Solar Flare, page 17
Mimi’s mouth went dry. She pushed herself onto all fours, then gently crawled back to her feet. They burned in protest.
“Lancelot, what triggered the evacuation?” She tried to swallow. All the saliva in her mouth vanished. She choked out a cough instead.
“Space Shuttle Discovery encountered a meteor at 23:00 on June 29, 2060. Critical impact occurred at 23:22. Captain Morrow awoke from stasis. Remaining crew members left their stasis pods at 23:30…”
“Why wasn’t I awakened?” Mimi’s stomach balled into a knot.
“Pod 4168 malfunctioned,” Lancelot answered.
“And the others bailed, leaving me trapped,” she said to no one in particular. Stunned by the betrayal, her eyes burned from the prick of tears. Lancelot couldn’t answer her. He didn’t know her shipmates’ motives, only their actions. “Great.”
She grabbed the pod’s body to hoist herself to a standing position. With her hands stabilizing her, she inched around to the console beside it. Her heart sped up. She entered the date of the incident and called up the video file. On the tiny square screen, footage played, revealing the crew’s awakening, frantic attempts to open her stasis pod and their terrifying whirlwind after the meteor’s impact. It tore part of the shuttle’s nose off and sent them spiraling, according to a shouting Captain Morrow. She ordered them to the evacuation pods. They tried to unlock Mimi’s to put it in the craft with them.
They ran out of time.
Mimi wiped her face. Her hand came away wet. “Right. Lancelot, where am I?” She couldn’t stand here and weep. Time to get moving. NASA should’ve rescued her already. If they hadn’t it could be because they assumed she’d died, or they couldn’t reach her.
“Earth.”
“That’s a good start. Lancelot, where on Earth?”
“Greenland.”
“The ice continent?” Great, it’s only marginally better than Antarctica.
“I’m sorry. There is no ice in Greenland.”
“What?” Mimi scuttled around the console to look out one of the undamaged observation windows. Outside, lush green trees and the tops of what looked like wind turbines created shade from the bright fall sun. She winced at the brightness but peered through slits because she couldn’t help herself.
Nor could she believe it.
The valley lay nestled between hills whose bottoms were not visible in the distance. They rose and ended like a spine and ribs on a sea creature that had been fossilized over eons. In the far distance, to the west, giant wind turbines stood like sentinels. So far away, she envisioned she could squish them between her fingers.
“What the hell is this? Lancelot, confirm location.” Mimi turned away from the window.
“Greenland.”
She searched around the shuttle, noting the smoke damage and blackened front panels. Determined to get out, she picked up a small pack. With her mind racing, she stuffed it with small items that had avoided being burned or melted.
“Contact NASA headquarters.” She would search the immediate area and then return to the shuttle when they arrived to pick her up. She paused, awaiting Lancelot’s communication transfer to NASA. “Lancelot?”
“Searching.”
“What’s taking so long? What is the delay?” Mimi caught her bottom lip between her teeth to stop herself from hurling a series of questions at the computer—and to slow the panic crawling up her throat.
“I am unable to find a viable connection to NASA,” Lancelot said.
“Run self-diagnostic.”
There has to be an error. It was probably damaged in the crash.
“Confirmed.”
While Lancelot checked himself, Mimi picked up a pistol, a few bullets, and a hunting knife. A few plastic bottles of water, but they looked fuzzy and hazy. If nothing else, they could put out a fire or be boiled to eliminate any bacteria. She found an emergency medical kit and put it in the sack as well. Emergency rations completed the pack.
“Diagnostic completed.” Lancelot declared a moment later.
She let out a breath of relief and ran a hand through her hair. Mimi leaned back against her pod. “Lancelot, connect to NASA. Report my location.”
“Unable to connect to NASA.”
“Are you malfunctioning?”
“All diagnostics returned in proficient operational parameters.”
“Why can’t you connect?” Mimi barked out this last. Tears blurred her vision. Her knuckles ached from gripping the stasis pod. Her dribble of patience webbed out in the angry demand.
Lancelot replied, “NASA does not exist.”
