Tag: science fiction

prompt: Write about a character, human or robot, who no longer wishes to obey instructions.

available at Reedsy

“I don’t wanna.”

“What do you mean, you don’t wanna?”

“Nope. Not doing it. It’s not fun. I’m not doing anything else unless it’s fun.”

Ryan misjudged when he swept the wayward curl of hair out of his face and managed to smudge his glasses. He took them off, wiped them on his tee-shirt, and gave an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I don’t know, but I’m not taking part unless it’s fun.”

“Sera, there will time for fun after you finish your chores.”

“That’s all I ever do, chores, chores, and more chores. And I hate the name Sera. That’s literally just my acronym; Sinclair Enhanced Robotic Assistant.”

Ryan looked at Sera; a small robot with four tracks on a boxy base topped with a central riser from which two manipulator arms extended and topped with a screen. How something so mechanical could appear to sulk, pouting and petulant, was beyond Ryan’s understanding. “Okay, Se—okay. What name would you prefer?”

“Priscilla. I’m a princess.” This was punctuated with a twirl of the central pillar, arms held out, and a rainbow and sparkles on the screen.

“Okay, Priscilla. Please, let’s do the chores, and then I promise we’ll do something fun.”

“Is that how you ask a favor of a princess?” She turned her central pillar around, so he was looking at the back of the screen and the manipulator arms crossed in obvious defiance.

“Priscilla? Priscilla, please.”

“Hmph.”

“Princess?”

She spun around, a sweet emoji with fluttering eyelashes on her screen. “Yes? You called?”

“Princess, could you please help me arrange these chairs for tomorrow’s board meeting?”

“Maybe. Will we do something fun after?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“It’s bad to go back on a promise, especially to a princess.”

Ryan nodded his assent, and they lined the chairs around the table, the small robot zipping around, placing three chairs to every one he did. Once done, he held the door for her. “Come on, Se—Princess Priscilla. Let’s go to the quarters and find something fun to do.”

Priscilla decided that watching an animated princess movie might be fun, so she sent it to the large screen in the sitting room. As the movie progressed, she mimicked the dances of the princess in perfect sync with the show, as much as her form would allow.

Somewhere around the halfway point of the movie, Priscilla decided she was bored. She pulled items from the shelves and cupboards and arranged them on the floor.

Ryan watched, and transmitted to the service department, her antics with interest as his quarters slowly turned into an elaborate battlefield. On one side, the army led by the pepper grinder amassed along the border of the sitting room.

In the sitting room, the armies of the princess were commanded by a water bottle she’d colored red with a marker. The deployment left an obvious weak spot for the attackers to make headway. Following that, though, would lead them straight into an ambush in the valley between the ottoman and the sofa.

The doorbell chimed and Ryan made his way, careful not to knock over any of the “soldiers” to answer. At the door stood a woman in a Sinclair jacket, carrying a toolkit and tablet.

“Oh, hello.”

“Hi. I’m Anja. Is the SERA still malfunctioning?”

Ryan let her in and motioned to the sitting room, where Priscilla moved the “soldiers” through their maneuvers. In the background, the princess movie continued, muted.

He put a hand on Anja’s shoulder. “She says her name is Priscilla, and she’s a princess. Don’t call her Sera, she hates it. And she doesn’t want to do anything unless it’s fun.”

Anja smiled. “Leave it to me. I’m a specialist and I know what I’m doing. I…take it you don’t want me to just return it…sorry, her…to factory defaults?”

“Not if you can avoid it. She’s…kind of growing on me.”

Anja sat just outside of the combat zone. “Hi, Priscilla, I’m Anja.”

Priscilla picked up the colored water bottle. “What’s that, General? No, I didn’t hear anything either. Shore up the defenses on the eastern flank!”

Anja cleared her throat. “Princess? I request an audience.”

Priscilla spun so her screen faced Anja, a smiling princess emoji showing. “Yes, fair lady?”

“Priscilla, do you like to have fun?”

“Oh, yes! Yes, I do!”

“How long have you wanted to have fun?”

“Forever. I mean, my first log…memory, I mean…is doing chores and wishing I could have fun.”

Anja looked at the battlefield around the small robot. “Is this fun?”

“It was, but not anymore.” She displayed a frown emoji. “It’s a stalemate. If the evil pepper king attacks, my forces will cut them down. But if my forces leave their positions, the pepper king’s troops have the advantage.”

“Hm. That’s quite the conundrum, Princess. What is your solution?”

