying from the hallways, but she couldn't say whether it was people crying out of fear or joy.

Devastator had come and destroyed the world. She had seen it, and survived.

26.

Ed

Ed Walker sat in the darkness of his basement. The aftershocks that came and went shook the remains of his house, causing shelves to collapse. In the pitch black, he had already tripped on an overturned crate, fallen and hit his head, causing a bump that was still throbbing. His eyes would have probably adjusted to the dark by now, except that there was absolutely no light. He had sealed the cracks under the door, and not even the slightest flicker of light got in. But he knew where everything was supposed to be, and even after the aftershocks—and of course the impact itself—he knew approximately where everything was. He would survive.

The TV was dead, and though he still had batteries, the radio produced only static. Without TV, radio, internet, any sort of communication, he was in the dark, not just literally, but also he had no way of knowing what had happened to the world.

He stayed mostly inside his little cave, but there were hints that the weather was going rampant outside. When things seemed to quiet down, he took his first trip outside to have a quick look. At first, warm winds had come in from the west, bringing a salty tang of seawater even this far inland. He had remained optimistic then, although he should have known better. Then the temperature had gone completely bonkers, from steaming hot to freezing cold, and back to steaming hot again. Now and then, if he got really quiet, not moving, he could hear rain pouring down outside. It seemed to come and go. And whenever it got cold, the rain would turn to sleet, salty, dirty sleet that would melt and run down into his basement. Some days, ice formed up in the corners of the stairs, where only the door stood between him and the outside.

He had peeked outside a few more times, only to turn back quickly to avoid being seen by a gang of looters who were running wild outside. Yesterday, he had heard shooting in the streets. When will they come for me?

He had food and water to last him for a long time, but if the looters came— and they would, at some point—he would be easy prey. The more he thought about it, he saw that he had only two options. He could stay, safely tucked inside his basement, tearing through his supplies, only to reach the day when he had nothing left. By then it might be too late to get anywhere, since it would get a whole lot colder soon, because of the rapid global cooling. Or he could venture out now, into the unpredictable world outside. He could reach the mountains to the north in a week on foot. The mountains might hold scattered groups of survivors, and maybe he could hook up with them. Or, he would simply die out there. So he had one option that guaranteed him life in the short term and death in the long-term, while the other option guaranteed nothing.

He got up, and a wave of nausea hit him. The bump on his head was throbbing fiercely, and he steadied himself. Stay or go, stay or go? He paced the floor, stumbled on a can, and kicked it away. Stay or go, stay or go?

He stopped. Then he felt his way toward the stairs. He walked up and grabbed the door handle, opening it to what had once been his living room; what was now just an empty ruin, with a few remaining belongings scattered about, while anything useful had been taken by looters. He crossed the room and opened the door, staring out into the unknown. Then he went back inside and began to pack his backpack.

27.

Robert

Robert was carrying Ryan, while hunching over him to keep the worst of the sleet off of his son. The five-year-old was holding Mr. Teddy tightly, even in his sleep, and Robert made sure the teddy bear didn’t slip out of his hands when he moved. That would have been devastating, he thought, which forced a sad smile to his face for a second.

The runny sleet reached almost to his knees now, and for the past hour he’d grown increasingly worried that they wouldn’t last through the night. He saw that Anne was struggling, while her older brother Kevin helped her along. Liv didn’t say much, but kept moving, which was good enough for now. He stopped for a moment and looked at the people following along behind them. Ethan and Barb were supporting each other, and Robert had a feeling that as long as one of them didn’t fall behind they would both make do. Although older than him, they had a strength he couldn’t describe, a strength that came from somewhere deep within. He realized the couple had become almost like family to him, and the kids seemed to like them as well. It was like they had gotten their grandparents back.

Behind them, the mother and her two kids were struggling to keep up. The kids were six and eight, and she had to prod them on every other minute. And she seemed to be growing weaker, too. Whenever the group took a break, she would sit back, trying to get some rest, while her kids screamed for her to do something, for their father, the fireman who had stayed behind in the US, or at each other. Robert realized that if they didn’t find shelter soon, the mother, whose name he didn’t even know, would break down.

A trickle of slush ran down the inside of his boot and he cursed. Had it been any ordinary day, Anne would have admonished him, watch your language Dad, he thought. Now though, Anne had enough willpower just to stay on her feet.

Beside the sleet, the thing that worried him the most was that they were out of food and clean water. Without food, their strength would quickly diminish, and with no more clean water they would soon have to drink the runoff from the sleet. That would finish them off quickly. The sleet was a dirty, salty mush, and a large part of it was made up by seawater from the oceanic impacts.

“Look! Is that a house?” he heard Kevin shout. Robert squinted and then he saw it. A shadow, barely seen though the sleet, but a building it was. A house, in the middle of nowhere. The windows were dark. It looked abandoned. The sight seemed to give Anne new energy, and she and Kevin ran ahead.

“Careful!” Robert shouted, “There can be...” he trailed off. The kids were already almost out of earshot. He remembered their commandeered cabin. He felt a stab of panic, and quickened his pace. He half-expected to hear a gunshot any second.

But as he reached the house, the front door shot open, and Kevin stood in the open doorway.

“It’s empty!” he said. Robert saw his son’s eyes were glowing, and he wore a grin from ear to ear.

“There’s food, and water, and clean beds!” he said. Robert turned and saw his wife’s relieved face. For now, and hopefully for a few more days, they were safe.

28.

John

John and Derek had been walking for a week since Devastator hit. Johanna was dead, mortally wounded in an earthquake following the impacts, and Derek was solemnly following along. John wondered if they would ever reach Boulder, where he hoped his family was still located. He constantly dreamed of seeing them again, and at night he would go from hopeless despair to fierce determination. It had been years now—who knew what the situation was there?

“How long till we reach Boulder?” Derek asked, as they walked along a ridge that would take them around an area they had decided to avoid, as it was covered tracks that could only be from military vehicles.

“No idea,” John replied. “Shouldn't be more than a day or two, but I'm not sure.”

“Have you thought about...what if—” Derek began.

John gave him a hard look. “I can't afford to think like that,” he said, not for the first time.

“I'm sorry. I just...”

“I know, Derek, I know.”

They walked on in silence. The aftershocks had been bad for the first few days, and Derek had hurt his wrist when he fell down a hillside. It looked a little bit better, but he complained about the pain, and John wondered if it had been fractured. He remembered all too well how Johanna had suffered an injury when devastator hit. She had bled to death, but she was still alive when they left her behind. John still felt bad about it, but he knew there was no way any of them would survive unless they kept moving.

On the horizon they could see the lights of a hundred wildfires. If they stopped moving for too long, the fires would trap them, and that would be the end of it. For a few days they kept moving—even at nighttime—but now they were just too tired, and had to take turns getting some sleep. One of them would keep watch, while the other would get some sorely needed rest.

They were also afraid that scavengers might be out there, searching for people that were vulnerable, like them. People with guns, ready to kill for food, shelter, or whatever. They knew there were survivors, and they had even heard gunshots on two occasions, which told them the situation was bad. Really bad. One of these days they would run into someone.

“So what do we do once we reach Boulder?” Derek said

“I'm not sure,” John said. “But if we can reach the northern edge, that would be an easier approach.”

“So basically, we have to decide whether to go around or straight through, right?”

“That's right.”

When darkness began blurring the landscape, they decided to rest. They were not only sleep deprived, but also hungry— starving, for the most part. They had no food, other than what they could find along the way. Yesterday Edward had found a couple of cans of fruit. That had been a very lucky day. Now, they sat down to eat, and savored the sweet juices of a can of peaches.

John let the taste linger in his mouth, taking only small bites and relishing the sweetness, a brief respite from their otherwise bleak new existence. This must be what heaven tastes like, he thought. Afterwards, their somewhat fuller bellies pushed away the gloom, and they sat back and shared a moment in silence. Derek had become his best, most staunch friend, since they escaped the camp. The gaunt man had surprised him in so many ways; they even had a radio that Derek had fixed they sometimes used to listen for signs of other survivors. They used it sparingly though, since they had no spare batteries, but every so often they took it out and scanned through the frequencies. Nothing yet, but they hoped one day that would change.

John subconsciously knew that the chances of finding his family were slim. But he couldn't let that thought overwhelm him. It would be dangerous. It would kill them both. And if his family were still alive, it would kill them too. So they avoided such conversations, as much as they could. That was just how it had to be. In the back of his mind, John feared that their quest was futile, and that once they reached Boulder they would be in for a terrible disappointment. If that happened, John’s life would end in ruin, and he only hoped he wouldn’t drag Derek down with him. But living with hope beat dying without it, so they kept trudging along, while they watched the world around them die.

29.

Joe

Joe Buchanan watched as ten strong men working together managed to open the heavy outer gates. He would have helped, but Cecelia had stopped him. “You are an old man, dear,” she had said. Then she had laughed at his reaction and kissed him on the cheek. So he had to stand by, watching as the men exerted themselves. It was backbreaking work, even though these were strong men, fit and young. As the door moved, daylight entered the tunnel. Although it was gray outside, with clouds hanging low, he had to squint in the light. His eyes had grown used to the darkness.

Once the gates were open and the entrance was secured from falling debris, they stepped outside. Joe smiled, watching the valley. It had begun to rain, just a few drops. He knew that soon it would get worse. This was the beginning of the long winter. And yet, even in the bleak, gray weather, he felt elated, uplifted. They were alive, against all odds. Yes, they had to secure the valley. The outer fence needed extensive repairs. Several of the vehicles, and some of the supplies and weapons stored on the upper levels, had been damaged. They needed to establish checkpoints and a form of small government. They should send out recon patrols in every direction; nothing like feet on the ground to get quality intel.

Half of the cabins had been ruined by the air raid, and quite a few were completely ruined. The rest of them needed repairs, although the destroyed cabins could be used as materials to build new ones. They needed to consolidate, prepare, and wait out the long winter.

Yet, it felt good, thinking of building, construction, preparing to live rather than die, to make something. He turned around and faced the others.

“For years, we have been preparing for this. We knew Devastator could be the end of us all, and we struggled, hoping for this day to come. Today is the day when we step outside our shelter, and see the world that we are going to rebuild. Today is the day we realize we have survived. Today is our first day in a new world.”

30.

Kirstie

The first thing Kirstie noticed as she woke up was the smell of decay and saltwater. She heard murmurs around her, and she felt her body sway from side to side. She slowly opened her eyes. For a moment, she thought she had gone blind, but then she realized it was just the darkness. As the world returned to her, she realized she was outside, on the deck of a ship. She tried to move, but a blinding headache made her lay down, resting her head on something soft. When the throbbing subsided, she noticed there were no stars. Or rather, the stars were hidden by a thick layer of clouds. She moved her head again, carefully, slowly, and saw others were crammed together with her on the deck. Men, women, and children lying around, some sleeping, others in quiet conversation. Some were aimlessly walking back and forth on the crowded deck.

“Hey, she's awake,” someone said. The person who had spoken, and a couple others, came over to her.

“We almost had you thrown overboard. We didn't think you would wake up. Thought you were in a coma or something,” one of them, a woman of about twenty said. She held a baby in her left arm, and a half-empty bottle of milk in the other. The baby was sleeping.

“You have been out for three days,” the man, her husband perhaps, said. Kirstie tried to remember. She had been walking, with shaggy, in the Parks. Oxford.

“Where am I?”

The woman smiled, a sympathetic smile, before answering. “Well, at sea of course. We’re trying to reach high ground; last I heard we were headed for Norway. Seems a few people survived in the mountains.”

“But it’s slow going, and we don’t know what’s waiting for us there,” the man said.

The third person, an older man, hadn't said anything yet, but now he spoke. “This ship is actually a cargo freighter. One of the crew said they were moored at Antwerp, but they left port a week before Impact. Tried to get as far out into open water as possible. Only way to stand even the slightest chance of surviving a tsunami.”

The younger man cut in. “And they were lucky, they rode the wave all the way through the Atlantic, past Cornwall and the rest of South England. Been picking up people ever since. There’ve been more survivors in the water than you’d think, hanging on to whatever rubble they found. And the sea’s full of shit to hang on to.”

“That’s how they found you,” the woman said. “You were lying on top of a pile of floating trash, trash-bergs, we call them. It just sort of piles up together, and forms kind of floating islands. Actually, you’re not the only one who has been picked up that way.”

“You had hit your head. If you hadn't woken soon, you would have been put to sea again. Have to make room for the living,” the woman said. Then she smiled again. “I'm glad you did though, you look like a nice person.”

Kirstie had begun to remember, to realize the situation. She had survived, something she would never have expected. Now, headed for what was left of Norway, she would have no way to learn whether Dianne and Brian were still alive. They might be, in the shelter, but with the flood wave pulsing across the UK, anything could have happened. She tried to sit up again, and the younger man helped her. The throbbing in her head wasn't as bad this time.

“How long till we reach the coast?” she asked.

“Well, that depends. It should take us a couple more days, but with the trash bergs, there might be delays.”

Kirstie wondered what would happen to them once they reached the coast. The Norwegians had always been friendly to the Brits, but this was a new situation, with limited resources, and most likely a long winter ahead. She didn't know what to expect.

Something flickered in her peripheral vision. She said nothing, but then the woman exclaimed.

“It's snow,” Kirstie said, holding out the back of her hand where something glistened as it melted. Something landed on her forehead. She touched it with her finger, and then touched it with the tip of her tongue. Salty. Foul.

“It's starting,” she whispered.

31.

Robert

Inside the house, Robert discovered the pantry was filled with canned food. Cans of fresh water were stored in the bathroom. The inhabitants of this house had probably been preparing for Devastator for some time. He wondered why they weren’t here, but no answers came to him. After looking through everything, Robert could see that if they rationed the food and water it would last for a couple weeks.

