Where Have All The People Gone?
Once they get the Hydrogen Cells on board and connected the onboard computer tells Alex that it has enough power now to back up and charge its other batteries.
It takes almost two days to charge the batteries, enough time for Alex and Sara to find all that the base had to offer and then some.
They grabbed extra computer parts listed by the MIC 101 as well as all foods that were still good.
They found their own clothes and changed into them. Sara says, “They’re more comfortable.”
Alex thinks it’s because they showed too much of her figure, something he noticed she let him see less and less of.
The motorhome is fully powered. Alex and Sara get into it and are ready to leave when it occurs to Alex that he hadn’t scanned outside of the main doors.
“Computer, MIC, scans outside these walls and let us knows if we can drive through and what the weather is like.”
One could hear the dish on the roof of the motorhome moving and buzzing as it does and then, “All is clear. Winds are in excess of 60 kilometers per hour and the temperature 14 Degrees Celsius.”
Alex looks at Sara and asks, “Isn’t it midsummer?”
Sara, “Computer, what month is it?”
“It is the month of July.”
Sara, “Are there any life signs outside?”
“Negative.”
Alex, “Is there any plant life within your scanner range?”
“Negative.”
Alex, “Can you gain access to any satellites?”
“Not inside the mountain.”
Sara, “Can you open and close the main doors?”
“Yes I can. Would you like me to open them now?”
Sara looks at Alex and he looks just as unsure as she does.
Alex, “Computer, do the winds ever slow down?”
“According to long range scans it appears this is the normal wind speed for this area. Until I am able to get outside, I am unable to do a complete and thorough scan.”
Sara, “Computer, what are the O2 readings outside? Is it life as we know it?”
“Analysis shows that life would not be able to survive long, with the current air supply.”
Alex, “You are a self contained unit, correct?”
“I can support life almost indefinitely.”
Alex, “Open the doors and let’s get out of here.”
Sara, “Are you sure?”
“Do you want to stay in here for the rest of our lives?”
She looks at him sighs and says, “no…”
“Computer …”
“Doors are beginning to open, sir.”
As they begin to rise, in rushes the wind and the sand, covering everything inside. The doors reach their safe distance and the motor home starts moving, on its own, out the door.
Alex and Sara both sit back and watch as they exit the mountain. They see very little ahead of them due to the sand storm currently blowing around them.
Alex looks in the rear view mirror and sees that they are now outside of the mountain and can still make out the doors as they close. They disappear as they then turn into the side of the mountain.
The vehicle stops.
Alex, “Computer, is there something wrong?”
“Negative.”
Alex, “Why have we stopped?”
“You said move outside of the mountain. You haven’t set a course.”
Alex smiles, and then says, “Can you find any satellites?”
“One moment. This may take some time.”
They sit listening to the wind against the side of the vehicle, as it whistles by. They both just spend time looking to see if they can find anything that remotely looks familiar to themselves and yet see nothing.
The computer breaks the silence when it says, “I have located two satellites in range. Both units are working. Both units need commands to gain access.”
“Computer, can you bypass any of their safe guards?”
“I will try.”
Sara, “What do you think you are going to gain by getting connected to those satellites?”
Alex, “I hope to see if there are any areas of green left on Earth.”
Sara, “Oh, What if you don’t, what then?”
“Let’s just see if the computer can connect to one of those satellites first, then we’ll talk about the other.”
They both sit waiting, a few minutes goes by and Sara says, “This isn’t going to work, that computer isn’t going to get anywhere with those satellites.”
She no sooner finishes her sentence when.
“I have connected with both satellites. I can get you information on most of the North American continent.”
Alex, “Can they locate any areas of new growth, green growth, or human life.”
“I am checking,” a few minutes goes by and the computer says, “There is an area of green growth north east of your current location, as for human life signs, I see none.”
Alex, “How far, to the new growth?”
“Approximately 403 kilometers, by aircraft.”
Alex, “How far is it by land?”
“The terrain varies. It would depend on which route you wish to take.”
“Can you show me a geographical map?”
