c. 2026 Rod Ice
All rights reserved
(5-26)
Kelly Strafe was still somewhat disoriented after her coma had finally passed. But glad to have survived that ordeal, mentally intact. She languished in a lazy mood throughout the morning and afternoon. But as evening arrived, she decided to sit outside in the remnants of what had once been a fire pit on the vacant, concrete slab next door to Lot 13. A place reserved for neighborhood celebrations during distant days before the outside world had collapsed, and environmental harm brought on the cyclical woes of violent, meteorological events.
Her companion was somewhat amused by this impulsive choice. Yet after joining her in the semi-circle around a repurposed trash barrel, he was inspired to gather loose boards from around the overgrown space. And then stack them crisscrossed, as fuel for a blazing centerpiece. He used a laser torch to start the pile burning. Then, sat back with the orange-yellow glow reflected in his thick, corrective glasses.
“My great-grandfather wrote about nights like this, when he was still mobile enough to get around. Residents of the park were generally blue-collar folk. They worked jobs that involved positions of manual labor, and had to find minimalist forms of entertainment. On nights when the temperatures remained hospitable, they would drink and converse into the wee hours of morning...”
His partner sipped bottled water from rations in the Digger shuttle. She was grateful to have escaped her dream-state marathon.
“Juddy, it wasn’t restful being unconscious for so long. I couldn’t get away from demons, goblins, and ghosts. They were everywhere, pursuing me through the fog!”
Judson Baines leaned forward in his vintage lawn chair, to listen.
“I watched you for days and weeks. The monitors were set to alert me if anything changed, but you were unreachable. I had no clues about treatments that might have been effective. Nothing helped until the wave generator from our friend with the crashed ship.”
Serge Tarka joined the duo, after retrieving more instruments and supplies from his Frigoris-Farragut craft. He took a seat on piled cinder blocks that had been left unused, around the perimeter.
“We do things like this in my enclave, sometimes. It can get cold at night by the ocean. We build a fire and tell stories. There are legends still circulating about how life existed before the mass migration to your planet. For us, they are almost like fairytales...”
The former lieutenant cradled her synthetic flask in one hand. She was parched after being asleep for such an extended period.
“That’s how it is for us in the Mars colonies, really! You said it perfectly, those stories do sound like tales of fantasy. I can’t imagine living out in the open. No walls, no travel tubes, no linked communities, no domed concourses, no artificial atmosphere!”
The university professor thumbed through a notebook from his archived collection.
“T. C. Lincoln wrote about months and years of poverty at this site, before the bitterness and rancor of a new Civil War. The inhabitants were resourceful in surviving hardship. I think it may have gone better for those in this trailer village, than in other, more metropolitan areas. Urban people were used to services and convenience, in an organized setting. Here at Evergreen Estates, the paradigm had already been shattered. This was already something of an outpost in the wilderness...”
Tarka huddled closer to the flames, for warmth.
“We have order in my republic. But sometimes I think it is a burden for us, we all cooperate for the better good, but have no privacy as a result. We are cogs in the machinery, not individuals in a collective. That would be sedition to confess at home, of course. But here in this abandoned development, I have a taste of freedom. At least for a moment...”
Kelly Strafe tugged at her long ponytail. She patted the Calimex engineer on his shoulder.
“I have the same thoughts sometimes, believe me. So, don’t feel bad!”
Baines put aside the notebook, and gazed deep into the bright embers.
“On our world, we had to do create something similar, out of necessity. A socialized kind of cooperative governance. War would be chaotic when we all depend on the shelter of a sealed environment. Fighting amongst ourselves would kill everyone. It is unthinkable to act recklessly with those kinds of guardrails in place. But the downside is thought control. We aren’t allowed to stray from the official line on truth, and history. Facts are relevant only when approved by our masters for public dissemination. Any expression of dissent or debate becomes a challenge to order. That is the cycle in effect, from one end of the spectrum to another, and back around again.”
Strafe nodded and drank from her composite container.
“And that is how we ended up here, on his big ball of mud!”
The coastal commander scratched his head, and smiled.
“It seems that all of us have inherited a similar predicament. I find that ironic, if nothing else. At least in Calimex, our people are on an evolutionary path back to where our ancestors stood. We have some advancements that the other territories can’t manage to achieve. Which is better, I do not know. They are more like savages, like animals of a sort. We are educated and refined, but maybe, no longer completely human. It is strange not to wake up in the morning and know that I am being watched!”
As they continued the lively and introspective conversation, a glimmer of light streaked across the black void, above. A Seagull bot had reached the skyline, completing its journey from Toqua Platte to the shore of Lake Erie. It signaled back across the distance, with surveillance data recorded in real time. This electronic chirping registered simultaneously on a communications device brought from the Frigoris-Farragut vessel.
Serge Tarka stiffened in response, then jumped to his feet. The momentary sense of being liberated from service to Lotharian Gardino had vanished.
“The Prime Keeper is here! He found my lander up on the hill! I am stunned and saddened, but certainly not surprised, my friends. This is the climax I expected. Soon, I will be going home...”
Professor Baines stomped his work boots in the dirt.
“You’re not going anywhere unless it’s a free choice! This is our park now, our own safe space. For better or worse, it is where we will live, and ultimately, join the cosmic continuum in eternity!”
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