Bleak Read online

  That storm was the first harsh, disaster-level weather to blast the area, and since then it had become commonplace.

  The only bright spot to her day was school, and lately, technically, it wasn’t that bright.

  Not five hours earlier, Rey was darting foot size hailstones, shivering; now she stood in her classroom, air conditioning blasting and she still sweat. It was so hot and humid, nothing helped. The air was thick, visibly thick. The particles that floated in it carried a red hue when they reflected the sun.

  A facemask warning hadn’t been issued, but Rey knew it wasn’t far from happening.

  Her fifth-grade classroom was dark so the twelve students could see the projection of images on the screen.

  “Good one, good one,” she said pleasantly. “Okay … how about this one?” She changed the image.

  The classroom went silent, not a student raised their hand upon seeing the green leafy ball-looking object. “No one? Would you believe that”—she pointed to the picture—“is this.” She reached down to her desk and lifted a clear plastic package that contained salad.

  The class erupted in excited noises.

  “How?” a student asked.

  “See, you don’t see these anymore. Heads of lettuce they were called. Iceberg. At one time people went into the stores and bought them,” she explained. “You eat the bag of lettuce and don’t think about it. Because you just don’t know.”

  “What’s the difference?” a student asked.

  “Oh the head of lettuce tastes much better. Juicy and fresh … this is processed, packed, and slightly dried to preserve shelf life, to eliminate waste. Fifteen years ago, people wasted a lot of food. A lot. For example, the world used to produce forty million pounds of iceberg lettuce a year. Fifty percent of that was thrown out. Never eaten. Because of everything that’s happening, we can’t grow lettuce like we did, the weather isn’t right for it. So instead of making people pay exuberant prices for a head that they will waste, they only are available in bags. Except in really expensive restaurants.”

  A student raised her hand. “Will we not have it at all one day?”

  “Sadly,” Rey sighed out. “But … you won’t have to see that day. All the greatest minds are working right now, and that started with the building of—”

  “Miss Harper.” At the same time the school secretary, Nancy, called Rey’s name she knocked once on the arch of the classroom door. Then she stepped in.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m going to watch your class. You’re needed down at Mrs. Stone’s office immediately.”

  “Everything okay?” Rey asked.

  “Just go down.”

  Rey didn’t hesitate. Immediately she worried. Did something happen to her brother? Her nieces and nephews? It could have been anything, but one thing was for sure, it had to be an emergency. Ever since flood day, Rey always thought of the worst. She moved at a quick pace to the principal’s office located on the same floor. When she stepped inside, Principal Stone was standing there in the office with two men. One was a general in full uniform, the other was a studious-looking man in a suit.

  “Ms. Harper,” Principal Stone said. “This is General Kiphflor and Mr. Tom Waite of NASA.”

  Their introduction caused Rey to step back in shock. “This is a surprise. Pleasure to meet you.” She shook their hands. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

  “Six years ago,” Tom said, “educators across the country were invited to submit an essay to NASA and its partner Flagship of Humanity. It was an essay on how you feel you would save the world, or rather humanity. Do you recall?”

  Rey partially shrugged. “That was six years ago. I remember submitting it. I vaguely remember what I wrote.”

  “One of the pivotal portions of that essay dealt with the Androski Wormhole,” Tom said. “Does that ring a bell?”

  “Ah, yes,” Rey said, “some. Androski Wormhole Theory. Most of my essay, if I remember correctly, was really out there. Using the Androski Wormhole was one part.”

  “Out of the seventy-three thousand essays we received, yours was the only one that mentioned the Androski Wormhole,” Tom said.

  “Probably because it is really farfetched and not real.”

  Tom looked at the general then back to Rey. “As farfetched as it sounded, it is real. And because of that, amongst other truly remarkable and insightful things you had in that essay, you have been chosen.”

  “Oh my God,” Rey squealed with excitement. “I won an essay contest? That’s great. And you guys came all the way here to tell me?”

  The general looked at her. “This isn’t something that is easily said on the phone.”

  “Wow, my prize must be nice.” Rey smiled. “I’m really honored.”

  “It exceeds any monetary value. We are the ones honored. Congratulations.” Tom once again extended his hand to her. “You will be part of The Noah Project.”

  Mouth slightly agape, Rey slowly slid her hand from Tom’s and titled her head with a dumbfounded look. “Excuse me?”

  <><><><>

  There was nothing like a middle-of-the-day candy, especially when the vending machine spewed out a bunch after the earthquake struck.

  Aldar’s favorite type was amongst the scattered bars on the floor. He grabbed one. He had planned on going to lunch after the meeting, but since the meeting was delayed, he needed something in his stomach. The quake was a decent size and he doubted any restaurants would even be open for the remainder of the day.

  When he returned to the meeting room, he knew something was wrong. Everyone was on their phones. He would have thought that it was another awful event somewhere had they all not been smiling and whispering.

  Eating the candy, Aldar walked back into the meeting room. Most of the committee was there, along with several tech people. Dr. Nathan Gale had arrived. Lucky for him his flight had landed just moments before the quake.

