Flood
My last day on Earth was like every other day; full of my annoying little brother asking ridiculous questions. “Mommy, is it time for you to go on the spaceship now?”
“No dummy, we’re just here to take in the view.”
“Mommy, Kista’s being mean to me.”
“That’s enough kids,” Mom says gently. “Krista, the next time you see your brother, he’s probably going to be bigger than you, so you better stop picking on him. You’re not going to see each other for a long time; be nice to each other.”
“Yeah, dummy. You gots to be nice to me.”
I roll my eyes and hide my smile. He’s exasperating, but I will miss him. I’ll never let him know that though, so instead I playfully push him and recheck my paperwork for the twentieth time. With only five thousand people being chosen for the first colonization group, there’s no way I’m going to miss out because I forgot something.
“Mommy, why am I going to be bigger than Kista?”
“Mommy and Krista are going to sleep in the spaceship, remember? You and Daddy are going to stay here, and then once everything is ready at the colony, you are Daddy will come too.” Mom pulls Charlie close to her, hugging him tight while also making sure he can’t see the tears she can no longer hold back. “Since we’re going with the first group, we have to sleep longer while they get everything ready. Mommy will be sleeping while you grow up, big and strong.”
Mom’s voice, despite her best efforts, begins to crack, so I pull Charlie over to me. Dad embraces Mom, who begins silently sobbing on his shoulder. Charlie’s lip has started to quiver. The only thing worse than seeing Mom cry is seeing Charlie cry. “You know what? Since Mom and I are with the first group, we’ll get to have our pick of houses at the new colony, so I’m going to pick us the one with the biggest bedrooms, and a big yard so we can get a dog like Dad promised when you two come.”
His small frame shakes in my arms. “But why can’t we all go together? We’re a family.”
“They need Daddy here, to keep things safe so everyone who wants to leave can.”
“Why can’t Mommy stay?”
“They need Mommy because she’s so smart and they need her to be able to make food. By the time you come, Mommy is going to have huge gardens, and no one will ever have to be hungry again. Won’t that be nice?” Living on a military base, we hadn’t struggled with hunger as much as a lot of the world, but we’d all seen the bodies on the news and a few times in person on the streets on days the clearing teams were running late. “Once everyone has everything they need, no one will have to fight anymore. We can all just be happy, but they need Mommy so they can save everyone.”
“But I wanna be with Mommy!”
I’m really trying to stay patient, but his whining is getting to be too much. I want our family to stay together too, but we all have a job to do, and we don’t get to decide where those jobs are. Besides, his snot is hanging in long streams now, and as much as I love him, I really don’t want him touching me anymore. I glance over at Mom for help, but she is urgently whispering with Dad, so I take a step back and try to make my voice sound stern like Mom does when he’s whining. “You know you can’t go because the colony can’t make your medicine yet, and without your medicine what happens?”
“I get seezures.”
“That’s right, and seizures hurt your brain, and you really can’t lose any more brain cells dummy,” I tease. “Now, go find something to wipe your nose; that snot is almost to the floor.”
“Cool!” He rushes off towards our parents, where Mom has dried her tears and is already pulling a tissue from her purse. She mouths ‘thank you’ over Charlie’s shoulder, and I’m feeling pretty proud of myself for being such a good soldier. Until Dad hugs me goodbye, and all I want to do plant my feet, refuse to board the scary looking ship, and scream “I wanna be with my daddy.”
“You really can’t come with us?” I ask, burying my face against his chest, trying to hide the tears I can no longer contain.
“No, Princess, my orders are to stay. You go, have a nice long nap. I’ll take care of your brother, and we’ll be together again soon.” He pulls me close and kisses the top of my head. I don’t ever want the moment to end, but all too soon I hear the announcers calling our boarding numbers.
Mom lifts Charlie in her arms, crying freely now. “Are you sure this is the right way to do this?” she asks Dad.
Dad pulls Mom and Charlie in a tremendous hug, burying me in the middle. “Everything will be fine, my love. We’ve talked about this. It’s the best way. You have to be strong.”
Mom passes Charlie to Dad. “Keep him safe.”
“Always.” After one last hug, we head up the massive metal ramp onto the awaiting ship. At the entrance I turn back, hoping for one last look, but the crowd has swallowed them, and they are lost to me.
As I enter the ship, I’m immediately overwhelmed by the stench. Makeshift stables, full of a variety of animal cubs, fill the room. Two little tiger cubs swat each other playfully, while two baby elephants push against the barriers caging them in.
“Oh gross! Why do they have to bring so many animals?” I ask Mom, raising my voice to be heard over the chaotic symphony of hissing, growling, chirping, and whining that fills the air.
“They want the new world as earthlike as possible, so the zoologists brought a couple of everything. There are embryo stores as well of course, but they wanted live specimen’s, just in case.”
We reach the end of the stockyard and pass through the bulkhead doors into a room just as loud, but thankfully odor free. The room is full of rows of metal pods connected to tubes running into the floor and walls. People are busily following the computerized orders broadcast on the loudspeakers: this station is for person designated 2400 through 2700, find the stasis chamber that corresponds to your number, load your personal items into the locker provided above your stasis chamber, attach your paperwork to the locker. I follow my mother past hundreds of people until she locates our chambers; 2589 and 2590. We dutifully store the small number of items we were allowed to bring in the lockers and clip our paperwork to the doors.
Soldiers circulate the room, ordering people to take their places in the pods. Some people obey immediately, but many seem hesitant to comply. In the next row, a child starts screaming, refusing to lay in the pod. The sound is quickly silenced as a soldier administers a shot to the child’s neck, catches him as he falls, and places his now quiet frame in his pod. His mother starts to confront the soldier, who was supposed to seek parental permission before administering the shot, however when he raises the needle in her direction, she chooses instead to take her place as ordered.
