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PART THREE
TRUTH
Chapter 23
Zach Croft: 2053
“There’s room for everyone on board,” Zach said as he ushered the hordes of survivors out of the docking bay and into the Gateway. The flood of people seemed endless. Their clothes were wrinkled and torn. Soot covered their faces.
At first, Zach wondered how they had gotten off the ground, considering they had no working transport. Then, it hit him. The cruise ship. The one in the launch bay meant to shuttle wealthy businesspeople to orbit for a week-long stay amongst the stars. The vessel was overflowing, with far more people crammed into it than intended, Eight or nine hundred at least.
Zach scanned the crowd for people he knew. It appeared that most of them were from OSE—Zach could tell by the assortment of lab coats, ID badges, and uniforms. He recognized a few: an astronomer here and there, Rhea Vasquez with her midnight black hair, a biologist he often saw when visiting Cora in her office. Cora, Cora, where was she? Had she made it? He wouldn’t know what to do if she hadn’t. He wouldn’t be able to go on. But as the crowd thinned, the chances of seeing her again dwindled.
Would Jason have made it? He was tough as nails, so if anyone could survive the end of the world, it was him. At least, Zach hoped.
Zach’s mind was blank. The sheer magnitude of the situation overcame any thoughts that tried to intrude. Earth was gone. Gone forever. The solar flare had happened. Billions of people were dead. The few hundred who had escaped were the last of the human race.
He was too late. He was wrong. Right about the severity of the solar flares, but wrong about how much time was left. How could he have known for sure? He was so confident they had a year, yet he was gravely mistaken.
Zach flagged Carver down. “Did Cora make it? Jason?”
“Not sure, son. I’m praying they did.” Carver smiled at an older woman and helped her toward the exit. He gave a look back at Zach in confirmation.
Son? Was Carver pretending as if nothing had happened between them? He was about to respond when he noticed a woman cutting toward the front of the crowd. For some reason, his eyes focused on her. She nudged people aside, repeating, “Excuse me, excuse me.” The woman reached the front of the pack, gazed at Zach with crystal blue eyes, and called out his name.
Before Zach could even register what was happening, Cora had wrapped her arms around him so tightly that he nearly buckled to the ground. “Oh, my god!” she exclaimed. Laughing, she slapped his chest several times and exclaimed, “You’re real! You’re really here!”
“I’m here, I’m here!” he answered with a smile. Zach hugged her for what seemed like an hour, then pulled her to her feet. “I’m home.”
“Yeah.” Cora’s laughter tapered off. “Home…”
“There’s nothing left, is there?” Zach asked as he gazed through the octagonal window and down at his old home. The world was an orb of fire, bright and painful to look at. Thunderous waves of orange circled the surface, not an inch of land visible past the blaze and smoke in the atmosphere. The tendrils of fire twisted demonically, forming ribbon-like curls in the hot smog.
Zach took a long swig of bourbon he’d found in a supply closet. The bottle was labeled FOR A SPECIAL EVENT. Intricate carvings of roses decorated the glass. As the burning liquid trickled down his throat, he rolled the red cap in his palm. He looked at Earth longingly. His hair stuck to his forehead in sweat-coated vines, hanging over his eyes. Through the slick strands, he blinked disbelievingly as the tumbling flames rolled over the continents, molten clouds swirling and roiling. The bourbon did little to quiet his thoughts.
Slowly, Cora walked up behind him, hands in her pockets, and stood at his side. Her sleeveless red shirt hung loosely on her figure. Eventually, she said in a low voice, “You saved us.”
“No,” was all Zach could muster. “I— I always knew it would end like this, but…” His eyes went glassy, and he felt a stinging in his nostrils. “It’s all gone, Cora. It’s gone.”
Pasadena. America. Earth. Everything.
What had become of their world? And how had he let it get to this point? For a split second, Zach understood why Carver had backed the magnetosphere restoration so heavily. But he quickly snapped back to reality after remembering how many more people could have survived if Carver had held an ounce of common sense and realized the restoration was a lost cause.
“You did,” Cora said but kept her voice low.
“I thought we had a year!” Zach’s vision went blurry, and he gritted his teeth so hard they felt like they might crack. He glanced at Cora, registering how emaciated she was. Her cheeks were hollow, and her eyes were sunken and dark. Even her olive skin was paler than it used to be. How had he not noticed his best friend’s condition before?
