Ark-13: An Odyssey (3 page)

Jake entered the Pen alongside Jim Booker to find Meredith sitting on the second cell's bench, staring at the space between her toes. Jake carried with him an expression of empathy, while Jim's remained judgmental and supercilious. The cell was a box of glass panels with small circular openings. A large observatory window stretched across the back of the cell, giving the inmate a wide view of deep space. The middle of the floor had a crease that split the cell in half, where the two main tiles met.

Jim tapped a taunting index finger on the glass. Meredith raised her head from her consternation and immediately eyed Jake, ignoring Jim’s condescension.

"What are we going to do with you?" Jim hissed, enjoying his position of power over the accused traitor. Jim began pacing back and forth in front of the cell. "So, GENESIS Enterprises gives us a lift out to outer space, so we don't burn with the rest of the world. They leave us alone. They stay on the Bridge, detached from us. They are the pilots, we are the cargo. They give us supplies every three days and allow us to govern the society that we want to live in."

Jim stopped pacing and squared his shoulders to Meredith.

"I just have one question. Why would anybody want to bite the hand that feeds?"

"I am not! What you think I'm trying to start a rebellion just because some monitor said so. You don't even know them! What would I do anyway? Storm the Bridge and hope one of us knows how to fly this thing?" she fired back like the pistons of a combustion engine.

"Then explain to me why, after 18 days of no communication, the good people of GENESIS felt it so necessary to break the silence, only to announce that you should be detained for treason?"

Jake stood idly by, considering what she had said in the cornfield. Her words echoed in his head as he assessed her testimony.

Everything is off and they want me disposed of ...
because of something I saw.

"I don't know, Jim. Why don't you ask them?" Her attitude grew more spiteful.

Jake knew that she wouldn't tell Jim anything, so he stepped in and pressed a steady hand on Jim's shoulder.

"Why don't you let me talk to my friend here alone, Jim?" Jim turned with furiousness. Jake watched as his eyes calmed until he nodded a reluctant agreement.

"Give me five minutes. Take the time to cool off before the Assembly." Jim turned from Jake and exited the Pen, leaving the two alone.

"They're watching." Meredith's voice dropped to a lower volume. Her eyes shifted up toward the camera in the corner.

"Yeah, I know..." he whispered back.

"I think they're after me... I saw something Jake, something that exposed the truth. GENESIS lied to us."

"Look, we will get to all of that. Right now, I need to try to get you released. I will put it up to a vote at the Council assembly. We'll get to the bottom of this. I swear." Meredith ignored his assurances, as her eyes remained in the distance, terrified of her impending fate.

"They are going to hurt me. I know it. I got too close, I know too much."

"I won't let anyone hurt you. I've put you in here to keep you safe. And don’t worry about Jim… he’s just… Jim. I'm going to protect you." Jake promised with the full weight of emotion behind his voice.

"I understand Jake," her eyes regarded the only man that trusted her in the new world. She curled a smile toward him. Their gaze met and locked. There was a longing behind her eyes. Jake recognized the need for companionship in them, which was hard to come by in a place like the Ark.

"Come here..." she ordered with a tempting smile. She held her hands, still restrained by the magnetic cuffs, out to the circular holes in the glass. Jake grasped them and felt her warmth. Her hands were soft and smooth. Jake knew that Meredith had had a husband back on Earth, but that was a different life. His heart beat wildly and his skin grew warm. He had not felt a woman's touch since Earth. He knew that there had been a budding awkwardness growing between them as their feelings had evolved for each other. Jake pulled himself away nervously, causing Meredith to blush.

"You'll be okay..." he assured her, still locked in her gaze, as he turned to exit. Meredith pressed a hand on the glass as he exited the Pen. Jake scanned a white keycard from his pocket on a scanner to unlock the exit. After stepping out into the Loop, he found in his hand a folded note from Meredith, exchanged when they joined hands. Jake ducked to the corner, discreetly unfolded it and quickly made out the words scrawled out on it.

TRUST DANNY RYDER, FIND THE X DRIVE

"Hansen, so nice of ya' to join us." The Assembly had already gathered around the circular table at the center of the small room, reserved for closed door discussions among the Council. One dim light hung over the table, casting shadows every which way as Jake entered the shroud of light.