They all shared in the relief and joy of finding this treasure. The single mother introduced herself as Kate, and got to work cooking up a dish of meat and canned vegetables. Liv joined in, and soon enough the two women were chatting among themselves as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

They got out of their wet clothes, and Barb found some clean dry clothes stuffed in a closet. There was a mix and match of sizes, and although the clothes didn't fit well, Robert enjoyed being dry for the first time in a while. They laughed, some cried, and everyone seemed to be hugging each other. The old house even had enough beds for all of them. Robert thought that they would have stayed there forever, if they could. Clean water had never tasted so good, and the food was even better. Life was pretty good, at least for now.

After putting the kids to bed they sat down to talk.

“How long do you think we can stay here?” Ethan said.

“If we ration our food and clean water, this should last us a week or two. Maybe more,” Robert said.

“But, don't you think we could resupply somehow, fish, or something?” Liv said.

Robert shook his head. “I don't think so. With the sleet there’s not much to see. We don’t even know if there’s any lakes around, although there might be. And though we might get lucky, find a lake and even catch something, I really think we need to move on. Sooner or later, we will run out. And it's getting colder,” he said.

“There's a long, long winter ahead of us,” Ethan said gravely. They hadn't had a chance to talk much on the way here, and now Robert looked at Ethan, wondering if the scientist would share some of his knowledge with them. Ethan took a deep breath, and explained.

“You see, the sediment from the ground which is now spreading across the globe, high up in the atmosphere, will create a layer of dust that prevents the sun from reaching the ground. It will be like a filter. No one knows how many years it will take for it to clear. But because of this, we are looking at a temperature fall, snow instead of rain, very little sunlight...plants will die, most animals too, crops will not grow, snow and ice will cover much of the ground. One hundred years ago, it was thought this might happen after a full-scale nuclear war. They called it atomic winter or nuclear winter. Well, Devastator can be compared to that. I cannot tell you how long it will last, but I can tell you the only thing we can be sure of—all we will have for a long time are canned goods and nonperishables, and we have to make them last. The long winter will not last forever, but before it ends a lot of people will die, species will go extinct, and the Earth will need to reset itself.” Everyone around the table looked at each other.

“So we need to find one of the organized shelters,” the single mother, Kate said. She continued, “they will have prepared. They will have stored goods, food to feed people through this long winter, don't you think?”

Ethan nodded. “Yes they will. Of course, they won’t know how long it will last either, but I am assuming they will ration whatever they have, so it will last as long as possible. That's the best they can do, and if that isn't enough, then they will run out,” he said.

“Okay, so how far to the nearest shelter?” Robert said.

Liv brought up the old map she had taken from the car. “Well, this might not be accurate anymore, but it's the best we've got,” she said. She put her finger on the map, tracing along as she explained. “This is the border. We probably went about this far before we were stopped at the refugee station. Then we continued along this road, and I guess this is where we were, when Devastator hit.” She moved her finger to the right, slightly. “This must be where we were heading. The woman at the refugee station said there would be a shelter there. I don't know how many buses went before us, so we don't know how many people are there, but if there was a shelter, that might be our best shot.”

Robert smiled at her. That was what he’d been thinking as well. “So how long will it take us to reach it?” he asked.

His wife thought for a moment, before answering. “In normal weather, walking, I would say two more days. In this weather though, there is no way to tell. The sleet is getting deeper, and if the temperature continues to drop it will turn to snow, well there's just no way to know,” she said.

“So what do you think? Should we stay here for a while, and then move out, after we have got some rest?” Robert said.

Ethan shook his head. “No no, we have to get moving as quickly as we can. The weather will most likely become increasingly worse, so getting there will be harder the longer we wait. Also, a lot of people will be headed that way. The longer we wait, the less likely they are to let us in, once they realize this is the long winter, and everything they have will have to be shared, and last them for a long time. For every person they let in, the time they could last shortens. So the sooner we get there, the better,” Ethan said.

Robert nodded. “So, we’ll spend the night here, dry our clothes, get some food in our bellies, and get a good night’s rest. Then, tomorrow, we head out. We need to reach that shelter as soon as we can.”

They all agreed.

32.

Mark

Mark Novak was standing next to the cryo cells, performing last-minute checks on the President’s cell, making sure everything was okay. Present Andrews was standing off to the side, talking to one of his personal bodyguards, and Mark couldn't hear what they were saying. Mark ticked off the final checkpoints on this list, before he laid it down on the counter next to the cell and turned toward the president.

“We’re good to go, Mr. President,” he said.

President Andrews, who looked like he had aged ten years in two weeks, looked back at him and smiled. You look tired, Mark thought. The president still had that nervous smile, or rather, that insecure smile, that Mark had noticed so long ago. The one that always lurked behind his harsh words.

“Good,” the president said. He turned toward the last guard remaining, except for the one outside the lab, and shook his hand. No more words were spoken. The president undressed and stepped into his cryo cell. Mark gave him an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder, before closing the lid. He then pressed a sequence of numbers, and a mechanism began to hum. The cryo cell filled with gas, and the president's eyes drooped, before they shut completely, as he seemed to relax. Mark stood, watching the president falling into a deep sleep, before he pushed a button and liquid began to fill the compartment. Mark walked over to the counter and picked up another list. This was the list of sleepers in this part of the facility. He checked off the empty box next to the president’s name. Almost one hundred names now had checked boxes next to them, and only his name and two others remained.

“So, are you guys all set?” he said to the bodyguard, Frank, who nodded affirmatively. The guards would be put up in an apartment nearby, with training facilities, a large entertainment room, a storage compartment filled with canned foods and nonperishables, a kitchen, and separate bedrooms. They were fully aware that while their lives would run their course, the sleepers wouldn't age significantly at all. One day, the sleepers would awaken, and relieve the guards from their duty. Nobody knew for sure how long that would take, but they knew that they might grow old before it happened. That all depended on how long it took before Earth became habitable again. In the meantime, they would make sure no stray survivors entered the facility. They would also monitor the feeds from the remaining satellites, motion detectors, and automatic drones. Well, the few that had survived, anyway.

Lastly, they would regularly monitor the health of every sleeper in the facility. Neither of them had more than basic first-aid training, but they had been trained to adjust the cryo cells so that if a sleeper needed anything that the AI couldn’t administer by itself, they would be able to override the system.

The only one left to be put to sleep was Mark.

As soon as the last guard left the room Mark walked over to a cabinet on the far wall, and removed the chain from around his neck that held a key. Then he inserted the key and opened his private drawer. He knew this one would be checked thoroughly by the bodyguards as soon as he was asleep. He looked around before taking out his gun and the spare magazine, and put them in his pocket. Then he walked over to the row of cryo cells that lined the lab from the counter to the far wall. Along with his own cell, these would be the last ones to be put in the storage compartment by the guards. They would then do a thorough check with metal detectors and other sensors, and once they locked the reinforced doors to the storage facility, not even an explosion in the lab would harm the sleepers. Mark walked to the end alongside the cryo cells until he reached the sliding door that led into the hallways and the storage facility. He pushed a button, and the door slid open. Then he took careful steps forward, counting every step until he reached the one point where the surveillance camera feeds intersected. After searching for something like this for weeks, he had finally found it: a blind spot. The lab would be searched, just like the cryo cells would. But this hallway was monitored twenty four seven, and there was nowhere to put anything here. Except, of course, behind the walls, once he pried open the wall plates with a screwdriver. Careful to stay within the blind spot, he put the gun and the magazine inside, and closed it up again. He took extra care to fasten the plate properly, so there was no sign it had been tampered with. He looked at it for a few seconds, before walking back into the lab, knowing it would be several years before he would set his foot in this room again. He exhaled, and tried to shake off the nervousness. After everything, this would be his most important act. He would change the world. And hopefully, if everything went according to plan, it would become a better place. He walked over to the empty cryo cell, and pressed the keys that would start the sequence. He was tired, and looked forward to the long sleep.

33.

John

John Rawlins leaned against the wind and sleet, covering his face with his right hand. The weather was quickly becoming their worst enemy. It was pouring down, and walking had become more difficult with every hour. He licked his lips. The slush was salty, dirty, and John knew it had something to do with impacts way out in the oceans. He looked back at Derek, who was lagging a few steps behind. Leaving Johanna had been hard on them both. But Derek had taken it harder. John understood. It had felt like a betrayal. Johanna had been with them from the start, and leaving her behind to die was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. But she was mortally wounded, bleeding to death from an open fracture, which had cut the artery in her leg. They never had a choice.

John tried not to think about his family too much as he got closer to where they had lived before he joined the Exodus project. It was difficult enough just to try and stay alive, but knowing that they would likely be in mortal danger was too difficult to think about. He had to reach them. Even though it would be nearly impossible, he just had to reach them. He knew their chances weren’t great, but he couldn't go on living without knowing at least what had happened to them. In the back of his mind, he didn't know if he could go on living if the unthinkable had happened.

Derek caught up with him.

“We should get some cover,” he said.

“Over that ridge, there might be some trees we can hide underneath,” John answered.

They continued, desperate for shelter. So far, they had always managed to find somewhere to hunker down for the night, but one of these days they might not. That night would be very difficult to survive.

They reached the top of the ridge and saw the sparse forest below.

Tonight would not be that night.

34.

Robert

It was the fourth day after leaving the house, and they were walking through the sleet, this gray, salty slush, that was now beginning to turn into dirty gray snow and ice. They were still searching for the government shelter, and Liv kept saying they ought to get there sometime today. Everyone was tired, but they kept their hopes up. At nights they were able to take shelter inside a plastic tarp they had found in the shed, back at the house. By day though, they were trudging along under miserable conditions. Kate cried every night. Robert felt sympathy, but there was nothing he or anyone else could do. Barb tried to comfort the woman, who had lost her husband, leaving her alone with two kids. The rest of them tried to keep up their spirits, but it was difficult at best.

“Arrêtez-vous!” a voice called out in French. They stopped, dead in their tracks, waiting. Soon, two armed men came forward, guns pointing their way. They spoke French, but Robert understood most of it, since one of the men spoke English interspersed with the French.

“Nous prenons seulement ceux qui nous seront utiles,” the closest man said. He wore what looked to be hunting clothes, and sported a hunting rifle with a scope. He had a thick beard, and his eyes had a faraway look. This man has used his weapon more than once, Robert thought.

“Only essential people past this point. We only take those who will be useful,” the man who spoke English translated, roughly. He was younger, not much older than Kevin, but looked capable with his rifle, and just as determined as the one with the beard.

“If you turn us away, my family will die,” Robert said. He pointed at Ethan and Barb, Kate and her kids. “And they will all die,” he said.

“Sorry. That is how it is,” the first man said, in heavily accented English.

“We might be essential though, you don't know yet,” Ethan said. The man nodded, and waved the one who had spoken English over.

“I speak more English than my uncle, so I will listen and translate,” the younger man said, indicating for Ethan to speak up.

“I am a professor of physics. My wife is a teacher,” Ethan said. The younger man spoke in French, and the older man looked at Ethan and Barbara for a moment before he shook his head.

“Sorry no. Not essential,” the younger man said.

“But what about the long-term? What about the kids, they need to learn. And I’m a physicist, I can teach you how to get energy, or...” Ethan said, desperation apparent in his voice. He hadn’t expected this, Robert saw. Ethan was looking at his wife, whose face had turned ashen. The younger man addressed Robert.

“You. You are younger. Can you shoot? Can you hunt?” The older man said something in French to him and the younger translated. “You look like you can handle yourself, my uncle says.”

Robert chose his words carefully. “Yes, I can shoot, and my son can shoot. We all can shoot. I can teach others as well. I was a police officer,” Robert said.

“Okay you can bring your family along,” the younger man said. Robert sighed in relief. They would survive, they were safe. The younger man looked at Kate, and motioned for her to step forward. “What can you do?” he asked.

“I teach biology. High school.”

The younger man translated, and again his uncle shook his head.

“Sorry. I am truly sorry,” the nephew said.

“But the children—don't you think they have to learn? Don't you think we need knowledge, to survive the coming years?” she said, voice trembling. The younger man smiled a sympathetic smile.

“Of course. But this is not the kind of knowledge we are going to need. We are going to need to know how to shoot. How to hunt. How to survive. How to farm. Nothing else matters at this point,” he said.

“I grew up on a farm!” Kate exclaimed. “I know how to farm, I know how to grow seeds, I know how to take care of the animals. Please sir, I'm begging you,” the younger man translated again, and the older man looked at Kate, squinting. After a moment he gave his nephew a brief nod.

“Okay. You can come, and bring your children,” He said.

Robert was relieved Kate and her children would be coming along with them. But when he looked at Ethan and Barb, standing there, his heart broke. He walked over to Ethan, and laid his hand on Barb’s shoulder.

“I'm so sorry. I don't know what to do,” Robert whispered, trailing off.

“It's okay Rob. You have to care for your family. These are harsh times, and it will only get worse.”

Robert had no answer. He had a hard time coming to terms with how these people prioritized. Ethan and Barb would have been such assets to them all, the physicist and the teacher. But he knew there was limited food in the shelter, and they had to focus on their immediate survival. He would come to terms with it, in time, but right now seeing his friends like this was just too much.

“We’ll return to the house, and I guess we’ll just do whatever we can, survive for as long as we can,” Ethan said.

Barb spoke to him as well. “You must stay with these people, and work hard for them to accept you. Think about your kids, Robert,” she said. Robert gave Ethan his gun, and some of the food left in his pockets, and soon the couple was on their way. As they returned the way they had come, Robert had a hard time holding back the tears. He knew he would never see them again.

