Final Days: Colony Read online

  She found her room as she’d left it. Much like her townhouse and office at work, her quarters on Eden were devoid of anything personal. A uniform that she’d washed and folded sat on the nightstand beside her bed. For the first time since this had all transpired, she wished for a photo of her parents to stick on the wall. She had nothing to remember them by, only her fading memory. When had she last seen them? She tried to picture her father, but couldn’t quite piece it together. Were his eyes brown?

  She pushed away the pain, and tried to remember she had things to be grateful for, too. Like being alive, and miraculously finding her sibling amidst the chaos. Her sister would be there for her, she knew it. If there was ever a choice between her and Hound, Carrie would favor her flesh and blood.

  Kendra touched the uniform, wishing she had darker clothing. She wondered if they gave the passengers the bright white color by design. It sure would cause them to stick out like a sore thumb on cameras and in the dim halls. She had no choice but to keep wearing hers, unless she wanted to sneak around naked.

  Kendra checked the time, and saw she was a minute late. She left her room, assuming it wouldn’t set off any triggers with the ship’s systems. There was no confirmation of what actions were being tracked, if any. Powering something like this had to encompass a vast amount of resources, and none of them had seen the engine room yet. Carrie had sloughed her queries off about the ship’s drive system, claiming it was far too complex to explain, and that Hound wouldn’t allow anyone but a select few to even view the room.

  Either way, wasting energy on keeping tabs on their comings and goings from the passenger quarters would be fruitless. Especially when they were only using them for a week before heading into cryo.

  The door opened without a sound, and Kendra stepped into the halls. Her boots were new, supplied by Eden, and they were half a size smaller than she preferred. She hadn’t had a chance to really break them in, and she hated that each step felt slightly off and uncomfortable as she moved toward the elevator.

  She saw the guards stationed before the banks of doors, and stayed along the wall, out of their line of sight. Where was Roland? He should already be…

  “Rats! I saw rats!” Roland’s voice carried from near the elevators.

  “What are you going on about, son?” the guard asked. Kendra peeked around the corner to see the man staring at Roland.

  “Rats, in my room. See, one of them bit me!” he shouted, dramatically jabbing his hand toward the guard.

  “What do you want me to do about it?” The guard stepped away from the frantic Roland.

  Come on, Roland, sell it.

  “You have to help me. It’s unsafe in there. Come on, everyone’s in bed. I can’t go in there with that evil rodent lurking in the shadows, I simply can’t!” Roland might have been overselling it, but the guard took the bait.

  “Fine. Which room’s yours?” he asked gruffly, and Kendra waited until they’d walked in the other direction before racing over to the elevators. She pressed up, and paused for the chime. The door sprang open, and she rushed inside, repeating Carrie’s access code she’d memorized.

  Four. Seven. Nine. Five. Two.

  She keyed the five digits into the pad, and chose the main level of the four-story cryo facility. The elevator began to rise, and so did Kendra’s heart rate, climbing as if in sync with the floors.

  She was prepared to claim ignorance, to pretend she was lost and not feeling well as the doors opened once again. She clutched her stomach and groaned, blinking her eyes open when no one called out in alarm.

  She was alone in the foyer, and the lights were dim. Carrie had told her the ship was charging with solar panels, harnessing the sun’s energy. It hadn’t been able to power up while under water, and that was the reason for the one-week delay.

  Kendra found the entrance and re-entered the code. It blinked green, allowing her access.

  The room looked the same as it had the day before, but the main lights were off. Each pod had accent lights, which illuminated the space enough to navigate through. The room was almost vibrating with electricity as she walked forward; the sound of her boots’ friction against the floor stung her ears.

  There were numerous rows of pods, each with the rotating contraptions to load and unload the passengers. She walked between the aisles, searching for any indication of a body inside one of them. They all appeared empty to her untrained eye. If one of them was occupied, the cryopod would likely have different characteristics than the others, especially if it was activated.