There are a few other people panicking who are not handled so deftly. A couple rows over, someone is yelling to get the needle away from their child, and a couple of mothers and young children are being escorted off the ship. Moments later their places are taken by the people who were eagerly waiting outside for just such an opportunity. Waitlisters, as they were referred to in training, are people who weren’t valuable enough to be chosen to go but could afford to spend millions just in case a spot opened. They didn’t receive the training that we all were required to go through, and as such were looked down on, but the program had to be funded somehow.
As one of the roaming soldiers approaches our row I try to get into my pod, but fear rises in my chest, my blood freezes, and I can’t move. “Mom, I’m scared. Maybe, we should wait and all go together.” Another group walks past us deboarding, a mother and two children, one a screaming toddler, the other a boy I had trained with for the last few years, Kaleb. He gives a sad wave as he passes, and in that moment, I want nothing more than to follow him. I remember those hands, lightly brushing back the hair on my cheek before my first kiss. His soft lips, whispering in my ear, telling me we’d be the first married in the new world. I reach out to stop him, but my mom pulls my arm back.
“Krista, you’ve been training for this for years, you can do this. And they need us. If we stay and they send waitlisters in our place, everyone on these ships will suffer from having more untrained people. And everyone on Earth will suffer from having to wait longer for the colony to be livable.”
The fate of everyone on Earth. Mom’s always been great at the guilt trips, but she outdid herself this time. The soldier approaches us and orders us in our pods. My mom, who technically outranks him, doesn’t even acknowledge his presence. “Krista, what are we going to do?”
I can’t breathe. The blood rises to my head, too fast. Everything becomes too bright. I can’t do it; I can’t get in that thing. But I can’t let my family down either. I turn to the soldier, slowly so as not to lose my balance, which feel precarious at the moment. “Give me the shot.” I say, with a strength and certainty I don’t feel.
I hear my mom ask if I’m sure at the same time I feel the prick in my neck, and everything goes dark.
********************************
I feel a soft breeze blowing against my hair and raindrops falling steadily against my cheek. I must have forgotten to close the window. I try to turn over, reaching for the window control button, but crash into a wall instead.
“No, honey, don’t try to move so soon.” Mom’s voice. I look up at her and as I see our surroundings, I remember where we are.
“How long were we asleep?” I ask, carefully stretching my limbs. The solution we were given during stasis prevents muscles from atrophying, but apparently does nothing for the stiffness and pain upon waking. Mom is silent, sitting on the edge of my pod, running her fingers softly through my hair. “Mom, how long did it take to get here?”
She finally turns to look at me, and I see the tears running down her face. Somewhere down the row, I hear a scream. All around me, agonizing wails fill the air. “Mommy, what’s wrong? What happened?” I drag myself slowly out of the chamber, and she pulls me onto her lap, continuing to stroke my hair as she did when I awakened from a bad dream as a child.
“Krista, honey, it was all a lie.” I look at her, confused, and she continues. “We’ve been in stasis ten years, but we never left orbit.” I struggle to make out her words as she explains. The world governments, seeing no end to the wars, depletion of resources, and other issues plaguing humanity had finally come up with a solution; one straight from the bible. Every world government chose those they deemed worthy to the future of humanity to be placed into stasis and sent into orbit, along with animal and plant life indigenous to their region. Twenty-six governments left on Earth, twenty-six ships not heading to a distant world to establish a new colony, but instead orbiting the Earth, waiting for the world to be cleansed. All life on Earth was systematically wiped out, creating a blank slate for the chosen survivors. Those who were healthy, educated, genetically gifted, and otherwise useful to forming a new society, such as myself and my mother, were spared. Those who were sick or carried genetic illnesses, like my brother and father, were left to die, along with the poor, the uneducated, and the otherwise undesirable members of society.
I rest my head against her shoulder sobbing, overwhelmed by her words and the pandemonium around me. The wails rise to a crescendo as mothers try to explain the unexplainable to their waking children. Calm computerized voices come over the loudspeakers, attempting to quell the developing mobs. Masses bang on the bulkhead doors, demanding answers. They’ve woken us up now, the world is livable, the loudspeakers say. Daddy, I want my daddy. Humanity will endure, with only the best and the brightest. Parents fall to the ground, screaming the names of those they’ve lost. Humanity will no longer be plagued by poverty, hunger, disease, war, the tranquil voice tells us. Charlie was so excited he was almost six; how many birthdays did he get?
I replay everything my mother told me, trying to grasp the magnitude of her words. I pull away from her abruptly as I understand more than she meant me to. “How could you know that?” I ask softly.
“What?” she asks, surprised by my change in demeanor.
“That the governments were working together. And how they picked people. How could you know all that?” She hesitates for a moment, trying to find the words to justify her knowledge, but I see the truth in her eyes. “You knew.”
“Krista, just let me…”
“You knew, and you didn’t do anything! All those late-night meetings; you weren’t trying to figure out how to keep people alive in a new world, you were trying to figure out how to kill everyone in this one!”
“Please you have to calm down. You have to listen to me. There was no other way. This was happening; I had no say in it. All I could do was try to save you.”
“And leave Charlie and Daddy to die.”
“Honey, please, listen to me. I’ll explain everything; just not right now. It’s not safe.”
“Listen to you? Why would I listen to you? All you do is lie!”
Mom grabs my shoulders and despite my fighting pulls me close to her, as though she were giving me a hug, but I feel the needle prick in the back of my neck. My body and mind begin to feel heavy, and as the blackness envelopes me once more, I hear her whisper in my ear, “They’re alive. Your brother and your father are alive.”