Revelations (29 page)

“Hey!” MacAlister said, rising up from his seat at the front and turning to face his crew. “Give it a rest.”

Emily began to explain how she had woken in the ship, how she had met the aliens calling themselves the Caretakers, and the explanation they had given her for why they had chosen Earth. When she was done a heavy silence settled over the crowd of sailors.

“We’ve still got a couple of nukes in the bay,” a sailor Emily thought was named Cooper said finally. “I say we drop one on the bastards and see how they like that.”

Captain Constantine spoke, “Wonderful idea, Mr. Cooper, and then what? There are God knows how many more of these ships around the world, so how would you suggest we handle it when one of them decides to take a shot back at us? That’s assuming our nuke even has the possibility of hitting them. For all we know, they could lob the thing right back to us. Or detonate it before it even left the launch tube. No. There won’t be any nukes.”

“Do you have the photographs?” Emily asked.

Mac nodded. He had found a printer in one of the unused offices and run off enough copies of the photographs Emily had captured for everyone.

“Pass these along,” he said, handing a stack to the first sailor in each row.

There was a chorus of curses and expletives as the photos were passed from hand to hand.

“That is what we are dealing with,” said Emily when the last of the men had the image in his hand. “And Commander Mulligan mentioned there were more, seven in total we think, that landed around the world besides this one. Still think it’s a good idea to nuke it?”

The mood of the crowd had become less cynical since they had been handed the photographs, Emily thought, and a little more receptive, so she pushed on.

“But that’s not all they told me,” she continued. “They also gave me a warning that I should pass on to all of you.”

The chatter that had broken out among the crew faded to silence again.

“They told me that they would allow us an area of land extending twenty miles out from Point Loma. That we would be left to our own devices as long as we stayed there, but if we or any of the other survivors they say are out there try to expand beyond that area, well, then we would be ‘dealt with,’ to use their words.”

“‘Dealt with’? What the fuck does ‘dealt with’ mean? Fuck!” This from the same sailor who, minutes earlier, had suggested they nuke Las Vegas.

“Use your imagination, Cooper,” MacAlister hissed this time. “What do you think an alien race that’s capable of eliminating an entire planet of eight-billion people and then setting up home there as easily as we go on a camping trip is capable of doing? Hmmm? Jesus Christ, if there was a navy left to complain to I swear I’d be asking them to check you for fucking brain damage.”

This brought a smattering of laughter from some of the other sailors. Cooper flushed scarlet with embarrassment. “I was only asking,” he mumbled.

“Yeah? Well let me spell it out for you, for all of you. I’ve seen this ship up close. I’ve stood not fifty feet away from these aliens, so hear this from me: If we stray outside the cordon these Caretakers have set aside for us, they will fry our arses. There. Is that clear enough for you?”

Cooper nodded.

“Good. Emily, please continue.”

“While they never directly said anything about frying anyone’s asses…or arses, they did make it clear that there would be severe repercussions if we strayed outside the boundaries they set for us. What’s more important is that they were very specific in their insistence that we are not the only survivors left alive. There are others and we have to find them. There are how many of us left? Thirty-five. That’s nowhere near enough to maintain a viable community, not if we want the human race to become something more than just a footnote on this planet’s history. We have to track down these other survivors. It’s our only chance at a future.”

When Emily finished speaking she looked across at Captain Constantine. “That’s it,” she said.

“Alright, well, thank you Emily. Does anyone have any questions?”

A sailor at the front raised his hand.

“Go ahead, Stevens,” said the captain.

“But what happens in the future, what happens if these other survivors join us and we survive and we grow?”

All eyes turned back to Emily again.

“While he didn’t use these exact words, the alien I spoke with effectively said we are on probation; behave ourselves and they will leave us alone. Start any trouble, and they’ll deal with us accordingly.”

“What happens if we run out of room?” another voice asked.

“Again, it’s going to depend on our behavior. But at some point in the future, the Caretakers will judge us; if we meet their standards, I think we might be given room to expand.”

“And if we fail?”

“It’s up to
us
to make sure we
don’t
fail. It’s the responsibility of every one of us left to ensure that we, and every generation that comes after us, understands what is needed to survive on this new planet. We won’t be allowed to meaninglessly squander resources or life anymore because we’re no longer at the top of the food chain; something with a lot more intelligence, a lot more power than we could ever imagine, runs the show now. But all they are asking is that we learn a little humility, a little respect for what we have.”

Emily paused and looked around at the faces looking back at her, the last of humanity gathered here in this one little room. “Because if we choose not to listen, they can take it all away. And the next time, there won’t be anyone left to make a difference.”

Emily knew she would never grow tired of hearing the waves breaking against the shoreline around Point Loma. The constant susurration of white-capped rolls of ocean slipping up the sand and pebble-strewn beach was the closest she would ever come to the chaotic symphony of the great city she had loved so very much…only to lose forever.

But that loss no longer hung over her with the same heaviness.

