Ark-13: An Odyssey (8 page)

Log Entry # 7

The ticket in my file didn’t have a destination on it –only a time and a place. The accompanying badge gained me access to the tarmac, where I boarded a GENESIS corporate jet. It was kind of eerie having a private plane to myself. I figured they didn’t want me flying commercial because they thought I might have an emotional breakdown in public.

It was strange. Everything I touched and saw would be reduced to ash in a matter of 48 hours. I remember looking out the window and imagining the people below, going about their lives and trying to be good people. It would all end so abruptly. We lived life as if we could write our own fate, but we were wrong and all our attempts were futile. Even GENESIS continued to change humanity’s fate by building the Arks and prolonging our species in the face of the Apocalypse. But isn’t that what makes us human? The desperate fight to write our own fate?

I remember looking in the personal parcel I had packed, per the instructions in the file. Although it was the only thing I would be taking with me, it was the only thing I wanted to look at. I cycled through the 4 x 6s of my family over and over, remembering better times.

In some ways, the truth of the matter became harder to cope with, but in the others it became easier. As relationships became harder to let go of, everything else became easier. I knew that I had downplayed my relationships in my life – I knew I had wronged my family time and time again, whether it be something that I said or didn’t say or something that I did or didn’t do.

People who are dying and say they have no regrets are either incredibly prideful or full of it. I regret the way I lost contact with my father, no matter whose fault it was. I regret the way I shied away from commitment, even when the girl of my dreams was right in front of me. I regret how I spent my life buying useless things I didn’t need instead of giving something useful to people who needed it. We weren’t perfect on earth and I think that if people regretted things more, it would have been a better place at its end.

I remember this was the point in my flight that the tears came. They came silently and slowly, yet warm. Call it my perfect contrition. But somehow I felt relieved and born anew. A calm came over me, one that I can’t explain. It was like a weight came off my chest that had been pressing down for decades.

And then the trees came into view out the window as the plane lowered from its flight.

And then the water – the sea glistened in the distance, as the sun continued its descent.

Wherever we landed, it was far away from civilization. I couldn’t see anything but nature stretching as far as the eye could see. Mountains towered in the distance and cottonwood trees speckled their slopes. It’s hard to believe there is no such thing as a cottonwood tree anymore. Or any tree for that matter.

The airplane door opened and I descended the staircase onto the tarmac. I looked around me until something caught my eye. The sun illuminated a massive structure standing next to the bay. There was a large building with the words “Kodiak Launch Complex” on it. Then my eyes scanned the valley and found a large structure three hundred yards away.

It was the Ark.

Standing at 600 feet tall and 400 feet wide, the Ark consisted of two primary parts, the internal structure and the Loop. The Loop enclosed the internal structure as if it were a wide ring and the internal structure stood tall like a finger through it. There were many windows to the outside world on the Ark but one large one running up the majority of the Loop. It was what we called the Observation Deck. There are no levels assigned to it because as it is a circle that would be floating in outer space there would be no up or down, east or west. Deck names had been assigned to each area of the Loop and would serve as our only compass.

The internal structure that stood inside the Loop had three consecutive levels. The first level was the Stacks where our sleeping pods were, the second level was the Resource deck. Colonists did not have access to this level or the top level of the ship – the Bridge.

My eyes settled on three letters, painted on the ship’s exterior. A.R.K.

Cyrus Holder drove up in a hovercart. I always thought they looked like golf carts, without the wheels. He approached with a wide smile and open arms as if we were about to play eighteen holes.

“You made it! How was your flight?”

That’s right, he was smiling. He was either excited for the world to end, knowing that as soon as we launch, he would be the king and everyone’s savior. Or he was smiling because he was wrapped in the Science of it all, resigned to the fact that he had no control over the asteroid. Either way it was out of touch. The Ark and all of its passengers remained his project and he was excited for us to begin.

“Isn’t she a beauty,” he gestured behind him to the Ark.

“I can’t believe it’s real…”

“Still pinching yourself to see if you wake up? Unfortunately all of this is very real.” After a moment of silence, he gestured for me to board the hovercart. I sat in the front seat next to him and we started gliding toward the large office building.

“Where are we?

