A Cold Black Wave (8 page)

"It's not!”  He snapped.  “I was forced to live my entire goddamn life preparing for something like this.  Do you think I want to go out in the snow right now?  Do you think I want to leave most of our supplies behind?  I don’t even want to be here!”

“Well neither do I!”

“Oh, God, just forget it.  You have no idea what I'm talking about ..."

"Maybe I don't, but I know when something sounds insane."

“This,” he waved his arm around, “all of this is insane!  We have only one chance at this Leah.”  He held his index finger in the air. “One mistake, one stupid move and that’s it.  It’s over.  Just trust me when I tell you I’m making the best-”

He buckled over and vomited on the ground.  His legs gave out from underneath him and he slumped against the wall while vomit bubbled down his chin.  Leah tried grabbing him as he crumpled and knelt beside him.  He wiped his face and flung to the floor the bilious slime than ran from his mouth, “You happy?”

“Why would I be happy?”  She retorted with a warm sincerity.  “I’m just trying to help you.”  She grabbed some of the old bandages and wiped up the vomit on the ground before tossing them away.  She retrieved a water bottle and gave it to him. “Drink slowly.”

He took a few sips but it was difficult and he spit it back up.  Leah took the bottle away and then helped wrap a blanket around him.

He shuddered and looked up to her with half-slit eyes as cold enveloped him. “Why are you so nice to me?”

She grinned, “Beginning to wonder that myself.  If you just, you know, talked a little more instead of treating me like a soldier you might be surprised.”

“I’m just trying to help you.  That religious book of yours isn’t going to help you survive ...”

She walked away and turned around, her arms folded, “You’re right.  We survive.  Nothing else matters.  From now on, you tell me what to do, I’ll do it.  No questions asked.  All I ask for is a little respect.”

“I think, uh, I think I need to get some rest ...” Josh turned pale again and pulled his blankets tight around his shivering body.  The pain medication was making him drowsy.  All Leah could do at this point was watch him as his eyelids sank and he fell asleep.  His condition worried her.  Leah opened a blood kit and took a sample from his finger and waited for the readings.  The numbers flashed on the pencil-length meter and she looked at them in disbelief. “Oh my God.”

Josh was already in early stages of sepsis.  She checked the antibiotics and realized they may be ineffective due to their age, despite having been specifically sealed for extended space travel.  The food was still viable, she knew that much, hopefully the antibiotics were, too.  She put his rough, cold hands in hers and said a little prayer for him with hushed whispers.

There was little left that she could do for Josh now except let him rest and keep getting antibiotics into his system.  Leah finished putting her snow gear on and then dug through the supply room until she retrieved a small axe.  She slid out of the compression door and let it shut behind her, careful not to open it too wide and allow the cold in.

The air outside kissed her with the fresh scent of pine.  The sun was brilliant in the morning sky and the fresh snow stretched in every direction like smoothed icing on a cake. She groped in the snow until she felt metal and proceeded to clear the rest of the fluffy powder away until the entire machine was exposed.

“Alright.  Can’t take any chances,” she stood at a wide stance for balance.  “No mistakes.  He can study your pieces later,” Leah raised the axe up behind her head and then stopped as something caught her eye.  She stooped down and brushed some leftover snow off its chest and looked closer.

The flag was shaped in an oval with a black border, white background and sixteen small red stars spaced evenly apart within the interior.  Just below the flag, or insignia, was some type of lettering that was foreign to her.  She removed her glove and reached to touch the embossed insignia when the head jerked towards her and the eyes flashed.

She screamed and stumbled backward against the shuttle as the axe dropped into the snow.  She scrambled madly to her feet and desperately looked for the axe but it had disappeared into two feet of snow.  Then she realized the machine wasn’t moving and the color in the eyes had disappeared.  Her heart banged against her chest and she felt faint from the adrenaline, unsure if she should get near it again or even move to try and find the axe.

A few moments passed and she had watched the thing the entire time, barely moving a muscle as she waited.  Once she felt brave enough she took a step, then another, and then knelt in the snow to retrieve the axe and only stealing quick glances away from the machine in order to better dig through the snow.  Finally she grabbed the hilt of the axe and lifted it, brushing her hair back as she stepped lightly towards the machine until she was standing over it again.

