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He hadn’t moved. Jason was still in the same spot, thirty feet from the entrance of the building, knees to the ground, in the center of the overgrown parking lot.

Questions started to fly for Meredith and at her. Especially from Amy, who suddenly turned angry? She cried out she felt cheated, robbed and misled. “I listened and trusted both you and the president. And you both knew,” she said. “I believed all would be fine. I brought up nothing and now I have to barter my soul for a bottle of water from John.”

In a sense, Amy was right. Although Nora still hadn’t determined what Meredith knew. She had information, she admitted to it. That alone was a game changer. And in all honesty, it wasn’t Meredith’s fault that she was confidante in the project.

A part of Nora felt vindicated because she didn’t believe Meredith to be as oblivious as she portrayed convincingly to everyone else.

But before Meredith divulged her information or theories, Nora wanted to get Jason. He deserved to know.

Apprehensively she made her way to him. His head was down. Nora recalled her first encounter with Jason. He was a positive person despite his circumstances. He went through quick mood swings after hearing what the president originally said of the Genesis Project. Anger and sadness, but after they subsided, he was hopeful. He had something no one else had... a deep rooted faith.

“Jason,” she called to him softly. “I don’t want to interrupt you if you’re praying.”

He didn’t turn around. His voice cracked softly. “Praying.” He shook his head and laughed emotionally. “Nora, I don’t think I have a prayer to say.” He slowly swayed his head and looked over his shoulder at her. “From the time I was a child, I believed in God. I preached His word for as long as I remember. Give it to God was a stock phrase of mine. Give it to God.” He laughed again. “At first you know, I was mad because Man and Science took it from God’s hands. But now … I’m torn. I’m torn between being angry at the God I gave my life to and angry at myself for believing in a fairy tale.” He slowly stood to his knees. “The God I worshipped would not let this happen.”

“I have news for you,” Nora said. “Probably not a news flash considering what you did for a living, but the God you worship, if all those stories are true, He has a pretty good track record of doing this.”

His eyes widened as if to say, ‘I can’t believe that just came from your mouth’.

Nora shrugged. “I’m just saying. And I’m here to ask you to come in.”

“I don’t know what I want to do.”

“Just don’t pull a President Thomas.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means ...he’s dead,” Nora said. “He went down to be part of the decontamination process. He couldn’t handle this. None of us can. I’m not.  It seems surreal, like I’m so displaced from my life, my world, that to me this isn’t earth, that this isn’t reality.”

“Look around Nora, its reality.”

“Here. We don’t know what’s beyond here. And … Meredith knows some things.”

“We discussed this. She doesn’t.”

“No, actually,” Nora said. “She does. She said it and we’re waiting on you to hear what that is.” She held out her hand. “Let’s hear what she has to say and then we can figure out our next step. Staying out here, looking at this, is not the answer. We need to find our answers. But we need information to get there.”

“Do you really think Meredith has it?”

“She has something.”

After a moment of debate, Jason took her hand and they went back inside the building.

Despite the fact that John said he felt nothing, he did indeed feel a slight vibration under his feet. The explosion below had to be intense. The president, if he were caught in it, felt nothing, His pain was over.

John didn’t see him go down the elevator and couldn’t figure out how he did so without being noticed.  But what were the options? He ran amuck around the building? For what purpose? He had no supplies. The logical deduction was that he committed suicide.

In John’s mind, President Thomas was useless. He had knowledge, but he was weak and broken. Marshal Flight Center was a starting point for John, not an end, and the last thing he needed was a weak person following him North. And North was exactly where John would head, back home, once he figured out how to get there.

“All of that,” Meredith pointed to the boxes and supplies John took from storage. “Is needed. You didn’t take it all but you took at least one from every box, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Three years ago, I was asked to come up with a worst case scenario theory,” Meredith explained. “Because of my work, NASA pulled me in, right here, to this compound for a meeting. I honestly believed it had something to do with space.”

“Worst case scenario, Dr. Hassleman,” the director asked her. “What would be the situation if six astronauts returned from space to find the earth had been wiped clean from a plague?”

“That would be impossible,” Meredith said. “Everyone on earth? No. There would be survivors. There would be those who didn’t get it, It would appear, though, that the world was empty.”

“What would be the obstacles for them?”

“How long are we talking about? Is the plague or virus still in the air, are they completely safe from being victims. If it were long enough for it to be safe, then they face a whole different battle.”

“How so?”

