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ChapterOne
The End
The Fall does not happen in a day, or in a week, or in a year. It creeps up on humanity slowly, like a sickness.
Resources become fewer and fewer. Water dries up, and the little fresh water that remains, people hoard, guard, fight over tooth and dagger. Wars become commonplace. Many go to ground to escape. Bunkers soon replace homes.
One intergovernmental organization establishes a series of bunkers scattered across the globe with the aim of preserving select humans in cryogenic chambers for eleven thousand years.
These preserved humans will be burdened with the task of rebuilding civilization when they wake long after the Fall, after the end, after the climate changes and memory of the last human from the surface world has long since faded.
These humans form the Sucere Project.
For now, they sleep.
ChapterTwo
Rhen
Ihit the groundhard,crashing against the floor in a pile of limbs, a puddle of flesh. Like one of those squeezie balls filled with that goopy gel? I always wondered what that gel actually is made of. If you took it out of its shell, what form would it take? Would it hold shape or would it disintegrate?
I had one of those squeezie balls in my studio. Yes, my studio. I had a studio. I had a studio because I’m an artist. And I’m the only artist who was selected to be a part of the Sucere Project. I was selected to tick off the arts and culture box. All arts. All culture. Of all of humanity. Ha.
“Warning. Preservation pod malfunction. Automatic expulsion engaged.” The sound of the female voice grates. I remember listening to a BBC news special once on why humans prefer women’s voices in our tech, robots, AI. Apparently, we women are seen as less threatening and more reliable. Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.
“Welcome to New Earth…Rhen…” The woman’s voice cuts out around my name in what is otherwise already a choppy sentence.
Taking stock of my body after the fall, the first thing that screams at me is my left arm. “Ooooouwwwww,” I wheeze. Is my shoulder dislocated? I can still move it, so I’m gonna stay optimistic.
I push off the ground with my right arm. Roll, roll, roll. Ahhhh. “Ergghhhh.” I land on my back and blink. Meanwhile, she’s still speaking to me.
“Seek out your Captain for instruction on what is required of you to make the Sucere Project mission successful. Remember, your job is to create a functioning community in the new world. If your Captain is not yet awake and eleven thousand years have passed, please wake your Captain. His name is…Sergeant Black,” the automated voice autofills again. “You’ll find him in Bay One, Preservation Pod Position One.”
She goes on to list where I’ll find the First and Second Mates—shocker, they’re in Bay One, Positions Two and Three. She lets me know that I’m in Bay Twelve—out of Twelve—and that I’m in Position Forty-three—out of Forty-three. That seems almost cruel. But then again, I figure somebody’s gotta be last, and I am theartistassigned to this project.
A project meant to save humanity itself.
“Now…Rhen…if the minimum required eleven thousand years have not passed and your Captain and fellow crew members are not yet awake, you are not permitted to wake another passenger. You may find yourself tempted to do so as time passes due to loneliness, boredom and humans’ crippling need for companionship…” Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this chick needs to work on her bedside manner…
“However, if you wake another passenger from their Preservation Pod, they will be instructed to execute you. Should they refuse, the ranked officials on board the Chamber will ensure you are sentenced to death upon waking, alongside the passenger who failed in their duty to execute you…”
I snort and finally push myself all the way up to sitting. I shake my head, trying to get oriented. I lean all of my weight onto my right hand, hovering there until it shakes. My left arm is still feeling a bit mangled. Not the worst sensation. Not the best. There’s also my death to deal with. Ha. HahahahahahaHA. Cue sobs.
I rub my eyes with the heel of my left hand. I do that for a long time. I feel a little…nauseous? No, not nauseous. Maybe, nervous? Nah. Not nervous. Discombobulated. Ooh, yeah. That. I always liked that word. It was one of the few words that I learned in English that I never found a good translation for into my native Portuguese. I overused the word constantly—Não me discombobulate!—much to the irritation of meu pai. But he’s not here now and neither is minha mãe or tia Leonor or tia Maria or tia Benedita or tio João. No, they’re long gone if the Sucere Chamber worked as planned. Then again…if everything went according to plan, why am I the only one awake?
Giving myself no more than one second to mourn a loss I’d spent months mourning before entering the Sucere Chamber, I dust myself off—there is no dust on my gray, uninspired uniform—and look up at my surroundings for the first time. Eh. Predictable. I remember being shuffled down this long hallway, even remember climbing into my own freaky-looking pod. Remember the glass lowering, and the panic…porra. This place is just as icky as I remember it.
There’s a long hallway full of clear people pods glowing blue like in every science fiction book minha mãe ever read to me before she died, only the glass panel I just fell through hangs open and the light that shines out of the pod is red.
I glance at the blue pod across from me. Number forty-two. It’s got a person in it andporra, do they look creepy. They don’t look like they’re asleep, but like they’re mid-blink and could wake up at any second. Now that I’ve fallen out of my own pod, I wonder what holds them up. Is it a magnet?
The people look like refrigerator magnets. I had a mini fridge in my studio, and there were pictures of all my dead relatives all over it. What happened to that fridge? What happened to the photos after the Sucere militia came and took me away?
Struggling to find my legs, it takes me a while to move from a crawl to standing. I stare up and down the hall. It’s dark to my left. To my right, the hall dead-ends. Nobody’s awake. I know it without having investigated the other pods. I canfeeljust how eerily alone I am, which begs the question one more time…if everything went according to plan, why would the Sucere architects have wokenmefirst?
“Hey, lady,” I say. The sound of my voice is shocking. I didn’t expect it to be so high-pitched. I sound like a cartoon character. Oooh, I wonder if she’s got cartoons on board this ship. That thought perks me up.
“Yes…Rhen…You may call me Pamela.”