Her heart raced again and her blood warmed and she felt hot and sweaty and she wasn’t sure if she’d even have the power in her arms to do any damage to it, and if she couldn’t, would awaken it and spell her untimely death.  Josh’s words ran through her mind and she determined to make her first shot count.

Without further hesitation she yelled a sound she herself didn’t recognize and brought the blade down hard onto the machine.  The blade gouged a deep hole into its neck that bent the head back awkwardly.  A few sparks fluttered and sizzled and that was it.
 
The blade became lodged into it good and she had trouble pulling it out, trying to yank on the handle from different angles but it remained obstinate.

Finally she put both her feet onto the machine, bent down and pulled with all her strength.  Her foot slipped and she fell backwards into the snow with an air-filled thud, finding herself staring up at the sky through strands of disheveled hair.

Not giving up, she went back and angrily kicked at it until it broke loose.  She picked the axe back up and resumed hacking at it like a piece of cordwood until the head severed completely.  Satisfied with her handiwork, and pleasantly surprised by how good dismembering a head felt, she bent over and vigorously strained to pick up the metal cranium.  She held it close to her chest, straining to keep it from falling through her arms, and she stumbled forward until it slipped out and fell through the snow like a hot coal.

“Ok!  Seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said breathlessly.  Satisfied there was no way it would come back to life again, and resolutely defeated in any attempt to move it, she sat against the shuttle and took time to listen and submerge her soul in the beauty of the natural world around her.  It was so peaceful, so sublime and magnificent.  Having entirely grown up aboard the Westbound, she was part of a generation that had never seen earth first hand.  It was a world that had been taken for granted by so many, and yet all her life all she wanted was to lay her own eyes on it, to feel its touch and breathe its air.  Whatever planet they were on now didn’t matter, her soul connected with what she witnessed before her like nothing else.

The idea of staying at the shuttle was quickly losing its appeal to her.  Josh was right, they were targets here.  They couldn’t stay forever anyway and she longed to explore and see more.  Her thoughts ran away with her with visions of great cities and natural wonders whose beauty could tame the most savage of souls.  An excitement built in her of the possibilities ahead for her and Josh.  Someone had to have built this machine and despite its murderous intentions, there must be someone out there capable of peaceful coexistence.  Just as there was war and bloodshed on earth, they should expect nothing different here, and Leah dismissed this as an anomaly of an otherwise peaceful people.  Whoever or wherever they were.

By nature of their situation they were in danger no matter if they stayed here or moved on.  Josh would need to recover first, but she would bring up the idea to leave as soon as he was capable of understanding.  His sepsis worried her, and she didn’t want to think about what would happen if it progressively worsened and the antibiotics failed in stemming the infection.  It was a terrifyingly acidic thought that immediately dissolved her optimism.

A hawk flew overhead and she shielded her eyes to watch it gracefully carry itself through the air without flapping its wings.

Four long
and lonely days passed.  Josh’s condition became progressively worse.  He would wake in the middle of the night screaming and covered in sweat.   Leah tended to him at intervals and changed the bandages each day, checking on his blood levels and temperature, sometimes placing a cold rag on his head to cool him down.
 
She administered antibiotics and the occasional shot of pain medication during especially sleepless nights for him.
 
The level of infection was serious as
 
his joints swelled and his body turned a flush raspberry color.

He could not keep consciousness for very long, and the times he did waken his words were confusing and rambling.
 
The only time he made sense was when he mentioned water, or the bathroom, but going outside was out of the question.  Leah pushed around the containers in the supply room to form a small nook and bedpan where he could go in private.

The infection made him weak and delirious, but just lucid enough to latch onto her as she helped him to the makeshift toilet.
 
Then they'd stumble back to his bed where he'd collapse and fall into a deep sleep again.  Just as often she prayed for him and wept next to the dim lights of the burners.

After she would
 
take care of him each day she felt bold enough to explore outdoors and relieve her stress and growing claustrophobia.
 
The skies remained crystal clear without a cloud to be seen, and she hoped it’d stay that way for awhile longer.  She tried not to entertain the thought that Josh would not make it, and being outside helped pique her optimism again.  More snow would make it increasingly difficult to travel so every day without a fresh coat filled her with relief.  By the fourth day she had paved a trodden trail away from the shuttle and into the forest where she spent most of her time.

