Kristi Helvig: Burn Out

I wanted to kick myself for wasting a glass of water on him. I pressed Trigger’s engagement button. It instantly recognized my energy and glowed a soft blue color. “I don’t want to hear another word from you or I’ll start shooting, I swear it.”

Markus turned, helmet in hand, and scampered up the ladder. He pushed on the door and glaring reddish light flooded the chamber. I held my bandaged hand to my eyes to shield them from the sun, but kept Trigger aimed at his retreating form. He turned back to look at me for a second. I couldn’t tell if it was scorn or pity I saw in his eyes before he pulled his helmet down. The door slammed shut, blocking the sun.

I kept the gun pointed at the ceiling until my hand grew sore. After some time passed, I powered it down and placed it on the kitchen table. I sank into my chair and rested my head on the table.

Markus was gone and he was never coming back. That burner was my last hope for getting off of this rock.

Damn.

THE WINDS WAILED THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT. THE HOWLING penetrated every nook of the shelter and echoed inside my sleep chamber. Though it was impossible, I could have sworn my sleep pad, which hung from the ceiling, swayed underneath me from the breeze. I shuddered as I lay awake in the dark, yet there was an odd comfort in the sound. Something about the noise made me feel I wasn’t alone.

Three weeks had passed since Markus left, and I had no doubt that he’d told the truth for once and had no intention of stepping foot on Earth again. He was probably passed out somewhere on Caelia after a night of boozing.

Maybe I could have risked letting Markus take the guns with him, and then tried to dump them in space, but something told me he would have found a way to overpower me. No way could I let those guns move to a new world. On the plus side, I didn’t have to consider having sex with him, and my father’s guns were safe. Even though they wouldn’t work for anyone else, I didn’t want to take any chances that someone could reprogram them the way Dad did. I’d find a way to get rid of them before I offed myself. I was back to Plan B.

The shrieking in the air continued. The nights had grown increasingly violent in temperament, as though they could fight off the sun’s endless assault on the dark. The sun was much bigger than it had been when there were oceans, its brilliant shade of red quite unlike the small, golden-yellow sun I’d read about on the GlobalNet. After it finished its vast expansion, it would devour Earth before shrinking to nothing. Not that there’d be anything alive here to witness it.

After tossing and turning for hours, I finally drifted into sleep.

My sister’s voice permeated my dreams, and a small hand tugged at my shirt. “Come on, Tora. I wanna play hide-and-seek.” I blinked and sat up, confused, struggling to make out her features in the dark room. Her eyes gave off a strange glow, but before I could get a better look, she giggled and ran away from me. “I’m going to hide. Count to ten,” she called. I got to my feet, but frowned. We weren’t in the shelter anymore. We were back in our pod in the city, but something seemed off. It was daytime—the room should be lighter.

Laughter echoed through the pod and her singsong voice sounded like it was coming from everywhere. “You’ll never find me.” I heard the click of the front door.

“No,” I yelled. “You shouldn’t go outside.” I shook off my fog and ran down the hall, but stopped short in the front room. There was no furniture, no anything. The room was completely bare. My pulse quickened and I hurried out the door, shouting her name.

Stark white pods lined the grids in neat rows. Bright light flooded the city through the dome. Though it consisted of a special substance that muted the sun’s damaging rays, the Consulate still discouraged people from going outside for long. They didn’t understand that my sister craved the outdoors the way my mother craved pain meds. A slight breeze stirred due to the main wind generator that continuously pumped recycled air through the dome.

I looked behind our father’s land cruiser, one of her usual spots. She wasn’t there. I called her name but was met with silence. Her girlish laughter had disappeared. My sister didn’t do quiet, and I began to panic. I turned around, looking in all directions to no avail. No one was there. Though it couldn’t yet be night, the sky suddenly dimmed, and the pod dwellings cast long shadows on the streets. I broke into a cold sweat, my heart hammering. The air went still, and the light faded to dark gray. I screamed her name into the night, my voice hoarse. Then everything plunged into blackness. I was alone.

My eyes flew open. I was back in the shelter, my body curled into a fetal position and my face damp with tears. Don’t think about her. A large, dry lump had lodged itself in my throat. I flicked tears from my face; it wasn’t like they could bring her back. Plus, crying was a luxury I couldn’t afford given the state of my water supply.

I finally managed to swallow. The familiar burning sensation returned to my throat. Chronic thirst, my trusty companion.

The water situation hadn’t become life-threatening until the last few decades. Everyone became obsessed with water, as death by dehydration was not a pretty way to go. When the ponds, lakes, and finally, the oceans had boiled and evaporated, the Consulate scientists came through with technology allowing us to glean the precious water molecules from the atmosphere. You had to give them credit for that I guess.

The technology was termed Water in Air Recycling, W.A.R., and the acronym said it all. People fought and killed one another over these machines—not everyone could afford them but you needed one to survive for long. My father said it was all-out civil war in the early years. It didn’t stop until all of the have-nots literally died of thirst.

I padded across the small room and checked the W.A.R.: same level as yesterday. The water output had continued its gradual decline, yet I was still able to enjoy a whopping two and a half cups of water per day. My father’s murder had seen to that.

The machines worked great around the time when everything had just evaporated—there were tons of water molecules in the air. As the years went on, the sun grew hotter and the molecules scarcer. Despite the shortage, my father improved the detection levels on our W.A.R., and though we were never in danger of it overflowing, we always had enough to drink. It wasn’t until I was about ten years old that we noticed the difference. We’d check the level in the morning and there would be an inch less water produced than the week before. We were forced to ration our drinking water until we were each down to one cup of water a day. It was terrible that on the day my mother and sister died, one of the first thoughts to cross my mind after the mind-numbing grief was “more water for me.”

Next up on my checklist was the oxygen rating: ninety-three percent saturation level. I exhaled slowly. Hopefully, it had reached a stable level after my repair job. If it continued going down, it would be a problem. I knew it would eventually decline over time, along with the H 2O molecules in the atmosphere, but I wasn’t sure how low it could get before I’d have problems breathing. Whenever it did happen, I’d take care of myself long before my lungs gave out.

I grabbed a gel-filled energy packet, one of my two “meals” of the day, and considered what to do. The options were underwhelming. For months, I’d constantly been on the GlobalNet trying to find other survivors and was grateful for my father’s Infinity. The Consulate had given it to him as a gift for creating the weapons; however, instead of a thank-you note, my father took his guns and fled.