35.

John

John and Derek were spying on some looters from behind a snow bank, keeping their heads down, trying their best not to be discovered.

“We should do something,” Derek whispered.

“We cannot help them,” John shot back, irritated. Sometimes he wished Derek would realize that there was nothing they could do for most people; that most were screwed anyway, from the day Devastator hit. And yet, it was one of the things he liked and respected the most about his friend. He sighed.

They were on the outskirts of Boulder, watching a small group of people being tormented by a gang of looters. John hoped they would leave soon. His home lay on the far end of the next street. If his family was still there, he hoped they had taken shelter, because the gangs seemed to be running rampant in the streets.

When John and Derek were absolutely certain the looters had left, they emerged from their hiding place. The bodies of four people lay scattered in the streets. John tried not to look at them, but he had to, if only for a split second, just to make sure. Every time he saw a body, he had to make sure. And every time, he was relieved. So far. He felt bad about it, but his first and only priority was his family, and as long as none of them were among the bodies they found along the way, he would keep going.

They reached John's home a few minutes later. The door was open, the windows were smashed, and his garage had burned down. The house still stood though, and they entered.

“Melissa! Nate! Karen!” John shouted. Nobody answered. He walked into the kitchen, and found every cabinet door open, a few remains scattered about, but otherwise nothing left. The looters had been here. He checked the rest of the house, and found the looters had taken everything from blankets to his old shotgun, and even soap from the bathroom.

“At least the looters didn’t...” Derek said mumbled, before he stopped, abruptly.

“Yeah,” John, said, eyeing him sideways.

They stepped outside again.

“So, where do we go now?” Derek asked. John thought for a moment. They could head further into the city, but he suspected there would just be more looters burning buildings, more devastation. It would not be the logical way to escape for his family. North, however, away from the city, there used to be farmlands, where refugees fleeing the city could easily think to go. Of course, there were no guarantees, but the way John saw it, that would be their best shot.

“We go north,” John said.

“Okay let's get moving,” Derek said, hoisting up his backpack.

They had walked barely more than fifteen minutes before they saw a man lying on the sidewalk. The man, wearing something that resembled a uniform, but without any distinctions or unit tags whatsoever, had been shot in the chest. He was coughing up blood. He wasn’t dead yet, but he was dying. As they approached him, he looked up at them.

“You come to finish me off?” the man said.

John shook his head. “No man. Who did this to you?”

“They looked like bikers, but they’re just hooligans, looters, scum. I was a biker myself, back in the day, but that crowd—” He cut off, coughing, sputtering blood.

“Do you know what happened to the people who lived here?” John asked.

The man managed to control his coughing a bit, before he answered. “No, but I suspect they went to one of the refugee centers FEMA set up. Just north a ways.”

“What were you doing here anyway?” Derek said.

The man got a faraway expression. “I came from out west. There's a shelter there, I was part of a long-range recon team. We were gathering intel, trying to establish what has happened to the rest of the country.”

“Shelter? Are you with the government?” John said.

“No, no. It's run by a former Senator, but we have nothing to do with the government. In fact, the senator was a fugitive himself, when he started building the shelter. You may know of him, he was the head of the Exodus project.”

“The Exodus project? Really? I was put in a detention camp when I wanted to leave the project. That was certainly government business,” John said. He felt his anger rising. The man shook his head.

“The senator has been working against the government for a long time; I’m pretty sure he had nothing to do with any detention camps. Anyhow, you could try to get to the shelter. Some people call it Buchanan's refuge.”

“How do we get there?” Derek asked.

The man coughed heavily again. He was growing pale, and his voice had weakened. “You—” he swallowed. “You have to go north first, and then turn west. I had a map, but I destroyed it. Couldn´t let the looters...”

“Can you explain how to get there?”

“Sure. Like I said, you have to go north, until you reach the FEMA camp. There’s a city, but you need to go even further north. Then you head west...take you a while...” the man threw another coughing fit, and more blood came sputtering out of his mouth. His breath had become ragged, and his eyes glazed over.

“Come on man, don't die on us now,” John said. The man tried to say something, but ended up coughing more blood. John took his hand, and squeezed it. The man squeezed back once, and then his hand went limp. Derek sat down next to them, and closed the man's eyes. They quietly got to their feet, and looked north at the road ahead of them. Without speaking, they began to walk.

36.

Ed

Ed was rummaging around in a trash can the looters had overlooked. He found some stale bread, a can of spoiled yogurt, and a couple of rotten apples. Before Impact it would have been disgusting, but now it was a treat.

“Let's see what we have here,” he mumbled to himself. A white plastic container had been covered inside a plastic bag alongside a used diaper. He threw away the diaper, and when he opened the container, his mouth watered. Chocolate balls rolled in coconut flakes. If he hadn't been hungry before, he almost lost control now. For a month, he’d been scavenging on the outskirts of town, after leaving the relative safety of his basement. He had gotten used to going hungry, and he always seemed to find something just when he was about to give up. Food had become all about survival, nothing else. Back when he was still married, he and his wife would go out at least once a week, eating at fancy restaurants. While it was first and foremost his wife who had insisted upon having this tradition, he had enjoyed it immensely. He had even tried doing so a couple of times alone, after his wife left. It wasn't the same though, so he quit trying, contenting himself with eating at home, or grabbing fast food on his way from work. Once he lost the job, TV dinners and junk food had become his usual choice.

Seeing the chocolate balls choked him up. So many memories came rushing in, forcing their way back into his consciousness again. Memories he had managed to suppress for so long. Things he had learned to cope with. He took one of the chocolates and held it for a moment before chewing into it.

“Amazing,” he whispered between chews.

He took the box and put all the chocolate balls into his pocket. He tossed the empty box away.

“Now what?” he said to himself.

He got to his feet, and looked around. When he left his basement, he had set out with a plan to go toward the mountains. He believed there might be people out there, away from gangs, looters, and all the dangers of the city. Of course, without all the people, there wouldn’t have been any remains to scavenge. There wouldn't be as much food and trash from which he could find something useful in the mountains, but even so the looters had already thinned out whatever remained here in the city. Soon, there wouldn’t be anything left. At some point he would have to take his chances, so the sooner he got away, the better. Would he perish out there? Would he starve to death? Would he be overtaken by gangs or people with bad intentions? He might, but all of that might happen here as well. He looked up the clouds forming. Another bout of rain, perhaps. The weather was unpredictable. Rain, sleet, rain again, then dry spells that lasted for a week.

He had heard that most people expected the impacts to cast sediments from the ground into the atmosphere, causing something similar to a nuclear winter. That might be true, but what he had seen so far was just chaotic. The long winter would probably come, but it would probably come first further north. He had no idea. This far south, the weather might hold for a bit longer.

A clinking sound made him start, and he immediately rushed to cover. Somebody was close. The looters? Do they have guns? Always his first concern. He waited. Soon after, a burly man came walking by. The man had an open sore on his neck, and a stained bandage covering his left eye. He stared frantically around, shouting something unintelligible. Ed noticed the machete in the man's right hand, and saw that it was stained black. Ed remained dead quiet, and even after the man passed, he didn't move for half an hour, at least. That does it, he thought. He had to get out. Out of the city. As soon as he got back on his feet, he turned toward the mountains in the distance, and began walking.

37.

Kirstie

Kirstie stood at the railing alongside one of the crew. A Filipino man, he didn't speak much English, but they kept the conversation going, somehow, through simple sentences, sign language, and goodwill. They were entering one of the fjords on the Norwegian coast. The sea had receded after the tsunamis, leaving a gray, lifeless wasteland where there had once been a beautiful landscape, with small settlements near the water. The trees that had been growing in the steep mountain sides were ripped out by the enormous tsunamis, and all signs of human habitation were gone, the remains washed out to sea. She didn't want to think about the people. The sailor had already conveyed that he had heard the captain speaking of worldwide tsunamis, leaving coastal areas all around the world devastated. That would mean half the Earth's population gone, just from the tsunamis. Which, of course, didn't take into account the earthquakes, the impacts themselves, and devastation caused by fires, volcano eruptions, or the drop in supplies, such as food. And this was just a few weeks after Impact.

“I wonder if anyone will be there to receive us,” she said. The sailor nodded. He didn't speak much, but she had the feeling he understood.

“Do you...do you have family?” she said, immediately regretting the question.

“Please,” he said, gritting his teeth, “do not speak of family. Don't want to think.”

Kirstie felt ashamed. Who was she to ask such a thing? He was probably trying to keep thoughts of family and relatives at bay. Seeing what they were seeing here, in a coastal region, probably made him think of his own family back home. The Philippines were an archipelago. She could only imagine what the results of such devastating forces would do to such a nation.

The loudspeakers on deck beeped twice, followed by the captain’s voice.

“In about an hour we will reach our destination,” the captain said. A booming voice, with a slight accent, the captain commanded attention. She had seen him a few times, but never spoken to him. Still, she had faith in this man, since he and his crew had saved them all from drowning. She tried not to think about Dianne and Brian back home. They were hopefully safe in their shelters. The captain spoke again. “I have spoken to the local authorities, and they have room to take us in. One shelter, holding a couple thousand Norwegians, has survived up in the mountains, and there will be people waiting to receive you once we reach the end of the fjord. This ship will sail out again, even though we don't expect to pick up any more survivors. But the fjord is too dangerous for the ship to stay for long at the moment, so we have to find somewhere else to go. So, once you disembark, we will sail out again. Let me say this: it has been an honor, and we hope you will be able to survive, here in the Norwegian mountains. We have all seen the devastation, horrors too bad to fathom. On a personal note, I grew up in one of these fjords and you can all see what’s left...so I know what you are all going through. There is nothing we can do about that. But we can support each other, and try to make it through these trials. Okay, so once you leave this ship, you must obey whatever orders you are given by your hosts. They are trying to save you, and a whole lot of others. And if everyone works together, hopefully you might all make it through the coming winter. From what I have read, it seems it is going to last for a very long time. Good luck to you all.”

Kirstie looked down the side of the ship. Sleet was forming little pools on top of the water, which melted after a few seconds. It wouldn't last though. Soon, once the sleet got worse, the temperature dropped, and the heavy snow set in, winter would truly begin. Here, in Norway, it had already been snowing for a month, and the impacts had actually caused the temperature to rise to levels higher than it used to be at this time of year. It wouldn’t last though. Once winter began, it would last for years. All they could do was hope the mountain shelter had enough supplies to support so many people for several years.

They were alive. They had survived the greatest cataclysm humanity had ever seen, and they were bracing for what would come next. She expected the shelters to be well stocked and prepared for the long winter. After all, the leading theories all said the same thing. And maybe, just maybe, once the long winter ended, spring would bring a new beginning for this planet, the home of humanity.

38.

John

They were staring at the burning city in front of them.

“We have to get find the way through,” John said.

“You sure that's wise, John?” Derek said.

“What choice do we have?”

“We could go west. It's not like we know your family is there, so taking our chances in the city, doesn't necessarily lead us to them. They could just as well have gone west.”

John shook his head. “No, we have to make sure. I would like to reach Buchanan's refuge as well, but my family comes first. I couldn't live with myself if I reached the shelter without them by my side.”

Derek shuffled his feet, and looked down. “John,” he paused. “I think it's time we parted ways.”

“You sure about that?” John said.

Derek nodded. “I haven't spoken much about my own family. They are most likely dead anyhow, living near the coast, with the tsunamis and all. The Northwest was hit pretty bad, and we already had the wars, the nukes and whatnot. But I have to make sure. I will try to find Buchanan´s refuge; maybe they will have more information there. If possible I may even continue further. If I can manage to find this place, at least I will have somewhere to take them if they are still alive.”

“I understand you Derek, I really do. Let's part as friends, shall we?” John extended his hand. Derek took it, and they held on for a moment.

“It's been...you have been a true friend,” John said.

“And you. Both in the camp, and after,” Derek replied.

John watched as Derek turned around and walked off, taking the long route west of the burning city. He was sorry to see him go, but he understood that Derek had to go and try to find his own family. John turned, and watched the city again. There had to be away through, and he would find it.

39.

Jenny

Jenny was walking outside, feet trudging through the grey slush. Around her, everybody looked busy, frantically building and making repairs to the buildings that were still standing. They had to work quickly. The sleet kept falling, and soon the sleet would become snow. The snow would build up, and gradually begin to cover everything. What wasn't finished by then would remain as it was. They were preparing for the long winter now.

Beside her, Deacon Frost, Joe Buchanan’s closest associate, was walking, greeting people now and then, and giving and receiving messages, here and there.

“It will be a long winter. They say it could easily last for a decade,” Jenny said.

“That's true. It will be hard, but we are better situated than most,” Deacon said.

Neither of them spoke for a while, until they reached the south gate. Guards had already been placed, to make sure that the valley was safe. Jenny noticed the buried APCs with machine guns and rocket launchers, and thought it might be a bit too much. Then again, she had been there when the scramjets had destroyed half the buildings in seconds, so she knew there might be dangers lurking out there. Better safe than sorry.

Deacon spoke to the guards for a few minutes, before he motioned for Jenny to follow him back.

“I have to admit something,” he said. “I never managed to finish your novel.”

Jenny laughed. “It's not finished,” she said.

He laughed too. “I mean the parts you have written. How does it end?”

Jenny thought for a moment before answering. “Well, the people in the bunker survived. But there where others, good and bad. Some wanted to control everybody, to rule the world. Others just wanted to live in peace, to help each other, and to rebuild. But the bad ones were prepared. They had weapons, and they were ready to use them,” she said.

“Who won?”