  Gale always seemed nervous to Aldar, or on some sort of amped-up drug. He moved quickly, always shuffling through papers with a lap top and a tablet in front of him. The average height, thinner man leaned on the nerdy side. To Aldar he seemed nice enough, though they’d only had a handful of conversations. All of them brief and all of them work related. The earth science guru made eye contact with Aldar. Aldar gave a nod of acknowledgement.

  “Did you see?”

  Aldar heard the question and turned his head to General Lang who was behind him.

  “I’m sorry, sir?” Aldar asked.

  “A good damn reason for holding us up?”

  “The quake.”

  “Sort of, I mean this.” The general chuckled, and like a peacock he extended his chest with pride as he showed Aldar the phone. “Did you see this?”

  Aldar looked down to the image. It was of his co-pilot, Curt, holding onto the arm of a woman dangling and near death. Aldar grumbled a, “No. Didn’t see that.”

  “Living up to his name again, I suppose.”

  “Henning?” Aldar played dumb.

  “No, The Clutch.”

  “Yeah. I suppose.”

  “Makes us proud.”

  “Yes, much to be said about being the sexiest man alive honor.”

  “I’m talking about the heroism.”

  Aldar grumbled.

  “You know.” The general pulled his phone away. “I hear that in your tone.”

  “What?”

  “The resentment. The jealousy.” He waved his finger. “Green is not your color.”

  “No, it is not. Which is why I joined the air force and not the army.”

  General Lang laughed. “Good one.”

  Both men turned when applause erupted in the room.

  Curt walked in. He lifted his hand in a bashful way. “Thanks, but I was in the right place at the right time. Houston is the earthquake capital of the world, so I guess I’m always in the right place.”

  Laughter.

  Someone said, “That’s why they call you The Clutch.”
<
br />   Aldar grumbled which garnished a look from the general. He then took his seat at the table and Curt sat next to him.

  A packaged cake was tossed in front of him.

  “What’s this?” Aldar asked.

  “I swiped that for you from the photo shoot,” Curt answered. “It is amazing. Has like a strawberry cream inside.”

  “Why in the world would you steal food for me?” Aldar asked.

  “Just really good. They don’t sell them anywhere.”

  “Thank you.” Aldar examined the pastry and placed it down when a bound thin manuscript was placed before him.

  “What my secretary is handing out,” the general said, “is an essay.”

  “Essay?” Curt questioned softly as he flipped the pages. “I thought an essay was like two pages.”

  “This is very detailed,” the general continued. “Six years ago we asked educators across the country to submit their ideas on how they would save humanity. Sometimes it takes more than the minds on the payroll.”

  Aldar briefly skimmed. “Sir.” He raised his hand. “Was this your guide book?”

  “Some, yes,” he answered. “Some we had already started before we even read this. This teacher really worked hard on this essay, that was why she won.”

  “What exactly did she win?” Aldar asked.

  “We wanted a representation of the general public on this mission. Someone relatable. And while everyone knows and trusts you two”—he pointed to Aldar and Curt—“not everyone can relate to being the sexiest man alive,” he joked. “So, Ms. Harper will be arriving at the training and launch facility in West Virginia tomorrow. That’s why Mission Specialist Vonn isn’t here. He’s there to greet her. I thought he’d be the best one.”

  “Wait. Wait,” Curt whispered to Aldar. “We’re putting an educator on this mission? NASA tried this once before and we all know how that turned out.”

  Aldar shot him a glare. “For real?”

  “What? Too soon?”

  Aldar shook his head and looked at the essay.

  “How can it be too soon? It was decades ago.”

  “Stop,” Aldar whispered a scold.

  The general continued. “I want all of you to learn this essay, read it. She’s a pretty smart individual.”

  Aldar would read it. He’d find time in the evening. If the woman was chosen to go, there had to be something pretty special about her manuscript. He looked at the first page, starting to read it until he heard the general announce Nate.

  “Dr. Gale,” the general called his name.

  “Thank you.” Nate stood at the end of the table. “I wanted to discuss some drastic geological changes that have been taking place over the last year. I know that we have already been bombarded with everything imaginable. If you look in your folders you’ll see some satellite photos. Side by side comparison of this year and last,” he explained. “A few things of importance I want to note. The mountain range on the California and Nevada border has raised over ninety-seven feet in elevation and expanded thirty feet at the base. This happens when plates collide, that’s how our mountains are formed. Typically, something like this would take millions of years to happen, at most following a geological event of this magnitude, tens of thousands of years.”

  “We’re expecting this,” Aldar stated. “That’s why we’re doing the Noah. Are you saying the timeline may be moving up?”

  Nate nodded. “In some areas, yes. It may change, I’m hoping it will. If not, we will have to relocate tens of millions more. Captain Henning, you joked that Houston is the earthquake capital of the world.”

  “I did,” Curt said. “Because it is. We’ve had more seismic activity than anywhere else on Earth since all this began.”

  “You know what the reason is, right?” Nate asked.

  Curt shrugged. “I am guessing newly developed fault lines.”

  “These are tectonic quakes. Look at image four.”

  Aldar and Curt both shuffled to the image of the state.

