Lately, sweeping up shards of conversation from the other runners has proven effortless.
" . . . going to leave the elderly. Probably take only the HHP generation."
"I hear they're sending us to Detroit."
"Who's Detroit?"
"It's an old city."
"I doubt it's Detroit. I heard we're moving to be near water. We aren't too far from an ocean, right? Flatts, right? You heard that, too? I heard there was another URE facility in Europe and another hundred-thousand people living there."
"Holy Heap."
"Think we're joining?"
I find the conversations entertaining. As long as they're leaning toward accepting some kind of movement, they won't put up too much resistance. Even if the move is a little farther away than they thought.
"Nah, this place is ours. We're not leaving. They're coming to Level Five to rip my fingers from the grates if they think they're making me go to some new shithole. My pop and me built this place."
Okay, maybe not everyone is aboard.
One hundred days until departure. My muscles stiffen at the thought.
My pace staggers behind them as I branch off to retire for an early night. As I'm about to slink away to my pod or the night, a short ring chirps from my PAHLM. A chorus of notifications resonate from all the PAHLMs on the track.
***SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT***
BROADCAST FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
2000 HOURS
ATTENDANCE MANDATORY
TUNE IN AT ANY TV
This is it.
Immediately, I receive another trill.
[Incoming Message: SLORN]
SINK ASAP
Stunned, I launch from the room. This is the first time Simon has actively sought me out in months. I'm overcome with worry. What if he's hurt? What if he's in trouble?
I skid to a halt in front of old doors of the Kitchen Sink. Ragged, unshaven, shrunken into an unrecognizable form, Simon stares at the floor. Dark circles sag under his eyes, accenting the browning stubble covering his cheeks. A half-healed scar on his right eyebrow startles me.
"Simon, what happened?"
Worry flickers through his eyes. The corner of his lip tugs upward.
"Nika, Honey—" He pulls me to him. "I'm fine, Kiddo. Don't look so upset." His hollow chuckles echo through the room.
He says this, but behind the fresh scar lurks an awful story. He seems sunken in his body but otherwise unharmed. Once the immediate anxiety passes, my body summons the dormant anger hibernating in my gut.
"It's hard to think calm thoughts—Dad—when you disappear for months then show up here, looking like this." I pull my arms out of his hands. "You wouldn't answer my PIMs. You never came back to the chapel after that night. What the hell am I supposed to think?" I'm not screaming. I'm abusing my bottom lip, forcing myself to stay composed, but what I want to do is let my anger fly at him with all the biting insults I have in my repertoire. I'd let that anger fly until he makes me understand why he left me alone.
His grin broadens until he's back to his natural smugness. "I have a surprise for you."
"A what?"
YOU ARE READING
ARC10
Science Fiction[Book 1 of the ARC10 Trilogy] **Winner of the 2017 Watty Storysmith award** The President created an underground safe-haven for the survivors of the alien invasion. He built it to save them all from total annihilation. He protects them, feeds them...