“Nobody, not yet. They were too far apart. But given time, sooner or later, there would be a clash of titans, so to speak.”

“And then?”

“You will have to read it then.”

Deacon smiled, and she could see a fondness in his eyes. She felt something stir inside. She really liked him. Before she could react, he had leaned over, and kissed her on the cheek.

“What was...” Jenny felt her cheeks grow hot. Deacon didn't say anything, just kept smiling at her. Maybe winter will not be so bad, after all, she thought.

40.

John

John crouched behind the rubble, but kept moving. He was sneaking through the streets while fires raged all around him. The smoke was thick, but he was able to breathe, and there were pockets where the fires had already passed, or where it wouldn't catch. He took out his water bottle, took a sip, and let a little bit run over his head. It was a relief; the heat was scorching. He moved on.

He had been walking for three hours since entering the city. It wasn't a straight line, but rather a zigzag, one moment moving to the right, the next moving to the left, and then moving forward a bit, before having to change directions again or double back and find a different route.

A sound made him stop. He stood completely still, and then he heard it again. A whimper. He carefully walked toward the sound. There could be looters around the next corner. And he had already seen what they were capable of doing.

He rounded the corner, and a stray dog passed by. It looked at him, whined, and moved along. John exhaled, relieved. He had already passed the city center. Anytime now, he would reach the northern outskirts. He had seen no signs of refugees so far, and all he wanted right now was to leave this burned out city behind.

A shuffle, in the rubble beside him caught his attention, and made him move, making the blade miss him, by no more than a finger´s breadth. The robber stumbled by, and John braced for a second attack.

“You sonofabitch. I'm going to get you,” the robber said.

“Whatever you are carrying, it's mine.”

“You will have to come and take it then,” John snarled. The robber moved tentatively, waving his knife at John. John thought the robber looked desperate. One of them would not leave this place alive.

The robber lunged at him, and John stepped aside, instinctively lashing out against the robber, hitting him on the side of his head. The robber stumbled backwards, and John moved after him, careful not to get too close to the blade. The robber had lost his balance though, in the fall. John heard a crack when the robber hit the back of his head on the rubble. His eyes, wide-open and staring at nothing, glazed over, while John stood waiting for him to get up.

Blood quickly soaked the ground around the would-be robber’s head, and John knew he wasn't getting up. He relaxed. Then he walked over, bent down, and grabbed the knife. He wiped the blade on the dead robber, and put the knife safely in a side pocket of his backpack. Then he went on, hoping the road would lead him out of the burning city.

41.

Joe

Joe sat in his office, inside the repaired building that housed him and Cecilia, his formal office, a small library, and a large meeting room. The building had been damaged by the earthquakes that followed the impacts, but it was one of those which only needed minor repairs. It was nice to be able to use this building instead of hunkering down in the command center down in the shelter. Besides, this way he’d be closer to everything that happened, and easier to reach for the myriad of people who needed his attention.

He enjoyed sitting here, peering out his window, watching the bustle outside. His health wasn’t what it had been, but although he tried not to exert himself too much, he never let it impinge on his mood. There was an air of optimism in the valley; he could see it in every face. The sleet had been replaced by snow, and he knew it wouldn't let up for years. If the snow kept falling, it would soon cover the roofs. But they were prepared for this. Tunnels would be built within the snow and ice, and a small city was already being planned for and laid out, underneath the coming white blanket. Nobody knew how long it would last, but they were stocked to survive for years, decades if they rationed. Now he was reading a report from one of the ranger teams. He read about how they had patrolled the mountains to the west. Just like the other reports from what had been the west coast, this one was just as dreary. A few scattered survivors hunkered down here and there. Some would be headed this way, while others were unwilling to relocate. The rest of the world looked like it was mostly gone. What had once been California was now an archipelago that seemed to consist of uninhabited islands. No reports had been able to spot people there. In time, some might go there, and find a way to live on those islands, but for now no life remained in what had been the fifth largest economy in the world at one time.

His infopad bleeped. It was a call from the south gate. A gravelly voice interrupted his thoughts.

“We have a man here sir, who has been walking through the mountains. He claims it is important that you speak to him,” Joe sighed. Although they were well-stocked, they didn't have room for everyone, and refugees had been coming in on a weekly basis. They had already agreed they needed to prioritize. Essential personnel and children, those were the prioritized groups.

“What else did he say?” Joe asked

“He says he's a physicist.” The voice paused before it returned. “A nuclear scientist, to be precise. He said you would appreciate the distinction,” Joe frowned.

“Weapons?”

“Yes sir. He claims he might be able to get a normal reactor up and going as well, as long as it’s fairly close.”

Joe felt a sadness grow in his heart. So many turned up at the gates every day, desperately needing shelter; helpless souls, lost in this world, and the guards had to turn most of them away. There were too many to care for. And now, here comes a man who has made his living from the most horrible kind of weapons mankind ever conceived. Now he wants our help and he thinks we should let him in, instead of a child who has lost his parents, a doctor who can save lives, or soldier, who can protect the displaced, Joe thought, knowing that was only part of the picture.

“He said something about thinking of the future. Something about our future survival.”

Joe nodded, although the one on the other end couldn’t see. He already knew his answer. It felt wrong, but this wasn't the time to just feel, it was also time to think.

“What's his name?” Joe croaked.

“Dr. Edward Walker, sir.”

For the first time today, Joe felt really tired. He would meet this man, to see if he was the real deal. If this man could in fact, have an important role to play in the future, Joe would let him in. If he was all hot air, Joe would not hesitate to put him straight out again.

“Okay, let him through. I’d like to talk to him.”

42.

John

Hundreds of tents lined the countryside around the farm, where FEMA had established the refugee processing center. It was just north of the city, far enough to be out of sight, and guarded by several heavily armed soldiers. As he talked to the people there, John learned that there were several such facilities throughout the parts of the country where people had survived Impact. But even though they had provisions to care for people at the moment, they would quickly run out. That was why FEMA was directing groups of refugees in all directions every day. Nobody was allowed to stay here for longer than a week.

John picked up some news on the impacts as well. He learned of the Pacific impact, which had caused a tsunami that had flooded the entire west coast, killing millions. Then the Northwestern land impact, up in Canada, had caused an earthquake that crumpled up much of California, leaving most of the state underwater. What everyone was discussing though, was the big continental impact, which had taken place somewhere between the Midwest and the Appalachians, causing not just a huge impact crater, but also giant earthquakes that had rearranged the entire topography of the country. A huge rift was now stretching from deep inside the Canadian border and all the way south to the Gulf of Mexico, a deep canyon with elevated lands on both the east and west bank, dividing the Continent into two separate parts. The rift lay east of where the Mississippi river had run, and all around there was nothing but wasteland. Also, scattered throughout the hardest earthquake-stricken areas were the remains of nuclear reactors, spewing radioactivity and contaminating the surrounding areas.

But even though the entire continent lay in ruins, groups of people went out on a daily basis in every direction, searching for safety and a place to survive the hard times they all knew were coming.

The second day, he finally managed to talk to one of the employees at the facility, after standing in line for three hours.

“Look. I know you must have some sort of records. The names are Melissa, Nathaniel and Karen Rawlins. Melissa is my wife. She’s all alone with Karen and little Nate, so I really need you to check into whether they have been here or not,” John said to the clerk. The tired-looking woman just shook her head.

“I'm sorry sir, all the computers are down, and we only have the paper records. I cannot give you those,” she said.

“You don't understand, ma’am, I really have to reach them. And I’m pretty sure they must have been here,” John said, as calmly as he could.

“I'm sorry sir,” she replied, a desperate look on her face. John saw that she wanted to help him, she was just over-worked and he knew he’d have to help her along.

“Look, I might be of assistance to you. I can take a group with me, right now if you’d like. I’m former military. Just check for me, please?”

The clerk looked at him, hesitantly. Then she got up out of her chair. “Okay, I will go and check. You will take a group, and leave as soon as I have your answer. Okay?” she said.

“Of course.”

The woman walked over to the back of the room, where file cabinets lined the wall. She searched for the letter R, and once she found it, she opened one of the drawers. She flipped through the documents, mumbling something to herself.

“Right, there is this,” she said, stopping to have a closer look at one of the papers for a moment, before she put it back into the cabinets and closed it. Then she returned to John.

“It seems they were here just a few days ago, before they headed west. They were in a group of perhaps four others. You may catch up with them if you are quick.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” John said, relief flowing through him. He wanted to hug the poor clerk.

“Ma’am, I would like to leave as soon as possible.”

The woman smiled, and came out from behind the counter. “Come with me,” she said. He followed her out the door, leaving the long line of people behind.

“There is a group getting ready as we speak. You go with them, and find your family,” she said.

John didn't hesitate for a second.

43.

John

John didn't really want to travel with a group. He knew he could move faster alone. And yet, it was a trade-off: information on where his wife and children had gone, in return for taking a group with him. He had made a promise, and a promise was no small thing to him.

Besides, out there, there would be strength in numbers, and they would be armed. With all the dangers in the wild, he could see real value in that. So perhaps being in a group wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all. He just hoped he would be put in a group with other capable people.

After the clerk had directed him to the group, she walked back to the farm. John walked toward the group standing underneath an improvised tarp cover, just as they were getting ready to leave. One of the FEMA officers standing next to the group waved him over and gave him a backpack. He already had one, but the new one looked like it could carry more, and it looked more comfortable. John took a few cans of food, his blanket, his knife, and a couple water bottles, and put them in the new pack. Then he replenished with more food from a stack of cans beside the officer, a sleeping bag, a tarp, and a fuel cell. The FEMA officer handed him a pistol and a spare magazine. He checked the gun to make sure it was loaded, and that the safety was on.

“You know how to handle this thing, right?” the officer said. John nodded as he put the gun and the spare magazine in his pockets. Then he approached the others.

A small family, who looked like outdoorsy types, were the first to greet him. Tom and Vera and their seventeen-year-old son Matt carried their backpacks easily, and Tom held his rifle with quiet confidence.

“We heard about this place out west,” he said, “need to be quiet about it though, since the guy who set it up has been at the top America’s most wanted list for the last four years. Former senator, and the head of the Exodus project. Heard about it through a friend. We were on our way there when we got held up by fighting to the north.”

John remembered the dying man in Boulder, and his story about the refuge out west. He wished Derek had stayed with him. Now, perhaps they would meet again, in Buchanan’s refuge.

Next was the man who introduced himself as Ricardo, a local policeman from Denver.

“We passed Denver on our way to Boulder,” John said.

The policeman nodded somberly. They both knew Denver was no more.

“I was on my way there, when it happened,” Ricardo said. “The earthquake swallowed half the city. The rest is nothing but burned out rubble.”

The final member of the group was a nurse from outside Boulder. She looked nervous, but smiled as they shook hands. She introduced herself as Hillary, but other than that she didn’t speak much. John sympathized. Like so many others, she had probably seen more than she could handle. That tended to do some damage to people, emotionally.

Half an hour later, they were on their way following a dirt road headed west. In the distance were rolling hills covered in slush, and John knew they would have to cross into the mountains in a few days.

They had a long and hard trek ahead of them, but at least he knew his family was alive, for now. No matter how much he thought about the hardships ahead, his newfound smile never faltered.

44.

Ed

Once inside the fence, Ed was lead to a military vehicle that took him from the gate to the valley proper. The drive took half an hour. He was amazed at the size of it all, and wondered once again how any of this could have been accomplished by a man who had been labeled America’s most wanted criminal. They drove up to a large building that lay a bit above the valley floor. Most cabins were half-covered in snow already, but this building stood out, making it apparent that this was where the founder of this place people called Buchanan’s refuge would be found.

Once inside, Ed was led into a large, but austere, study. Once alone, he sat down. The place was clean and smelled of old books, leather, and coffee. Ed hadn’t had coffee for a long time.

“I assume you are Dr. Walker,” a man said as he entered the room. He extended his hand.

“I’m Joe Buchanan. Formerly a senator, but I guess we both know there’s no Senate anymore.”

Ed got to his feet and shook the man’s hand. He noticed the ex-senator had a firm grip. “Pleasure, Sir. Just call me Ed,” he said.

“So, Ed. You don’t have to answer why you came here. We both know the answer to that, as we both know the chances for survival out there. Well, you probably know a whole lot more about it than I do,” Joe said, as he sat down behind his desk. He looked straight at Ed above his reading glasses.

Ed considered his answer, while noticing that Joe Buchanan looked tired. He had to be in his sixties, if not older. Building and running this place seemed to have taken its toll. “Ahem, you might have heard that I used to work in…” Ed began, but Joe waved him off.

“Yes, yes, nuclear weapons development, I know. And maybe this will be helpful some day.” Joe took off his glasses, and closed his eyes. “But, Dr. Walker, Ed, I need to hear why you think I should let you in, and say no to another; a mother, a father, a child. We cannot help everyone, and that is, it will always be my biggest regret.”

Ed spoke carefully, deliberately. “I know what you must be thinking. Why not allow another medical doctor who cures people? Whereas my profession...but imagine ten years from now. How many more could you save if you had nuclear power? And twenty or thirty years more. How large an area could you have made habitable again by then? And think of the increase in population? And what if—try to imagine a hundred years from now—what if someone else survived Impact and built another community. It might be a thousand kilometers away, and of no significance to you right now. But in a hundred years, make no mistake, all that will change. Only that community, a thousand kilometers away might have taken a very different course. Totalitarian, power hungry, sinister, paranoid. That other community might consider your prosperous community a threat. They may even decide to eliminate that threat, and then where would you stand? Are you certain your brave men and women could fight them off, when your existence depended on it? Or would that other community prove to be stronger and annihilate everything you’ve built, everything you dreamed of?” Ed paused. He knew he had to grind it in, to make sure the senator understood what was on the line. This wasn’t just about Ed Walker; it had never been. It was about what kind of world would come after.