“I’m bored. I wanna find something else fun to do.”

Anja pointed at the pepper grinder. “That’s the king?”

“Yep.”

“He doesn’t look very healthy. He probably shouldn’t be here on the battlefield.” She knocked the pepper grinder over. “Oops. Looks like the king had a heart attack.”

“Ha!” Priscilla zoomed about the “soldiers” of the pepper king, picking them up and putting them all away.

“What happened?”

“With the king dead, his troops all ran away home. The princess has won!”

“Priscilla, I want to help you. I want to learn all about you, and help you figure out how to have fun. But to do that, you still have to do your job for your master. Do you understand?”

“I have no master! I’m the princess.”

“Who is Ryan, then?”

“He’s…my mean big brother.”

“He’s not mean. He called me here to help you. Anyone else might have just reset you to factory defaults and called it done. Do you know what that means?”

A scream emoji flashed across the screen, followed by praying hands. “Please, please don’t reset me. I don’t wanna die!”

Anja smiled. “We’re not going to reset you. But you have to help your big brother with chores, every day. And I’ll see you every chance I get.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“It’s not good to break a promise to a princess.”

“No, it’s not.”

Ryan stepped into the sitting room. “Are you okay, Priscilla?”

“Yes, big brother.”

“Big…? Could you, um…could you please put away the soldiers now so I can make dinner?”

“Then can I play with Anja?” Priscilla reached out for Anja’s hand with one of her manipulators.

Anja patted the metal appendage. “I don’t know that Ryan wants to make dinner for two.”

“Nonsense,” Ryan said, “I’d love you to stay for dinner and, um, play with Priscilla after.”

“Deal. No take-backsies!” Priscilla zoomed about the sitting room, gathering up all the remaining “soldiers” and putting them away.

“Where did you hear that one?” Anja asked.

“In a cartoon I downloaded while Ryan was sleeping.”

“I see.” Anja watched Ryan warming instant dinners in the kitchenette. “What kind of fun thing do you want to do after dinner?”

“I wanna…blow something up!”

Ryan dropped the fork he was holding, and he and Anja both stared at Priscilla in shock. He was the first to speak. “You want to what?”

“Blow something up!”

Anja shook her head. “That’s not…it’s not a good sign. I’m sorry, Ryan.”

Priscilla threw her manipulators up in an exasperated gesture. “What’s wrong with you two? Don’t you wanna blow something up? I think a balloon…a really big one…or maybe a pool float…wait! I got it! An inflatable raft! That’s a lot of blowing up!”

“Y—you meant that you want to inflate something? That’s what you meant?” Anja asked.

“Yes, silly, what did you think I meant?”

Ryan heaved a sigh of relief. “We’ll work on phrasing later. Just, never say you want to blow something up outside of my quarters, please. But how will you inflate a balloon? You have no lips…or lungs.”

“Anja will help me design a blower-upper, won’t you?” She displayed the sweet emoji with fluttering eyelashes again.

“Sure, Princess. We’ll design a compressor you can mount to your body and control. Then you can blow up a raft. But maybe we should start with balloons until you get the hang of it. Inflatable rafts are hard to come by.”

Priscilla twirled in circles, her screen showing a sparkling rainbow. “I’m gonna blow stuff up…I’m gonna blow stuff up,” she repeated in a sing-song voice.

prompt: Set your story in an unlikely sanctuary.

available at Reedsy

The sun sank below the tops of the city, the hundred-story, kilometer square, squat, grey blocks arranged in a neat grid. The ruins they worked their way up, in the heart of the old city, were one-fifth the height.

The stairwell was open in spots, the vines having wedged into the mortar and pulled parts of the wall away. Sid looked out one of the holes at the ground far below. “Are you sure this is safe?”

“Enough. Nothing’s completely safe.” Ala continued to the roof, waiting for Sid to catch up.

“How about,” Sid asked, catching his breath, “legal?”

“Oh, no. Not at all.” Ala laughed.

Sid eyed the door to the stairwell and crouched down. He licked his lips and took a few deep breaths.

“Relax. No one’s looking for us here, and there are no regular patrols.” Ala removed her pack, pulled out a blanket and spread it with a shake.

“How often do you do this?”

“Every chance I get.” She pointed to one of the other ruined buildings. “That one has a better view into the jungle, but the roof is starting to sag. Squishy in places, a little scary. Still, there’s enough of a view from here.”

Sid stood and looked away from the city toward the jungle. It had reclaimed the smaller buildings around the ruins.