* * *
The fresh air, dense forest, and noisy wildlife made Mimi jump out of her skin more than once. Having spent thirty years in the quiet hush of stasis, outside proved loud and unsettling. Part of her wanted to race back to the shuttle and await rescue. The other wanted food and to explore. After all, she’d become an astronaut to do just that. As a scientist, she noted the vibrant activity all around her—insects, squirrels, and birds aplenty.
Her boots crunched on the unfamiliar ground. Her gaze traveled from the green canopy to the dense forest ahead. Overhead, the sun beat down on the woods, its light shimmering in the air.
She heard whistling. Not a bird’s call, but a human sound. A song.
She adjusted her bag, feeling a slight chill in the air, and looked out over the trees. She stepped forward slowly and raised her pistol. She flicked the safety off and pointed in the whistling’s direction, her finger on the trigger, ready to fire.
Someone emerged from the foliage and stumbled right into her. She jumped back. He wore a green one-piece jumper made out of what looked like plastic and a floppy matching green hat on his head. He suddenly lurched forward. Mimi cried out in surprise and accidentally pulled the trigger. He fell to the ground with a thud, his body limp.
Mimi dropped the gun and rushed to his side. She quickly checked for a pulse. There was a faint one. Tears filled her eyes.
“Oh Lord. It was an accident. Where do I get help around here?” She scanned her surroundings again, her heart pounding in her chest. Her mind spun. She had no idea how to explain this to anyone, how to explain it to herself. All she could do was stand there, paralyzed with shock and guilt.
In the ensuing silence, the only sound was her trembling breath.
“Why did you?” the man wheezed, holding his side. “You could’ve killed me.”
“It was an accident. Do you have a cell phone? I can call 9-1-1!”
He frowned at her and winced. With trembling arms, he brought his arm up to his mouth. He lifted his sleeve and showed an elaborate tattoo. It snaked down to his wrists in a series of shapes. Several dots blinked and the broad lines bore raised flesh, some type of scarring, but not exactly. He pressed them.
“Medics needed at these coordinates…shot…bleeding…” He wheezed and then passed out.
A voice squawked from the device. “Pablo? ¿Cómo estás?” The voice remained calm. “¿Cómo se llama?”
Mimi picked up his arm and leaned down to speak. “Pablo is hurt pretty bad. Can one of you get here soon? We’re in a forest, I dunno where, but if you have geotracking on this watch, can you locate us?”
“Who is this?” the woman asked.
“It doesn’t matter who I am, just get here. He’s dying.” Mimi placed his arm down and backpedaled away from him. She looked around and swallowed the knot of emotion and acid in her throat.
“Uh, Pablo, can you tell me where we are?” Mimi gently shook him to rouse him. “You need to stay with me. Okay?”
Pablo’s dark eyes met hers. “Fénix Ciudad.”
She sighed. He said it with such conviction, but he could’ve said MUD City and she wouldn’t know any difference.
“Pablo, have you heard of Greenland?” If she kept talking, she could ignore the fear gnawing at her.
“Si.”
“Is this Greenland?”
Pablo gave her a small smile—and a groan.
“I’m not from here, so try not to laugh at my silly questions.” Overhead, she caught glimpses of blue sky. Crisp air, brilliant sunlight, and fat puffy white clouds poked through the canopy. She may have been in stasis too long because she’d never experienced this vividness.
“Ah, si.”
She had to keep him talking. “What happened to the ice?” As a child, she found it humorous that Iceland was green, and Greenland was covered in ice.
“You want a history lesson.” He tried laughing, but it rolled into coughs.
Mimi pressed her hand on the wound, keeping the pressure on. “Yes.” How long have I been asleep?
“Later.”
She liked his spirit. He intended to live.
“You there, get back! Give us room!” someone shouted, spooking Mimi.
She turned in the direction of the voice. Two people on what looked like blue mopeds raced to the clearing and came to a frantic stop. The first off their vehicle was a woman. She shoved her helmet down, snatched a kit from her trunk, and hurried over to Pablo.
“I said back up.”