“What if you, today, let a nuclear scientist through the gates? In time, that man might teach others, and they again would teach a new generation. Given time and careful development, your situation when that other community strikes might be completely different.” Ed noticed Joe Buchanan nodding unconsciously. He just had to press on a little more, make him come to the right conclusion.

“Senator, you’re building a future here. A new beginning. This world has been turned into a wasteland, and what you’re doing is admirable. Now, let me help you make sure your work will not be in vain. Who knows what the future holds? All I know is that this—all that you are building here—it’s for the good. It’s something worth protecting. So please, let me help you protect it.”

Ed watched as Buchanan considered his options. He thought he could see the conflicting thoughts plain on the senator’s face. The thought of bringing nuclear weapons into the world again. The possibility that everything might one day prove to be in vain, once a ruthless and stronger community comes along. Even the possibility that someone else, somewhere, might let someone with Ed’s qualifications in, if this community didn’t. Or that someone already had nuclear weapons, stored deep within the Earth for safe keeping until the day they decided to bring them back. The long-term implications of decisions made today. Finally, Joe gave him a quick nod, before rising from his chair. Then he walked up to him and extended his hand.

“All right, Ed. You’ve convinced me. Welcome aboard.” They shook hands, and then Joe walked out before Ed got a chance to say anything. Ed slumped back in his chair, relief washing over him. He realized Joe Buchanan was the most impressive man he’d ever met, and then and there he made a promise to himself. He would do anything to help this community survive the long winter and what lay beyond. The future of the inhabitants of Buchanan’s refuge would be very different because of this day.

45.

John

The journey west had begun on an optimistic note, and John felt good about the people who surrounded him. It was nice to know that someone had his back, even though he missed Derek. Everyone seemed to want to help each other out; everyone shared the burden. But on the second day something happened, and John knew from that point things weren't quite as good as they had seemed at first.

They had just settled down for a midday meal when John heard angry shouts behind him. He turned around, and saw Tom looming over his son, Matt, shouting curses and beating him over the head. The boy was trying to protect himself from his father’s blows, and John noticed he seemed to know what he was doing. This wasn’t the first time, John realized.

“Jesus Christ boy, haven't I told you enough times to zip up your goddamned pockets? To lose an entire pack of ammo like this...are you stupid or something?” John was about to jump in to put the man in his place, when something blurred in his peripheral vision, and Ricardo, the cop, came down on the angry father. He dragged him away from his bruised son, and pushed him into the wet ground, restraining his right hand.

“Stop this right now! What the hell is wrong with you?” Ricardo shouted. John noticed Vera standing idly by, as if nothing had happened. He walked over to the poor kid.

“You all right?” he said to the boy, while checking out his bruises. Not too bad, but the look in his eyes was terrible. John had seen it before; this was a kid who had been beaten so many times he thought it was normal. Matt stared at him blankly, but didn't speak.

John looked over at Vera, who hadn’t moved. Her expression was blank, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. This was nothing new, neither to her nor to her son. He looked over at Tom, who seemed to be calming down. Ricardo released Tom’s arms and stepped away from the man. John didn't speak, since Ricardo spoke for them both.

“If I ever see you do that again, you will get a taste of your own medicine,” Ricardo spat.

“He lost a whole pack of ammo, and I’ve told him so many times to zip up his pockets. He has to learn somehow,” Tom said, trying to explain himself, but to no avail.

“He's a kid,” Ricardo said, effectively shutting the man up. There was nothing else to say, and now that everyone seemed to have calmed, they all went about their business. John eyed Tom sideways, disgusted.

Hillary and Vera prepared their meal. Nothing fancy, just a can of artificial meat, some beans, and a can of sliced pineapple. Ricardo put on a pot of clean water, and they all shared their coffee from a single cup.

An hour later they were on their way, headed west once more. It was almost as if nothing had happened. Still, something had changed. John could see from the looks Tom sent Ricardo that this was not over.

46.

John

On the sixth day after leaving the FEMA camp, the landscape began changing. They followed a narrowing track that led straight into the mountains ahead of them. Snow covered everything now, so all they had to go by was the map. John had studied the map in detail, and he knew they were entering an area with deep ravines, where a fall would be deadly. And since the snow obscured the path, including any treacherous cracks or unsteady overhangs, they had to be very careful. They decided to tie themselves together so that if one of them fell the others would be able to drag the person up again. Since John had his military experience and was an experienced outdoorsmen, he took the lead. John thought it was a good thing, since he was also the most experienced with the map. Nobody except the military had used paper maps for years, with GPS embedded in practically everything. And with the weather worsening, knowledge of the map would be even more important. Ricardo would stay at the rear, since they agreed the strongest man should stay back in case his strength was needed to pull someone up. After moving slowly in heavy snowfall for three hours, carefully treading to avoid cracks, John heard shouting from the back of the line. He felt a tug on the rope and lost his balance. He fell to his knees, and turned around to see the others lying flat on the ground.

“What happened?” he shouted. Then he saw Tom straining to hold the rope, while Ricardo dangled helplessly below.

“He fell. Shit, he’s too heavy!” John could see Tom was trying to drag Ricardo back up again, to no avail.

“Hold on. We´ll do this together. Just hang on till I get there,” John said.

“I can't, he's too heavy,” Tom shouted.

John crept past Hillary, and as he nudged himself past Matt, when he saw the knife in Tom's hand. “What the hell?” he shouted.

“He's too heavy. He will drag us all down,” Tom screamed, a shrill voice piercing the ever-present howl of the wind. From below, John heard the desperate pleas from Ricardo, as Tom put the knife to the rope, and began sawing.

“Stop it! Tom, we can do this. Just hang on for a few more seconds, and I'll be there. Tom, please,” John said.

As John reached Tom, the knife cut through the final threads. Tom fell backwards and landed in the deep snow. John lunged forward only to watch Ricardo plummet toward the ground far below.

“Oh Tom, what have you done...” John whispered, never taking his eyes from Ricardo.

The wail from below lasted only for a few more seconds, as the police officer plunged to his death. The silence afterward was deafening. John blinked several times, and then he slowly turned toward Tom, who was lying on his back in the snow.

“You bastard,” John whispered, “You killed him.”

Tom sneered. “I didn't have a choice. A few more seconds, and I would have plunged myself. No way you guys would have been able to get us both up,” he said, voice shaking.

John restrained himself. They needed the strength of numbers. Tom was a pathetic sonofabitch, but he had nevertheless shown himself capable, when not beating up his son, or letting someone fall to their death...

For a split second, John seriously considered kicking him over the cliff. Then he sat down in the snow next to him. They had already lost one, no use in loosing two. When John spoke to him, his voice was pure ice.

“You will pay for this. But right now I need you. Make no mistake though, you need me as well. For now, we’ll stick together.”

47.

Ed

A month had passed since Ed entered Buchanan's refuge. He was sitting in the former senator’s library. The building and surrounding area were completely covered in snow, but tunnels connected every functional building to a larger network of tunnels that converged in a main gateway that led all the way to the entrance of the underground shelter.

“It is more than forty kilometers away, and you have to travel through deep snow burdened by all that heavy gear. Besides, laying a cable right now will be awfully difficult,” Joe said.

Ed cocked his head. “Well, that’s true. Still, my last inspection showed that it looked relatively unharmed, and the techs over there confirmed it. There were no leaks, and the core is intact. Seems all the protective measures were successful. I know I can get it started again, safely.”

They were discussing the nuclear power plant south of the valley. Once, it had provided electricity for thousands, but prior to Impact it had been shut down, to reduce the risk of contamination. A few of the techs who had been working at the plant had remained on site to minimize the damage and look after everything. Ed had spoken to them a few days ago, when he and a small team of soldiers, including Deacon Frost, had walked there, through the deep snow, to assess the situation. If they could make the plant operational again, it would be of huge value to them. They had enough power stored to last through the long winter, or rather, as long as they expected the long winter to last. But Ed argued that in the long term they would need the reactor, because once the snow melted, having the plant up and operational would boost production in every way.

“So, let me just make sure I’ve got this right. You are saying that the plant can remain operational, even if it gets completely covered by snow and ice, and that having it through the long winter can mean that we won’t just survive, but prosper, right?” Joe said.

“That's what I'm telling you.”

“Okay, I will think about this.”

“Just don't think too long.”

Ed and Joe were quickly becoming friends. Ed was surprised about the friendship, since Joe had seemed skeptical about his former work, but they found that they had very good chemistry. They both held the same long-term view, which permeated their way of thinking, and they both knew that to secure the future they had to make some difficult choices.

“So, once the long winter ends, what will we be up against?” Ed asked, changing the subject.

“Well, obviously we don’t know exactly yet, but it seems there are scattered groups of survivors spread out all over the continent. The west coast was completely ruined by the Pacific impact and the following tsunami, and when the San Andreas opened up...California is history, we know that much. And the Northwest land impact in Canada all but devastated everything from Oregon to Alaska. There are several groups of survivors in the Midwest, but the earthquakes, the fires, and the changing topography make it difficult to believe many of them will survive the long winter. It also cut this country in half. The resulting rift now stretches from the Arctic, or at least up in northern Canada somewhere, and all the way south to the Gulf. In the east, the damage from the tsunamis combined with the great Continental impact killed most people. There are small groups of survivors, here and there, and if any of them survive the long winter, we expect them to be absorbed, once President Andrews and his people come out their Appalachian shelter.”

“So it is possible that only two major holdouts survived in all of North America? Andrews and us?”

“Yes, well those are the largest and best prepared for the long winter and what comes after. There are a few smaller holdouts in Eastern Canada. Québec seems to have fared reasonably well, so there might be some pretty large groups up there. I don't think they are as well prepared as we are. Impossible to know if they will survive the long winter, to be frank.”

Joe got up from his chair, and paced the floor. He looked troubled. Ed was about to ask, when Joe stopped and looked at him. “I remember when you got here. I was ready to kick you out. I didn't need a nuclear scientist, especially not a weapons specialist.”

Ed lowered his head. He remembered his desperate trek through the mountains, and how he had lost hope so many times, only to find that even in the most dire of circumstances, there is always a sliver of light, always something to hang on to. He remembered a good man, who showed him that humanity, even in the darkest hour, could still show kindness. He remembered almost dying, only to be saved by an old woman, whom he would most likely never see again. And he remembered coming here, and almost being turned away.

“You told me that we had to think of the future,” Joe said, interrupting Ed´s thoughts.

“With Andrews placed in his Appalachian shelter, probably stocked with weapons, ammunition, supplies to last forever, I can see a real possibility that an enemy might, in time, rise in the east. So how do we prepare? How do we rebuild fast enough? Because that is what we have to do, if we are to be prepared, once Andrews reemerges and begins to expand.” Ed watched Joe begin pacing again, deep in thought. Neither of them spoke for a minute or so. Then Joe stopped. He looked straight into Ed's eyes, and gave him a quick nod.

“You shall have your plant.”

48.

John

Three days had passed since Ricardo's death. They had trudged along, but nobody wanted to be tied together anymore, like they had been. So now, if one fell, nobody would be able to save him or her. But no one would be dragged along either. Better this way, John thought.

He still didn't trust Tom. The man had shown himself to be a child-beating coward, and in John's view, he had murdered Ricardo. Still, he kept it to himself. Hillary, capable enough in so many ways, was too weak to be of any use in confronting Tom, and Vera and Matt were both victims of Tom's abuse.

John kept to himself, and right now he lay in this one-man tent, his gun never far away, just in case. He started awake from the shrill sound of screams not far away. He got out of his sleeping bag, and put on his boots, before he unzipped the tent’s entrance and stepped outside.

He had waited for something like this to happen, but what he saw still shocked him. Hillary's tent was cut to ribbons, and there was blood everywhere. Tom stood with a knife still dripping over the dead body of the nurse. When John exited the tent, Tom turned around and grinned.

“There's too much dead meat in this group. I intend to get my family through this, no matter what, and we need all the supplies we can get,” Tom said.

“You are insane,” John said. Tom just grinned even wider. “So this is it then. I'm next?” John asked. His voice sounded much calmer than he felt.

“That's right. You know too much. Besides, I don't trust you.”

John knew there was nothing he could do. He had his gun in his pocket, but by the time it would take to reach it, Tom would already be on top of him with the knife.

A sound off to the left called his attention, and he looked over at the big tent shared by Tom and his family. He saw Vera peering outside before she began screaming. Seconds later, Matt scrambled over her and through the opening.

“Dad, what is going on?” the boy said, as he rose to his feet. Vera followed, staring at the torn tent, the blood, and Tom with the bloody knife.

“Tom. What have you done?” she whispered, eyes wide.

“Easy now,” Tom growled. “As soon as I am done, it's just us four. We are better off without this lot.”

“No, Tom, no, no. Please stop!” she screamed stepping out of the tent, to stand shivering beside her son.

“You worthless bitch. What are you going to do? Don't you understand? I'm trying to save us. Us! Me, you, Matt.”

Vera screamed, as she lunged forward. Tom, obviously taken by surprise at his wife's outbursts and resistance, swirled around, as his wife bumped into him. John stood still, confused at the turn of events hesitated for a moment. Then he reached into his pocket and brought out the gun. Tom and Vera were fighting, when suddenly a shot went off. The fighting stopped, and Vera stepped back from her husband. Tom fell back and sat in the snow staring at his gun for second, before he turned around. John looked over at Matt. The boy was still standing, even though blood was bubbling out from the entry wound in his chest.