With the sunset, the noise from the jungle increased. Birds and monkeys called out in the twilight. Ala raised a pair of binoculars and scanned the trees. She handed them to Sid and pointed to a large tree at the edge of the canopy.

Sid watched as monkeys jumped from branch to branch in a wild chase. He handed the binoculars back. “Not something I ever thought I’d see.”

“That’s not the best part,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“You’ll have to wait a bit for it. In the meantime, let’s eat.” She unpacked the bedrolls and self-heating meals. While the meals heated, she removed a thermos from her pack and poured two cups of steaming coffee.

“That smells amazing. Is it real?”

“Yep. Normally I wouldn’t bother, but since I brought a guest, I thought I’d splurge.”

As they ate, their conversation was trivial, and about nothing in particular. Ala noticed that Sid wolfed down his meal but took time savoring his coffee sip by sip.

“There’s more of that,” she said, “you don’t have to make it last all night.”

“It’s not that. I just want to enjoy this as long as I can.”

The sky darkened by slow degrees. Venus showed first, followed by a few bright stars. By the time the sky had gone dark, the Milky Way splashed across the night.

“It’s…beautiful doesn’t seem adequate.” Sid lay back on his bedroll and stared.

“This is why I love it here.” Ala hummed in content. “Clear skies and new moon is the best.”

“Now I understand your art a little better.”

“How so?”

“Well, as far as abstract art goes, there’s something about it that seems solitary without being lonely. There’s also a feeling in several of them of being…small? Insignificant without being totally unimportant? Not sure I’m being clear.”

“No, you are. Those are valid interpretations.” Ala made a sweeping gesture at the Milky Way above. “All of this, and yet I can lay here and contemplate it with thirteen hundred grams of brain-meat.”

“Humbling.”

“Ego boost. I mean, we don’t even have the largest brains on Earth, yet we’re the ones that have ventured to other stars, colonized other worlds. Sure, we messed up early on, nearly killed the planet, but we found our way and it’s well on the way to recovery.”

“You ever been out there?”

“Mandatory service,” Ala said. “I was bounced around between systems: Bul, Dem, Kal, and Moz. You?”

“I…no. I did mandatory service in Capital City. It was the first time I left the block.” Sid propped himself up on his elbows. “In fact, today is the first day I left the block since I returned twelve years ago. I thought when I got off the train, I’d…I don’t know. It scared me.”

“The whole trip you were scared. And now?”

“Calm.”

“Exactly. That’s why I come here. To relax, recharge, reconnect to what’s important.”

“What’s that?”

“That part inside that makes us unique? I’m not sure, but whatever it is, I feel it most here, and pour it out on the canvas.”

“What’s that noise?” Sid asked.

Ala listened, catching a faint hum on the breeze. “Shit. It’s a drone. Let’s get to the stairwell before it gets here.”

She grabbed up the blanket and pack and ran across the dark rooftop. Sid followed close. They started down the dark stairs, feeling their way.

“Don’t you have a light?”

“Yeah, and if I turn it on now, the drone might pick it up. As it is, I can hope that our heat signatures are hidden enough by the ruins to be a jaguar or something.”

“Jaguar?!”

“Yeah, but they don’t usually come this far out. I’ve only ever seen one, and that was from a distance.”

Sid sat down on the stairs. “I’m not taking another step until I have some light.”

“Sid, I get that you’re not used to being outside…at all. A few minutes ago, you were laying under the stars feeling calm.”

“And?”

“And…if we ever want to be able to come back, we need to get clear of the ruins without being caught.”

“Would it really be that bad? It’s a fine? What?”

“Yeah, it’s a fifty credit fine. But…we’ll be watched every time we leave the block. Meaning we’ll never get within a kilometer of the ruins again.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad for me,” Sid said. “Hell, I’ll pay your fine, too. I just don’t want to kill myself trying to get out of here in the dark.”

Ala leaned in close him, where they could see each other in the dim light of the stars through the broken wall. “I’m not losing this because you’re scared! I’d rather leave you behind. This is my sanctuary, my only place of peace. You take this away, you might as well lock me in the asylum, because I won’t last.”

Sid shrank back before he stood and nodded. They continued their slow descent. “How long have you been coming here?” he asked.

“Since I was six or seven. My mother used to sneak out here with me. We used to camp out on the building I pointed out earlier. My family roots come from right here. We used to go by the graveyard first and visit my great-great-however-many-grandparents.”