Cora exhaled through pursed lips. “But we’re alive. If you hadn’t returned with the Gateway when you did, we’d still be stranded out there.”
Zach nodded a little and drew his eyes back to the ravaged Earth.
“I thought I’d lost you… again.” The word caught in Cora’s throat as she stared straight ahead. The volcanic light illuminated her grime-covered face. She swallowed. The tears in her eyes threatened to spill over.
“I didn’t see Jason in the crowd,” said Zach. Cora didn’t respond. She nudged a strand of hair from her face. “Did he make it?”
Cora shook her head. “He didn’t get to the ship fast enough. I saw him… He was almost there, but we… we had to launch.”
Zach let his head hang low. “He always had a soft spot for you, know that?” He drank another burning sip of liquor.
Cora’s tears finally fell, and she closed her eyes tight to contain them. She nodded. “I know.”
They stayed a little longer, passing the bottle back and forth before they split up and went their separate ways. For the next few hours, Zach helped people get settled into their bunks, showing them where they could find supplies, changes of clothes, or whatever else they needed. Many recognized him, claiming they had been to his funeral. “Must have been one hell of a party,” Zach joked, trying to break the utter despair filling the room. One woman even proposed that they were all dead and trapped in Purgatory. Zach moved quickly on to the next person.
Later, he met back up with the others in an observation room to discuss what to do next. Carver’s fingers hovered just above the steel table. “I’m glad to see you, son. We thought we’d lost you.”
“Is it just us now?” Zach asked. His voice was raw and raspy. “None of the other agencies got off the ground?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How about other countries? Allies? Enemies, even?”
“It’s not impossible, but…” He trailed off.
They all stood around the observation window, staring at the planet like Zach had earlier that day. Cora hovered in the background, her arms clasped closely to her sides.
“There’s still the possibility of the current orbital stations. NASA had a few still operating,” Carver suggested.
“They weren’t built to survive something like this. And even if they made it, you’re looking at, what, a dozen people?” Zach motioned to the window. “Close it up, Ryker.” He didn’t want to look at his ravaged world any longer. A mechanical buzzing sound began as Ryker closed the window shade from his place at the command module. “That means less than a thousand people are left in the human race.”
“Is that enough?” Ryker asked. “To… to keep it going?”
“It should be.” A look of dismay crossed Zach’s face. “But barely.”
Suddenly, Erik appeared in the doorway. “Sorry I’m late.”
Zach motioned Erik over. Erik limped in his direction. “Nicolas, this is Erik. We wouldn’t have gotten the irogen without him.”
Carver looked confused, perhaps searching for some distant memory but coming up dry. “You’re not OSE.”
“I am. Just not your OSE.”
Zach sensed the tension between them and decided to step in. “Erik’s a Prescott survivor. We found him in one of the pods when we got up here.”
“What?” Carver turned to Zach with wide eyes.
“We found him in one of the secondary pod clusters. He’s been helping us—”
“You do mean the prison chambers, right?”
“I only stole some food,” Erik began.
“And he was on ice for twenty years for it,” Zach finished. “He did his time. And then some.”
“Hey,” Cora interrupted. “I had a chance to look at the farm. Half the plant beds are dead. The others are wilting. It would take a miracle for that thing to sustain us.”
“It doesn’t have to. Cryo will. We’ll go to sleep and wake up when we need to, not a day older,” Zach said. First-gen stasis pods could only preserve a person for a month or two. The next gen used a system of holding back cell deterioration so that the passenger would age ten times slower, but they still couldn’t stay indefinitely. Gen Three brought a permanent solution. True immortality, though only while asleep.
“If I may,” Ryker prompted, one of his legs outstretched and his back pushed against a chair. “The cryobay is shut down. The system said the only way to override it is with ground control access.”
“Well, that’s a problem,” said Carver dryly.
“I can help with that,” Cora volunteered.
“How?”
“I’ll put together a team to get it open. We’ll figure it out.”
Carver reluctantly agreed, then turned to Zach. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”
“Okay.”
Carver beckoned Zach to step away with him. They exited into the hall, shooing away a few stragglers camped outside. Once they were on their own, Zach started in. “Is there a problem?”
Carver scratched the beginnings of a stubble beard. “I know you’re upset with me.”