On the screen appears the land mass, showing where they are and the green vegetation.
Alex begins to study it when he notices something odd about. “Computer, this doesn’t look like North America. Are you sure you are showing me the right map?”
“This is a live feed from one of the satellites.”
Alex looks again and notices the entire west coast was altered. There was no sign of Vancouver Island or the peninsula off of the west coast.
He studied it even closer and realizes that almost the entire west coast of the United States was missing.
He says aloud, “It’s all gone, the whole west coast is gone.”
Sara, “What do you mean it’s gone?”
Not realizing he had said it aloud says, “What, are you talking about?”
Sara, “You said that the west coast is gone.”
Alex, now not sure how to say this to her says, “Come here. I have something to show you.”
Sara moves over next to him and then Alex asks, “Computer, can you bring up an old map of North America, on the same screen and overlap it onto this one?”
“How old would you like it?”
“About 400 years ago.”
Up pops another map and one can now see more clearly just how much of the west coast is missing.
Sara begins to cry.
Alex, “Something big must have happened. I’m not sure what but it must have been big to cause that to have happened.”
Sara, “What could have caused it?”
Alex, “That’s a very good question maybe we can find out. Computer, do you or these satellites have any information on just what happened, to cause this?”
“My logs state nothing of this. I will check with the two satellites.”
A few minutes pass and the computer comes back and says, “I have been able to retrieve the recordings for the past three hundred and fifty years, from one of the satellites. There is a lot of information to land mass changes over the last 350 years.”
Alex, “Can you break it down into a short story. Say about 30 minutes?”
There is some silence for awhile and then the computer says, “Here is a short narrated version of what has been happening the past 350 years.”
On the screen appears North America, the way it was 350 years ago. Then suddenly the earth shakes and water appears out of nowhere all over the west and east coasts and inland. Then the west coast begins to sink, throwing massive amounts of dirt up into the upper atmosphere, also one can see masses of dirt or plumes of ash blow-up into the air. Soon the entire planet, or what they could see of it, was covered with dust and ash.
They watch as the year and month indicator in the corner of the screen ticks by the years like seconds on a clock. The earth is hidden from their view for almost 75 years. Once they can clearly see it again, it is covered with ice.
From the far north to the far south, nothing but ice can be seen. Then just as suddenly as the dirt had filled the sky, the ice begins to melt and pulls back to reveal a dead, new world, where there was once life and now there is none.
As the ice creeps back further and further one can begin to make out small patches of green and then they begin growing bigger and then stops.
Alex, “Computer, is that it?”
“That is all that the satellites logs contain.”
“Could you slow the beginning down to about ten times that of normal speed and just show up to where the earth is covered with dirt in the upper atmosphere?”
On the screen appears the old world, one can make out the cities and roadways. Then the earth shakes and shakes again and again and water appears to swallow the east and west coasts, then it subsides and suddenly the earth begins to shake again, but this time the west coast sinks into the ocean.
This time however Alex notices rings of dirt appearing in the upper atmosphere, before the west coast sinks and then more after it sinks.
Alex, “Okay, that’s enough, computer. Bring back the current map and I’ll let you know when I am ready. Once I program the location into your system, can you head in that direction?”
“Yes sir, I can drive there with very little assistance.”
Alex sits down in front of a screen and starts to study the map.
A few hours go by and Sara makes them something to eat, out of the packets that they had found.
“Alex, you’ve got to eat.”
“Alex looks at her and says, “Thank you, Sara.” He continues to watch her as she walks away and then asks, “Sara, what if we are the only two human beings left alive on Earth?”
Sara turns and looks at Alex then answers him, “I’ve been thinking about that for some time now. I still don’t know how to answer that. But I can say I feel we’ve been robbed, taken away from us the life we’ve always known. To be left here alone, I don’t know, I just don’t know.” She turns and walks back over to where she had been sitting and sits back down and continues eating her meal, as she is caught up in her own thoughts.
Alex turns and pretends to be studying the map when he is trying to think of something to say to her, but is unable to think of a single thing.
