off the filthy, blood-stained coat I took from the medical pavilion and gingerly reach around behind me. There’s more stitches back there. Someone sewed me up. There’s also a clean spot on my right arm that bears a faint puncture mark, like from a needle. Antibiotics, hopefully. I must have slept through the whole procedure.
I have to wonder at the kind of people that would doctor me and then throw me back down here without even a blanket to lie on. I wonder why they’re bothering, why they didn’t just kill me or leave me on the beach. Unless they’re criminally stupid, they must understand that a hostage situation would be suicide.
In school, we were told that within a year of the Transition, of the Culling, there was no one left on the surface. Those who didn’t succumb to disease or starvation or war were swept away by the canes. This is gospel. Chapter and verse. I’ve never questioned it.
Maybe a remnant of a remnant survived.
I work it through as I stare out at the dark water, endless in every direction. There’s no more coral reefs, or apex predators like sharks. They vanished decades ago. The marine food chain was radically disrupted. Jellyfish seem to like the warm, acid oceans just fine, but they’re in the minority. I guess other species could have adapted though. That’s a food source. And while there’s obviously no kind of large-scale agriculture, a small group could forage enough fruits and vegetables to survive. They grow stuff, too, I can see container gardens on the decks of the other boats.
And what they can’t grow or forage, they take from us.
But again, that’s not the biggest problem, not by a long shot. The biggest problem is how to avoid the canes. It’s what drove us underground in the first place. Nothing can withstand the storms. Adapting is not an option. There is only one option, I’ve always been told. Go down and go deep.
I think back to the beach. Their behavior after the attack. The heaviest activity appears to be around the scientific equipment. . .
If they had the LIDAR and other instruments, they could see the storms coming. Track them, and move accordingly.
They could run.
I can’t believe military intelligence doesn’t already know about this. Which in turn explains the presence of the contractors. They weren’t worried about toads. They were worried about humans.
Could my father have known?
Could he not have known?
At least I’m sure he and my mother made it to the mole, Jake too. Not knowing if they were dead or alive would just consume me.
I doze for a bit, and when I wake up, I have to pee. They didn’t leave me anything, just the water bottle, but the top is way too narrow and I’m too exhausted to even try. So I crawl to the hatch and pound on it, the stitches tugging painfully every time I lift my arm.
“Hey!” I yell, and it feels good to hear a voice, even if it’s my own and it sounds both puny and too loud in the enclosed space.
Finally I hear boots above. There’s the sound of a key turning in a lock and the hatch swings upward.
“What?” an exasperated voice says.
“I have to go,” I say, squinting in the sudden light of a lantern.
“Go?”
“Yes,” I say. “To the bathroom. You must be familiar with the concept.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Please.”
“Ah Jeez. . . Captain said. . . oh, all right then.” A hand reaches down and roughly hoists me up. “The head’s that way, last door to starboard.”
The head? I think. Whose head?
“Bathroom,” he says, noting my bewilderment. “On the right.”
He is a guy in his mid-twenties, lanky but strong, about six-foot, with a short carroty beard and matching hair just a touch longer than would be permitted at the Academy. His hazel eyes are not openly hostile, but neither are they at all friendly.
He marches me down a dim passageway, then stops and leans against the wall. I open the door to the “head” and discover a coffin-sized room almost entirely
I have to wonder at the kind of people that would doctor me and then throw me back down here without even a blanket to lie on. I wonder why they’re bothering, why they didn’t just kill me or leave me on the beach. Unless they’re criminally stupid, they must understand that a hostage situation would be suicide.
In school, we were told that within a year of the Transition, of the Culling, there was no one left on the surface. Those who didn’t succumb to disease or starvation or war were swept away by the canes. This is gospel. Chapter and verse. I’ve never questioned it.
Maybe a remnant of a remnant survived.
I work it through as I stare out at the dark water, endless in every direction. There’s no more coral reefs, or apex predators like sharks. They vanished decades ago. The marine food chain was radically disrupted. Jellyfish seem to like the warm, acid oceans just fine, but they’re in the minority. I guess other species could have adapted though. That’s a food source. And while there’s obviously no kind of large-scale agriculture, a small group could forage enough fruits and vegetables to survive. They grow stuff, too, I can see container gardens on the decks of the other boats.
And what they can’t grow or forage, they take from us.
But again, that’s not the biggest problem, not by a long shot. The biggest problem is how to avoid the canes. It’s what drove us underground in the first place. Nothing can withstand the storms. Adapting is not an option. There is only one option, I’ve always been told. Go down and go deep.
I think back to the beach. Their behavior after the attack. The heaviest activity appears to be around the scientific equipment. . .
If they had the LIDAR and other instruments, they could see the storms coming. Track them, and move accordingly.
They could run.
I can’t believe military intelligence doesn’t already know about this. Which in turn explains the presence of the contractors. They weren’t worried about toads. They were worried about humans.
Could my father have known?
Could he not have known?
At least I’m sure he and my mother made it to the mole, Jake too. Not knowing if they were dead or alive would just consume me.
I doze for a bit, and when I wake up, I have to pee. They didn’t leave me anything, just the water bottle, but the top is way too narrow and I’m too exhausted to even try. So I crawl to the hatch and pound on it, the stitches tugging painfully every time I lift my arm.
“Hey!” I yell, and it feels good to hear a voice, even if it’s my own and it sounds both puny and too loud in the enclosed space.
Finally I hear boots above. There’s the sound of a key turning in a lock and the hatch swings upward.
“What?” an exasperated voice says.
“I have to go,” I say, squinting in the sudden light of a lantern.
“Go?”
“Yes,” I say. “To the bathroom. You must be familiar with the concept.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Please.”
“Ah Jeez. . . Captain said. . . oh, all right then.” A hand reaches down and roughly hoists me up. “The head’s that way, last door to starboard.”
The head? I think. Whose head?
“Bathroom,” he says, noting my bewilderment. “On the right.”
He is a guy in his mid-twenties, lanky but strong, about six-foot, with a short carroty beard and matching hair just a touch longer than would be permitted at the Academy. His hazel eyes are not openly hostile, but neither are they at all friendly.
He marches me down a dim passageway, then stops and leans against the wall. I open the door to the “head” and discover a coffin-sized room almost entirely
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