Paul Jones - Revelations

The chatter that had broken out among the crew faded to silence again.

“They told me that they would allow us an area of land extending twenty miles out from Point Loma. That we would be left to our own devices as long as we stayed there, but if we or any of the other survivors they say are out there try to expand beyond that area, well, then we would be ‘dealt with,’ to use their words.”

“‘Dealt with’? What the fuck does ‘dealt with’ mean? Fuck!” This from the same sailor who, minutes earlier, had suggested they nuke Las Vegas.

“Use your imagination, Cooper,” MacAlister hissed this time. “What do you think an alien race that’s capable of eliminating an entire planet of eight-billion people and then setting up home there as easily as we go on a camping trip is capable of doing? Hmmm? Jesus Christ, if there was a navy left to complain to I swear I’d be asking them to check you for fucking brain damage.”

This brought a smattering of laughter from some of the other sailors. Cooper flushed scarlet with embarrassment. “I was only asking,” he mumbled.

“Yeah? Well let me spell it out for you, for all of you. I’ve seen this ship up close. I’ve stood not fifty feet away from these aliens, so hear this from me: If we stray outside the cordon these Caretakers have set aside for us, they will fry our arses. There. Is that clear enough for you?”

Cooper nodded.

“Good. Emily, please continue.”

“While they never directly said anything about frying anyone’s asses… or arses, they did make it clear that there would be severe repercussions if we strayed outside the boundaries they set for us. What’s more important is that they were very specific in their insistence that we are not the only survivors left alive. There are others and we have to find them. There are how many of us left? Thirty-five. That’s nowhere near enough to maintain a viable community, not if we want the human race to become something more than just a footnote on this planet’s history. We have to track down these other survivors. It’s our only chance at a future.”

When Emily finished speaking she looked across at Captain Constantine. “That’s it,” she said.

“Alright, well, thank you Emily. Does anyone have any questions?”

A sailor at the front raised his hand.

“Go ahead, Stevens,” said the captain.

“But what happens in the future, what happens if these other survivors join us and we survive and we grow?”

All eyes turned back to Emily again.

“While he didn’t use these exact words, the alien I spoke with effectively said we are on probation; behave ourselves and they will leave us alone. Start any trouble, and they’ll deal with us accordingly.”

“What happens if we run out of room?” another voice asked.

“Again, it’s going to depend on our behavior. But at some point in the future, the Caretakers will judge us; if we meet their standards, I think we might be given room to expand.”

“And if we fail?”

“It’s up to us to make sure we don’t fail. It’s the responsibility of every one of us left to ensure that we, and every generation that comes after us, understands what is needed to survive on this new planet. We won’t be allowed to meaninglessly squander resources or life anymore because we’re no longer at the top of the food chain; something with a lot more intelligence, a lot more power than we could ever imagine, runs the show now. But all they are asking is that we learn a little humility, a little respect for what we have.”

Emily paused and looked around at the faces looking back at her, the last of humanity gathered here in this one little room. “Because if we choose not to listen, they can take it all away. And the next time, there won’t be anyone left to make a difference.”

Emily knew she would never grow tired of hearing the waves breaking against the shoreline around Point Loma. The constant susurration of white-capped rolls of ocean slipping up the sand and pebble-strewn beach was the closest she would ever come to the chaotic symphony of the great city she had loved so very much… only to lose forever.

But that loss no longer hung over her with the same heaviness.

In the eighteen months since she and Mac had returned from Las Vegas, Emily had resigned herself to being one of the final witnesses of that old world, an anachronistic memory, destined to become part of a myth, woven into the fabric of humanity’s story. It was a surprisingly comforting thought to know that she was one of the last of something that would never, could never, exist again. It made what she still had left from that old life, and the things that she had gained, seem all the more precious to her.

She walked the beach as she did every morning, lost in her thoughts, the sleeves of her cargo pants rolled up to just below her knees, flip-flops kicked off long ago and carried in her hand as she followed the gentle curve of the beach for a mile or so away from the settlement, her feet tingling as each new wave broke over the wet sand, squelching between her toes.

It was the same beach that she and the other survivors from the Stockton Islands had first set foot on in this strange new continent, familiar in so many ways, yet changed forever. It was also the same beach where, just ten months earlier, MacAlister and she had spoken their vows together. She smiled at the memory as she passed the spot where Mac had taken her hand in his own and promised to be hers and she had vowed to be his. Captain Constantine had officiated over the ceremony, a simple affair; two survivors, happy to be alive and both amazed that with their species dangling over the precipice of extinction, love, much like life, had managed to find a way to survive.

In the time between then and now, Emily’s view of this world had… adjusted.

In almost every novel she had read, every movie she had watched that pitched the end of the world as its theme, it always seemed to pander to humanity’s fear of what would be lost rather than what could be gained through the birth of something new. Birth was a messy business, she knew that from firsthand experience, but the end result was, well, something magnificent.

Binoculars hung from a strap around her neck; she raised them to her eyes for the fifth time in as many minutes and scanned the open sea for any sign of their new arrivals.

Captain Constantine had told her over dinner one evening that before the rain had come there could have been upwards of fifty or more submarines plying through the world’s oceans on any given day. That meant there could be thousands more survivors out there, safe beneath the waves, isolated in their hermetically sealed tin cans. That was the day she had started to reach out to potential survivors via the radio.

In the weeks and months after that first broadcast Emily had managed to make contact with four submarines. Two of those subs—one French, the other Argentinian—had chosen to join them at Point Loma, adding a further three-hundred-and-twenty souls to their growing community of survivors.

There had also been failures. A German sub and a Russian vessel had chosen to ignore her warnings about settling outside the Green Zone. They had headed back to Europe and their home ports. The German crew had lasted two days at their new location before all radio contact was lost, the Russian crew just under three days before their radio communication abruptly ceased.

Neither group had been heard from again.

It was impossible to estimate how many more vessels might be out there, or how many had even survived the tumultuous red storm that had brought such dramatic changes to the planet, but after this length of time, supplies onboard would be all but exhausted, and time would be quickly running out for their crews.