Binary Cycle - (Part 1: Disruption) (11 page)

Jonathas decided it was futile thinking such thoughts. One can’t blame the ghosts of the past, nor control the wills of the future. What’s done is done, and all that matters is now.

He knelt down beside Linsya. Despite his previous regrets, he had a lot to be thankful for. Linsya wasn’t dead. At least not yet. And he himself was still alive, able to help her as much as he could. Jonathas realized if he had died in the cave-in, she surely would die here.

Her chest rose and fell with each shallow breath. He checked her pulse. It was weak, but consistent. He reached into his pouch for the knife. Finding it, he gave a little flick which released the blade and he cut the sleeve off the arm of his coveralls. With one hand he gently lifted up Linsya’s head and with the other he wrapped the soft fabric around her wound.

Satisfied that he dressed her injury as best as possible given the circumstances, Jonathas resumed his search for a way out. A ramp in the far corner of the room led up to a large steel door, which was closed shut, cold and immovable.

Jonathas leaned close. “It’s ok, Linsya, we’ll make it.” He spoke to her unconscious form as much as to himself.

He walked to the steel door and was relieved to see the side panel was still intact. He tried to picture where they were in the complex—just below the surface level, he hoped. He figured this door would lead to one of the delegation rooms on ground level, but unless they’d already updated his security card with the new privileges of an Operator, he wouldn’t have access. He passed his card over the reader. A harsh buzz and blinking red light was all the reciprocation he got back.

“Looks like we’ll have to get creative,” he said aloud.

He dug into his pockets for his multi-tool and used it to remove four screws. The thin metal covering clanged to the floor, exposing a mishmash of colored wires: a tangled sea of red, yellow, and blue.

Growing up in Bangalia was tough for any kid, but Jonathas, after his parents had been killed in a mining accident, had had to get creative in order to provide for himself. At times, he’d used his knowledge in electronic security to procure a decent meal besides the cold gruel given to orphans, or to obtain an extra sweater or blanket during the Long Night. He had quickly learned how to bypass the shelter's surprisingly simple security measures, a skill he never thought he’d have to use again.

He deftly skinned the plastic off one of the blue wires and did the same with an adjacent red. Rubbing the two exposed coils together created a quick flash of sparks and the steel door gave him a click for his efforts. Satisfied, he dug around in his bag for his crowbar. He jimmied it into the space where the two halves of door met and cranked it to one side. It budged slightly. He levered it back and forth until there was a gap between the doors the size of his hand. He stuck his arm through and used his own strength to pull the door the rest of the way open.

Light!
Glorious light spilled out through the opening, and Jonathas saw the delegation hall beyond the gap. Sunlight streamed in through windows just as tears streamed down his cheek.

“Help!” he cried. “Anybody, please, there’s an injured woman here!”

Jonathas didn’t wait for a response, but instead ran back toward Linsya. He cradled her head with his elbow, tucked his other arm underneath her knees and lifted her up. She wasn’t heavy, but Jonathas was weak from being trapped below the surface for so many hours with neither food nor water.

He sauntered toward the door as quickly as his feeble strength would allow.

“Jonathas?”

Linsya didn’t open her eyes but his name escaped her lips, her voice barely audible.

“It’s ok, Lins, I’ve got you. We’re safe now.”

He turned sideways so they could fit through the narrow opening, and they emerged into the delegation chamber.

It felt like walking into another world. Instead of the rough stone walls and dusty ground, this room was grandiose: polished hardwood lined the floors, a luxurious chandelier hung from the ceiling, and a beautiful oak conference table dominated the centre of the chamber. This was where the higher-ups held their meetings with other division heads, or where city delegates would come to proposition the Department of Distributions, hoping to secure more energy for their districts.

Jonathas approached the table and laid Linsya out on its smooth top. He scanned the room looking for anything he could use to communicate with the medical bay.

There!

On a far wall hung an emergency phone. He ran over to it and with his elbow, smashed the weak glass casing. He picked up the receiver, praying it was operable. 