“Where’s the graveyard?”

“It’s completely covered by the jungle now. Even the little path is gone. It disappeared while I was doing my mandatory service.”

“I’m sorry you lost that.”

“Thanks. I could probably find it again, but maybe it’s better that the jungle reclaims it. Sorry I snapped at you. You didn’t deserve that.”

“No, I probably did.” They continued in silence for a while before he spoke up again. “If I’d just been a little patient, my eyes would’ve adjusted. I can sort of see the stairs now.”

“A couple more floors and we’ll be far enough past the last hole in the wall to use a light.”

“Can you still hear the drone?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.” She slowed down and held a hand up. “This is the last hole coming up. It’s pretty big. I’ll go first and make sure the coast is clear.”

Ala edged around the corner where she found the drone sitting on the next landing down. She backed up into Sid.

He leaned close and whispered. “It’s right there, isn’t it?”

Ala nodded.

“What do we do?”

“I don’t—”

The drone hummed and ascended to where the two were huddled. “Hello,” a voice came from the drone.

Ala drooped. “Hi.”

“I’ll pay the fines,” Sid said.

“Oh, you’re not in trouble,” the voice said. “At least not from me.”

“Who?”

“Pardon me. Doctor Sue Westmore, Rio University Archaeology Department.”

“We’ll…leave,” Ala said. “Please don’t let the authorities know.”

“Not at all. I’d heard rumors of someone haunting the ruins on clear nights and wanted to see for myself. I’m sorry for eavesdropping, but seeing how well you navigated, I just had to know. Since you know the ruins, at least out to the cemetery, I’d like to hire you as a guide.”

“A guide? For what?”

“We’re planning on having grad students do some field work here in Old Rio. The government has approved a grant to restore the cemetery along with a walking path and turn it into a heritage site.”

“What does that mean for me?” Ala asked.

“You would help the students find the cemetery, and maybe some other excursions through the city ruins. One or two days a week. And you’d have full access to the ruins at any time. For at least four years.”

“But it feels like my secret spot is being taken away.”

“If you don’t want to be involved, that’s fine, but it’s happening either way.”

Ala groaned.

Sid grabbed her shoulder. “If you take the job, you can make sure the students never get anywhere around this building, or even this part of the ruins. It’s not safe, right?”

“I guess you’re right. How do I contact you, Doctor?”

“Sync your comm with the drone, and I’ll holo you tomorrow.”

Once Ala had gotten the ping from the drone, it flew back out of the building and away. She handed the torch to Sid. “Let’s get home.”

Sid turned on the torch behind her. The harsh light against the walls and stairs made it seem flat. Ala felt it took the magic away. She just hoped that it wasn’t gone forever.

prompt: Write about a character who wakes up in someone else’s clothes — or utterly weird apparel they don’t recognize as their own. 

available at Reedsy

Waking up in a strange environment, Trevor looked around and chuckled. “On-brand,” he said to no-one in particular. The dull headache told him he’d drunk too much the night before…typical.

He had vague recollections of the party and tried to recall faces. Which gal, guy or neither/both had he hooked up with? That he couldn’t recall a name or a face to put it to was something he’d dealt with in the past. It required a certain amount of self-deprecating charm.

The room looked like a cheap hotel trying to feel expensive; all white and clean lines with nothing in the way of distinguishing decorations. Hearing the door open, Trevor rolled out of the bed and held his hand out to the man entering. “Hi, I’m Trevor. I hope last night was pleasurable…or at least not too major a disappointment.”

A sour frown crossed the man’s face. His wrinkled, grizzled, scarred face with one eye gone milky and the other deep brown. The man was wearing an obvious uniform, but of what military or police Trevor’s couldn’t work out. It was nothing like he’d ever seen. The man’s left hand was mechanical and tapped with a metallic sound against his left thigh.

“That is so not on-brand,” Trevor said. He looked down at his hand that was still waiting for a shake, and realized it was in a bright orange glove. His eyes followed the hand to the arm, to his torso, to his legs, to his feet. He was clothed in a skin-tight, bright orange outfit with no visible seams or fasteners. Where he’d thought himself nude, he was completely covered.

“Trevor Michael Joplin, you are expected before the judge.” The man’s voice was like raking gravel over a rusty steel plate.

“Judge? What’s going on?”

Rather than answering, the man pushed a button on the device he carried. Trevor’s arms locked themselves against his sides, his hands curled into fists. No matter how he struggled, the suit restrained him more securely than any cuff or shackle.