  She made it to the last row, the tension in her neck triggering a headache as she slowly walked the distance of the pods. That was it. There was nothing here, at least…

  A blinking blue light caught her eye from the top right corner of the very last row. She peered up at it, and saw the cryopod wasn’t dark like the others. There had to be something inside, or someone.

  Was it the woman who’d visited Andrew? The same one Valeria had overheard Hound discussing? She needed to find out. She found the controls that would bring the pods down, ready to operate them when she heard a footstep behind her.

  The voice carried to her before she was able to turn around completely.

  “Look what we have here,” Keller said, a gun gripped in a gloved hand.

  Kendra was exposed, and she coughed, feeling fate’s ugly hand twisting around her throat. She’d nearly been killed a few times over the last week, but at least she’d learned what had happened. She’d solved the case, her last case, and found the abductees. She’d also reunited with her sister, and she could rest easy knowing that.

  “Hound said no visitors,” Keller said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was… looking for Carrie,” she said.

  “Why would you search here?” Eric Keller stepped forward, and she saw the bags under his eyes, the bloodshot lines dancing across the whites.

  “We were here yesterday, and I thought…”

  His gun stayed up, but surprise crossed his face. “You were in here? Yesterday?”

  She nodded. “We were…”

  “Hound said no one was to do a tour.” Keller frowned.

  The doors opened behind them, and Kendra saw Carrie arrive, a hint of shock in her eyes. She recovered quickly, and spoke without hesitation. “Kendra, thanks for meeting with me.” She turned to glare at Eric Keller, and rushed between her sister and the gun. “Eric, put that away!”

  Kendra’s heart was in her throat as Keller’s gun strayed to Carrie instead of her.

  “You were meeting her in the cryogenics facility?” Eric’s words were tense, clipped.

  “I needed to speak with my sister about something personal. Eric, Hound owes me this, after ripping me from my family at such a young age. Don’t you see that?” Carrie’s words were filled with passion, and Keller lowered his weapon.

  Kendra thought she witnessed a moment of softness in Eric’s hard stare, but it passed in a flash.

  “Carrie, let’s not make this a habit. And you…” He pointed over Carrie’s shoulder at Kendra. “I’ll be watching you.”

  Carrie didn’t back down. She stepped closer to Keller, fire burning in her eyes. “Eric, you do remember I’ve been by Lewis’s side longer than you, right? I was there when he hired you, even suggested he needed a strong arm like yours on his team.”

  “What does…”

  “Stop. Just stop. We’re on the same team here.” Carrie pointed to Keller, then to Kendra, and back to herself. “All of us. So stop treating them like you’re the leader, and they might actually follow you. It’s been difficult enough on everyone.”

  To Kendra’s surprise, Keller closed his mouth and gave a brief nod. His glance met Kendra’s before breaking away as his gun returned to his holster.

  He left the two of them alone in the room, and Carrie’s eyes filled with tears. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  “I needed to confirm my suspicion,” Kendra told her sister, her hands still
shaking at the incident.

  “Which is?” Carrie asked.

  “You’re too deep in this muck to get out. Tell me the truth,” Kendra said.

  “About what?”

  “Are we truly safe?” Kendra asked.

  “We have no choice here, little sister. Keep your nose clean, because I won’t always be able to protect you,” Carrie told her.

  Kendra wanted to be honest with her sister, to ask about the occupied cryopod, but a warning bell went off in her head. She couldn’t, not yet. She stole one last glance at the pod, wishing she had a better angle.

  Carrie led her from the cryo chamber, and Kendra had more questions than ever.

  She kept them to herself.

  TEN

  Andrew

  Breakfast was quiet. Carrie was there, so Andrew didn’t dare to ask Kendra anything about what she might have found. But then Carrie excused herself, as usual, and his cheeks bulged with the first of many questions.

  But Kendra spoke before he could. “Why don’t we go spend some time in the rec hall for a while?”

  “Don’t we have to get to work?” Andrew asked.