His ears were met with the sweet sound of a dial tone.

Jonathas punched the bright red button in the centre of the phone and it started ringing. After only two rings a hesitant voice answered the call.

“Hello?” A man’s voice said.

“Yes, my name is Jonathas,” his heart was racing as he checked the sign above the door, “I’m in the East delegation room, section 109. Please send someone immediately, my friend is badly injured.”

The man on the other end of the line sighed with relief. “Good to hear there's people still alive down there, Jonathas. You wouldn’t believe the damage reports. I’m sending someone now, hold tight.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Jonathas hung up the phone and stumbled back to the table, collapsing in a leather chair in front of Linsya.

“Jonathas?" Linsya moaned. "Where are we?”

He smiled at her, relieved that she was capable of speech. “Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine. We’re out of the mines.”

She struggled to meet his eyes, wincing in pain. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have left. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just wanted to find help.”

“It's ok, Lins," Jonathas grinned. "I'm glad you made it. Your dad would never believe me if I told him we were a couple." 

Linsya gave a small laugh as Jonathas brushed a string of hair from her face. 

"I’m never leaving your side again, you hear me?”

“Works for me,” Linsya smiled and closed her eyes.

His warm hand found her cold one, and his weary bones overtook him. His forehead met the smooth wood and he closed his eyes, passing into a deep oblivion.

Skyia looked over at her mom, the buggy casting a shadow along the rocky mountain wall beside them. Mother and daughter, separated by only twenty years, were both stronger than they knew. As they drove, Skyia could feel the bonds that existed between them yawning, stretching out and reawakening. They vibrated with a palpable energy that existed in a secret world that only the two of them shared. 

That’s what Skyia loved most about her mom: she was the only other person in the world who really truly
knew
her. Skyia had been worried that the great amounts of time they’d been apart these last few cycles would have damaged their secret pact, would have weakened the strong foundations they’d built. But Skyia felt, more acutely than ever, that the opposite was true. The bonds between them, being forced to stretch out over incredible distances and time, came back together again doubly strong.

When they reached a dogleg in the road, Cassidy slowed the vehicle and turned off onto a small outcrop overlooking the wooded valley. She drove to the edge and parked. She turned the key and the buggy’s motor chugged to a sputtering halt. Silence enveloped them, all the more tangible for having been subjected to its very opposite, moments before.

Cassidy turned in her seat, facing her daughter. “Skyia, I haven’t exactly told you all my reasons for being away from you so much lately.”

Skyia nodded, getting used to the peaceful silence. “I know you were part of a dig, and you always said how important it was. But you never explained why.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t in a position to say anything, not before the results had been verified.” Cassidy sighed. “This is certainly the most significant discovery we’ve made since arriving on Taran.”

“That’s great mom, I’m so proud of you.” She squeezed her mom’s hand. “Everyone already thinks you’re the best anyway—”

“No Skyia, unfortunately this won’t be something that anyone will be celebrating. In fact, people will probably see me as the bearer of bad news.”

Skyia frowned, confused. She was burning with questions, but said nothing.

“There’s no easy way to tell you what’s going on, so I’ll start at the beginning.” 

Cassidy rested both hands on the steering wheel, gazing off into the distance. “Remember when you were young, I told you about the dig I led as a university student? Twenty years ago when we discovered the extinction layer?”

“Of course! It’s how you became so famous. Everyone wanted to interview you because you were so smart… and obviously the prettiest girl on the team.”

Skyia’s mom flashed a winning smile, but her eyes remained sad. “Thanks, you’re too kind to your old mother. You’ve been spending too much time with MiLO, he never stops with the compliments.”

“I know, he’s so sweet, isn’t he?”

“Listen dear,” Cassidy said, hopping out of the buggy. “When we discovered the first extinction layer, we knew something had happened on Taran forty million years ago. Some catastrophic event that caused the extinction of over ninety-five percent of the lifeforms on this planet.”

