Ark-13: An Odyssey (7 page)

Log Entry # 6

People sometimes ask, 'if you knew you had one day to live, what would you do?' Well my last day in Georgetown was much like the last day of my life. For all intents and purpose, I would be dying the next day, flying off to an undisclosed location and beginning a new life.

I had one last chance to do anything I wanted. What did I end up doing?

I did the same thing I did every day. I am a creature of habit and I am a firm believer that history repeats itself – I prove it every day.

Anyway so I popped my headphones in, grabbed a coffee from Earl at the corner café and watched the birds circle over the harbor.

"Somewhere... beyond the sea. Somewhere... waiting for me..." Bobby Darin crooned in my ear. There was something about that tune in that moment, maybe it was the trumpets or the hopping bass line. Whatever it was, it made me burst into laughter.

The irony of it all.

Humanity just cared so much about everything. And an asteroid comes and erases it all from existence. Working tirelessly on that promotion? Ain’t happening. Going to prom with the guy of your dreams? Not anymore. Your team on their way to the Super Bowl? Think again.

Here we have a species that's strongest instinct is self-preservation and, save the passengers of the thirteen Arks around the world, they are all going to die.

I couldn't help but think of what's next. And then I couldn’t help but think that the world had spiraled into an obsession with the present moment. Everything and everybody has been focused solely on the here and now for as long as I could remember. But what is there when the here and now are gone?

No one thinks about what comes next anymore. Well with the end in sight, I looked around and wondered if there was an afterlife. Mine, for the time being, would be spent on a space station perpetuating the human race. But I remember thinking, 'where are all of these people going?'

Are they going to an infinite state of nothingness or to some heavenly oasis with naked baby angels playing harps on clouds?

It's probably neither. But it has got to be something....

I think it is fair to say that there has to be meaning to all this. This life doesn't just amount to being destroyed by a floating rock. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Isn't that what Newton said? Well, what's the reaction to Armageddon? What's the reaction to death? If nature is a series of causes and effects then what is death the cause of? We tend to think of death as an effect of a life well lived, but every effect just becomes another cause, just like a domino falling into another domino and into another and into another...

As I was watched the birds circle overhead and the sun glimmer over the harbor from the same bench I had sat so many times before, I realized that this was not the end. It was only the beginning.

“You sayin’ we got a GENESIS rat among us?” Elijah asked in the clearing of the cornfield to the group through his respirator.

“I mean that GENESIS has sent a message to colonist #309, whoever that is,” Danny explained. The others were assembled and floored by the news.

“What?!” Coop grumbled. “They are spying on us? Are the cameras and armports not enough?!”

“Does anyone have any idea who it could be? Has anyone been suspicious?” Lucy asked.

Everyone exchanged glances with each other, but no names came to mind.

“We have to be on guard,” Danny explained. “And we can’t recruit anyone until we have the X drive data map. We are going to have to be extremely careful with our selection.” The Insurgents nodded in unison and then turned their eyes to Jake for instruction.

“We move tonight… But our plan has changed, something has come up… more enforcers have been recruited and they will be standing guard at the Archives. So, we are going to need to make a diversion. There was a supply drop this morning so Eclipse will be busy. I think if someone causes a ruckus up there, it will draw the guards from their post, leaving the all clear for our hack. Coop, are you up for it?” His eyebrows rose along with his shoulders.

“Absolutely! What kind of ruckus?” Coop asked with eager anticipation.

“How would you like to get in a bar fight with Jim Booker?”

Coop smiled wide.

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The third floor of the Ark held a recreation center, complete with a fitness center, court, lounge and Eclipse, the Ark’s nightclub. Eclipse was a dark bar, lit up in different colors. Music sounded over the speakers, muffling all conversations around. There was a series of tables and chairs, lining the circular platform on which the central bar stood.