“First let’s look at the emotional side. Their family, friends, civilization in general, gone. They will be desperate and in disbelief until faced with the reality and that reality would be to seek the truth and find resolution with family. Therein lies the next problem. Every resource, already in place, will be useless. If it is years, then food on the shelves is bad. Water is a problem. They’d have to rely on ground sources. Any animals that remain are deadly and they could possibly be without weapons. How would they find their families? Unless every member of every family is within walking distance of their landing site, they’re out of luck. Gasoline will be bad, batteries… dead, horses, if they could find them would be wild.”

Meredith emerged from her recount of the meeting and said, “Then they asked me to make a list. What would be needed for them? Honestly, I thought they were doing a just in case scenario with all the recent space exploration.”

John said, “Plausible. I’d think the same way. Did you do the list?”

“Of course. It took me months. I was thorough. I told them the supplies would have to be stored airtight or some way to preserve. Everything down there was on my list, John, everything in that storage. Those solar batteries are for vehicles somewhere on this base. Where? I don’t know.”

Jason asked. “So you knew all along?”

“No.” Meredith held up her hand. “I’m guessing on the solar batteries because they were on my list. Power vehicles similar to the rovers they place on planets. If the batteries were there, the vehicles are somewhere. All those boxes were in an airtight preservation room, that door opened when the units released. The design is called the time capsule vault.”

John spoke up. “Summer’s design. She did it years ago, so that in case the world was destroyed and aliens found it or people in the future, they could taste and experience all that we had. You acted like you didn’t know her.”

“When we discussed Summer,” Meredith stated. “I was frightened to say anything. And I would have, had the president not stepped in and talked.”

“So he was lying,” Jason asked. “When he said you weren’t part of the plan and that you didn’t know.”

“No, he wasn’t lying because he had no idea that I knew. I knew Summer. Summer knew.” Meredith faced John. “She knew. It was her cryogenics design, her units down there. She gave me enough information about the plan, problem was neither of us knew when it was going to be implemented. For it to remain secret, no one was told. She found out hours before the event. That was why she didn’t show. In fact, my phone died and when she finally sent me a text, I didn’t have time to leave. Or else I would have. I didn’t want to be a part of this.”

Exhaling slowly and loud, Nora moved to Meredith. “You didn’t plan this. You were just part of the plan.”

“But I’m guilty by association. I knew and said nothing. That guilt is the same reason I didn’t pack a survival bag, because I didn’t want to survive when we emerged. But unlike the president, where ever he went, I lack the courage to take my life.”

“Wait.” Grant snapped his fingers. “You sound like you knew it failed before we came up here.”

“If Genesis was a success none of us would have woken up in our room. We would have been removed from stasis before waking and brought to another facility in a nice cozy bed surrounded by family. That was the plan. Us waking up on our own was only the plan if things went wrong. Things went wrong and they knew it, so as a safeguard, they changed the setting, changed the wake up time, we were left here longer. Hence the supplies.”

“How long?” Jason asked.

Meredith lifted her hands. “That I can’t tell you, I don’t know. I can guess when the world went bad. Malcolm, what was the last date you read?”

“December Fourteen.” Malcolm answered. “Last date on that clipboard.”

“Then that was the day they knew they erred.  We talked about the world being reset, well, they knew there was no turning back and someone came in here that day …” Meredith paused. “And hit
our
reset button.”

The first thing Malcolm did was take the four solar battery units and placed them out in the sun. If they had drained at all, the sun would recharge them. Or so he thought. If they were indeed a power source for the vehicles, they needed them. Transportation was vital. Malcolm couldn’t stay in Kentucky. Even if decades had passed he needed to have closure, find out what happened to his wife, Jenny, and their four sons. Malcolm supposed everyone else had the same goals and he would do what he could to help everyone to achieve those goals.

There was a flat folded case, and Malcolm opened it exposing the tools. “These will have to do.”

“That’s all they had,” John said. “Couple dozen of these, but basic tools.”

“I’ll make do. I’m resourceful.” Malcolm examined what he had and closed the case again.

“What are you doing?”

“Batteries are charging. Jason and Nora went out to look for life, and I’m going out to look for cars. Really how hard is this gonna be to find a garage around here. That’s where they’ll be stored if they’re here.’

Grant set down and opened up a map. “Marshal is located in Redstone Arsenal. Take a look. It’s big.”

Malcolm moistened his lips, then drew in his bottom lip in thought. “I’m gonna guess they are somewhere in the Marshal Flight Center section. Just a guess.” He tossed the tool bag over his shoulder and grabbed a bottle of water.

“Can I come?” Amy asked. “Please, I need to get out of this room, feel like I’m doing something.”

“I’m dividing supplies,” John said. “You can stay here and you won’t have to sell your soul.”

She shot daggers at him, then returned to Malcolm. “Can I? I do have a good level of mechanical knowledge when it comes to solar energy.”

“Sure,” Malcolm answered with an nod up to his head then reached for the map. “Can I?”