“For what? Lying about my entire life?”
Hurt flashed across Carver’s face, but Zach couldn’t discern whether it was real. “I care about you, Zach. You’re like a son—”
“Don’t even start with that shit.”
“Zach, please.” Carver held out his hands in a peacemaking gesture. “We have to let bygones be bygones. The survivors look up to us, you and me. We got them here.”
Oh, so there was a we, now? Carver had done nothing but obstruct Zach at every turn, and suddenly they were on the same team? The thought made Zach livid. Regardless of Zach’s feelings, Carver was right about one thing: they were responsible for a thousand people.
The last thousand people.
And for that reason, Zach would have to accept a truce, for everyone’s sake. After all, he never found solid proof that Carver had anything to do with Ryker’s abandonment, only suspicion. There was something strange going on. Zach knew it. But for the time being, it would have to wait. “Fine. But I don’t want to hear from you unless the ship is about to explode. Understand?”
“You got it.” Carver tried to pat Zach on the shoulder, but Zach stepped away.
They rejoined the others and devised a plan to integrate all the new survivors. Ryker explained where the last packaged food stores were. There wasn’t enough for everyone—they would have to ration until another solution was discovered. The idea was met with nods of agreement. Cora mentioned that the influx of people could strain the life support systems. Oxygen levels might drop.
“True,” Ryker admitted. “It’s broken down multiple times, but as long as we figure out cryo soon, it won’t be a problem for us.”
“I’ve got to go help get people situated,” Carver announced, gathering his things. “In the meantime, Zach, you can look into those other stations you were talking about. Good?”
“Yeah, okay. We’ll regroup later and figure out what to do next.” Zach walked out of the room and turned the corner.
Carver was about to do the same when Ryker planted a hand on his chest. “I’m watching you.”
Zach Croft: 2030
Guilt. That’s what he felt.
As more and more bodies were carried off to the growing cemetery, Zach’s level of unease—which was already through the roof—grew even more. Some mornings, he could barely pull himself out of bed.
This day, though, he got up. He put in earbuds while he got ready, trying to tune out the pained wails and gurgling coughs from outside. At the door, he hesitated.
It wasn’t the fear of getting sick himself that stopped him. No, it was something beyond that. Whenever he walked out into the open, it felt as though everyone was staring at him. Like they knew everything happening was because of him.
Zach remembered his father’s words of comfort: that nobody was at fault until they figured out what was causing the sickness. But that was obviously a lie. Everything had gone downhill since Zach entered that crater, and no one could deny it. Well, no one would deny it if they knew what he had done. That made it all the more difficult for him to bear.
Forty-seven had died so far. Five times as many had contracted the illness. More were sure to follow. A dim mood had swept over the colony as the grim reality of the situation settled in.
People called it the Red Plague, named after the Red Planet they were on, as well as the red bumps and boils that were a telltale sign of the affliction. To contain the epidemic, those who weren’t showing symptoms—maybe two hundred or so—remained confined to their quarters whenever possible. Quinton had ordered that Zach only leave when strictly necessary and, even then, with great caution. He was allowed to go out for rations. That was all.
Zach was about to break that rule.
People who were too weak to walk home lay strewn about along the roads, the healthy unwilling to help them up, for fear of infection. Sometimes, the sickly huddled in groups, but they rarely spoke to one another.
Nobody looked up at Zach as he walked out of his hab unit. They kept their bloody, egg-yolk-colored eyes glued to the ground, jaws slightly ajar to accommodate the blisters surrounding their lips. And despite the muted sun rays on Mars, their skin was red as ever, making even the worst of sunburns look minor.
Zach ran his hand over his olive skin, thankful to be healthy but secretly wishing to have been amongst the forty-seven who died. That way, he wouldn’t have to deal with the knowledge that the disaster was his fault.
With sixty percent of the population barely holding on, upkeep on Prescott had come to a near standstill. Any efforts to rebuild after the meteor were suspended, leaving only the shabby tents, shacks, and the few hab units intact. The remaining workforce was enlisted to operate the oxygen scrubbers, hydrofarm, and all the systems they needed to survive. Ironically, the job got easier every day, with fewer and fewer people draining resources. It was a dark thought, but it was true.
