Kyle West - Extinction

So I did. I kept sleeping until 03:30. No one in the ship was moving. I had no idea if Makara or the others were corresponding with Augustus and Black at this time. Probably. But sleep was hard to come by in this world, so I was going to take advantage while I could.

I finally got up and went to the wardroom, where various Raiders were sprawled on the floor, still sleeping. After almost a full day of doing nothing, it was hard to believe I was the only one up. My head pounded, and my eyes were heavy. I continued on to the wardroom and went to the faucet, where I filled my canteen with water. I drank the entire thing down.

After using the lav, I went to the bridge, finding the lights on. Ashton was awake. He turned upon hearing my approach. He held a mug of coffee in his right hand, from the top of which steam curled up.

“Morning,” he said. “Would you like a cup?”

I nodded, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. Ashton took a thermos sitting on top of the dash. If that thing were to spill, it could do some serious damage to the electronics on the dash. Ashton didn’t seem to be worried, though.

“You’ve got a mug?” Ashton asked.

I didn’t really want to get back up, and was about to reach for my canteen, when my eyes came across a mug sitting on the dash. Anna must have left it there earlier.

“Right here,” I said, grabbing it.

The mug was a relic of the old world, made of thick white ceramic.

Ashton poured the hot, black coffee into the mug. I could feel its heat radiate into my skin, and its rich aroma met my nostrils.

“Careful,” he said. “It’s hot.”

I took a sip, and still the liquid scalded my tongue. It’d been a while since I had coffee.

Ashton and I just sat there, looking out the windshield. Clouds spread low and dark, covering the city. Stars blanketed the sky. I could never tire of watching them. The time showed that it was 03:36.

“Quite the show, isn’t it?”

I nodded my agreement, taking another sip. My favorite part of watching the night sky was seeing the Milky Way — that thick band of purple, bluish stars, the entire arm of our galaxy. It amazed me to know that there was life out there. How many other worlds were there, like ours? The Wanderer had said there were over a thousand that had been conquered by the Radaskim. How many others were out there?

“How is everyone still asleep?” I asked. “It’s been almost twenty-four hours since the Xenolith.”

Ashton smiled. “If they had stayed awake any longer, they would not be asleep, but dead. The human body has its limits.”

“Are you feeling any effects from the Fountain of Youth?”

Ashton chuckled. “Well, my bones didn’t hurt so much this morning, getting out of bed. Might have been my imagination, though.”

I laughed. “What do you think is in that stuff, anyway?”

Ashton shrugged. “You’d have a better idea than me.”

“I think it’s where all Elekai life is made,” I said.

Ashton grunted, taking another sip of coffee. “Hard to imagine them all coming from there. Are you sure they don’t reproduce on their own?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know. I thought with the Wanderer gone, I’d somehow know a bit more than I do now. I guess not.”

“Learning… really learning…is never free. Did you think you’d become Superman or something?”

“Who’s Superman?”

Ashton looked at me blankly. “The world truly has ended.”

I laughed. “I’m joking. Of course I know who Superman was.”

“You scared me for a minute. But there will come a day kids don’t know who Superman was.”

“Maybe they’ll have some new thing,” I said. “Maybe Dragon Man.”

“That’s just… no.”

“Alright, whatever. On that learning thing, though…maybe a lesson isn’t learned until you accept it.”

“Hm.” Ashton took a long drink of coffee before refilling his mug from the thermos. Once done, he set the thermos back on the dash. “And have you accepted it? Your new job, I mean.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to turn into an alien.”

“Is that what you think the Wanderer was?”

Maybe the Wanderer had a human form, but he was definitely not human.

“I think he was a god of some sort,” I said. “A Xenomind. Who can comprehend what that really is? I just want a few more days to be me. That’s it. And that’s not going to change as long as I can help it.”

Ashton just stared out the dark windshield, at the stars.

“I don’t see why he chose a young buck like you, instead of an old fart like me,” he finally said. “What do I have to live for? I’ve done my living. I’ve had a long life, mostly full of sorrow. But some good moments, too. The Rock changed everything, kid. Those Radaskim ruined billions of lives at a single stroke. The lucky ones died. God, ain’t that the truth. I must have wished a hundred times to have been one of them.”

Ashton took another sip of coffee before continuing.

“But I had twenty years of the good life. I was young, like you, even though I’m the only one to remember it. Sometimes I doubt it, though. Was that really me? That kid, riding the bike, going camping, sneaking into movies? If no one else believes it happened, why should I?”

I smiled. “You’re rambling, old man.”

“Bah. You don’t know enough to become a god.”

“You do, though?”

Ashton chuckled. “Hell, no. Nor would I ever want to. But if someone has to do it…why not the old man?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think I’d wish it on anyone.”

“That’s because you’re too noble. What about the girl?”

“Anna? Why would I wish it on her?”

“No, not that. That’s what being young is about. You’re supposed to fall in love and do crazy, stupid things. Things that don’t make any logical sense. As an old man, it’s my job to shake my head at the stupid crap kids do. You don’t do that stuff, though. Please, can you just do something stupid, so I can shake my fist at you?”

I stared at Ashton, blankly, not really sure what he was talking about.

“Bah. You don’t know anything. All I’m trying to say is…when you’re doing what the Wanderer told you to do, you’re not just giving up your life. You’re giving up your right to be young.”

“I feel like being young was never a right,” I said. “It was a privilege. And it ended when the door of Bunker 108 opened.”

Ashton grunted. “Maybe so, Alex. Just because the world is unjust doesn’t mean we have to sit back and accept it. You know…maybe Anna’s right. Maybe there is another way we don’t know about. Maybe…”

First Anna, now Ashton? I wondered who would be next.

“I don’t think there is another way, Ashton. I wish there was, but people have a history of believing what they prefer to be true.”

Ashton shook his head. “Maybe you aren’t as young as I thought.”

Ashton sounded kind of sad when he said that. His eyes were full of remembrance, as if he was thinking about when he was young, back when kids had the luxury of being kids.

“You’ll never know,” Ashton said. “You’ll never know what it was like to go to school, to ask a girl to a dance, to ride your bike in neighborhood streets, to explore forests like they were some lost world that only you knew. To drive your car for the first time. College.”

“Is that what kids did, back then?”

“It’s what I did. I sometimes wonder if it was all just a dream.”

“It wasn’t,” I said. “I’ve seen movies where that sort of stuff happened, so it had to have happened. Right?”