“Be my guest,” Grant said.

Malcolm took the map, folded it, grabbed a pen from the desk, scribbled on the corner of the paper until the pen worked, then he and Amy headed out of the office.

Despite the fact that it was hot, it felt cooler outside with the airflow. Malcolm walked to the center of the lot and started peering around. It seemed even more barren then when he stepped out to leave the batteries to charge. “If you were a garage, where would you be?”

“I’d be a warehouse,” Amy said. “Like there.” She pointed to a building across the lot and to the right. “How many do you think there are?”

“Well, if there are any.” Malcolm started to walk. “Not more than eight, because that is all the batteries there are.”

“You realize they can be used to start a car battery, right?’

“Oh, I know.” Malcolm forced a closed mouth smile. “See any cars.”

Amy stopped and looked around. “No. None. Maybe there are some on base.”

“If there are, we need to find a way to start them. I mean, gasoline, if it’s been over a year … and it looks like it has been, will be bad.”

“Diesel?”

“Depends on the time frame.”

“Military vehicles.” She snapped her finger. “My husband was in the Army. A mechanic, I remember he told me those things can run on anything.”

Malcolm bobbed his head in thought. “Maybe. But I do know we are not finding any solar cars.”

“Then why are we looking?”

“Because Meredith’s list to them said transportation. They left the batteries, there is something? I just know it’s not a solar car. The solar cars that were out used hydrogen and electricity. Some... even platinum.”

“Maybe the battery sources we have start them, and they are limited like the rovers used on Mars.”

“Not sure how they operated.”

“Well they didn’t look like the solar cars that were placed in California. They worked using a reserve power pool, power source gained by the solar arrays or panels on the unit. It didn’t move fast, and it only ran when it was daylight and it could draw from the sun. The more sunlight, the faster it moved. Keep in mind, we are dealing with NASA.”

“True.” Malcolm exhaled. “Well, what are the odds?”

“Of?”

“This being the warehouse?”

“My opinion … they’re good. If they left transportation they would have left it protected and where we could easily find it. This is the closest big building.”

“Fingers crossed.” Malcolm tried the garage door to the right.

Nothing. Locked.

He moved over and tried the other one, that too was locked. Knowing that more than likely the door to the building was locked as well, he pulled his tool pack from his shoulder, opened it on the ground and slid out the small crowbar.

It was small and he hoped it would work without bending.

After several minutes, he was finally able to pry open the door. The crowbar was useless afterwards. He shoved it aside and opened the door wider.

Amy stepped in first. “It’s really dark.”

Before following her in, Malcolm propped open the door, grabbed the flashlight, turned it on and walked in.

“Malcolm?” Amy said with a slight smile.

Malcolm aimed his flashlight beam into the large warehouse. It didn’t light much, but it did eliminate enough for him to see that they had found what they were looking for. “Bingo.

Step one. Before they could figure out how to operate the dune buggy looking vehicles, they had to get more light in the warehouse and for that … they needed to work on the garage doors.

<><><><>

They lab office was a room twenty feet by twelve. Filled mostly with desks and computers, John figured it to be more of a monitoring station. They moved some of the desks out of the way to make room as he and Grant went through supplies.

“Seventy-five bars,” Grant said. “Ten each, five for this evening to divide.”

“Works. Water tablets?”

“Twelve boxes. Divide the extra?”

“Yes.” John made a note on paper. “Water is going to be tough.”

“The one thing you didn’t grab much of.”

“It was heavy. So everyone gets an eight pack … oh wait, the president isn’t here, we all get an eight pack plus a bottle. I get the extra.”

“Fair enough. Veggie bits ... Twelve packs each.”

“How many first aid kits.”

“Twelve.”

“We’ll divide up the extra,” John said. “Everyone should have enough each.”

Meredith, who had been staring out the window, spoke up. “Then what?”

“This land is your land,” John said, “We hopefully find a farming region, food may still be growing wild. Again, we don’t have a clue how long we were down there.”

“Why are you dividing all this?” she asked.

“Because Meredith, as much as I am a dick, it would be too much of a dick move to keep it all myself. We all need it for our travels.”

Grant asked, “We need to come up with a route. All of us live spread out over this country.”

“We can work it out. Unless Malcolm finds more than one vehicle.”

“Hate to see us split up.”

“What choice do we have?”

Meredith answered. “Don’t split up. There is safety in numbers. Stay grounded. Find one place, make it center base and two at a time go out searching, when they return, the next two go. If by some chance things are barren out there, the last thing we need to do is not be together.”

“Don’t you want to find your family?” John asked.

“I have none. There’s no one to find.” She stood up. “We need a long term plan.”