The bar was operated by Luke Payton, a handsome man of his late twenties. He had a calm cool to him and eyes that rendered the females of the Ark defenseless. His jovial charm uplifted the party and discouraged any alcoholic sulking.

Coop Nolan ascended the neon steps to the central platform where an electronic dance song thumped over head. He waved to a few of the patrons and approached Luke, slapping down a currency note on the bar.

“Luke, how you doing?” Luke turned to Coop, revealing his baby blues eyes illuminated in the club’s light.

“Hey! Coop… what’s it going to be?” Luke laughed, filling a cup of the only liquor they ever had in stock.

“The usual!” Coop quipped.

“Here you go, buddy!” Luke slid the Ether across the bar into Coop’s hand. Coop nodded a ‘thank you’ and danced toward the tables, as well as a fishing boat captain could.

Coop’s eyes met two council members, Andrew Langford and Sophia Chen, laughing and having a good time over their drinks. Andrew lifted his head from the conversation and called to Coop.

“Hey Coop! Have you seen Jake? He was supposed to meet us here… He’s a no show!” Andrew laughed aloud, obviously already on his third drink of the night.

“I don’t know where he is! Probably working out or something,” Coop suggested, trying to avoid them. With a nod of the head, Andrew’s attention fell back to Sophia.

As Coop walked toward an empty table, he nodded to Zoe who sat in a nearby booth, awaiting his signal. Zoe tapped her ear and spoke into her comm.

“Jake, he’s in position.”

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Jake walked a brisk pace up the Loop, having just received Zoe’s word through his earpiece. He noticed Peter Gambit, a tall, bulky framed man, speaking to two men who stood guard at the door to the Archives. After an exchange of parting words, Peter left the enforcers to their post and walked by Jake.

“Councilman…” he nodded.

“How are ya, Peter? How have patrols been going so far? Everything in order?” Jake kept up his appearance.

“All quiet on the Western front…”

Jake spun as he passed, flashing a parting smile and continued walking the other way.

“Jake…he’s in position,” Zoe’s impatient voice carried an expectation in it. Jake turned the corner and the air conditioning vent came into view outside of the restroom.

His eyes narrowed on it.

“Is Jim there yet?”

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Zoe foraged the club until Jim Booker entered alongside Junior Posey. Together they ascended the stairs and approached the bar. Zoe exchanged glances with Coop at the adjacent table and then spotted Lucy across the bar, talking with a friend and Elijah in the corner, awaiting Coop’s move.

“Junior, got him here, they just arrived. Everyone is in position.”

“Alright send the signal,” Jake instructed over her comm.

And with that Zoe connected eyes with Coop and gave a concerted nod of the head to convey the signal. With that Coop slapped his hands on the table and stood up, shifting in his weight like a drunkard. He stumbled up to Jim and Junior and haphazardly slapped Jim on the shoulder.

“Hey! Booker!... What’s this I hear about more enforcers?!” Coop’s voice slurred with a disgruntled ire. The volume of his voice was high enough to attract the eyes of nearby colonists.

“Just for everyone’s safety, Coop...” Jim assured him, as politely as he could, although his eyes offered a condescending judgment. The song overhead came to an end, leaving a silent background to the building argument.

“What? Don’t ya think we’ve been through enough! What gives
you
the right to police me?!” Coop prodded. Jim’s eyes darted side to side, realizing a crowd had gathered.

“The Council voted on it. And yes because of recent events it seems to be a good idea!” Jim fired back in the defense.

“She didn’t do anything wrong! Meredith was just minding her own business and GENESIS decided to take her! Can’t you see that GENESIS is not who they said they were!” Coop yelled loud enough to plant the seed in each onlooker.

“GENESIS is the only reason we are alive!” Jim yelled at the top of his lungs.

“Well I think ya work for em’. I think your spying on us!” Gasps sounded about as Coop stepped forward and punched Jim Booker with a right hook across the jaw. Jim’s anger ignited into fury as he charged at Coop. They crashed back and toppled over a nearby table. The commotion caught the attention of every colonist in the club and so quickly a perimeter was formed around the two wrestling men.