In the eighteen months since she and Mac had returned from Las Vegas, Emily had resigned herself to being one of the final witnesses of that old world, an anachronistic memory, destined to become part of a myth, woven into the fabric of humanity’s story. It was a surprisingly comforting thought to know that she was one of the last of something that would never,
could
never, exist again. It made what she still had left from that old life, and the things that she had gained, seem all the more precious to her.

She walked the beach as she did every morning, lost in her thoughts, the sleeves of her cargo pants rolled up to just below her knees, flip-flops kicked off long ago and carried in her hand as she followed the gentle curve of the beach for a mile or so away from the settlement, her feet tingling as each new wave broke over the wet sand, squelching between her toes.

It was the same beach that she and the other survivors from the Stockton Islands had first set foot on in this strange new continent, familiar in so many ways, yet changed forever. It was also the same beach where, just ten months earlier, MacAlister and she had spoken their vows together. She smiled at the memory as she passed the spot where Mac had taken her hand in his own and promised to be hers and she had vowed to be his. Captain Constantine had officiated over the ceremony, a simple affair; two survivors, happy to be alive and both amazed that with their species dangling over the precipice of extinction, love, much like life, had managed to find a way to survive.

In the time between then and now, Emily’s view of this world had…adjusted.

In almost every novel she had read, every movie she had watched that pitched the end of the world as its theme, it always seemed to pander to humanity’s fear of what would be lost rather than what could be gained through the birth of something new. Birth was a messy business, she knew that from firsthand experience, but the end result was, well, something magnificent.

Binoculars hung from a strap around her neck; she raised them to her eyes for the fifth time in as many minutes and scanned the open sea for any sign of their new arrivals.

Captain Constantine had told her over dinner one evening that before the rain had come there could have been upwards of fifty or more submarines plying through the world’s oceans on any given day. That meant there could be thousands more survivors out there, safe beneath the waves, isolated in their hermetically sealed tin cans. That was the day she had started to reach out to potential survivors via the radio.

In the weeks and months after that first broadcast Emily had managed to make contact with four submarines. Two of those subs—one French, the other Argentinian—had chosen to join them at Point Loma, adding a further three-hundred-and-twenty souls to their growing community of survivors.

There had also been failures. A German sub and a Russian vessel had chosen to ignore her warnings about settling outside the Green Zone. They had headed back to Europe and their home ports. The German crew had lasted two days at their new location before all radio contact was lost, the Russian crew just under three days before their radio communication abruptly ceased.

Neither group had been heard from again.

It was impossible to estimate how many more vessels might be out there, or how many had even survived the tumultuous red storm that had brought such dramatic changes to the planet, but after this length of time, supplies onboard would be all but exhausted, and time would be quickly running out for their crews.

But the terrible loss of the two crews had at least provided the Point Loma settlers with some valuable information: There seemed to be a window of opportunity, albeit just a matter of days, before the Caretakers would fulfill their threat of retribution to any human who strayed and stayed outside of the zone they had assigned to the remnants of the human race. It also appeared that if a submarine stayed beneath the waves and kept moving, they were not seen as a threat. Maybe the Caretakers could not detect them? Maybe, as long as they kept on moving, the aliens did not care? Emily had given up on trying to fathom their inscrutable motivations.

Today, however, was an extra-special day. Today, somewhere out
there,
beneath the rolling blue waves, was a US submarine heading home. And, while Emily welcomed the cosmopolitan mix of accents and attitudes that had sprouted up around the camp, it would be nice to be around others from her own culture.

She had begun to think that she and Rhiannon were the last survivors of her country. But just a few weeks earlier they had made contact with the
USS Michigan
, a ballistic missile sub that had ridden out the storm anchored off of the Arctic, much as the crew of the
HMS Vengeance
had done at the opposite end of the world. They had a full contingent of almost one-hundred-and-thirty-two personnel onboard as well as a number of scientists they had rescued from Arctic research stations similar to the one she and Rhiannon had fought so hard to reach in the Stocktons. The knowledge and skills those scientists and engineers possessed would prove invaluable to the group and their efforts to survive and thrive here at this Southern California refuge.

They were out there right now
, Emily thought, her eyes drifting over the sea, searching for any sign of the new arrivals. She knew she was getting ahead of herself, allowing her excitement to get the better of her; the last time they had made contact with the US sub they were still a good eight hours out, but still, she was looking forward to the promise of new faces, fresh personalities, and new stories to be heard.

“Hey, you! What you up to?” The familiar voice came from behind her so she did not flinch when she felt a strong hand on her shoulder. She turned and kissed her husband, then pulled back to arm’s length.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing your boss thing rather than creeping around on the beach accosting innocent women?” she asked MacAlister.

“The boys have a handle on it. Besides, what’s the point of being the boss if you can’t take an extended break or two every now and again, eh?” He slipped his arm around her waist as they walked along the shorefront.

Mac headed up one of the clearing crews tasked with keeping the ever encroaching alien flora as far away from their doorstep as possible. It had been a slow, painful, and at times dangerous daily task to clear out the vegetation that seemed as intent on claiming Point Loma as the survivors were on keeping it. The remnants of San Diego, out across the bay, had disappeared in much the same way as Las Vegas, quickly disintegrating into nothing as the alien vegetation ate it away in the space of a week. So, if they wanted to keep this small spit of land they now called home their own, it was going to take a continual effort to hold back the wall of red.