Whenever she ventured outside she made sure to take a weapon with her.  Even though she had no experience using one, it gave her enough illusory security to wander about without constant worry, and she always stayed within sight of the shuttle.
 
Leah loved the powdery snow and jumped into it more than once, letting the soft ice fall around her and allowing herself a giggle.

Her mind still straddled that edge between dream and reality, of surreal disbelief and curious reflection on the tangle effects the new world had on her senses.  At times it overwhelmed her, and she’d either laugh out of utter excitement and joy or become pensive and silent as she let her thoughts become overwhelmed by the grandeur.

The life within the forest was what drew her interest, calling to her as a mysterious island with promises of buried treasure, examining the trees and the sagging branches full of heavy snow and the few insects that thrived in the cold environ.  She'd pick away at the brown, fibrous bark on a tree, or break apart the flared scales of a dropped pine cone and examine everything about it.  The simple act of coming into contact with things untamed, a world uncontrolled by human hands, was enough to get her heart pulsing with excitement.

One morning, a small
 
grey speckled bird with
 
blue tipped wings
 
fluttered by and landed on a branch not far from her.
 
It twitched its feathers and let out a staccato whistling noise that changed pitch throughout the song.
 
In awe, she unconsciously drifted closer to it, and the bird seemed just as curious, its small head and beady black eyes cocked to the side as it watched her.
 
Finally it jutted its wings out twice and took off somewhere into the forest in search of some unfortunate grub or tree beetle.

The natural world was her playground and ignited her inner being like a consuming fire.  Josh had been taught everything there was to know about earth, but her time on the Westbound limited her exposure to what earth had been like.  He too, despite his education, was deprived of the real thing as she and every other child of their generation had been.

She felt reborn here, the shuttle the womb and she the infant.  Moments of fascination, however, were tempered with pangs of loneliness and longing for familiarity, even if that familiarity was somewhere distant and aboard a drifting metal sarcophagus.  She had no one to share her joy with.

A brief wind gusted through the rows of hemlock spires and clumps of snow sloughed off from high branches and fell about her with a soft thud.  An inexplicable cold and empty feeling washed over her as the forest suddenly felt alien and unwelcoming.  She trekked back to the shuttle and knocked the snow off her shoes as she stepped inside like she always did, except this time a coherent voice met her from the darkness, “Hey.”

“Oh, you scared me!”  Leah hurried inside to close the door and examine him, pulling off her gloves and parka as she entered.  “How are you?  Are you feeling better?”

“I feel like death,” he croaked.  “I could use some water.”

“Sure, sure, hold on.”  She gave him a water bottle that sat on the floor next to him, which she had been reusing by filling it with snow and allowing it to melt inside the warm shuttle.  He sucked it down and as he did, Leah turned on more lanterns.  Josh was sitting up and had grown a thick black beard speckled with st
rands of strawberry blonde.  He
appeared livelier, his eyes regaining their focused cognizance as he watched Leah and responded to her, yet he had lost considerable weight on a body that was used to being in top physical condition.  His usually erect body and filled out shirts now slumped in defeat, and his shirt hung looser.

“I’m uh, I could use something to eat too,” he said, his voice weak.

“That’s good!” She exclaimed as she opened a meal called, “Eggs and Toast” which resembled neither.

“What’s good?”

“An appetite.  You’ve barely eaten for days now, but I suppose that makes up for me overfeeding you before, right?”  She asked with a playful smile.

Josh rubbed his head and gingerly touched his bandages, “Days?  How many have I ...?”

“Four,” she said, preparing his meal over a heater.
 
“Whatever that thing shot you with was nasty.  Those needles must have had something on them or in them, who knows.”  After she felt the food was brought to sufficient temperature she took it and sat down next to him.

“
Here, eat it slowly.  You don’t want to get sick again.”

“Thanks.”

Leah watched him eat with an innocent gleam in her eyes, and he noticed her staring and asked with a mouthful of food, “What?”

She cleared her throat and took on a serious look, embarrassed at having been caught.  “Oh.  Sorry, I’m-”

“Thank you.  For taking care of me.  I made a big mistake out there and nearly got us killed.  I should have turned back when I had the chance.”

“There was nothing you could do, don’t blame yourself.”