"I'm sorry, councilman Pritcher, I am sure you have heard of the situation we have on our hands." Sigh Pritcher hummed a confirmation to him. The sixty year old Texas cattleman was the oldest man on the Ark. His words mumbled as if he had a wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek, a delicacy he missed from his life of old. Jake grabbed a seat next to Andrew Langford, a former stock broker, and Sophia Chen, a former marketing executive. Jim Booker sat across the table from him.

The five councilmen had gathered and Sigh, as chairman of the Council, continued the meeting.

“Andrew. I trust the supply drop went well this evening?” Andrew nodded an affirmative.

“We are okay on our supply levels? How was consumption these past three days?” Sigh, for the moment, ignored the elephant in the room.

“Normal… all is fine, granted we continue to receive the same supply levels.”

“Good.”

Jim Booker started, unable to wait.

“Sigh, I would like to bring motion—”

"Booker, I know that you have a proposal for the Assembly but it'll have to wait for another time. Some serious stuff happened today and I figure we should discuss it." Booker sighed a subtle annoyance but conceded the point with a nod. Sigh continued with a calm but direct management, knowing that he had to address the events of the day.

"Now. First off, the Bridge contacted us, finally..."

"We don't know that though..." Jake pointed out.

"What?!" Booker asked aggressively. Sophia knew what Jake was thinking and jumped to explain.

"All we know is that an alarm sounded and a message came on the monitors with the words: 'Detain for Treason' next to a picture of Meredith Jones. We don't know that GENESIS is behind that. The system could have been hacked..."

“What is the likelihood of that? Do you know hackers on the Ark?" Andrew asked Jake. He gripped the note from Meredith in his pocket and shook his head.

"Well then, we are going to assume it was a message from the Bridge," Sigh continued. "Why now? We have to constantly calm the colonists. She isn't the first to not drink the Kool-Aid around here..."

"No, she is not. And if I may say, I was shocked to see that message today. Meredith as you know has been one of my closest friends and aids. But she has never mentioned any disconcerting thoughts or exhibited any rebellious behavior. This whole situation is odd to me..." Jake explained.

"Does anyone else think it is odd they called it ‘Treason’?" Sophia Chen asked the Assembly. "Like what the hell is this? The Middle Ages?"

"Order is of the utmost importance when our mission is to sustain the human race," Jim recited, as if it were a mantra he had repeated a hundred times.

"What is wrong with you?" Sophia grew aggressive, turning to Jim. "At every turn you are defending GENESIS. Do you not find it odd that we haven't seen them since launch? Do you not feel a little concern that we have been kept in the dark this entire time? We haven't heard from the Bridge until today. We haven't heard anything from the other twelve Arks out there. And there are no lines of communication for us to send messages to either!"

"Do I have to remind the Assembly that GENESIS saved our lives? Look, when our names came over the loud speaker in that hangar, and we were selected by GENESIS, I was as surprised as you. But we were appointed by them, and so I think we answer to them even if we can't see them," Booker responded.

“The American colonists could not see their government. There was an ocean between them. Look what happened there...” Jake responded.

"What are you recommending then, Jake?" Andrew asked.

"I recommend we let her go. We have no evidence that she has done anything wrong. There isn't even irrefutable evidence that the message came from the Bridge. If we let her go, we can keep a closer eye on her and maybe force the Bridge's hand. If they really want her incarcerated they are going to have to have better communication with us than a message on the monitors," he explained.

"You are talking about rebelling against GENESIS," Andrew noted.

"No, I am not! I am talking about a simple principle that we had governing our country,
innocent until proven guilty
. The burden of proof lies on GENESIS. That's not rebellion, it's just being reasonable and just," Jake explained.

A silence formed in the room as they met a stalemate of opinions. The eyes in the room naturally turned to the Chairman. Sigh ran a finger through his white mustache as he considered the points made.

"So... we need to decide collectively if we are gonna follow the order to detain Meredith."

He adjusted himself as if he was on the fence and started around the table.

"Alright, Jim... Do I have to ask?"