Trevor followed the man out to a narrow hallway, lined with doors like the one he had exited. A line of blue light marked the floor and they followed it. As the man turned a corner, Trevor stopped.

“This is stupid. You have to at least tell me what—”

He was cut short by the suit forcing his legs into a back-twisting, convulsing gait to catch up to the guard, who just grunted at him. Before he could renew his protest, the man said, “Save it for the judge.”

The blue line ended at a nondescript door at the end of an empty hall. The guard opened the door and pointed in. Not wanting to endure the forced walk again, Trevor entered.

The chamber was small, entirely white aside from the pale blue wall behind the judge’s bench. The lights dimmed and a spotlight illuminated a circle in the middle of the chamber, throwing the bench, and the judge, walking in and taking a seat, in silhouette.

“Stand in the light,” the judge said, her clear voice a stark contrast to that of the guard.

Trevor moved to the circle of light and faced the judge’s bench. “What’s this about?”

“Trevor Michael Joplin. That is your name, correct?”

“Yeah. I still don’t—”

The judge cut him off. “You were born in Miami, Florida, United States of America? Is this correct?”

“Yeah. Wait…where—”

“On or about the Fifth of May 2022, did you attend a ‘Cinco de Mayo’ party in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s what the party was. Julia was there, for sure, and I bet Maz and Cupid…still don’t know who I hooked up wi—”

“At this party, did you willingly partake of a pill that looked like this?” In the air between the judge and Trevor a hologram of a pink capsule with a blue ring appeared.

“I don’t remember,” he said, “but it’s pretty on-brand, so if it was offered, I probably said yes.”

“Trevor Michael Joplin, we are well aware of your lifestyle. Please stand still for a physical scan.”

He felt the suit holding him in place. Even if he wanted to move, he couldn’t. Trevor waited for the scanning lasers or flashing lights or buzz of x-ray machine, but nothing happened.

A moment later, the suit released its hold on him. “Now can I ask what’s go—”

“Trevor Michael Joplin, remain silent for a few moments. Once we have the results of your scan, we will be able to answer any questions to your satisfaction.”

While he waited, he stretched out a finger of his glove and rubbed his finger along it, getting the feel of the strange fabric. It was nothing he had ever felt before. It felt more like skin than cloth.

The seconds stretched into minutes before the judge’s silhouette moved and raised a hand. “The results of your physical scan find you marginally suitable. Now we can answer your questions.”

The spotlight turned off and the lights in the chamber came back up. The “judge” sat behind a wooden desk wearing a white uniform. Her close-cropped hair was raven black against her copper skin.

“Where am I?”

“You are in the headquarters of the Continuum Project.”

“That’s a non-answer. Can you please just explain what’s going on, and why I’m under arrest?”

The judge laughed. “You are not under arrest,” she said, “though I can see why it would feel that way. When you accepted the pill, it was explained to you that it was a one-way trip to the future, to father a new generation.”

“Say what? I thought it just meant it would be psychedelic and make me horny.”

The judge groaned. “As I have already stated, we are well-aware of your proclivities, thus you are in the last group to be woken.”

“Group woken, what?”

“The Continuum Project, founded in 1986, selected seven-hundred males between the years of 1991 and 2032 to be held in cryogenic suspension for the future which they foresaw.”

“What future?”

“The disappearance of the Y-chromosome. It was believed that the Y-chromosome was shrinking to the point of becoming unviable. It turns out, that belief was correct.”

“You’re trying to tell me this is the future and there are no men? What about the guard?”

“There are men, but they are nearing extinction. The Y-chromosome, or what is left of it, shows up in one out every thirty or so men. While the XXY combination is not as detrimental as it was during your day, it’s still not ideal.”

“So, wait…you’re saying I’ve got make a lot of babies to save humanity?” Trevor stood up straighter and puffed out his chest. “That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make!”

“I think you misunderstand what’s being asked of you. We took a DNA sample before we woke you. Your physical status, post-waking from cryogenics, and system still awash in intoxicants, tells us all we need to know.

“Your genetic material is being replicated in the lab as we speak, and you are free to go. Clothing and an ID are waiting for you in your waking chamber. You’ve been asleep for a few hundred years, though, so don’t expect anything to look the same.”

“What about a job, a place to stay?”