He briefly looked up from his food to say something but instead returned to his eating.  He could blame himself and he would.  His curiosity got the best of him, and he knowingly wandered, alone, into a military outpost of which he knew not the strength or disposition of its occupants.

This poor decision so early in their arrival here cast doubt on himself and in an area of expertise that, while acquired by means so undesirable to him that it caused his very soul to cry out for deliverance from the Academy, Josh felt was the one thing he could do right in the world.

“We’re alive, right?  At least we can say that much.  Just try not to piss off any more robots and we’ll be fine,” she said trying to lighten the mood.  He pushed the rest of his food away and hung his head between his legs.

Leah worried over him with genuine concern and after a moment put a hesitant hand on his back. “Josh.  I thought about what you said the other day.  About leaving.  You’re right, I wasn’t thinking.  You were shot and, just pissing me off and I was scared so, and I’m still scared but I want to help.  I need to help and feel useful, and I know I can’t even do a fraction of what you can but ...”

He looked up and with tired eyes said, “You seem to know a lot more than you’re telling me.  How do you know how to clean and dress a wound?  If you weren’t at the academy, what were you doing all those years?”

That simple question brought back a sudden flood of memories and her brow furrowed in thought before nodding, as if to assure herself to speak about it. “I helped my family mostly.  My father.  My mother, she died when I was six so he’s all I had really.  I’m all he had.  He didn’t want me in the academy so he found a way to get me out, through the council.”

“He was a politician,” he said in a way that made the profession seem virulent.

“After my mom died he went to a dark place, he didn’t speak much and cried a lot but he tried to hide it from me.  He held in so much pain, I could see it in his eyes, the way he spoke about work, himself ...I didn’t know what to do except be there for him.  I’m not sure why, but, it wasn’t long after he started teaching me things.  I didn’t mind because we were spending so much time together so I didn’t care or even question it.  I just liked being with him.”

“Like how to take care of gunshot wounds and blood infections, normal kid stuff?”

She cast her eyes down and played with a thread that hung from the top of her boot. “He helped me learn that as it was a prerequisite for joining the Greenyard.  It wasn’t heart surgery or anything, just basic stuff I guess.”

“The Greenyard,” he said condescendingly, not particularly towards her, but what he knew of the massive agricultural complex aboard the Westbound.  He had been told those with mental or physical disabilities were assigned to Greenyard work, as it was so automated that little innate ability was required to be employed there.
 
In reality, this story was just another part of the Academy, indoctrinating the students to believe there was only one place for them, and to be anywhere else, had they even the choice, would be below them.

“Why do you say it like that?”

“Nothing, nevermind.”

“Well, when I was nine my dad started bringing me there to let me see what the natural world once looked like.  I fell in love with it!  So, he helped me get a job there and I worked my way up until I was certified.  Learning basic medical skills were required because of all the tools and machinery that were used there.  You could lose a finger or get punctured on the harvesters.”

“So you had to know how to take care of yourself, or someone you worked with until they got medical attention?  I’ll buy that.”

She went cross-legged and continued talking excitedly and gestured with her hands as she described her world, “I pretended to be on earth when I walked through the yard because in certain places, you felt surrounded by the foliage because it spread so far in every direction you couldn’t see the walls holding it all in.  I never looked up so I wouldn’t have to see the artificial dome and the lights, which would just remind me that I was still on a ship.  I started with an acre, then two.  I had just been promoted to five acres when ... when I got the call from my dad and uh ...my first thought was I had to tell him because he’d be so proud of me ...” she stopped and put a hand to her mouth, her lip quivering.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said as he watched her emotions come out so easily and effortlessly, an attribute Josh knew little about and envied in a curious way.

“We’ve been out here almost a thousand years and it seems like yesterday this all happened.”  After she wiped her eyes she continued, “It happened so fast because I had just seen him and I remember he was feeling ill but looking back now,” she shook her head, “he must have been hiding it for a week, maybe longer.  I got the call almost as soon as I had left Jan’s office.  Everyone was about to watch a speech by the President but I already didn’t plan to watch it.  When I spoke to dad he sounded so afraid and told me to hurry back, so I did and I thought the worst and all these things went through my mind.  With him in particular.  I only heard him like that once before, when my mother died.  When I finally saw him he looked, he looked ...”

“Like he was already dead?”

She tried to stay strong and just nodded, rubbing away her tears.