I mean, what was the point? Even if the ship managed to make it to Earth, pick up the people who were selected by the Council to go to the colony, and then somehow make it back to Mars, their chance of survival was no better than if they stayed here. I didn’t care how much the Mars colony had expanded over the last decade or how much the terraforming had progressed. I knew deep down in my soul that, like all dominant species before us, it was mankind’s turn to disappear. That’s why I told Rick to scratch my name from the list. I planned to die right here, drinking and fishing.
Helen looked over at Rick and said, “Well, I guess you can spend some quality time with your family then.”
“Unfortunately, I agreed to go out to Makunudhoo and make some repairs on the communications tower. I have to leave right after breakfast.”
“What?” William threw his knife on the counter and it hit with a loud metallic clang
“I’m sorry,” Rick said. “I was going to tell you after we brought breakfast to mom.”
“Why can’t Uncle Aron go?”
“Because it wouldn’t be fair,” Rick said. “Your uncle has been doing most of the repair jobs since I’ve been on the Council.”
I made the mistake of looking over at William. Tears fell down his freckled face.
“I don’t care!” William cried out.
Helen draped her flabby arm around his shoulder, but he shirked it off.
“Mom’s sick and can’t do nothing and you’re always at that stupid Council thing. It’s not fair.” He ran out of the kitchen.
Rick took off his apron and said, “I’m sorry Helen.” She nodded, and he took off after William.
I looked over at Helen and was momentarily trapped by her gaze, but I managed to break free. I focused my attention on the stingray that I had butchered. Now she had two reasons to be pissed off at me.
I felt the guilt rising up within me, but I shoved it back down into its place. Just because I didn’t have a family, everyone seemed to think that it was okay for me to travel around from island to island and fix the goddammed communications equipment. Well, they were wrong. I’d done my share of work and I deserved some rest and relaxation. Rick was the only one who understood. I’m sure that’s why he took the job before it came my way.
I put the knife down, closed my eyes, and took a few deep breaths. When I opened them, I found my thumb absently tracing the thick scar across my wrist.
If Rick had really wanted to do me a favor, he should’ve walked away and let me finish what I had started twelve years ago on the end of that pier.
I skipped breakfast and lunch, partly to avoid a lecture from Helen, but mostly because I didn’t want to run into Rick. I knew that if I saw him, I’d probably change my mind and take his place. But he left a couple hours ago, so I decided to go on a run. Running, like kayaking, helped me shake off funky moods like this.
I searched for my shorts and then remembered that they were still in my backpack. I’d taken them along with me on the last repair trip, but never got a chance to run.
Kneeling on the floor, I blindly hunted for the bag under the bed. My hand brushed against the thread-worn shoulder strap and I yanked it out. I stood up and gave it a good shake before throwing it on the bed to dislodge any insects that had made my bag their home. The musty smell brought back a flood of memories.
The pack had been my constant companion after the storm. Rick, Jin and I had hopped across the islands in search of electronic parts that hadn’t been completely fried by the electromagnetic pulse that preceded the solar storm.
When we showed up on the island, everyone used to say the same thing. They said we looked like the start of a bad joke, “A Harvard professor, a Chinese officer, and a drunken computer geek walked into a bar.”
Despite the odd composition of our team, we had managed to cobble together a crude VHF radio network thanks to Rick’s electrical engineering background, Jin’s military experience with radio systems, and my lackluster programming skills. It took four years before we finally set up the first of over two hundred relay towers across the islands. Finally, a year ago, we completed the Intra Island Communications Network, or IICN as everyone called it.
I couldn’t understand why people felt compelled to create acronyms with the end of humanity looming in front of them, but they did. I had tried to discourage it with my own acronym. I wanted to call it the Communications Unified Network Trunk, but I got overruled.
The IICN wasn’t much of a network, but it provided everyone who had a data mat with the ability to send and receive text messages. There was also just enough bandwidth to provide a rudimentary voice and video communications channel. However, because of that limitation, the Maldivian Defense Force controlled all video and voice communications. Only MDF personnel and a few others were authorized to use it.
Even though the IICN only provided text message service, people went nuts when it was completed. But I didn’t help build it to make people happy. I built it to keep my mind off Kelly and the girls.
I had become obsessed with finding out what had happened to my family after the storm, but with no communication to the outside world, I didn’t know whether they were dead or alive. I never did find out, but I didn’t need to.
Six months after the storm, refugees began to trickle in and the stories they told crushed any hope I had of my family’s survival. The stories painted a picture of hell.
The atmosphere somewhere north of Spain and south of Bolivia was gone. This was the area we called the black zone. In my opinion, the people who were in the black zone when the storm hit had been the lucky ones. They had suffocated to death when the air bled off into space. Not a great way to die, but at least it was quick. Those between the black zones and here had it worse. We called that area the middle zone. Not very creative, but I guess there were only so many ways to describe hell.
The middle zone extended from about the tip of Mexico up to the northern black zone and from the top of Australia down to the southern black zone. There was just enough atmosphere in the middle zone to breathe, but not enough to block the x-ray radiation emitted from the sun. Most of the people in that zone either died from radiation burns or from the extreme change in weather caused by a sudden decrease in atmospheric pressure.
The refugees who made it to the Maldives described brutal massacres, rapes, and cannibalism as civilization crumbled. I tried my best to avoid listening to their stories. Kelly and the girls had been in that zone. If I let my mind go there, I’d probably go completely insane.
I shook my head to knock out the depressing thoughts. Grabbing my bag, I reached inside and found my running shorts wadded together with some t-shirts that had seen better days. I got dressed, walked outside, and took off.
Lohifushi wasn’t a runner’s paradise. One lap around the island equaled a mile. It was like running around a big parking lot, but as long as I kept moving I didn’t care. Running enabled me to mentally escape from this tropical island prison. And soon I lost myself in the run.
As I turned the corner by the old bait shack at the base of the pier for the tenth time, I could feel my mind preparing to make a break for it. Another few laps and I’d be off this Godforsaken rock, if only mentally.
I followed the lush green canopy that covered most of the white sand trail that circled the island, connecting the different groups of huts. I loved this part of the trail. The trees provided protection from the sun’s strong rays and the breeze, cooled by the shade, felt good against my sweat-soaked skin.
Each hut that I passed looked exactly like the next, with white stucco walls and thatched roofs. At the end of one of those groups, I ran past little Emily. She was still on the front deck of her hut playing with her dolls. She looked up, smiled at me, and made one of her doll’s hands wave at me again. Emily was a sweet girl, but every time I looked at her it brought back too many memories of my own daughters, Katelyn and Theresa. They used to play with their dolls like that and would stay out all day long if I had let them. The memories squeezed my heart like a vise, making it hard for me to breathe. I looked the other way, pretending not to see her, but she yelled out, “Hello Mr. Aron!”