First
extinction layer, Skyia thought? What did she mean by that?

Skyia followed her mom to the edge of the cliff, gazing over the valley, appreciating the magnificent view.

“People came up with all kinds of reasons for what caused the extinction,” Cassidy explained. “Everything from comets and meteors, to overpopulations of oxygen-eating algae, to massive volcanic eruptions—all things we’d seen on Earth.

“But despite all the theories, no one could come up with any evidence to back up their claims. One group even proposed that there used to be a moon orbiting Taran, but it somehow got destroyed or spun out of orbit, and its disappearance led to a mass extinction.”

Skyia’s eyes lit up. “Could you imagine if we had a
moon
? That would be so beautiful... like Earth!”

Skyia had always been fond of Earth books. When she was a little girl, her mom told her she could read anything she wanted from the
Resurrection Ark's
eBook database, and MiLO was always happy to help her load the files onto her reader. She’d spent countless hours with those books, exploring the limits of her imagination, reading about the lives of people on a different world, in a different time. The idea of billions of people living on one planet, not much bigger than Taran, made her head spin. How had all those people kept themselves organized? She thought of the science fiction stories describing humanity’s forays into outer-space, to far-off worlds which they would conquer or colonize. She often imagined herself as a character in one of those books, living out some long-forgotten writer’s fantasy on the colony world of Taran, doing some of the same things those authors had predicted so long ago—

But her most cherished memories from those stories were the descriptions of Earth’s moon. For a long time, she’d felt sad looking up at their dark and empty Night sky. Sure, at times it was possible to see the blue-green Jha, or some of the other inner planets of the system, but those sightings were few and far between, not something that could be relied on to shine across the sky. How she would love to look up and see a moon reflecting brilliant light onto a darkened land, acting like a pseudo-sun, providing a measure of comfort in the depths of the Night.

“I don’t think there ever was a moon here." Cassidy shook her head. "There’s too much gravitational disturbance for it to have formed properly. It’s a wonder Taran was able to form here at all—many binary star systems are completely devoid of planetary bodies. For planets to form around one sun is easy, but if you introduce another star into the equation, things get tricky. There’s so much gravitational activity that it's usually too erratic for anything to form and stabilize. Considering this is the closest star system to Earth, and has a planet capable of supporting human life—”

“It’s a miracle, I know mom.” Skyia gazed over the valley, thankful for the green grass and forests, the white clouds overhead, the eminently breathable air. “But what does any of this have to do with what you found in Ganji?”

“Because what we found isn’t something new,” she said. “Not exactly. We’ve seen an identical situation before. The only difference is the time-scale. What we found in Ganji is much deeper under the surface, much older. Twice as old in fact—”

Cassidy disappeared behind a large boulder and came back out holding her prize: a bunch of
lily of the valley
, their white bell-shaped flowers jostling against delicate Jacob’s ladder stems.

Skyia crossed her arms, recognizing that her mom was deliberately delaying telling her something. “
What
is twice as old, what are you talking about, mom?”

Cassidy bundled the white flowers into a small sack and tossed them into the back of the buggy. She turned back to Skyia, sighing.

“About a year ago in Ganji we found… a
second
extinction layer. Geographical proof of another mass extinction.”

Skyia frowned. “Doesn’t this just confirm your findings from the first dig?”

“I wish. Our first dig proved something happened to the planet
forty
million years ago. The results that came back from what we found in Ganji... it points to a nearly identical mass extinction event which occured 
eighty
million years ago.”

Skyia shook her head, still not grasping what her mom was trying to explain. “So there’ve been two extinctions? And no one knows what caused them?”

“It’s worse than that, I'm afraid. There was a great calamity eighty million years ago, and then another one, equally as devastating, forty million years ago.”

“Okay…”

“We know it’s a small sample size, but think about it. Something disastrous happens here every forty million years.”

Skyia connected the dots. “The last extinction was forty million years ago, which means—”