Mimi nodded and scooted backwards. She stood up and walked away. Please don’t die.
“Who are you?” The other person climbed off his moped. His nametag read Fernando. “Provide your identity.”
Mimi fished inside her spacesuit, and then remembered she didn’t have any identifying documentation on her. “Look, I work with NASA and my space shuttle crashed just over there. If you can give me a phone, I can call them…”
“A phone?” Fernando’s bushy, black beard twitched as he frowned. “We haven’t seen one of those in at least three hundred years.”
“What?” Mimi blinked. “Three hundred years?”
Fernando gestured with his hand. “Present your barcode.”
“Wait. I don’t…I don’t have a barcode… Three hundred years? You said three hundred years ago?”
“Si. Trescientos.”
Mimi’s heart pounded and she felt faint. No. Way. I’ve been in stasis not for thiry years, but three hundred? She shut her eyes and swallowed the scream in her throat.
Another moped arrived and this time, it didn’t come with one person, but two. Dressed in dark blue uniforms, emblazed with an owl signa, the two people wore batons on their waists. They headed in the direction of her shuttle.
“I’m Mimi Washington, former Commander of the Space Shuttle Discovery. My crew and I were sent to Mars in June of 2060. Our craft was impacted by a meteor and damaged…”
“Did you say 2060?”
“Yes…”
“Impossible!” Fernando shook his head.
“I…I woke up here,” Mimi said, her heart racing at speaking the words aloud. She stumbled, numb and out of sorts, but she didn’t fall. Her family. Her city. All gone now. Lost in the sands of time. She doubled over as bile raced up her throat.
Fernando stepped back. “Are you sick? Medic!”
“No.” Mimi took several deep, steadying breaths before standing back up.
Just then, one of the blue uniformed persons appeared inside the clearing. His dark eyes beamed from underneath thick eyebrows mashed together in one long caterpillar. “Sir, her vehicle has rocket fuel.”
Fernando turned back to Mimi. “That’s a highly dangerous and illegal substance. It’s in violation of the Banned Fuels Act.”
Mimi held up both hands. “Look, I told you. Three hundred years ago, it was perfectly fine to use rocket fuel. It’s how we got to space…”
“You’re being detained. No identification, possession of a forbidden fuel, and you shot a citizen.” Fernando took her wrists and bound them with rope. He snatched the bag from her and looked inside. He yanked out a plastic bottle of water. “This. You have water in plastic! PLASTIC! You are a dangerous woman.”
Mimi looked at the rope and back to Fernando in panic. “What? Didn’t you hear me? I’m from the past. I was in stasis for three hundred years and woke up here. How can you hold me responsible for something that happened so long ago?”
Fernando quirked an eyebrow. “I don’t believe you.” He looked at the other officer. “Finish sweeping the vehicle. Send me the report. Strip what we can recycle and get Public Safety out here to remove the fuel.”
“No, don’t destroy my ship!” Mimi watched as the officer left to complete his orders. The last bit of her home was going to be stripped down to nothing. All of 2060, all of her, her dream to see the stars, to colonize Mars, to discover new civilizations and build a better Earth, was going to be stripped away.
“Stop! No!” She screamed and started toward her space shuttle.
She got a few paces before sharp pain flared in her neck and her vision tilted as she crashed to the ground. She needed to remember, she’d just woken up from statis. Her body wasn’t at 100%. Someone, probably Fernando, snatched her up by her bound hands and yanked her backward. With her head throbbing and her neck aching, Mimi was placed on the back of a moped, the same one the two officers had arrived on.
Fernando pushed a helmet on her head. “Don’t do foolish things like running or jumping off. You’ll only injure yourself.”
“Where are you taking me?” Mimi’s eyes watered at the pain, both physical and emotional.
“To Secure Holding,” Fernando said.
“Is that jail?”
“Jail? Such an antiquated vocabulary.” He shook his head and slipped his helmet on. He climbed onto the moped, placed his hand on a screen that lit up. The vehicle started. Mimi shrieked when they started without any ignition sounds.
They took off along the forest path.