Zach headed for the town hall, having overheard his father mention a council meeting later that day. He didn’t know what it was about, but something told Zach it was important. If he could slip in, maybe he could get some information. It was a long shot, but he needed to understand what was happening.
The town hall—a wide, rectangular building with red-tinted windows made from Martian sand—was one of the larger structures, such as the rover garage, that had stayed intact after the meteor hit. Zach summited the steps and slipped inside. He went straight for the staircase in the lobby, passing a small viewing room, library, and personal cafeteria. At the top, it led into a vast space.
At the sound of a voice, he ducked behind a piece of furniture and peeked around it. The seven surviving council members sat at a table in the middle of the room.
“Let’s begin,” Quinton said. “Councilman Faren, here, has called for this meeting.”
Councilman Faren was a skinny man. His nose was long and narrow, and his eyes bore a striking resemblance to that of a corpse. With the screeching of chair legs across the floor, he stood, fixed his jacket, and nodded to the other councilors. “I apologize for calling an assembly with such short notice, but I feel that something must be done to address what’s happening here.”
Quinton gestured for him to sit back down. “You have the floor.”
“Thank you, sir.” Faren reclaimed his seat and leaned over the table, rubbing his hands together. “I’m sure you’ve all seen the numbers. Even without scouring the medbay logs, take one look outside, and you can see the urgency of the situation.”
“We’re very much aware of the urgency, Faren, so why are we here instead of out there treating the sick?” a blonde councilwoman said.
“Treat them with what, Lindsey?” another councilman retorted. “Let the man speak.”
Faren nodded thanks. He exhaled through his nose, then continued. “Fifteen years we’re supposed to spend here?” He shook his head. “Let’s face it: we’re not making it a month at this rate, let alone fifteen years.”
From the other councilors’ looks, it appeared Faren had said what many of them were secretly thinking. Sensing this, Faren continued, “We need to do something, and it’s not treating the sick. We’ve got—what—a few weeks’ worth of basic medicine left? I don’t suppose we have an alien cure somewhere in there.”
“What about the resupply ship?” Lindsey interjected. “One’s supposed to come in a few weeks, right? That’ll have more medicine.”
“And how do you know that medicine will do anything?” Faren retorted. “Or better yet, how do you even know the ship is coming? We haven’t had contact with OSE in weeks. They probably think we’re dead.”
“Suppose that’s true. Suppose the ship isn’t coming.” Quinton leaned back in his seat. “Are you saying we should let all those sick people die?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Faren turned his gaze to Quinton. “But what’s the point in waiting around while more and more people get infected? We’re trapped under a fucking dome with no way to quarantine and nowhere to hide.”
“So what do you suppose we do?”
“We need to leave! We need to take the healthy back to Earth, develop some kind of cure, then return to help the rest.”
Quinton squinted at him. “You said it yourself: they won’t survive a month. They’ll be dead by the time we send a team back. No.”
“Would you rather have all of us die? Because that’s what’s going to happen if we stay. At the very least, we can ensure those who aren’t infected stay that way. Think about your people, sir.”
“How do you know the healthy would even want to leave?” another councilor asked. “Almost everyone has sick family members. Nobody will want to leave their family behind, even if staying spells their own deaths.”
“Then we make them leave,” said Faren.
“We’re not actually entertaining this idea, right?” Lindsey exclaimed. “Quinton?”
Quinton took a breath. “It’s not our choice to make. We can’t force people to leave.”
“A good leader would save as many of his people as he could,” Faren insisted.
“Even if you’re right, how would we ensure no sick people get onto the ship?” Quinton asked, keeping his head.
“The yellow eyes,” Faren said. He looked around at the other councilors, searching for validation. Several nodded in agreement. He continued, “It’s the first symptom they show. We can check for that.”
“Person by person, that’ll take hours,” Quinton pointed out.
“It’s either that or risk bringing it back to the Gateway.”
Lindsey shook her head in disapproval. “There’s no way people are gonna go for this.”
“Can we just vote and be done with it?” one of the councilors asked. “We’re not doing any good stalling. All in favor?”
“Aye,” said Faren immediately.
“Aye.”
“Aye.”
“…All opposed?”
Lindsey crossed her arms over her chest. “Nay.”
“Nay.”
“Nay.”
Faren breathed a frustrated sigh, then turned to Quinton. “It seems you’re the tiebreaker… sir. The decision is yours.
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