9. The Scourge #2
Ducking inside, I let out a sigh of relief. The command center was dark, the only bit of light shining on Commander Zhang who stood in front of the monitor that stretched wall to wall barking out orders. She paused, hands clasped behind her back.
“You’re twenty-three minutes late, Captain. Sleep well?” she asked, cutting a sharp glare toward me.
“Fine.” I straightened my jacket and strode through the sea of uniforms to take a seat at the front.
“Captain Ransom reached REM sleep at 03:12 station cycle,” SOL chimed pleasantly. “Total rest duration: three hours and twenty-eight minutes. Elevated heart rate recorded during dream state. Cortisol levels remain slightly above baseline. Sleep quality rated—”
“Mute,” I snapped. A few heads turned, and Commander Zhang arched a brow.
“Bad dreams, Captain?”
I shifted in my chair, glaring at the blank screen beside me as if the orb could somehow feel my displeasure. “Nope,” I said.
“Mmh.” Zhang tilted her head slightly.
“Nothing worth the briefing time, Commander,” I said, gesturing politely toward the massive display behind her. “Please, go on.”
There it was. That strange knot tightening in my stomach again—the same one that had been sitting there since I woke up.
I’d barely slept, and when I had, the dream that met me warped into a nightmare.
But the last thing I wanted was SOL replaying my brain chemistry in front of half the command staff.
For a moment I thought she might push it, instead she turned back to the wall of monitors. “To catch you up, Captain,” Commander Zhang said, clasping her hands behind her back again, “we were just briefed by Lieutenant Jones that SOL pinged a bunker at 2200 hours.”
What? Commander Zhang gestured to the screen behind her where a line from SOLs data logs was highlighted in red. Why didn’t I get an alert?
“That’s not possible.”
“Seems we were wrong,” Zhang replied evenly.
“Now if you would please listen carefully, I am about to give instructions for the day.” The display behind her shifted to reveal a map of Earth flickering across the wall—oceans and continents smeared with warning overlays and radiation markers.
One region along the western edge of the former United States pulsed faintly in amber.
“As you all know, three loops ago,” Zhang continued, “we deployed the first atmospheric SOL units to begin long-range survivability scans. Their primary directive has been environmental monitoring. The system began translating live radiation levels, atmospheric toxicity, and particulate density. Its secondary directive: locate and identify active human infrastructure.”
I frowned at the screen. “That protocol has never returned a confirmed signal.” At least not one we didn’t already know about.
“Correct.” She tapped the display and the amber pulse intensified. “At 2200 hours, one of the atmospheric units flagged a heat signature originating from this region.”
I stared at the green space on the map that was meant to indicate a safe atmospheric zone. “Deer?” I offered. Or a bear. SOL had been extra sensitive since the system upgrade a few months ago. A heat signature was nothing to lose sleep over, especially if it was singular.
She cut me a stern look, “The heat signature pattern matches that of a human.” She clicked over to a live feed, and I watched a blurry shape move from one spot to the next. Pacing.
That’s not possible. I stood abruptly, and stepped up to the screen. I swiped through SOL’s interface until the image on the monitor overhead could be placed somewhere better identifiable on an old map. The Pacific Northwest. Western Washington, roughly.
A murmur rippled through the room and my stomach dropped. “That’s got to be a glitch,” I said. A crude box formed around the heat signature. “SOL, what is that outline?”
“Radar imaging indicates a subsurface structure composed of reinforced concrete. Estimated depth: roughly nine meters. Thermal analysis detects a localized heat signature within the structure. External atmospheric conditions: hazardous. ARS-7 concentration is elevated, but within survivable range with proper filtration. Radiation levels: negligible.”
“It’s not possible.” The limited resolution made it difficult to make out what I was looking at, but there it was… one flare of orange moving across the screen.
Zhang turned toward me slowly. “That possibility is exactly why you’re here, Captain.
” She gestured toward the display again.
“We have long suspected that portions of the global bunker network survived the Scourge. However, communication with many of those installations was lost during atmospheric collapse. To date, we have no reliable census of survivors remaining on the surface.” The amber signal pulsed again.
“And now,” she said, “SOL has found one.”
Silence fell over the room. I looked down at the orb in my hands, its soft blue sensors flickering across the screen. “No,” I said quietly. “If a bunker had a functioning beacon, we would have seen the signal years ago.”
Zhang folded her arms. “Which is why I want you and Lieutenant Jones to examine SOL’s programming immediately.”
I exhaled slowly. “Right away Commander.”
A throat cleared somewhere behind me as I flicked through the data logs Elias slid into my hands.
“Yes, Dr. Ransom?”
My head snapped up. What the hell was he doing here? Oh, I forgot to mention…
The actual worst part about living through the end of the world was that apparently my asshole father had too.
I turned to find Adam standing between my colleagues, looking older than ever. His beard was gray and scraggly, and he’d finally given up on keeping a full head of hair. He folded his arms across his chest. “I am wondering if it is possible to utilize SOL’s satellite array?”
“Why is he here?” I whispered to Elias.
“There was another asteroid hit.”
Oh. Shit.
“This time, Station Eight.”
“Fuck.” I must’ve missed a lot in the twelve hours I spent tossing and turning in my bunk. “How bad?”
“We lucked out. Big time. They had to redistribute personnel across stations. Botanists are already clearing space in storage and supply rooms.”
That explained the woman carrying plant clippings past us.
“Your dad briefed everyone before you arrived. They’re pushing for a permanent solution. We can’t keep getting hit.”
By permanent solution, he meant: a new planet.
“We need return probability models,” Elias said, already scrolling through the data. “This isn’t just about the bunker. Look—” He flipped the tablet toward me. “Oxygen levels are rising and stabilizing. If we could clean the air of ARS-7…” he trailed off.
“We could go home,” I finished.
Commander Zhang excused the room, but Adam managed to linger, cornering me off at the door. He smiled, opening his arms as if expecting me to give him a hug but managed not to look disappointed when I stopped short.
“Haven’t been sleeping well?” he asked. “Nightmares?”
“Something like that,” I muttered. I wasn’t sure nightmares was the proper word, not when the dreams were the best moments of my life.
Not when I dreamt of Solace’s head on my bare chest, our bodies tangled together.
Calling it a dream felt wrong, because there was nothing restful about it. Sometimes waking up was actual torture.
Adam nodded slowly, as if he understood. “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly, stepping past him. “It’s nothing.”