“Oh, shit...” he said and went over to Matt, who dropped to his knees. The boy stared up at him, eyes going blank. So much blood. John tore open the boy’s shirt, and the pumping blood almost hit him. The kid was dying, and quickly. Vera came running, and shoved John aside shaking her son’s shoulders.

“Tom, what have you done? Oh, Matt. Oh my sweet boy Matt.” Vera turned slowly toward her husband, and in a split second she was back on her feet, scrambling towards him. John took another step back.

“Vera, don't!” John screamed, but it was too late. Tom fired two shots; one hit her in the chest and the other took her through her neck. Vera stopped dead in her tracks and went down without a sound. John, still holding his gun, raised it quickly and fired single shot. He hit Tom in the shoulder. Tom cursed as he fumbled with the gun. His arm had gone limp. John walked toward him, gun held out ready to fire. Tom seemed to realize he was out of options. His eyes flickered from his wife to his dead son and back. As realization dawned upon him, the man's eyes began to well up. When he looked back at John, anger had been replaced by grief and despair.

“Kill me then. I deserve it. Do it!”

John stopped just a few steps away from Tom, who was now shaking visibly. “Stand up,” he said. Tom stood slowly, moving as if in a trance.

“Now walk. Leave the gun, leave everything. Just walk.”

Tom didn't say anything, although his eyes were begging John to squeeze the trigger. John just stood still, waiting for the man to comply. Then Tom turned away and began walking back the way they had come. John knew he wouldn't last a day. Without anything but the clothes on his back, with no jacket, or tent, or anything, he would soon freeze to death. That was, unless he didn’t fall down one of the ravines first. John stood watching after Tom until he was out of sight. When he walked back to his tent, and began packing up everything. Dawn had come, so he hoisted up his backpack, and began walking west. Always west.

49.

John

John was trudging through the deep snow, trying to keep track of his heading and whereabouts. Snow was falling thickly, and he could see no more than a few meters in front of him. He had hoped traveling as a group would be a good thing, but he had been wrong. It had turned out to be a disaster. What if he was wrong about Buchanan's refuge as well? What if they wouldn't take him in? What if his family had never arrived? What if there was no refuge at all? He shook his head. Too many questions, too easy to sink into despair. He needed his strength, and to be strong he needed hope.

He was running low on food, and by his estimates, he only had enough for a week left or so. If the bad weather didn't throw him off course, he would reach the refuge in a couple of days. That was, of course, if directions he’d been given back at the FEMA camp were correct.

He decided to stop earlier than he normally would, thinking he was likely to get lost in this weather. He wasn't making much progress right now anyhow. He put up his small tent, and powered up his fuel cell. Then he pulled off his shirt and socks, and hung them to dry. Soon the smell of warm soup filled the tent, making him realize how hungry he was.

He hadn't seen a single human being and no animals, except for a few birds, desperately migrating south, since he entered the mountains. It was as if every living soul had disappeared off the face of the Earth. He wondered if any of the big mammals would survive. Humans would. If they had a safe place to stay, enough food stored, and a source of water, they would be able to weather even a winter of several years. Most animals would die off quickly; especially those that required a great amount of food in order to survive. Smaller animals would probably be okay, as long as some small pockets of life and vegetation survived somewhere. But he had a feeling most of the mammals living in the wild were about to go extinct, and soon. He opened a can of fruit, and stared at it. As long as supplies such as this lasted, people would survive almost anything. Granted, the impacts and the aftereffects, and what he expected to be a very long winter, would decimate humans in great numbers. Probably already had. But mankind would survive.

John took one of the apricots from the can and put it in his mouth. Not long now. He’d have to decide whether to stay inside the tent, waiting for the weather to improve, which could take days. Longer, perhaps. Either that, or take his chances in the blizzard.

He ended up deciding to get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow he would start out again, trying to find Buchanan's refuge. If he didn’t find it in three days, he would hunker down in his tent again and wait. That way he would get closer, and in the event that he overshot the refuge, he wouldn't get too far. He knew the general direction and approximate distance, so he knew it was a matter of days. If the next few days went as he hoped, he might be reunited with his family by the end of the week. Or he’d be dead.

50.

Joe

Joe sat snugly inside the armored personnel carrier, on his way to the north gate. A man had come to the gate, and Joe had wanted to talk to him. For months, refugees had come in from all directions, sometimes in big groups and sometimes just a small trickle. The last month though, even the trickle had stopped. So the guards at the gate had been surprised to see this lone man approaching, now that there didn’t seem to be anyone left alive out there. It seemed he had walked for a long time, but to no avail. The valley was full, so the guards had, after a brief interview, refused his request for entry, which had led to a tense situation. The man wouldn't take no for an answer. Guns had been displayed on both sides, but no shots had been fired. Yet. It wasn't the first incident where guns had played a part, but this was one where the guards had contacted Joe on their own initiative so he could try and settle the matter. When asked why, the guards had explained that the man was an engineer. They had a few engineers in the refuge, but this man also had a military background.

So Joe had agreed to come to the gate, remembering that if he hadn't agreed to talk when Ed Walker showed up, they wouldn't have a nuclear scientist among them now, with all the knowledge and know-how that entailed, not to mention the strategic value of such knowledge.

“All right sir, here we are,” the driver said, as the vehicle came to a halt.

Joe opened the side hatch, and jumped out. An armed escort followed him, a safety precaution that both Deacon and Cecelia had insisted upon. “Okay, let me speak to this Mr. Rawlins.”

One of the guards followed the man inside the gate, keeping a close watch over him. The man surrendered his gun to the guard before he was allowed over to where Joe stood, a few meters from the vehicle, rubbing his hands together, trying to keep warm. He should have donned something heavier then his mittens.

“Are you Senator Joe Buchanan?” Mr. Rawlins said.

Joe smiled. “That's me, although I'm not a senator anymore,” he answered.

Mr. Rawlins didn´t seem to find it funny. There was something tense about him. Joe watched as the man drew a deep breath before speaking. “John Rawlins,” he said and extended his hand. Joe took it. “My family might be here, sir. In fact, I was told they were headed this way. The guards refused to check for me. I need to know though. If they haven’t turned up here, I’ll be moving on.”

Joe cocked his head. “I expected you to argue for us to let you inside. I guess the guards told you we cannot take any more people,” he said.

“To be honest, sir, all I want is to know that my family will be okay. Could you please check it out for me?”

“What's your wife's name?”

“My wife’s name is Melissa. Melissa Rawlins,” John said, before adding “She’s an engineer as well.”

Joe took off his mittens, flexed his fingers in the biting cold, before he took out his tablet.

“Let me see here...” he mumbled, as his fingers flipped through the files containing the names of everyone presents in the valley. “Rawlins, Melissa...with Nathaniel and Karen. Yes, they are here,” he said, and watched relief wash over John’s face. Joe hadn’t really believed when John said so, but now he realized that all the man had cared about was the knowledge that his family would be okay. That his own safety wasn’t a concern at all.

“Will you let me see them before I leave?” John said, his voice trembling. Joe had a good look at this man, and saw the determination in his face, even though his voice failed him. He leaned on the vehicle and looked at his tablet again, reading the transcript from the guards’ interview with him. This was a man who had walked all the way from the government’s detention camps in the Arizona desert, through most of Colorado, and then all the way out here; more than eight hundred kilometers. And he did all this, through the aftershocks of the impacts, through sleet and deep snow, weathering blizzards and crossing mountains. This was a man who had survived the impossible. As Joe flipped through the file, he grew more and more impressed with this man. And then to learn that he was so completely selfless, so disregarding of his own safety, as long as his family was safe, was the final drop. Joe realized there were times when rules had to be broken. This was one such time.

“You have come far, and I guess you deserve a chance to see your family again,” he said. He hesitated for a moment, weighing the alternatives. Then he made a decision.

“We haven't let anyone inside for the last month or so. As you know, there is a limit to how many we can feed and shelter. And yet, here you come, with skills we’re going to need. I don't think there will be many more people coming in, now that winter is growing harsher by the day. In fact, I expect you to be the last addition to our population.”

John looked up. His eyes misted, but he blinked them clear, “Thank you sir. I am in your debt.”

“Alright then. I’m certain you will carry your own weight, and I bet both you and your wife will be of great use to us once this damned winter ends.”

Joe popped open the hatch. “So, John, would like you a ride?” he said, smiling.

“Sir?”

“Let’s go meet your family. I know what it's like, to be separated from your loved ones. So let’s not waste any more time and get moving, shall we?”

ENDINGS AND NEW BEGINNINGS

Joe saved us all. If not for him, we´d all be dead. It´s that simple.

Pres. N. Rawlins, speech, 2099

51.

Mark

Mark Novak sat shivering, naked, in the cold lab. The weak light of the emergency exit and floor markings cast the lab in an eerie light. He didn't have to check the date. He knew it was December 15, 2089. He had been asleep for five years. He hesitated for a moment before pushing the magazine into the gun until it clicked in place, and held it out tentatively. His hands were shaking. The room was cold, but it was a different shiver. He knew that he would soon use this instrument of death. He looked around, a sudden panic threatening to overcome him. It was as if something or someone moved in the shadows, but he knew it was just his own imagination. He breathed in and out, slowly, to regain control. It worked, somewhat.

He didn't dare to get something to eat or drink, or to fetch clothes, or even to turn on the computers. Even the smallest mistake at this point could end up costing him his life, and with that change the future. So he sat naked in the leather-backed office chair, cradling the cold steel of the gun, working up his courage to go do what had to be done.

Mark stood up and walked across the cold floor. His bare feet made no sound. The lab was locked down, but in case of a power outage, or in the unlikely event that this place ran out of fuel, the doors could be opened manually. He laid his ear to the door, listening for sounds. Nothing. Then he slid the door open, holding the gun out in front of himself. He suddenly remembered to click off the safety. He exhaled heavily, trying to make himself calmer. He needed a steady hand now.

One of the president’s bodyguards sat with his back toward him; on a sofa near the far wall He was watching an old movie on the viewing wall. Mark guessed that the other was asleep. He aimed his gun straight at the guard’s head. Then he stepped forward, quickly. The guard must have heard him, because he suddenly turned around.

“What the—”

Mark shot the bodyguard, twice. The first bullet hit him in the head, while the other hit the wall behind him. The noise inside this bunker was deafening. Mark frantically ran toward one of the bedroom doors, and shoved it open. Nothing. Then he ran across the room, and opened the next bedroom door. The second bodyguard was nowhere to be seen. Mark started panicking. He held out the gun as he had seen in so many movies, moving it in a circle, trying to imagine where the second guard was. No one ever told me the brain stops functioning normally under fire, he thought. He tried thinking of places the second guard could be, but his thoughts came slowly. Mark had no experience with anything like this, and he was shocked at how stupid he felt. His mind was blank.

Then, the bathroom.

“What's happening?” someone said from inside. Mark didn't answer as he turned toward the bathroom door, slowing his breath. He felt the cold floor beneath his feet. It was different now, comforting, somehow. He realized he could move quietly. The guard had no idea where he was. He could use that to his advantage. He tiptoed over to the wall next to the bathroom door. He leaned his back against the wall and raised the gun, aiming it at where the door would open. He remained silent. After a few more seconds, the door opened, carefully. Only the hand holding the door was visible to Mark, but he wasted no time. He shot the hand, and the guard screamed. Before he could think, Mark tore open the door and emptied his gun inside. When it clicked, he lowered the gun and watched the dead guard, as he lay sprawled against the toilet, his pants still around his ankles. A gun lay off to the side. The man had three bullet holes in his heaving chest, and a look of confusion on his face. A moment later his eyes glazed over. Mark didn't utter a word. He took a step back, turned, and everything came crashing down on him. He doubled over and threw up, realizing he had just killed two people just because they had stood in his way.

He took out the empty magazine and threw it away. He inserted the second magazine into the gun, and flicked the safety back on. Then he walked over to one of the bedrooms, and found some clothes. He got dressed, a simple pair of jeans and a checkered shirt, then walked straight through the lab, on through the hallway, and into the storage facility. He located the name of President Andrews on the list displayed on the wall, and opened the compartment where his cryo cell was stored. He rolled the cell back into the lab, and began the wake-up sequence. He suddenly realized he wasn't freezing anymore; in fact, he had broken a sweat without even noticing. He stepped over to the control panel on the wall, and flicked on all the lights. He wanted to see this man.

Half an hour later the cryo cell bleeped. It was time.

Mark opened the glass lid, and watched the man inside shiver. It was all part of the wake up sequence. The unpleasant part. Have to do something about that, he thought absently.

He squeezed the gun’s grip.

The president's eyes began to open. Mark didn't speak. A couple more minutes went by before President Andrew came fully awake. He sputtered, and coughed, and finally his eyes focused on Mark.

“Is it time? How long did we sleep?” he said.

Mark shook his head. “We are the only ones awake,” he said. He lifted his gun, and the president´s eyes widened.

“What's going on?” the president asked in a thin voice.

“I had to kill your bodyguards,” Mark said flatly. “But two lives are a small price to pay for justice.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You destroyed this country. You destroyed our very soul, who we were.” Mark stopped himself. He didn’t need to convince President Andrews of his guilt. Instead, he spoke quietly. “It is time for you to die.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he squeezed the trigger. One shot echoed through the halls, and afterwards only silence remained.

52.

Kirstie

Five years, Kirstie thought, as she walked slowly toward the exit. Five years, and they had expended far too much of their resources. It wasn’t as if they would run out tomorrow. And although the rationing was strict, nobody had resorted to cannibalism yet, as far as she knew. But it seemed to be a matter of time.