The task of hacking down and burning the plants was grueling, backbreaking work, but rather than have a single group deal with it, it became a shared responsibility for all able-bodied souls. That responsibility had become far easier with the arrival of the newcomers, and multiple groups now took on the task of keeping the camp clear of infestation. Each group worked one day clearing the vegetation with chain saws, fire, and machete. They had managed to reclaim and hold a two-mile perimeter around the base, clearing out the homes, offices, and other buildings on their stretch of the peninsula.

Even with so much of the area directly surrounding Point Loma cleared, the vast majority of the survivors had chosen to remain within the fenced security of the main base, but a few brave (or dumb, Emily still wasn’t sure which) individuals had set up home in one of the many vacant residences beyond the security fence, in anticipation of the base becoming overcrowded as new arrivals joined the group. They had their choice of the prime homes, and so far, fingers crossed, there had been no mishaps or loss of life.

In his off time, Mac worked with Parsons and a small team of fellow engineers trying to figure out how to provide a permanent link to the nuclear reactor of the
Vengeance
. A reliable source of electricity would be needed quickly to help supplement their dwindling supply of diesel. In the meantime, they had managed to jury-rig a couple of wind turbines located during one of the camp’s weekly scavenger hunts that helped ease the load a little.

It was a start, and Emily had every faith that they would accomplish their goal.

She, on the other hand, had somehow found herself in the roles of unofficial mayor, public liaison officer, diplomat, and welcoming committee all bundled into one. On the six days she wasn’t working one of the cleanup crews, she was manning the radio station where she tracked and spoke with the other submarine survivors, usually trying to convince them that they should join her group. When possible, she steered clear of explaining why they should not land any farther north than Los Angeles, afraid that she might cause them to run in the opposite direction really, really fast if she told them about her encounter with the Caretakers and their warning. That was a conversation better left to a face-to-face meeting when she could have Mac and the rest of her group vouch for her veracity.

And when she found herself bored of listening to nothing but static or of repeating the same question for the hundredth time or of trolling through the ether listening for any radio chatter that might lead her to a new group of survivors, there was always
something
that needed to be done around the base. Rhiannon was happy to step in and take over the radio duties, but she had taken on a major role herself.

As the group of survivors grew, so too did the drain on the meager resources they had managed to scavenge locally. A few quick sorties into the surrounding areas in the early months, before what was still left of the old world had vanished completely, had bolstered their supplies, but with the total annihilation of the planet’s subsistence crops, a long-term food source was needed. Tentative experiments with some of the new plant life had identified several roots and shoots that could sustain a person almost indefinitely if push came to shove. It was just a pity, Emily thought, that no matter what was added to the alien plants by way of spices or garnishment, it still tasted like shit. Most people couldn’t even keep it down. Attempts to fish the ocean proved only that it seemed empty of all but the lowliest of life.

And that was another reason people were so eager to welcome the
USS Michigan
and her crew home. One of the rescued scientists onboard, a biologist, had mentioned the existence of a seed-bank facility built into a frozen cluster of islands north of what had once been Norway. The archipelago of islands lay close enough to the North Pole to have survived the great changes and might hold the key to humanity’s survival.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault,
according to the biologist, lay in a massive bomb-proof underground bunker cut into the frigid rock of Spitsbergen, the largest of the Svalbard archipelago. Safely stored away beneath the permafrost of the island, the seed vault had been created to guard against the unthinkable happening.

Well, the unthinkable had become an everyday occurrence.

So, a plan was being formulated; it was a risky one, no doubt, and would involve taking one of their collection of submarines to the frozen island in the hope that
maybe
its precious reserve of Earth-born seeds had survived.

Emily glanced across at Mac, sitting next to her on the beach. His beard was fuller these days but better kept than when she had first met him. He had added a pair of neatly trimmed sideburns.

“Makes you look like Abe Lincoln,” she told him, rubbing the tip of her finger across the oblong of hair on his cheek.

“Abe Lincoln? Wasn’t he a singer with one of those eighties bands?”

She nudged him playfully with her shoulder, then leaned in close, her head against his shoulder, linking her hands around the crook of his knee. Mac’s eyes were focused on the far horizon but every now and again he plucked a handful of the coarse yellow sand and allowed it to sift slowly through his open fingers.

“No sign of them yet?” he asked, pressing his cheek against the crown of her head.

“They’re still a couple of hours out, I guess. But they’ll be here soon and everything will change again.” They sat in peaceful silence for a while, allowing the pleasure of each other’s company and the breeze rolling in from the sea to envelop them.

“Well, duty calls,” Mac sighed eventually, unaware of Emily’s internal conflict. He turned and kissed her lightly on the lips, untangled himself from her grasp, and pushed himself to his feet.

“Help me up,” Emily said, all thoughts other than the love she felt for this man fading from her head. Mac pulled her to her feet and she took his hand in her own. “I’ll walk with you. Rhiannon’s probably wondering where I am anyway.”