“We are at the Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska. GENESIS bought the 3,700 acre complex from the Alaskan government. We needed privacy and we needed a launch site. We were able to get both here. It was this or New Mexico and I hate the heat. We have been working on her for the last three years.”

“What now?” I asked, holding the handle of my personal parcel – my only luggage.

“Today is arrival, tomorrow is orientation and training and we launch on Friday morning.”

“I have to ask, why only one day of training? I mean, we are starting a new world. One day of training?”

“We want to give you the freedom to have the society that you want. In fact, you have been selected as one of the five councilmen.”

“What?!”

“I said you have been chosen along with four others to make up the Council – you will help govern the Ark.”

“What about you? What about GENESIS?”

“GENESIS is concerned with flying the ARK and ‘to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before,’” he quoted Star Trek. When Cyrus told me this, I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know that they would close us off like some kind of infected people quarantined from all contact.

We arrived at the nearby office building and walked down a small hallway, until we emerged into a large room with massive screens covering one wall.

“So here is the nickel tour,” he began. “Welcome to Mission Control.”

Ten to fifteen men and women were working the room. There was a buzz of urgency in the air as they rushed to complete whatever tasks they were assigned.

“I can assure you that the mission is in the best of hands. GENESIS has recruited the brightest engineers across the globe for this mission.”

“But… but what happens to them…” Cyrus stopped in the center of the bullpen and turned to me with intensity.

“Jake, these men and women are sacrificing their lives to ensure the launch goes according to plan. They know what their fate has in store for them but they continue to make the sacrifice for the sake of the human race.” I gulped down the guilt and nodded. After staring me down a moment, Cyrus snapped from it and continued into a hallway on the other side of Mission Control.

“Where are the others?”

“We have set up some cots for you all for the next two nights. There is a lot to do.” With a smacking of the door, another large room opened up before him. Before him was an airplane hangar with rows and rows of cots set up. Hundreds of somber people were scattered throughout the hangar – some crying, some rocking back and forth.

I remember one girl in particular. She had blonde hair and running mascara. Her face was long with despair. She had a hopelessness written on her face that spelled out all the turmoil in my soul.

“Jake, I’d like you to meet your fellow colonists…”

Log Entry # 8

If you chose 500 people to survive the human race, who would they be?

Would it be the most brilliant minds? Scientists and Historians and Artists?

Well, that was not who GENESIS chose. They chose seemingly random Joe’s and Jane’s – myself included. If they spent billions of dollars and three years to construct the Ark, why would they put a bunch of scrubs onboard? I was expecting to see the next Einstein or the politicians of the day, but no. Maybe they were on an earlier flight but not one person in the hangar was famous, recognizable or noteworthy. The majority of them were young teenagers. I guess if you are trying to propagate the human race, how better can you do it than getting a bunch of teenagers on a ship together? I guess our Ark is the ‘Love Boat’ of the fleet.

So there we were – aimless, hovering around our cots, all lined up in rows. It wasn’t long after I arrived that a half-robotic voice came over the PA.

“Sigh Pritcher, Jim Booker, Sophia Chen, Jake Hansen and Andrew Langford, please report to Conference Room 1 for the first Assembly.” I sat up on my cot, surprised to hear my name. Everyone was looking around confused until I stood up. I could feel the eyes appraising me from all sides. I walked the length of the hangar until I found a door against the wall with large letters labeling it as Conference Room 1.

I met the door with four others. None of us seemed to know why our names were called or what an Assembly was.

“Well aren’t we special!” Jim Booker announced with a wild smile.

We herded in to find an empty table with six seats. There sitting at the head of the conference table was Cyrus Holder, before him was five files.

“Come in,” he instructed, motioning to either side of the table.

“Mr. Holder, I want to thank you for selecting us for the Ark,” Andrew said, desperately. Cyrus waved his hand, as if to say ‘don’t mention it.’ We all found our seats and looked to the man at the head of the table for the next move.

“I know you all have many questions. But let me start by saying that once we launch in two days humanity will be on its own. There can be no dependence. We must embark as a subsistent unit. You have been selected as councilmen of the Assembly. You five will have autonomous governance over the rest of the colonists.” I remember seeing the people in the room shift in their seats uncomfortably, but Jim cracked a smile. He sat up straight and pulled his shoulders back, as if he was a soldier readied for his call of duty.