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Jake leaned up against the wall, pretending to consult a book projected from his holographic. After a few moments, he noticed the enforcers standing guard at the Archives getting a message in their ear. After equipping their electrostaffs, they booked it up the Loop, abandoning their post in the pursuit of the action at Eclipse.

“Am I clear Elijah?”

“All clear, boss!” Elijah confirmed in his earpiece.

Quickly, Jake crossed the corridor and unscrewed the air conditioning vent. With one glance over his shoulder, he stepped into the duct and closed the vent behind him.

Upon entry, Jake could hear the subtle humming through the duct from the turbines, churning on the Resource deck overhead. He approached a ladder that climbed an overhead channel. Upon reaching the top of the ladder he shifted onto his stomach and slithered his way around the bend. He came to the first vent grate and peered down through it. There was the glass pane of the front door to the Archives, so he continued, now aware of his position above the ceiling.

He crawled through the narrow passage against the current of recycled air conditioning. He reached a second vent, which showed that he was halfway to the Vault.

And then he heard it.

A door opened below him and footsteps paced through the Archives.

“Someone is here!” he whispered into his comm.

Jake’s heart pounded through his chest.

He held his breath as footsteps approached underneath him.

Coop tumbled over Jim as the two continued their fight on the floor of the night club. Coop seized the opportunity while fighting with Jim to extract through a sleight of hand Jim’s keycard from his pocket. He tucked the keycard in his back pocket and continued to grapple with him. Just then, two enforcers burst through the door with electrostaffs. They activated them, causing sparks to sizzle at their ends.

The crowd parted for the enforcers.

“Arrest this man!” Jim yelled still wrapped in a headlock, bleeding from the nose.

The enforcers stepped forward and pressed the electrical end into Coop’s back. He shook uncontrollably as the shock seized through his body. His body convulsed on the ground as the electricity surged from his head to his toe. The crowd watched in horror as Jim Booker gathered his feet and wiped his bloody nose. Combing his hair back out of his eyes, he beamed down at Coop in disgust.

“This behavior is unacceptable here on the Ark. Take this man to the Pen!” Jim ordered, enraged and wild with fury.

Finally, Coop’s body sputtered to a stop, like a car whose engine was cut. Jim’s eyes darted about the crowd as he met expressions of disgust. The looks of contempt around him engendered the feeling of being ostracized.

“What?! He attacked me!” No one said anything in response, but no one had to. There was an unspoken dissent among the crowd as Coop moaned in agony on the floor. Lucy broke through the crowd as the scene settled and knelt next to Coop, checking his pulse.

“You are not taking him to the Pen right now! This man needs medical treatment. What did you do to him?!” Lucy barked at Jim, only further damaging his public image. Her hands rummaged over him, checking his vitals and swiping Jim’s stolen keycard from him.

“Somebody help me get him to Sick Bay…” A few men stepped forward and together they lifted him and began carrying him toward Sick Bay. Jim was left to the judgmental eyes of the crowd as Coop’s limp body was carried out of the night club.

In the corner far removed from the action, Zoe watched the scene before her unfold. She then tapped her comm unit and updated the team.

“Keycard is on its way, prepare for interception.”

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Out in the Loop, Lucy escorted the body of Coop down the corridor and towards the Sick Bay. Twenty feet ahead was Danny walking her way. Lucy in one quick motion brandished the keycard and held it by her side.

Danny bumped into her shoulder slightly as they passed and then issued his apologies.

“Oh, it’s okay!” Lucy assured him for appearances.

Danny walked at a brisk pace the other way – keycard in hand.

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Jake laid above the Archives in the air conditioning duct frozen and alert. He peeked through the A/C vent in an effort to make out the unexpected visitor. And then he saw a large man with long hair walking by in Converse All-Stars.