"We
have to
follow the order." Jim stated with such certainty that he tried to sway any dissenters among him with his tone.

"Sophia?"

"We should not follow the order."

"Jake?"

"We should not follow the order."

"Andrew?"

"We should follow the order.

"The vote is 2 in favor of following the order and 2 in favor of rejecting the order..." Sigh summarized to the Assembly. He leaned back in his chair and glanced over the table. The other councilmen awaited his word, silently. The tension in the room built.

"It is important that we keep our principles close to us. If we do not, we will change. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not some legal analyst or political scientist. But I think, if are told to incarcerate one of our own, we should at least be told why and given a proper reason..."

Sigh scratched the stubble on his jaw before speaking his final verdict.

"Let her go... Assembly dismissed," Jim exhaled a disappointment while a fervent grin came over Jake. They ascended from their seats and exited the Council Chambers. Sophia walked alongside Jake and together they walked back to the Pen.

"Here's to sticking it to the Bridge!" Sophia smiled over at him. Jake couldn't help but crack a victorious smile. They walked up the Loop another hundred feet until they came to the Pen.

"You didn't have any guards?"

"Didn't need any. Only people with this keycard can get in or out." Jake fished the white keycard out of his pocket and scanned it under the red light. A green light flashed indicating granted access. The door hissed and slid open immediately, revealing a shocking sight before him.

Meredith Jones was gone.

At first he did not know what to think, paralyzed in shock and confusion. It wasn't until Meredith's words echoed in his head that he could make sense of it.

I think they're after me... I saw something Jake, something that exposed the truth. GENESIS lied to us.

Jake's eyes fell to the crease in the middle of the floor, he visualized the ground opening up and dropping Meredith through a chute to some unknown location. His hand tightened into a fist as he realized what had happened.

"GENESIS took her..."

Log Entry # 3

Everything is different now. Not only did the world die that day but so did we. We left ourselves behind when we boarded the Ark. But who was I, before everything came crashing down?

It was one week before launch. I was in my small office above the antique store. Out the window I could see the seagulls circle the harbor. This was probably my favorite sight of Earth. I turned the TV on in my office and the local news was on the scene. Apparently, some guy was stopped by the cops because he was screaming about how he saw the world end. His name was DeAndre Graves and he apparently disappeared in the woods for a few months and then came back with a premonition of the end of the world. Everyone wrote him off as crazy. Turns out his vision was right.

So DeAndre Graves walked into a convenient store and decided to hold up the place. It didn’t take long for the hostage scene to become a full blown media circus. He made no demands, he just wanted to be heard. Everything that came out of the poor bastard’s mouth sounded insane.

“Can you believe that guy? It took hours of talking to him and then he just willing went to jail,” Doris asked, as she brought a coffee into my office.

“The world is a crazy place, full of crazy people,” I responded.

“What do we got on the docket today?” Doris was my assistant for my whole law career. She was still sharp as a tack despite pushing eighty years old. Her husband was abusive and gone now for many years. Her children were grown. I took care of her as if she was my mother and with just as much love too.

“Ms. Greene is comin’ in to sign today. Here are her papers.” A folder hit the desk in front of me. “Then I have to run to the courthouse, but your afternoon is clear believe it or not.”

“Oh good…”

“What’s botherin’ ya this mornin’, Jake?”

“Nothing I’m fine…”My assistant, Doris, was an older woman who could smell a lie from a mile away. She gave me one of those straight and narrow looks with the signature hand on the hip.

“I met Nora for coffee the other day.”

“Oh? How is she?” Doris asked.

“Good, she wants me to call my dad…” Doris’s ears perked up at hearing this.

“Why?” Her eyebrows dropped in concern, knowing my situation with dad.

“He supposedly has something he’s got to talk to me about…”

“Are you going to call him?”

“I told her I would…”

“It’s been five years now hasn’t it...” she recalled.

“I don’t know if I will but—”

“Well you have to.” Doris interrupted me. She sat done across from me in the motherly way she did. I noticed this move, it was the move where a gem of wisdom was about to be given.

“Get ya head outta ya ass and call ya daddy.”

Somehow it worked.