Cyrus began handing out the folders.

“Andrew, you will be Director of Resources. We will make a drop every three days and it will be your responsibility to appropriately disperse those resources to wherever you determine that they need to go. Jake, you will be in charge of law and order. Think of yourself as Chief Justice. You will be in charge of drafting laws and creating the legal system that accepts or rejects those laws. Sophia, you will be in charge of personnel. You will assign the colonists, in whatever manner you so deem, to their roles on the Ark. You’re like Human Resources, this is a very important job because in large part you will only have each other. Jim, you will be our Executor of Law. You will handle enforcing the laws adopted. You will have custodianship over the Lookout, which will tap into the surveillance feeds across the Ark. And Sigh, you are the Chairman of the Assembly. Your responsibility is to decide how the Assembly works. How will votes occur between you? Will you change each other’s function? Do you need to replace one of your fellow councilmen? You will have executive power of the government.”

We all opened the folders passed to us and began scanning the documents inside.

“Why us?...” Sigh’s dragging voice asked straight away. Cyrus looked up at him.

“We are GENESIS. We have the most advanced technology in the world. Whether it be search engines or tablets or holographics, we have it all. Our analysts estimate that the average citizen interacts with a GENESIS technology at least 25 times a day. We know you…” His eyes fell and closed as he recollected a passage. “And then ‘the Lord said, ‘If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.’” Cyrus opened his eyes and leaned forward in his seat with a fiery intensity behind them.

“Well I found 500 and He is still going to destroy this place.”

On his way back to Danny’s pod Jake stopped off at Sick Bay, where Lucy attended to Coop’s recent wounds. Coop lay on the infirmary bed, still clenched and short of breath from the shock of the enforcers’ electrostaffs.

“I just heard… He just punched Jim?!?!” Jake put on an appalled expression of confusion for the camera in the corner.

“Yeah… I was there. They both wrestled but apparently Coop started it for no reason,” Nurse Lucy answered, continuing the narrative for the surveillance in their midst.

“Is Jim okay?!” Jake asked in panic, feigning concern for the person he knew would be watching.

“He got bloodied up but he will be okay, nothing serious.” Jake exhaled relief.

“Who else could I talk to? I’d like to get some eyewitness accounts before I take this to the Assembly for judgment.”

“Junior Posey was with Jim when it happened. He would be the best person to talk to…” Jake nodded to Lucy.

“Would you like to step in my office?” Lucy asked, gesturing to the back room. Jake followed her lead into the back and she cracked the door behind her.

The room was stuffy yet sterile – medications and supplies lined the walls and one desk stood in the middle of the room. Lucy leaned up against the desk and immediately started biting her fingernails. Her head darted from side to side as she shook off the façade she wore for the surveillance cameras in the Sick Bay.

“This is making my head spin!” Lucy finally exhaled.

“You did great,” Jake lowered his voice. “If GENESIS’s mole is Jim than we have Junior build a case against him with his account. It’ll give us enough evidence to lock him up and find out what we really want from him.”

“What if he’s not?”

“Then Coop stays here and you keep claiming he can’t be transported. Eventually, I will pardon him. Call it ‘a symptom of the end of the world.’” Jake explained with a wave of the hand.

“Please tell me you got the map,” she nervously pled. As her mind turned to the mission, she grew more on edge.

“I did.”

“Was Danny able to cover your tracks? Did he get the keycard I passed him?” she hurried to the next question. Jake smiled in an attempt to calm her.

“Everything went smoothly. Mission accomplished.”

“How’s he doing?” Jake nodded toward Coop in the other room.

“He’ll be okay. His levels are balancing…”

“But how do you know, when his vitals have been overwritten?” Jake asked. Lucy plucked the stethoscope from her shoulder.

“The old fashioned way…” she smiled.

“Of course.”

“So what next?...” Lucy, finally at ease, raised her eyebrows.

Jake brought out his holographic and activated it. He drilled into the data until he found the colonist master data file. Jake and Lucy’s eyes ran the length of the list as he started scrolling.

But then the Sick Bay gasped open.

There at the door was the swollen face of Jim Booker.