  “Weren’t you listening to what my sister said?” she replied.

  He shook his head. He’d been minding his own business as much as possible.

  “It’s Sunday. We have the day off.”

  “Sunday?” Andrew echoed, slowly shaking his head. He’d lost track of time aboard Eden.

  “Finally!” Val said. “Someone else has to do the dishes.”

  Tony laughed at that. Roland offered a tight smile before going back to his food. Something had definitely happened last night. Had Kendra found a way into the cryo rooms? He was tempted to ask about it now, but he had the feeling that she was suggesting they meet in the rec hall for a reason. Fewer blue suits around to overhear their conversation.

  “Well, I’m done,” Andrew said, glancing around the table. Val and Tony were done eating as well. Only Roland was still picking through his food.

  “Let’s go,” Kendra replied.

  Roland looked up quickly, nodded, and then everyone rose as one, taking their trays with them and scraping them off into the garbage chute on the way out.

  Kendra led the way to the elevators, and then selected the rec hall from the touchscreen inside the elevator. Again, Andrew was tempted to ask questions, but he noticed the glaring eye of a security camera in one corner of the elevator and decided against it.

  The rec hall was relatively busy, and almost as noisy as the mess had been, but there were no blue suits around. They probably used their own recreation areas. Andrew’s gaze skipped around, taking in a pool table, an air hockey table, foosball... ping pong. All of those tables were already occupied with players.

  Kendra led them over to an abandoned corner of the room, separated by floor-to-ceiling room dividers. Andrew spotted a pair of empty couches and two chairs alongside an abandoned bar counter. It was too early for anyone to be drinking. A matching nook with bookshelves stood opposite the bar; it was already occupied by Reverend Morris and at least twenty others. They were spilling out of the couches and sitting cross-legged on the floor, while the reverend stood by the bookshelves making grand, sweeping gestures with her hands and speaking in a strident voice that rose and fell with dramatic pauses.

  Andrew looked away with a scowl, his attention back on the space that Kendra had led them to. His gaze lingered on the empty bar, taking in colorful glass bottles clipped to racks.

  Val grabbed his arm and pulled him toward one of the couches. He dragged his eyes away with an effort, and sat beside Val and Tony on the couch. Kendra and Roland took the couch opposite theirs, and Kendra leaned across the gap, speaking in a low voice that no one would be able to hear over the reverend’s preaching and the games in progress on the other side of the room partitions.

  “I had an interrupted sleep last night,” Kendra said.

  Andrew frowned and shook his head. This was what she’d dragged them all here to say?

  “Nightmares,” Kendra added. “I was back in the cryo room, remembering the tour. Eric was there. Then Carrie.” She sighed.

  “Oh yeah? That must have been awkward…” Andrew said, catching on.

  “It was.”

  “What did they have to say?”

  “Not much. I didn’t learn anything new. But I did notice that one of the cryo pods was lit up. I was going to check it out, but that was when Eric showed up.”

  “Creepy,” Val said.

  Kendra put on half a smile. “Well, it was just a dream. How did you guys sleep?”

  Before any of them could reply, Reverend Morris’s voice boomed out from the other corner of the rec hall. “Lewis Hound is the second coming of Christ, and New Earth is where he will establish his kingdom!”

  Heads bobbed, and a scattering of amens reached their ears.

  “New Earth?” Roland muttered. “I thought we were going to Proxima b. They could at least try to be more creative than that.”

  “New Earth is in the Bible,” Tony said, glancing warily over his shoulder at the reverend’s cult. “But Shelley is twisting everything up. I can’t believe I used to go to her church.”

  “Figures,” Val said.

  “What does?” Tony asked, sounding offended.

  “That you were a Sunday-school brat.” She added that with a wink, and he smiled.

  Andrew was pressing a hand to his forehead, grasping for a vague memory. “Would you two shut up for a second!”