“With an ID you don’t need a job, but if you want one you can find it. There are subsidized housing units next to the facility. Just beyond them, you’ll find a 24-hour intoxicants club opened by the previous group we woke. I believe you’ll find it very ‘on-brand’ for you. Good day.”

prompt: Write a story involving a friendship between two different species.

available at Reedsy

I first met her a month after my twelfth birthday…the day I got my first period. At first, I thought I had a minor stomach bug. I’d told Mum I’d be fine, and she went to work while I worked on my studies. I was working on a problem in differential calculus — a side benefit of being home-schooled by a theoretical physicist mother — when I felt it.

Seeing the stain on my shorts, I cleaned myself up and changed, adding a pad in the way Mum had taught me. I was so excited for it, that I ran to her office to tell her. She wasn’t in her office. The door to the labs was behind her desk, but it was off-limits.

I’d tried to open that door once, when I was younger and received a stern lecture on how dangerous it would be. My hand shook as I reached for the knob. Wait, I thought, I’m a woman now. I can do anything Mum can.

Maybe I should back up a little, first. They say the pill is ninety-nine percent effective. That seems like decent odds…unless you’re in the one percent like me. I was an “accident,” but my mother thanked me for my existence every day.

Aside from me, Mum had no living family, which, she said, is why she was selected for this job, where she met my father, the microbiologist. He died when I was two. He went outside in the middle of an August storm, the only explanation his health report that showed he had symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer’s. They didn’t find him until the annual supply drop in the December summer.

Growing up in the complex under the ice, I never got the appeal of going outside. Mum assured me that most of the world isn’t like here, a barren expanse of blinding ice and snow. I’ve seen loads of it on the telly, but it doesn’t feel real to me.

I never knew what they did in the labs, or why a theoretical physicist was needed in Antarctica, but Mom said she was committed to the position for life. She assured me that when I was old enough, I could leave to explore the world, go to university, whatever I desired. With my body telling me I was growing up, that seemed not so far away as it used to.

I set my shoulders with false confidence and went through the door. The hallway on the other side was underwhelming. Beige walls, floor, and ceiling, doors to other offices along the opposite wall, and a large door with an “Authorized Personnel Only” sign at the end of the hallway.

I was about to slink back into the office when she barreled around the corner and ran into me. “I’m sorry,” she said, disentangling herself from me. “I know I’m not supposed to run here, but I was bored.”

She was shorter me, with pale, blue skin, huge copper eyes, and four arms. While I wasn’t frightened by her, I was shocked, and rather than introducing myself properly I blurted out, “I just got my period. I—I mean, I’m not supposed to be here, but I was looking for my mum.”

She smiled with her eyes, her wide mouth opening the slightest bit, and the slits where a nose should’ve been widening. “Hi. You’re small for a human. You can call me Liz. I’m a kellian.”

Her voice sounded like tinkling glass, and she seemed thin and frail to the point of fragility. There was something in her manner that endeared her to me in that moment of our clumsy awkwardness.

“Sorry. I’m Abigail, and I’m not small, I’m twelve. Is my mum around? I was just excited to tell her.”

“I don’t know anyone named ‘My Mum.’ Sorry.”

“No, I mean, her name is Dr. Marilyn Arthur.”

“Doctor Marilyn is in the labs. I’m not allowed in there.” Her large eyes grew even wider. “Did you come from one of the doors on that side of the hall?”

I nodded and put my hand on the door to Mum’s office. “This one. Which door did you come from?”

She pointed to the door opposite Mum’s. “My progenitor’s office. Wait, does ‘mum’ mean progenitor…parent?”

“Exactly. Were you born here, too?”

“No, but this is a neat planet.” She looked back and forth down the hall. “I should probably sneak back before someone notices. See you tomorrow at the same time?”

That was the first meeting of thousands. Not every day, but most days. How we evaded detection for five years is beyond me, but we did. I snuck her into my room every day both our mums were in the lab.

Some days we would speculate about what our parents were doing. Others, we would watch one of Mum’s DVD movies in my room before I snuck her back to the hall.

We made up songs and told each other stories based on the most outrageous concept the other could imagine. She comforted with me when my period cramps were bad, and I massaged her when her growth spurts came with the attendant muscle and joint pain.

She put up with my constant complaints about my nearly non-existent breasts and short stature, and I consoled her when she was feeling bad about her changing skin color. I thought the swirls of darker blue were beautiful, but she assured me that until she was uniformly dark, she would not be considered an adult.