It was Justin Cusick the custodian of the Archives, walking the aisles as if looking for something.

“Please leave… Justin… you are going to foil everything,” Jake whispered to himself. Justin stopped in his tracks and consulted the ceiling. His eyes passed right over the air conditioning vent, unaware that Jake was hiding behind it. After a moment of silence Justin shook it off and continued to a particular server cabinet. He then inserted his holographic into the server drive. After browsing for a few minutes, Justin downloaded a data file from the J drive and pulled his holographic from the jack.

Trailing footsteps and the sound of the door closing gave Jake the all clear to continue to the last vent. After crawling his way to the end of the duct, he peered through the vent to ensure that it dropped into the Vault. He dug his hand into his pocket, turning on his side to free up some room for his arm. He pulled out a paperclip, which he pulled apart from its looping shape. He angled the paperclip into an L-shape and fed it through the grate. With careful movements he was able to push in the two closing slides of the vent.

The grate swung open immediately and Jake’s head popped through the aperture, surveying the Archives for any signs of life.

Jake dropped down into the Vault and landed on his feet. He quickly pulled out his holographic and inserted it into the server port. Jake started the download of the X drive with two direct punches of his holographic.

He exhaled a pent up breath and leaned up against the server cabinet with his face up in the air. He tapped his earpiece.

“Download has begun. What’s your status, Danny?”

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“En route to the Lookout now,” Danny walked as quickly as possible without raising suspicion.

Danny climbed a flight of stairs to the Observation Deck. The largest window on the Ark was atop the staircase where colonists often stargazed across the far reaches of outer space. Danny stopped for a moment and couldn’t help but look out the window. It was where many had gathered and witnessed the destruction of Earth. The mission at hand nagged at him until he shook the somber memory from his focus.

He turned and approached a door with a sign labeled, “The Lookout”. He swiped Jim Booker’s keycard and walked into the room. The room had one central chair that faced a curved wall with a full display covering it. Hundreds of different camera feeds shined on the wall and a series of holographic consoles lined the central chair.

“Well, hello there!” Danny remarked to the computer monitors before him, as he sat in the central chair before the command consoles.

He feverishly began typing as he retrieved the feed of the Archives. There he located Jake downloading from the server and started overwriting the feed with normal footage without Jake. He performed the same procedure to the feed of the observation deck, showing him walking into the Lookout.

He covered his tracks and after the feeds were clear, stood up from the console and left the Lookout. Danny tapped his ear and gave the update as he walked down the stairs and back onto the Loop.

“You’re all clear. You’ve got fifteen minutes of feed in front of you.”

Danny smiled as he palmed Jim Booker’s keycard in his hand. He flipped his hood up and over his head and spotted his target.

Jim was speaking aggressively with the enforcers, recounting the fight at the Eclipse and defending his actions. Danny saw that he was bothered by the fight and still nursing a bloody lip.

As Danny passed, he bumped into him, apologizing immediately for his misstep.

“I’m sorry Mr. Booker…” The respectful address seemed to play well to Jim’s recent found insecurity and inflate his ego back to normal levels.

“Oh… it’s okay, kid.” Booker turned back to his conversation with the enforcers as Danny walked on, having left behind the keycard in its owners back pocket. Danny smiled and updated the team.

“Drop complete. How’s the download?”

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“Complete,” Jake reported as he yanked his holographic from the server.

He positioned himself underneath the open vent and jumped up, grabbing the inside of the duct. His muscles bulged as he pulled himself up and through. Lying within the duct, he huffed and puffed in an effort to catch his breath and calm his pulse. He pulled the grate up and snapped the latches into place. He crawled back to the entrance and descended the ladder to the main air conditioning vent.

He checked his surroundings and could see no one.

“Elijah, all clear?”

“All clear!” Jake opened the vent and stepped out of it, quickly closing it behind him. He casually started walking the Loop, blending in to the scene nonconspicuously.

“Alright… let’s find out who our mole is…”