Grant looked at her. “We need answers first. I don’t think any of us can just settle down and accept this without answers and closure.”

“Exactly,” John added. “We are on a base. Everything outside of here could be fine. This illness could have hit only one city or state or part of a country. We don’t know, we really don’t and until I find out the extent of all that we missed, I can’t make any long-term plans. The answers most certainly aren’t in this dark room.”

Just as he finished saying that, a deep hum rumbled and within seconds, the lights flickered and came on.

John looked up. “Well I’ll be damned.”

Grant pointed to the computer that started a boot up sequence. “You were saying.”

The moment of shock and silence was broken when Malcolm rushed in the room.

He released a gleeful and proud laugh. “Yes! It worked.”

“You did this?” John asked.

“I did.” Malcolm looked around and chose a random computer. “Well, we did this.”

Amy replied. “Don’t let him fool you. He did it. When he saw the controls he knew.”

“Back up plan,” Malcolm explained. “In case everything went off line. Like an EMP caused them to go off the grid. They needed to be able to communicate with those on the space station. The batteries, the buggies, not to mention the solar arrays on top of the building 4601. Told me it was our jackpot.”

“You’re a freaking genius.” John said.

Meredith pointed to Malcolm. “If we split up. I’m going with him.”

Malcolm smiled, and then returned to the computer.

There was a slow demonic howling sound to the steady wind that swept around them. In fact it was the only sound.

Nora and Jason walked in silence.

It was Nora’s idea to leave the confines of the area deemed for the Marshal Flight Center, hit the base and see what was out there. She told Jason, he didn’t say much and then she left.

He followed her with a simple, ‘wait up’ and he didn’t speak another word until they reached the edge of the base.

His mood was low before Meredith said anything, after... he just sank.

Nora had children, a husband, she was devastated to think what could have become of them. But she wasn’t ruling anything out. She wasn’t giving up hope. The only issue she had was how long she was in stasis. For all she knew, her eldest daughter, Lilly, who was eight, could be a fully-fledged adult.

She doubted it was a decade, simply because of the amount of growth. Some reason the world from her memory of science class, would look like a jungle in ten years.

Redstone Arsenal, the military base was the key.  Just because the NASA section was empty didn’t mean the base was, and even if that was void of people, that didn’t mean beyond it was barren.

To her, Jason, the man who was strong and positive below suddenly was an anchor to her, holding her back. Emotionally tiresome. She knew and felt where he was coming from. But Nora put her energy elsewhere. Like everyone else, she was seeking answers. She hoped to get some when she returned back to the office.

The Arsenal limits were about a mile outside of Marshall and an idea stuck her when she saw the PX, or Post Exchange on base. Some PX’s were small, and some were like large chain bargain store. This PX was large and shared an overgrown parking lot with a BBQ restaurant.

For the first time, she saw a car. Two of them were in the parking. Both had weeds that grew up to the side of the car doors and were two rows apart. Jason walked straight and Nora walked up toward the PX.

“What are you doing? I thought we were going to look for the base.”

“PX. This is like a Target. I wanna check it out. See if they have bikes. Be a lot easier to peddle across than walk.”

Jason looked humbled, nodded and said, “That’s a good idea.”

“Plus, it’ll tell us a lot. If the store is empty, there was enough time for those who were ill to get supplies. If the shelves have a lot of items, the base emptied out fast.”

She approached the first car, it was locked. She tried to clear the window, but the dirt was too thick so Nora moved to the second vehicle. A blue compact car. She tried the driver’s door and it opened.

“What are you looking for?” Jason asked.

“A date. Maybe a receipt or something.” She looked in the car and when she did, she immediately saw the toddler car seat in the back. Even though the car seat was empty, a sickening feeling hit Nora’s gut.

She looked around the car, it had a musty smell to it and a thick layer of dust formed on the dashboard and seats. There was a takeout receipt deep in the console, but that was dated a month before they even went into stasis.

She popped open the glove compartment and pulled out the plastic folder. “Louisa Martin.” Nora said. “The car is registered to her.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Thought you were the big prayer guy. Thought maybe you wanted a name to toss on your prayer list.” Nora exhaled. “Nothing. She had a child and this car was clean. To me that’s odd. She wasn’t traveling or running somewhere.”

“How do you know?”

“Think Jason, you have a child. Is your car ever clean when you travel with a child? I know mine had cheerios or crackers or something over it”

“I have a baby,” Jason replied. “I never got to that stage.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Let’s just try the PX.”

“Yeah,” Nora said sliding out and then shut the door.

They walked across the lot to the large warehouse style building. The windows were dirty, yet intact, and the automatic sliding doors were partially open allowing for them to slip inside.