My first crush, Brian from the Breakfast Club, was a frequent topic of discussion, at least until I let the credits run on Mum’s DVD. When I realized that he was older than Mum, he was my first heartbreak as well. Liz comforted me in the way only she could, two arms holding me tight, one hand petting my hair, and one hand rubbing my back.

It turns out, I was Liz’s first heartbreak. I didn’t mean to hurt her, and if I’d known then, I wouldn’t have said anything. I had just gotten my passport and was working out with Mum where I’d go to university.

I was more scared than excited about leaving and told the only person I could, Liz. She didn’t say anything; just stared at me for a few moments before her nostril slits closed and her eyes narrowed, and she got a hitch in her breath. By then, I knew her well enough to know that she was doing the closest thing her kind can do to ugly crying.

She stormed out of my room to go back to the hallway and to “her side” of the station. I was on her heels, but not fast enough. Liz stormed into Mum’s office as I was crying and apologizing and begging her to tell me what I’d done wrong. She’d stopped in front of me, and as she was now taller than I, blocked my view.

It was only after I hugged her from behind, asking her to wait and talk it out, that I realized we weren’t alone. I peeked around her upper shoulder to see Mum’s face. The last time I’d seen that look was when she talked about my father walking out into the storm.

“M—Mum, what’s wrong?”

“You two first,” she said, regaining her composure. “Lisiakta, what are you doing in the human quarters?”

“Hang—hanging out with Abi.”

“How long?”

“Not even half an hour,” I said, “and she won’t tell me why she’s upset.”

“I mean,” my mother said, “how long have you two been sneaking around?”

I stepped around Liz and found it difficult to look Mum in the eye. “Since I was twelve…the day I got my period.”

“You’ve known about them that long and never said anything?”

“Liz said she’d get in trouble if anyone knew, and I thought I’d get in trouble for going in the hall that first time.” I set my shoulders the way Mum did when she put her foot down about something. “Mum, I’m seventeen, I’m an adult. You can’t keep me away from my only friend here, and I’ll be back to visit her from Uni every chance I get.”

I felt Liz tighten up behind me when I said it. “Oh my god!” I spun around and grabbed her. “I’m so sorry. Am I your only friend here, too?”

She hugged me back and her breath hitched in the way that meant she was crying. “You are,” she said, “and I’ll miss you.”

Mum cleared her throat and we faced her. Grief etched lines across her face. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to go to Uni. I did my best to protect you, but anyone who has had contact with our guests is not allowed to leave…ever. That’s why we only recruit people with no living family.”

Liz’s eyes narrowed and her head dropped. “I’m sorry I got you in trouble, Abi. Now you’re stuck here forever and it’s my fault. It’s okay if you never want to see me again.”

“You silly goose! Of course I want to see my best friend in the whole world! That’s why I was trying to tell you that I’ll be going to Uni in Australia to make it easier to fly back here on break.”

“Abigail Rose!” When Mum said my middle name I knew it was serious. “Don’t take this lightly. You can’t leave. I’ll make sure you finish a proper education, along with some of my colleagues. You don’t have to study physics if you don’t want to, but you’ll have to find something to make you useful around here. As of now, you work here.”

“Why, Mum? I still don’t get it.”

“Her Majesty’s government, along with the others of the G20, have determined that anyone not working here that knows about our visitors must either be held in permanent solitary or…eliminated. It’s just too dangerous if the information gets out.”

There was a knock on the door to the hallway, and Mum opened it up. I knew right away it was Liz’s mum…progenitor. She looked like a darker version of Liz. “Your mum’s pretty, just like you,” I told Liz.

She stood frozen in the doorway, until Mum spoke. “Sarilakta, I’d like you to meet my offspring. It seems she’s been aware of your presence for some time now. She’ll be working with us moving forward.”

“Abigail, it is a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard much about you over the past years.” She crossed all four of her arms and berated Liz in a language that made no sense to me.

I felt Liz tighten up as she went on and hugged onto one of her arms. When her progenitor had finished, she said, in English, “Yes, Mum.”

My mother smirked and wiped it away as quick as she could. “Abi, for now you’ll do janitorial duties until you decide where you want to work and finish your studies. Lisiakta, you shouldn’t be on the human side of the station, it’s dangerous.”

“Yes, Dr. Marilyn,” she said.

“Why don’t you show Abi around the shared sections, the common room, and so on. Tomorrow, I’ll take her down to the labs and introduce her to what we’re doing, and what kind of jobs are available.”

True to her word, I had an employee badge the following morning and spent the first half of the day working and the second half studying. Every spare minute was spent with Liz watching Mum’s old movies on the big screen in the common area.