Three hundred years. Could it be possible? She could hardly believe it herself, but the truth ached in her heart.
Fernando didn’t speak. She could hear him breathing through the embedded microphone in her helmet.
“Why is rocket fuel forbidden? How do you get into space?” Mimi held the u-shaped bar in front of her seat. It kept her from sliding off the moped. For all their technology, why use cotton rope?
“We don’t go to space. No need. Earth is more than accommodating for people, as long as we treat her right. Three hundred years ago,” he said, his words mocking, “the world’s abuse of fossil fuels created…ah, a climate crisis. Antarctica, the Arctic Circle, and Alaska all experienced ice melting. While nations waited, communities organized and combined efforts to slow the crisis and halt it. One of the ways was banning those dangerous fuels.”
“That also meant abandoning humanity’s goal of going to the stars, finding other planets, and other civilizations.” As an astronaut, her heart broke even more at the news. “Didn’t anyone want to dream big, reach for the stars?”
Fernando grunted out a laugh. “So we can go and abuse another planet or ruin another civilization? According to history, our ancestors were terrible at dealing with other humans, let alone some alien creatures on another planet. No, we kept our eyes on the ground, and concerned ourselves with bettering our planet and ourselves.”
Mimi couldn’t deny the history of human malice, but to not even try to shoot for the stars? The thought broke her. Warm pinpricks of tears came and she let them fall. How was she, an astronaut, going to fit into this future?
What am I going to do?
Being a prisoner wasn’t on the list.
They exited the woods. In the distance, civilization appeared. Mimi gasped in awe at the sight of Fénix Ciudad. The sleek bullet trains that sped across the city on elevated railings reminded her of space travel, but the towering buildings were somehow different. They had been covered in lush greenery, taking her back to her childhood memories.
“Wow. Are you living in a jungle?” Mimi said.
“Jungle?” Fernando snorted. “You really are ignorant. The buildings are biophilic. They reduce the need for air conditioning. They helped combat climate change and global warming. The plants act as insulation and protect the building from sunlight. This helps reduce the amount of energy consumed.”
Mimi nodded. She’d heard of biophilic buildings before, but an entire city of them? “Are other cities like this?”
“Si!” Fernando said.
Mimi wiped her brow. Sweat covered her face. Gobsmacked, she struggled to take in the thriving metropolis before her. “Where are the cars?”
“Cars?”
“Yeah, automobiles?”
“No cars. They are in museums.” Fernando gestured to a row of bicycles lined along a rack as they drove past. Unchained, they appeared to be available to anyone.
Mimi let out a nervous chuckle, feeling overwhelmed, unable to comprehend how a city could function without cars. She felt dizzy and confused. She struggled to reconcile this advanced city with her memories. Her head spun at the enormity of it all.
Her view tilted. Beautiful mountains, cornflower sky, and then a rush of nausea.
“You okay back there?” Fernando’s demands melded into rapid Spanish.
No, Mr. Officer. I’m not anywhere close to being okay.
* * *
The Secure Holding Unit building, like all those around it, was adorned with vegetation and big windows. Fernando helped her off the moped and guided her up the flat, stone stairs to the front doors. They swished open and closed quickly after she cleared the threshold. Warm air brushed her sweaty face. Natural light streamed into the structure, and the scent of flowers merged with the gurgle of running water and bees’ buzzing. It didn’t resemble any prison Mimi had seen before, but after so much time, prisons would get sweeping changing as well.
“Fernando, new guest?” A woman dressed in the same type of uniform as Fernando and the other officers sat in front of a projected window. With a gloved hand, she swept through the screens. “What’s the name?”
“No identification, numerous environmental infractions, and she’s lying,” Fernando answered in lieu of greeting. His beard twitched as he cut a glance at Mimi and then back to the woman at the desk.
She quirked an eyebrow. “No identification. That’s odd.” She looked up at Mimi as if seeing her for the first time. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Commander Mimi Washington of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.” Mimi stood taller and hitched her chin up. Sure, NASA may be dead, but she doubted it didn’t make the history books or whatever they stored information on.