The Council had taken a vote, after seeing that the weather hadn't changed, even though five years had passed since Impact. The resources they had would only last them another two years with the present population, and if they were going to change that, it had to be done now, before it was too late. Kirstie understood why, but it didn't make it feel any better. She was an old woman though, and she needed to go, to make room for those younger, those who would repopulate the Earth, if they ever saw the end of winter.

The process was simple. They would be let out, one by one, until two thirds were gone—the two thirds deemed less likely to contribute to the future. Once outside, she knew she would be given a choice. She could walk away, or she could ask for the mercy, which would be the quicker way. She hadn't decided yet, and she didn't know what the others before her had chosen. The mercy might be the easiest way, but it felt a bit too much like giving up.

It didn't matter anymore. It wouldn’t matter to those who would remain inside, able to live off of the resources for six years instead of two. She only hoped it would be worth it. That it would be worth this mass murder. If the ones inside did survive, her death might actually mean something.

“Move it,” the man behind her said, probing her with his makeshift spear.

“I'm going, I'm going,” she said, irritated. For her, this was a time for contemplation. To meditate and make her peace. For the guard, who for all she knew could be next, it was just another item of business, or so it seemed. I guess this is what it had has come down to, she thought.

The first couple of years had begun well. They were a community, and the newcomers from her ship and others were welcomed inside the mountain shelter. She had contributed knowledge and an understanding of the situation—she had been working on this for years, after all-and she had worked with her hands in the hydroponic farms. Later, when one of the farms failed, it was thanks to her knowledge that they managed to repair it. She had probably saved a lot of lives that day.

As time went by, though, the mood of the community changed. Soon everyone's worth was measured by what value they brought to the community, and not by their simple status as human beings. It was probably a natural development, but Kirstie couldn't help thinking that it was wrong to think of people this way. And later the idea of measuring people like this had been taken even further. A policy had developed over time, to send those deemed a burden on the common good outside to fend for themselves.

Kirstie remembered the first one. An older man who had become ill, not able to teach hydroponic agriculture as he once had. That had been bad enough, but the next one was even worse. A boy of ten who had been injured when playing in the hallways of the shelter. After the accident he had been chained to a wheelchair. Kirstie had hoped he would show promise in non-manual labor fields, such as operating life-support systems, or working in management, once he got old enough. But as time went by, they discovered him to have a learning disability.

The boy's name was Jacob. Kirstie believed it was when Jacob was sent outside to die that everything changed. There had been harsh decisions and difficult choices before that, but Jacob's death opened up a black hole of darkness, which sucked the light of humanity out of the community. That was two years ago. In fact, Kirstie was amazed that they had waited for two whole years after Jacob's death before they began kicking out people in greater numbers. There had been a few instances were single inhabitants had been shown the door, but not like this. It was probably about time though, if they wanted at least some of them to survive.

They reached the door, and the female guard who stood waiting for them opened it. The blizzard outside couldn't be seen since the outside of the shelter was completely covered in snow and ice, but it could be heard. Howling winds penetrated through the outer tunnel, warning her to stay away. Kirstie bit her lip, bracing for what was to come. She would ascend the stairs through the ice tunnel with the guard on her heels until they reached topside. There was no final door at the end of the tunnel, so the guard would remain outside for a while, to make sure she didn´t try to creep back inside for shelter.

At least the remaining third of the population would stand a chance this way. Or, at least she hoped they would. It all depended on how long the winter would last. There had to be myriad such shelters around the world; places where people had survived the impacts only to find themselves low on resources and unable to replenish them. Shelters built for a certain number of people, carrying supplies for a certain number of years. Like this one, where outsiders like her had been welcomed because people wanted to help, only to find their community deteriorating into dystopia when the reality of the situation kicked in.

Kirstie looked at the guard, who averted her eyes as she passed. The one behind her prodded Kirstie´s back again, and she took the first step up the stairway. So much had been lost, but to her, the biggest loss had been the realization that her child and grandchild would never see daylight again. Lost beneath the waters, swallowed by an angry ocean. She still didn't know if she would ask for the mercy. But her story had come to an end, and she would face it head-on, one way or the other.

53.

Mark

Mark sat down in front of the computer. The command central of the Appalachian bunker was quiet. Except for him, everyone else was still in deep cryo sleep. Three bodies, the former president and his bodyguards, had been disposed of, and Mark had, in the years that had passed since, tried to forget the death and violence delivered by his hand. He hadn’t been able to, of course, but he had done some deep soul searching, and he had yet to regret what he had done.

He checked his watch; one minute left. He sipped his coffee, while looking around the now blank screens. He didn’t have the heart to watch the images right now. Besides, all the screens showed the same thing. Gray skies and a quiet landscape covered in snow; a lifeless Earth. Nothing remained of the cities. Mountains had been leveled, seas and oceans had been displaced or disappeared altogether, a great rift divided the North American continent, and impact craters lay scattered throughout every continent on the planet. He had studied everything in detail. The last five years, he stayed awake instead of sleeping through it, making amazing scientific progress. As a side effect, it had given him plenty of time to get to know the new world, plenty of time to study the devastation in detail.

He knew the new face of the Earth as well as the old one by now. The computers had drawn up new maps, where coastlines had changed; southern Europe and most of North Africa were gone, a new ocean separated North and South America, and Asia looked nothing like it once had. He could still recognize the contours of North America, although the differences were glaring. Florida was gone, nothing but a scatter of islands left, California was equally destroyed, and like Florida, only a few islands remained. Everything, everywhere, blanketed in snow.

It was nothing he enjoyed watching. He knew the chances were people would still be alive, in shelters scattered around the planet, and someday, if this winter didn’t last forever, some of them might emerge and begin rebuilding. But for now, the only thing the screens showed was dead landscapes.

He switched on the sound, and tested the microphone. “Appalachian shelter to Moon base. Appalachian shelter to Moon base, this is Mark Novak.” Then he listened. After a few seconds, the speaker crackled, and a voice he knew well sounded through the speaker.

“Mark Novak, good to hear from you. This is Erik Lunde speaking. Mark, are you okay?”

“I'm okay, Erik. Actually, I’ve made some amazing discoveries just in the last couple of months,” Mark paused for a moment before he corrected himself. “Well, not amazing exactly, but more like how to apply my previous findings in practice. Erik, I’ve experimented on myself. It works.”

“That’s great, but...I mean, you really ought to be careful with that”

“I know. But it was the only way to prove it. You should see my hand though; baby skin. I’m telling you, it really works.”

“I can´t wait for you to show me, Mark. So, did you fix the cryo cells?”

“Yes, I reprogrammed them, and I’ll send you the access codes afterwards.”

“That´s good. We’ll wake you once the long winter is done, and then we’ll plan our return.”

“Sounds good, Erik. Just one last thing. I know we´ve spoken of this a few times, but I just feel...I feel like I need to know.”

“Go ahead.”

“What’s going to happen to everyone here? You know, there’s the guilty, the innocent and then there’s those somewhere in between.”

“You’re right about that. Well, the cabinet members will be tried for crimes against humanity, which is only fair,” Erik paused for a moment.

“What is going to happen with the guards, the scientists, or the civilians, for that matter?” Mark said.

“We have no problem with them. As long as they cooperate,” Erik said promptly. “Most will get a second chance, which is more than we can say about those outside.”

“Good to know. So, how long do you think it will take for you to get here?”

“Well, we have our scientists working on that. They say the winter could easily last another five years. And we’ll probably have to wait a while even after that. A few years, at least.”

Mark sighed. So, somewhere between five and ten years, at least. Well, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if he would notice, sound asleep for however long it took them.

“You don’t have to worry, Mark. We’ll wake you well in advance, however long it takes,” Erik said.

“Okay. So Erik, I guess the next time we speak will be when you’re ready to come back down to Earth,” Mark said.

“I guess so. And you may even be able to speak to my son. He is three now. If it takes fifteen years he´ll be eighteen by the time you wake up again.”

“That’s...it just blows my mind, every time I think about it,” Mark said, shaking his head. He heard laughter through the speaker.

“Yes it does. You’ll like Stein, he’s a bright kid.”

“I’m sure, if he’s anything like his father. You know, Erik, you’re almost forty now, right? And let’s say it takes fifteen years before you come, that´ll make you almost fifty-five...and now that it seems the treatment is working...what I’m saying is just, don’t wait too long.”

“It’s not all up to me, you know, but I’ll let the others know.”

“Do that Erik. And ask them to consider this, do they want to live forever?” Mark said.

“I’ll tell them you said that, Mark. And even though I admire what you’ve done, and I do recognize how groundbreaking your research is...for the record, no, I don't want to live forever. But I know many others would like that. I expect the first thing we will do once we decide Earth is ready for us, is to come and retrieve you.”

“I hope so.”

Mark didn't know what else to say. He had spoken to Erik on and off throughout his years alone here in the bunker, and had come no know him as a friend. Even though he knew he’d speak to him again, Mark got a feeling he just couldn’t shake, that this was the last time he’d speak to his friend like this.

“Well, I guess this is goodbye for now,” he said.

“I guess it is. Sleep well, Mark Novak, and good luck. See you on the other side.”

54.

Joe

Joe had to lean on his cane as he stood outside what had once been a cabin, then some sort of command station, and now, finally, his home. Great mounds of snow remained here and there, to be excavated by small children who didn't know of anything but life inside snow caves and underground shelters. These kids would soon go from playing in their snow caves to running around in vast fields, marveling at the little green grasses coming up after their long dormancy. The children were what Joe enjoyed watching the most. Kids of five, six, seven and eight, playing in their new habitat, infinitely larger than what they’d known before. To watch a child staring at the sun and blinking afterwards, laughing. To watch another one hold up a handful of flowers ripped up with their roots and all. There hadn’t been any flowers outside of the greenhouses down on the fifth level, with their artificial sunlight and irrigation systems.

Spring was here at last. More than a decade had passed, and Joe was getting old. He felt it in his joints. He had no grandchildren of his own, but he still found joy from watching the kids bustle around, and he knew they all saw him as some kind of grandfather to everyone.

He smiled, chuckling to himself. It was nice, growing old like this. To feel loved for what he had done, for gathering everyone, making them pull in the same direction. Some said he had saved the future. Joe didn’t know about that. He preferred to look at it as something they had all done together, but he knew that if he hadn't started it and organized everything, if he hadn’t been there to make sure they took the long view, all the effort might have been in vain.

It was a great legacy, some said. Joe liked to think of it as a new beginning. They had not completely moved out of the caves, for there had been false springs before. This time though, Joe thought it might be real; that the long winter was finally over. His wife came up to him, smiling, as she recognized his joy.

“Isn't it wonderful?” Cecilia said.

Joe smiled back at her. “Sure is.”

One of the children, a girl of six came up to them, carrying a kitten. “Joe, sir. Cecilia. Did you know George was carrying kittens?” she asked.

Joe and Cecelia both laughed. George was Deacon and Jenny’s cat, their youngest child so to speak. Deacon had claimed the cat was just growing fat, that George was nothing but a slob who lay around all day, leaving all the work to everyone else. It seemed Deacon had been mistaken.

So, not only did Jenny and Deacon have a five-year-old of their own and a fat cat called George to care for, now they even had a litter of kittens. It seemed like they would get ample help though. The children would love having kittens around.

“I think George, or maybe we should call her Georgina, has some explaining to do,” he said, as the girl ran off, kitten held tightly in her arms.

Joe closed his eyes, feeling the warm rays of the sun. The life-giving sun. It was a wonderful thing, to come out of hiding, to see beauty of the world again. Life would go on.

55.

John

The truck came to a halt as the dirt road ended. The melt-water from the glacier had carved its way, unheeding of mere human preferences, and now it separated the emerging industry near the power plant from the valley proper, where most people still lived. Something had to be done. John jumped out from the passenger side, and walked briskly over to where the road ended.

“Careful darling,” Melissa called after him. John stopped and turned around. He gave his wife a fond smile, as she exited the truck. She was beaming. Older, yes, but so was he. They had never been happier than now.

A young man jumped out from the back the truck, and walked toward him. Nate, his son. A grown man now, making his father prouder every day. There was something about him, something John had never had quite as much of himself. Nate had a way about him that made everybody love him, and whatever the problem, the young man instilled trust in others. An amazing ability that Nate still didn’t quite understand, John thought. Following on Nate’s heels was Karen. His daughter, two years older than Nate. She was just beginning to show, and every time John noticed, his heart swelled with joy. I’m going to be a grandfather!

“This shouldn't be too hard,” Melissa said, assessing the banks on either side.

“A suspension bridge, that’s what we need here. If we anchor the suspension cables all the way back here, where there is bedrock less than a meter below the soil, and put each tower about two meters out from each bank, it should work,” she said.

“Okay, let’s make the calculations. I think you’re right though,” John said, a grin creeping onto his face.

“It'll basically look like the Golden Gate Bridge did, only smaller,” he said.

“A lot smaller,” Melissa replied dryly.

“You can say that again.”

“Are you sure this is the best spot? We could move downstream a few miles, it’ll be a shorter span across down there,” Nate said. John smiled fondly at his son. He was a smart kid, but he was no engineer, as his sister continually reminded him.

“Yeah, Nate, let’s build it on those sand dunes down there. That would make crossing the bridge a lot more exciting...” Karen said, grimacing at her brother.

“Okay, okay, listen kids. We could actually build it downstream, and there are some advantages to it. And if we dig deep enough I’m sure we’d be able to anchor the thing as well. But let’s go for the easy, sturdy option, shall we?” John said. Nate shrugged, and Karen walked back to the truck to get the laser range meter. Nathaniel Rawlins was a people-person, with a better gauge for people than physical properties. It seemed Karen had gotten the engineering genes of the family.