  Silence rang clear as a bell. All eyes turned to him. “Are you okay, Andrew?” Kendra whispered.

  “Yeah. Fine. Just...” He looked to Roland. “Say that part about Proxima again.”

  “That they should come up with a more creative name for it?”

  “No, that you thought we were headed for Proxima.”

  “Uhh... I thought we were—”

  “That’s it!” Andrew said, cutting him off with a wave of his hand. “That’s what that woman said to me when she came to my room.”

  Kendra glanced around furtively; then her eyes flicked up to the ceiling, as if to suggest that there could be someone watching or listening.

  He dropped his voice to the lowest possible whisper, and leaned across the gap between the couches to meet Kendra in the middle. “She said that we’re not going to Proxima Centauri.”

  Kendra’s brow furrowed, and everyone traded confused looks with each other.

  Val was the first to speak. “So where are we going?”

  “She didn’t get a chance to tell me.”

  Roland scratched his jaw through his patchy beard. “That makes no sense. The next nearest star system is Barnard’s Star, and we don’t even know if it has any planets.”

  Andrew puzzled over that for a moment. “Okay, let’s assume she was telling the truth. Then what? Why not just tell us where we’re actually going? Why pretend like the destination is Proxima if we’re really going somewhere else?”

  Kendra was glancing at the ceiling again, frowning unhappily at how conspicuous their conversation had suddenly become. Hopefully the reverend’s preaching would drown out their whispers if anyone was actually listening in.

  She met Andrew’s gaze once more. “Maybe they’re lying about it because we wouldn’t like the real destination.”

  Andrew didn’t buy that. “At this point, how would we know any better? One star is just as good as another, as far as we’re concerned. They’re all unexplored, right?”

  Roland nodded. “So maybe the real destination is farther away than we think it is, and Hound doesn’t want to scare us. Maybe we’re going to be in cryo for a lot longer than seventy-three years.”

  “Shit,” Andrew muttered.

  “What if we don’t wake up?” Val asked, her eyes wide.

  “We will,” Tony insisted, grabbing her hand in both of his.

  Andrew pretended not to notice.

  Kendra replied, “Whatever the reason, we need to keep our eyes open.�
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  Val nodded along with that. “This all sounds shady as hell.”

  “Or heaven, if you believe the reverend over there,” Andrew added, jerking his chin in her direction.

  “I hate to say it,” Tony put in, “but I really hope she’s right.”

  Andrew snorted. “Keep dreaming, kid.”

  ELEVEN

  Roland

  It could have been a cafeteria anywhere in the world. Half of the banks of the recessed light fixtures were off, and Roland liked it this way. He’d rarely used lights at home in his grandmother’s house. He preferred the blinds drawn, and the glare of his multiple monitors as the only source of ambient light in the workspace.

  This cafeteria was really their mess hall, and Roland mopped the floors with a dull sense of satisfaction. He’d never held a real job, so this was all new to him. The chairs were flipped up on mechanical arms that bolted them in place, allowing them to rest on the tables. Dinner had ended a while ago, and there was no one here except for him.

  He wished he could stream music with earbuds to pass the time, but they didn’t offer anything enjoyable to the workers. He decided to ask someone about that. There was no way they’d abandoned Earth without taking a hard drive full of music and movies, was there?

  Centuries of masterpieces from Bach, Beethoven, and Vivaldi would be lost for eternity. Roland refused to believe that Lewis Hound, a billionaire with eclectic taste, could have allowed that to happen. What if Roland didn’t watch another movie in his life? He considered this as he swung the mop side to side, covering the entire floor, making sure to not miss a spot.

  No more video games, no more dubstep, no more classic science fiction movies. Roland tried to convince himself this was a good thing. He’d been so far out of his comfort zone since that countdown had been sent to him by PiedPiper27 that he wasn’t certain who he really was any longer. He wasn’t the same reclusive, patchy-bearded man-boy now. He had friends. He’d infiltrated the only Ark ship ever created right before the world ended around them.