After careful study Alex comes up with a way, “Computer, this is the way I think best suits us, please confirm.”
Alex uses a stick that looks like a pencil and draws out the route he thinks would be the fastest.
The computer goes over it and comes back with a few changes, “There are a few things in the way that may slow us down so I have made another suggestion that only adds on two more days.”
Alex, “How long do you estimate it’ll take us to get to that location?”
“It will take approximately 69 days.”
Sara, “And what will we find when we get there?”
“Trees and other vegetation.”
Sara, “Then why are we going there?” She begins to cry.
Alex, “Because we need some place to grow new food stuffs and I hope that there’ll be air there that we can breathe.”
Sara sits back down and says nothing more for the rest of the day.
They spend the next week saying very little to one another, the whole time Alex worrying about his friend, wondering if she is going to be able to deal with all that has happened.
They are on the road for about 19 days and find themselves approaching an old city, so Alex decides to go in and see if he can find more information on what happened to change earth into what it is today.
Alex, “Computer, how is the air in this area. Is it breathable?”
“The air is very thin here. You will need to use an added air supply to assist you in breathing.”
“Sara, are you going to be alright?”
“What do you mean, I’m going with you.”
Alex decides not to argue with her, but rather helps her with her air supply.
They both walk into the air lock together and close the door behind themselves and then open the outside door.
Alex leads the way into the old city and is soon able to find the local newspaper building.
They walk into the building looking for something that will tell them what happened.
They search for about an hour and are about to give up when Alex finds on the third floor a room that processes recording and pictures.
Alex finds a few recording disks and video crystals that seemed to be the last recording that this paper ever made.
They take them back to the motor home to review them.
Alex sits himself down in front of the viewer and places the crystal in the optical player and presses play.
There is some static at first and then a picture appears with a man standing in a dark setting.
“Are we on? My name is unimportant, I’m just hoping that someday someone will find this recording and know what happened to mankind. Why we died off or almost died off.”
“It has been three months now and the atmosphere isn’t clearing. It grows colder by the day. Soon our power supply will run out and we will all parish from the cold. I only hope that mankind survives this cataclysm and learns from his mistakes.”
“The world is dieing and we’re not sure how much longer this dust cloud will remain, blocking out the sun.”
“People with breathing problems, were the first to go. The dust in the air and the oxygen depleting made it impossible for them to breathe.”
“We never saw it coming, until it was too late. An asteroid as big as Mount Saint Helens, hit just off the coast of India. It sent waves of fire clean across Asia, Europe and Africa. They didn’t even know what hit them, lucky bastards.”
“It sent up tons of dirt into the upper atmosphere and caused massive earthquakes, all over the world. Then both of the coasts were hit with tidal waves, they swept their way inland for miles and to make things worse the volcanoes all on the west coast and in our great park blow up even more dust and gas, went into the upper atmosphere.”
“We thought it was all over, and then the west coast gave way and threw tons more into the upper atmosphere, but not before triggering almost every volcano in the world to erupt.”
“Now the air grows thin and it gets harder and harder to breathe outside. Soon it will be impossible to breathe even inside. But I fear the cold will likely kill us all before that happens.”
“Earth is all but dead. Every living creature is dead, all but a few humans to stubborn to lie down. I only hope that someone will find these recordings and understand them and most importantly, learn, learn from our mistakes. Don’t take mother Earth for granted, she kicks back and kicks back hard.”
The recording ends and there is nothing more said. They now knew what had happened and that they may be the last two human beings alive.
“That can’t be, no way. That just can’t be,” exclaims Sara.
“Sara, you’ve got to calm down. You’re going to have to adjust, you’ve got to let it go.”
“LET GO!” “LET GO!” she breaks down and begins crying and falls to her knees and then to the floor.
Alex stands up and begins to walk toward her and then stops, not knowing what to do he approaches her hesitantly, Alex reaches down to try and comfort her.
She pulls away, so Alex tries again and this time she doesn’t, instead she reaches out and grabs Alex in a hug, then continues to cry even harder than before.