  “Prior to everything,” Nate said, “North America shifted two inches a year. Australia four inches a year. It’s slow enough to not be noticed and not make a difference in our lifetime. Or was. Now North America shifts about a foot a year; it is increasing by twelve percent each year. This is why we have the earthquakes everywhere. It’s predictable. However, even though the continent has moved a foot last year, the coast of Texas has extended into the gulf. We lost our islands two years ago, and in another ten years, Houston itself will be uninhabitable. It will be part of the gulf.

  “How is that possible?” someone asked. “This isn’t the intel we have been following. I realize everything changes and can change. Excuse my ignorance, this isn’t my forte, but is the gulf rising faster than the ocean?”

  Nate shook his head. “No, parts of Texas and Louisiana are moving faster than the rest of the continent. The disappearance of much of the Rio Grande in Brownsville confirms it.”

  Aldar slowly glanced up from the image. “It’s breaking off.”

  “That’s correct, Colonel,” said Nate. “By my calculations, about eighty-three thousand square miles will detach. And unlike a lot of other events, that is something we will see in our lifetime.”

  THREE

  It wasn’t always called Paradise West, Virginia. It had only recently acquired the name since it was one of very few places untouched by the recent surge of nature’s fury.

  Rey was given very little time to prepare and she still wasn’t sure what she was preparing for. The essay contest awarded her some sort of major prize which required her to immediately leave her job. Instructions were for her to pack as she would be gone for a while. No other explanation was given. The next morning, before the sun had even risen, a car showed up to take her on the three-hour drive.

  Had it not been a NASA official and a military man showing up, Rey probably wouldn’t have gone. She knew it had to be big and important.

  Then again, what else did she have going on?

  She traveled a highway, then into a mountainous area with winding roads and continuous ear popping from the increase in altitude.

  When she arrived at Paradise it was heavily guarded with signs indicating it was a government installation. In fact, it was more of a base. Rey was privileged to see only one part of it; the rest was off limits for the time being.

  She was in the section with several nondescript buildings, one of which was a housing unit. She was given a large private room with her own bath. The room was divided by furnishings. A bed in the corner by the window, a desk opposite of that and by the door was a couch, chair and coffee table. A small bookshelf was next to the bathroom. Basic, minimalistic, and clean. She barely had time once she arrived to unpack her bags. She was whisked off to another building where she underwent eight hours of medical testing. It was rigorous, every bit of her body, physically and emotionally, was scrutinized.

  There was a small cafeteria on the first floor of her housing building that served three meals at certain times. She also had access to a kitchenette that was fully stocked.

  It was almost as if the powers that be had laid out a plan to keep her occupied. The next few days consisted of physical training, along with two classes. She was the only student in both. The first class was with a teacher named Benedict Vonn, or Ben for short, and it was a class on the basics of electronics. In the other class, her teacher was a captain in the army, Sandra, who instructed her on applicable field medicine. Both were on opposite sides of the spectrum, and neither instructor told her why she was being given the classes, only that they were ongoing.

  After five days, she was physically exhausted from fourteen-hour days, and mentally pushed to the limit on being kept in the dark.

  She did have an idea on why she was there, she just didn’t know what part she would play. Since her essay was on saving the world, she knew it had to do with that.

  No one on the planet was kept in the dark.

  Before it all began, it was no
secret that the earth was in the middle of the Holocene Extinction. The sixth extinction event. It had begun eleven thousand years earlier and was predicted to end tens of thousands of years in the future, with at least eighty percent of all species rendered extinct.

  The human species wouldn’t make it that long.

  Natural disasters increased with intensity. Each hurricane season was worse than the previous. Then it was proven that the earth’s core had heated, causing oceanic volcanic eruptions. The oceans heated and rose. The floor of the oceans shifted, as well as the tectonic plates of the globe. A major continental drift was underway. Typically, it would take a million years to complete, however it was accelerated. In ten thousand years the face of the globe would change.

  That was the future.

  The now was more pressing.

  The heated oceans caused major storm disturbances and unbearable heat. There were places below the equator that were dangerous for human survival. Within a few years of the change, eastern seaboard cities in the United States began to flood, the southernmost tip of Florida was submerged, and the water never receded.

  Mass evacuations were made in order to preserve life. Tent cities were commonplace, and the farming industry took a nosedive. Agriculture production dropped thirty percent and diseases rose. The already over-populated Earth was slowly starving and suffocating from the changing climate.

  It was predicted that unless another major event shifted the world back on track, the planet would be unhabitual for human life in three hundred years.

  No one really said what that major event was. Rey always figured it was something that would cull the population.

  Still, despite the warnings, there wasn’t any urgency. After all, who would be alive to care what happened three hundred years in the future?

  Her presence at the so-called Noah Project told her that possibly something was being done.

  She thought about it all, a lot. It’s all she could do. She had no phone, no internet, and only classic books. Though she physically welcomed the time off she was given, on the sixth day she was bored.

  It was during that boredom when Ben Vonn knocked on her door and told her she was needed in a meeting. He took her to office building A, then left. After a few moments, Tom Waite, the man from NASA that she met at the school, arrived.