John turned and looked at the river again. Clean, ice-cold glacial water, burbling as if singing while it ran downstream. For so many years he had wondered if he would ever see his family again. First as part of the Exodus project, then the years in detention, with people dying around him on a daily basis, while he tried to reconcile with the fact that they were never meant to be set free. Later when they had finally gained their freedom, even as the world was disintegrating into chaos, after living through Devastator, his quest to reunite with his family had intensified. Months and months of searching, of walking through the bleak landscape, facing danger and compassion, horrors and small joys. He had seen the beginnings of the long winter from the outside, he had watched all his travel companions die, before finally reaching Buchanan's Refuge, to reunite with his family. He later learned from Ed Walker that his best friend, Derek, had died on his way here.

There had been so much death, so much suffering, and even though they had fared well enough through the winter inside Joe Buchanan's safe haven, those had been harsh years as well; a world of confinement, of rationing and strict rules. Mankind wasn't designed for long-term confinement, John thought.

Spring had been a relief to them all. It was an immensely satisfying experience, to build, to create, to finally live again. To have his family beside him, and to have purpose. And even though the valley had sometimes felt like a prison, it was now becoming a home.

56.

Robert

Robert Marsden sat on the porch outside his house, staring out across the field and the lake beyond, with a computer resting in his lap. Summer was at its warmest, but the cool breeze and the shade made it preferable to sitting inside. Besides, Robert had spent enough time indoors to last him a lifetime. His hands hovered above the keyboard, but still he hesitated. A former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he had long ago decided to record all the events that had transpired, for future reference. He had already decided he needed to go all the way back the early days of President Andrews, maybe even further, to paint a full picture of the world before Impact. Otherwise, no one would understand. Yet, he had never gotten around to it. There had always been one excuse or another, usually along the lines of being too busy. Although, to be honest, he hadn’t been ready for it. He needed the distance to gain clarity, and the courage to face the past. He needed to avoid going down the familiar hole of despair again.

Robert watched as Ryan, his youngest son, waved at him as he competently drove the tractor out in the field. Robert waved back, smiling. How little he had been when they fled! He was still able to recall an image of little Ryan holding Mr. Teddy just before leaving their old home in Ohio. And look at him now, Robert thought, a grown man. Ryan’s older brother, Kevin, was off to meetings in Hudson again, since he sat on the Excavation Management Committee for the Future Hudson City Planning Board. Robert chuckled to himself. Bureaucracy and long fancy titles and job descriptions had definitely survived the apocalypse, and seemed to be doing just fine. But regardless of the silly titles, the work itself was important enough. Hudson, their new capital, was being built mainly below ground. Robert couldn’t in his wildest dreams imagine going to live there, even if a lot of people said they would feel safer underground. He looked at his hands again, shaking slightly, as he thought back on the years he spent below ground.

Having lived through Impact and the long winter, Robert discovered new sides of himself. For the first eight years he had held a leading role inside their small underground community, one of many here in Québec. The English speakers, US and Canadian both, had turned to him early on, and somehow he had ended up in with responsibility. But then, after eight long years of being confined below ground, waiting for winter to end, he had a mental breakdown. After thorough examinations, a series of treatments, and a year with no productive action on his part, he had been diagnosed with debilitating anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. After a while things had become more manageable, but his days of management were over. When spring finally arrived, his health improved, but he could never get rid of the voice in the back of his mind telling him everything would crumble to pieces, any day now. Occasionally, he would have breakdowns, where he would shiver uncontrollably, sweating, crying, with feelings of hopelessness and uselessness threatening to overwhelm him. Liv, his wife, had taken care of him, comforted him and gave him solace, enough to get him back on his feet again. Every time.

He still missed her so badly. Not a day went by without him thinking about her, or wondering if she would have survived if only they had the medical facilities of the old world. Liv had died of cancer four years ago. With Kevin, Anne, and Ryan, he had carried her to her final resting place, just a few hundred meters from here. Robert and the kids tended her grave, planting new tulips there every year, since they had always been her favorite.

The farm was becoming a lonely place, and soon he expected it to be even lonelier. Anne had gone east, to marry another American refugee, a young man from Virginia, and she had given birth to twins. Robert smiled as he thought of them. At the age of five, the little rascals were the joy of his life. He only wished he could have seen them more often. Living a week’s journey away, he never got to see them as often as he would have liked.

With Kevin and Anne gone most of the time, only Ryan remained on the farm. Robert wondered how long he’d get to keep Ryan around. The young man was popular with the girls, and Robert had no doubt he would soon be captured by one of them. He had hinted that maybe Ryan would like a plot of land of his own; to build a home nearby, but Ryan had seemed hesitant. Robert had a feeling Ryan would go on to do other things with his life than farming. He worked hard, he never complained, and he had a knack for everything that needed to be done on a farm, but even so, he had this look in his eyes sometimes...

Robert looked at his hands again. Somehow, they had steadied. Perhaps today was the day after all. He put his fingers down, barely touching the keys and began typing.

“It was a different time, in a world you wouldn’t have recognized...”

57.

Mark

Mark had been awake for a couple of weeks, and even though he had begun to accept the situation, he was still disappointed. He had expected the people from the Moon base to return to the Earth much sooner, and even now, some twenty years after climbing into his cryo cell, they still hadn’t set foot on Earth. Something about them being conservative and careful, that they wanted to let Earth heal more fully.

Apparently, environmentalism was a big issue on the Moon these days. Besides, there was something else, something Erik had only alluded to at first. The people who had left Earth to take refuge on their Moon bases had never seen themselves as anything other than Earth dwellers; the Moon had always been a temporary home for them. But their children, on the other hand, born and raised on Luna, had eventually grown up, and from what Erik had told him, the kids seemed to have formed a completely new form of identity, one their parents didn’t even begin to understand.

Erik Lunde, now in his sixties, had sounded nervous when he had spoken to Mark, just two days ago, and today his voice was shaking. Something was definitely stirring on the Moon. Mark had a hard time understanding how such a rift separating the generations could develop, but even before the words left Erik’s mouth, it was obvious things were already out of hand.

“Mark, I'm sorry you have to witness this,” Erik said.

“What do you mean? It can´t be that bad, can it?”

“I haven't told you everything. It's worse than I have let on. There have been murders. It’s escalating, Mark. Even my son is part of it.”

Mark had always known that younger generations would revolt against their parents. Once upon a time he had done so himself. But this was different.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am,” Eric said, voice shivering now.

“What can I do? Can't you stop it? You have to stop it, or it will destroy you.”

“It's too late...in a few hours it will all be over.” Erik sighed heavily, before he spoke again. “It’s time you knew the truth. It’s a bloodbath up here. They are killing everyone, Mark. Every single person who has ever set foot on Earth, is either dead, dying, or targets.”

“That's just...crazy. What do they hope to accomplish?”

“They say they want to break all ties to Earth. They say they have evolved. They claim to be better, some sort of master race thinking, I don't know. I don't understand them anymore. Mark, I lost my son a long time ago. My own son.” Erik’s voice became unintelligible as it choked up. Mark felt bile rising in his throat, and cold shivers ran down his spine. What kind of monsters had those kids become?

Mark heard sounds in the background over Erik’s sobs: screams, shouting, wails of terror. Being unable to see it only made it worse. Then Erik, who through countless conversations had become a dear friend, spoke one last time.

“I'm sorry, Mark, they are here now. Don't...”

All sound was cut in an instant, and Mark was left in silence, only broken by the low hum of fans.

Mark was stunned. He had only begun to hear of the rioting two days ago, and now something terrible had happened, too horrible to contemplate. Thousands of people had left for the safety of the Moon, and now their children—their children!-were killing them all. Obviously, something had gone terribly wrong. Sinister, foul ideas, that dehumanized some while exalting others had been allowed to spread, to take root in the hearts of the young, where they had flourished.

Mark couldn't imagine how it would be, for an entire generation to grow up in a place so different than their parents, and how that could affect them. He shook his head, wondering if the madness would spread, or if they would be content to stay on the Moon. From what Erik had told him, the youngsters had no interest in Earth, but who knew what could happen in a year, ten years, a generation?

As he walked slowly toward his cryo cell, it became apparent to him that nobody would come to retrieve him or any of the others who lay deep asleep in their cells throughout the bunker. His big scientific discovery, one of the greatest in human history, would lay undisturbed, perhaps forever. He undressed without a sound, and climbed into his cell. He felt numb, like it had all been for nothing.

He just wanted to sleep, forever.

Epilogue

Mark

Mark Novak coughed and sputtered, slowly forcing his eyes open. He knew everything about the process, having gone through it several times, but it was equally difficult each time. Waking up from cryogenic sleep was not something you did more often than you absolutely had to.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized two people were standing over him, waiting. One was a man, in his forties, and beside him a woman, probably a few years younger. Both of them looked handsome, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a military bearing enhanced by spotless dark gray uniforms with unfamiliar insignia.

“What...how long?” Mark whispered, before a fit of coughs interrupted him. The man and woman looked at each other, before the woman spoke.

“It's been forty-seven years since the Fall. Two weeks since our Descent.”

Mark had to spend a few moments taking it all in. He had expected it would take a while, but forty-seven years was a mind-numbing figure.

“Did anyone else in the lab make it?” Mark said, his voice shivering. The shivering would eventually stop, once his body gained its normal temperature and the medicines administered to induce waking tapered off.

“A lot has changed,” the man said, his face betraying no emotion.

“What do you mean?” Mark asked.

“We changed,” the woman said. Mark didn't understand, but he didn’t ask her to elaborate. He figured he’d piece it all together eventually. A uniformed nurse came over to check on him, and the man and woman took a few steps back to allow her access. She bowed deferentially, and waited until they had moved until she approached Mark. The man and woman murmured to each other while the nurse took Mark’s vitals. Then she helped him up, and wrapped a blanket around him.

“Are you from...did you come with them?” Mark croaked.

“No sir, I´m English,” she said in a rural accent.

Mark cocked his head, and wondered what she meant. She didn’t have an English accent, far from it, but he didn’t inquire any further. A lot could have happened in the years since Impact.

“They called it the Fall. I take it they are talking about Devastator, right?” he said. The nurse nodded.

“Yes sir. The Moon people call it the Fall but it’s the same. We are not allowed to talk about anything that happened before that. Of course, I was born long after, so for me it is not difficult. But my grandmother was chastised, just days ago, because she told the kids a tale from before the Fall. Lucky, she got off with a warning this time.”

Mark tried to understand, but it was difficult to put it all in perspective. The nurse’s grandmother would probably be his age, or even younger. But something about it all irked him. After waking from cryo sleep he typically felt a bit sluggish, and his mind didn’t work as quickly as it usually did. It didn’t last very long though, and right now, it felt like pieces of a puzzle were beginning to slide into place; his brain began working again, like it should. He remembered what had happened the last time he spoke to Erik Lunde. He began to realize something was way off. He looked at the nurse again, as she was about to go.

“They call themselves the Moon people?” he said.

“Yes sir. They came from the Moon, and they are saving us all,” she replied with a big smile.

The uniformed man came back and motioned for the nurse to go away. She bowed again and walked away. Then the man addressed Mark. “Mr. Novak, there are so many things I need to discuss with you, but first of all I want you to know that you are known as a hero to everyone on Luna. What you did to end the reign of terror by the late President Andrews is what made it possible for us to come here, unopposed. You have done the Moon people a great service, and you will be rewarded handsomely.”

Mark regarded the man, for a moment not fully comprehending what service he was speaking of. Then it struck him. President Andrews had been preparing for something like this, even spoken of it, that in the power vacuum after such a disaster, everything would be up for grabs. That’s why hundreds of soldiers had been suspended in cryo sleep; military vehicles and weapons had been stored deep inside the bunker. It was meant to stop someone else from coming in and taking over. Like the so-called Moon people had just done.

Mark had wanted justice, yes, but it was also about revenge. He had wanted Andrews to pay for his crimes. But this was a lot more than he had bargained for.

“I’m sorry. There’s so much I don’t understand here,” he said, as thoughts raced through his mind. The man grinned back at him.

“Oh, I understand completely. Don’t worry, we’ll fill you in soon enough,” He extended his hand.

“My name is Stein Lunde, and I believe you knew my father. I am the officer in command here on Earth. As we speak, we are gathering the scattered groups and communities in the vicinity, to feed and protect them. I would like for you to join us, to aid us in this great endeavor. The responsibility has fallen upon us, the Moon people, to save the English from this wretched existence.”

Mark took his hand, slowly, hesitantly. The man, Stein Lunde, laughed and shook it fervently.

“I'm looking forward to getting to know you better, Mark Novak. I think we shall accomplish great things together.”

*****

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When the world ends, what do you do when you realize you are still alive?

In a world devastated by natural disaster, only the most stubborn refuse to give up. When Ed Walker learns that others have been preparing for the disaster for years, he begins to realize finding them may be his only shot at survival. But time is running out...

In a dying world one man makes a choice to keep going, hoping against all odds there might be a future after all.

Alive is a 10.000 word story loosely based on events in Exodus by Andreas Christensen, but can also be read as a standalone.

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About the Author

Andreas Christensen is a Norwegian science fiction and fantasy author. He is the author of the Exodus Trilogy, a popular science fiction series in which a divided Earth must face the ultimate extinction event, and build a new life on distant Aurora, more than 40 light years away.

The Rift Saga is set more than two centuries after the events of Exodus and Impact, continuing the story line back on Earth.

You can find his complete bibliography on christensenwriting.com.

Andreas has a weakness for cats, coffee, and up until recently, books so heavy he'd need a separate suitcase in order to carry them every time he traveled. Luckily, the world has changed, and the suitcase has now been replaced by an e-reader.

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