Evolution by Kyle West

the dash, her fingers a blur. The screen switched to one of a dot, followed by a long line below it.
    Odin’s computerized male voice responded to Anna’s inputs. Calibrating terrain .
    Finally, the line on the LCD changed. A few jagged, green spikes indicated nearby mountains. A small depression appeared on the other side of the screen.
    Anna pointed her finger on the depression. “There it is.”
    “Heading down,” Makara said.
    We thundered forward, edging closer to the surface. We were now a mere five hundred feet above it. Anyone watching form below would have been able to see us, not to mention hear us.
    “Slowing,” Makara said.
    Makara guided Odin toward the depression on the screen, slowing it to a hover.
    “Descending,” Makara said.
    I felt the ship going down, butterflies fluttering in my stomach.
    From the windshield, I could finally see the land come into view. We were lowering into a clearing surrounded on all sides by tall, verdant trees, masked by darkness. It was more trees in one moment than I had seen in the rest of my life.
    The ship paused a moment right above the ground, the fusion drive in the back going quiet. I heard the squeal of retracting struts. Then, with a final lift, we alighted gently on the Earth. After two months, we were back, and it had only felt like we were going to get killed.
    “Skyhome,” Makara said, “we have landed.”
    ***
    S amuel and I began our return to Earth with a good, old-fashioned recon. I was a little leery – after all, I felt I always had bad luck when it came to recons – but at the same time, it was fine by me because I was eager to get the lay of the land.
    When Odin’s blast door hissed open, we were met with a rush of warm, sticky air, pungent with the smell of vegetation. The wind blew softly, like a caress, folding the long grass on its side as it whispered through the blades. The warmth on my skin was foreign, yet definitely not unwelcome. The tall forms of trees bent slightly with the breeze, leaves rustling, as countless insects chirped in the night. The sky above was thick, pasty, misty, heavy yet unoppressive. To someone like me, who has grown up surrounded by machines, feeling nature felt strange and beautiful, like a primordial memory buried deep in my consciousness, a memory unremembered until I saw it before me. It was almost, dare I say, spiritual, or the closest thing to spiritual I had ever experienced.
    Samuel was taking it in, too. He paused a moment, taking a deep breath of the humid air. In the distance, thunder crackled – not an angry, dry crackle like the Wasteland. It was calm, sedate, almost...promising. It’s very hard for me to describe something I’ve only experienced once. The wind was coming from the north, the direction of the distant mountains lost in nighttime shadow. That wind was cool, smelling wet and fresh, carrying with it the smell of pine and other aromas I could not recognize. It was mid-December now, though it didn’t feel it. It must have been seventy degrees outside. I remembered Ashton mentioning how Mexico’s climate hadn’t cooled as much as America’s due to Ragnarok. Standing there, I could feel it.
    “Let’s get moving,” Samuel said.
    We hit the ground, walking quickly for the trees. I held my Beretta in my right hand. It was loaded and fully operational should the need arise. The grass and pliant turf under my boots was soft. Up until this point, I had always walked on hard surfaces – metals, linoleum, rocks. At points, the ground was squishy from a previous rain. As it thundered again, I realized – it rained here. Rain was a miraculous thought, a thing of stories, a phenomenon I had only seen in movies, had read in books, had heard tell of by the old in Bunker 108. And now, I might finally get to see it. I might finally get to feel it.
    As we walked toward the tree line, thunder boomed again. With it came a desperate rush of wind, and with that the first few, fat drops. The cold