Foundation by Ann Aguirre Page A

our food was expensive and packaged “like the astronauts eat,” according to my mother. That was supposed to make it more exciting, but I had to force my mine down. Sometimes I wondered what the point of survival was, if this was what we had to do; it seemed there was nothing in the world worth saving.
    Then silence fell. Reports stopped coming. I was fourteen years old. My mother spent all day weeping when the news sites went quiet. Another day, she pressed random keys on the terminal, trying to get anyone to respond. And that was when we found the local intercom.
    Oh, we had known there were others in units nearby. We had seen the doors when we took possession of our unit, but the manager said it was best we didn’t mingle because opening the hermetic seal on our doors increased the risk of contagion. The company did its best to guarantee a 100 percent contaminant-free atmosphere, but that warranty existed only in our bunker, not in the public areas like the hallway. Which should be safe, but there was no guarantee.
    The terminal beeped, and then a voice said, “Hello?”
    He sounded young.
    My mother lost interest when she realized she hadn’t contacted the authorities for a status update. Someone who sounded like that couldn’t know any more than we did. So she stepped away and I took her place. A few more keystrokes and I had an image on-screen. I had spent most of my time sleeping, drawing, or reading, as I hadn’t been a tech person even before we came down here. In the bunker, I sketched furiously, as if I could keep the world alive by capturing my memories of it.
    “Are you inside too?” the boy asked.
    I nodded and told him our unit number. “You?”
    “I’m in three F. Austin Shelley,” he added, as if I had asked.
    “Robin Schiller.” I couldn’t think of a good way to ask this, so I just came out with it. “Have you talked to anyone or heard anything—”
    “No. This is the first contact I’ve had with anyone outside our flat in almost a year.”
    He had dark brown hair, green eyes, and a thin face with the concentrated pallor of one who hasn’t been outdoors in a while. I’d probably be showing the same lack, if I didn’t have my father’s dark skin. From my mother, I’d gotten hazel eyes and my interest in drawing. I’d never been outdoorsy or sporty, and I was lucky my dad didn’t care about such things too much. Before, he had some idea I might be a doctor like him, but with the way things had changed, I didn’t think much about the future.
    Even then, I suspected I might not have one.
    “How long have you been here?” I asked.
    “Almost a year, since I was fourteen.”
    That made him a year older than me. Surprising, how much I liked knowing I wasn’t the only one my age down here. He might understand how alone I felt and how impossible everything seemed. I wanted to chat more, but there was no chance, that day.
    “Robin,” my mother said. “Come away. Your father wants to talk to you.”
    “Will you call me again?” Austin asked.
    “Yes,” I said quickly. I memorized the colors currently lit on the terminal. “Soon, I promise.”
    My parents sat me down and explained that it was likely we wouldn’t be going back up. If the world was in such bad shape that the infrastructure had collapsed, they didn’t see us returning. Which meant I had to adjust to the small life we currently knew. Two years ago, I would’ve protested. But I had grown up a bit since then. I understood the limitations, and I only nodded.
    Early the next morning while my mom and dad were still asleep, I used the terminal to call Austin. It wasn’t so much that I thought they would mind as the fact that I wanted something of my own. Since we lived in one room, it had gotten harder to remember when I had hours to myself, no one looking at my drawings over my shoulder.
    He answered on the first ring, his voice a sleepy whisper. “Robin?”
    “You asked me to—”
    “I know. Not about anything