The Darwin Effect by Mark Lukens Page B

on Earth? He tried to picture them in his mind, but their faces seemed a little blurry to him. He could see them in his mind, and he knew they were his family, but it wasn’t like he could see them clearly enough when he tried to focus on their faces, like minute details about them were fuzzy.
    Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes as he opened them again and stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t help feeling that something bad had happened to his family. The possibilities that Sanders had listed were probably accurate: a missile blast that had wiped them out instantly, or a slower death from radiation sickness or starvation, or something else that had to do with the nuclear war that had devastated the Earth.
    Cromartie tried to concentrate on the rumors of war that had been in the news. It was one of the last things he remembered before waking up here. He remembered reports all over the TV news stations, in all of the newspapers, but the details were still a little fuzzy. He remembered that there were major threats of a nuclear war. Iran had built up a huge nuclear arsenal and they couldn’t wait to obliterate much of the Middle East, starting with Israel. North Korea had been threatening to attack both Japan and South Korea with nuclear weapons. Russia, China, and America were all backing different countries. It seemed like the entire world was heading for war … but Cromartie couldn’t really remember the war actually beginning. Who had fired the first missile? Who had dropped the first bombs?
    He rolled over and closed his eyes, wiping away his tears. He was frustrated and he just wanted to give his mind a rest. He wasn’t particularly scared to die now that he knew his family wasn’t with him anymore. Even if they were alive, he would never know, and he had no way to contact them or travel back to them. They might not know where he was right now, they might be wondering if he was alive or dead. They might be wondering where he had gone, possibly thinking that he had abandoned them.
    And that was the worst thought of all.
    He tried to concentrate on nothing. He was surprised to find that he was actually tired, exhausted from all of the stress over the last few hours. He just wanted to drift away and think of nothing …
    Cromartie fell asleep and he began to dream.
    Random images of his life flashed by in his dream: a childhood memory of riding his bicycle down his neighborhood street at night, pot holes in the pavement filled with water from a recent thunderstorm, the smell of rain in the air; his first job on a construction site with his cousin; the first few months when he started his own construction business …
    Then those images morphed into a shadowy room where a man in a dark suit and tie was talking to another man who was mostly just a dark blob. Cromartie tried to focus his eyes on the men as they talked, but he couldn’t see them clearly. He tried to move but he couldn’t sit up—it felt like a giant hand was gently pressing down on him, holding him down on the table. The two men were talking, but their voices sounded garbled and so far away, like their words were coming to him from down a long tunnel that created a slight echo.
    “Hard to believe we wiped out our own planet,” the man in the suit and tie said. “We’re like a virus that has killed its host.”
    Again Cromartie tried to speak. He tried to call out to them for help. He needed help. He couldn’t move.
    But maybe these were some of the men who had abducted him and put him onto this ship.
    Panic surged through him. And then anger. He wanted to know where his wife and kids were. But he still couldn’t talk; he couldn’t even utter a sound.
    Then he heard MAC’s voice from somewhere in the dream. The computer spoke to him in its calm and unemotional voice. “There are answers on this ship, Cromartie. There are clues you need to find that will help you survive.”
    What are they? he wanted to ask MAC … but he still