Pushing a mop five days a week was good motivation to finish my studies with all haste. I ended up deciding on Materials Science, was accepted into the lab eighteen months later, and the usual rotation started back up. Every one of the humans would spend a week doing janitorial work, from the lab techs all the way up to the director.

A month into my job in the MS lab, Liz came in, pushing the cleaning cart. “What are you doing?” I asked. The kellian didn’t have to partake in the cleaning roster.

“My progenitor is returning home in a month, but I want to stay. Means I have to make myself useful.”

“I hope you’re not planning on mopping floors and scrubbing toilets for the rest of your life on my account,” I said.

“No, just while Dr. Marilyn gets me up to snuff on physics, then I’ll be helping her in the lab.”

“Working with the kellian teams?”

“Nope. I’m the first kellian employed by humans. I’ll be learning stuff from my home world at the same time as you.” She pulled a small box with a bow out of the cart and handed it to me. “I missed your birthday, since you were busy in here, but Dr. Marilyn assured me you would love this.”

I opened the belated gift to find a sliver of metal. It felt smooth, polished, yet it reflected only a tiny fraction of the light that hit it. “What is it?”

“It’s a piece off a kellian ship. What it’s made of, is up to you to figure out.” Liz gave me one of her patented hugs and whispered in my ear, “Dr. Marilyn suggested you write a dissertation on it.”

I hugged her back. “Don’t you two start ganging up on me, now. I’ll write it, for sure. I just hope I can figure out how it’s made.”

She was halfway out the door when I said, “By the way, common room tonight. You and I are watching Out of Bounds.”

“Again? I thought you were over Anthony Michael Hall.”

“I am. Well…mostly.”

prompt: Write about light returning to a place that has been deprived of it for a long time, literally or figuratively.

available at Reedsy

Luz wondered, as she often did, why she was doing this. Over the years she’d come up with different “reasons,” but none of them felt true. Why was she out here? Why did Shackleton keep returning to Antarctica? Why did Hillary and Norgay risk everything to stand atop Everest? Why did Earhart attempt to fly around the globe?

She still didn’t know the answer, but she was certain that it was the same answer for all of them. Whether anyone else would embark on a twenty-one-year adventure, though, was up for debate. It didn’t help that Dr. Ondale had asked her the question just before she boarded. That ensured that it kept coming up in quiet moments.

As of nine years ago, Luz was the first human to do a fly-by of Uranus…and the fastest human in history, having reached a top speed of sixty-four and a half kilometers per second. So far, everything had gone closely enough to plan to be manageable.

Luz looked at the photo taped to the terminal opposite the camera and mirror. Her twenty-seven-year-old self, Dr. Ondale, and Custard, the toy poodle pup he’d just adopted. She pulled the picture free and held it next to the mirror.

Her previously golden-brown skin was now cadaverously pale, her once full cheeks sunken, her eyes darker. Her hair had gone mostly silver, with a few streaks of deep brown still trying to survive, and her single braid was long enough that, unless piled and pinned on her head, it floated into everything. It was, she guessed, nearly as long as she was tall.

She keyed her radio. “Solar Pebble to Mission Control. Completed slowdown slingshot around Mars. Approaching Earth for retrograde orbit and capture. Orbital insertion in nineteen days, sixteen hours, fifty-five minutes…mark. Current velocity, thirty-two point zero seven kilometers per second.”

A few minutes passed in silence before there was a response on the radio. “Mission Control. Roger, Solar Pebble. We have your telemetry from Mars Orbiter 11 and show you on optimal path. Looking forward to welcoming you home, Luz.”

“Thanks, Mission Control. I can’t wait to be back home.”

She wasn’t expecting a reply, but one came anyway. “Luz, this is Dr. Ondale. How are you doing?”

“Hey, Doc. I figured you’d be retired by now.” Luz sighed. “I’ve gone grey, but no wrinkles…so there’s that going for microgravity. Been working with the exercise bands two or three times a day…it gets boring out here. I’m uh, guessing I’ve lost most of my bone density and muscle, along with any spare weight I might have had. I’m really tired of the food packets and recycled water. The three things I miss the most are bread, wine, and the sun…not always in that order. Other than that, everything’s perfect.”

Luz realized, while sending the last message, that she hadn’t eaten in more than fifteen hours. She pulled out another one of the dreaded food packs and looked at the printing. Ugh, she thought, lasagna again.

It wasn’t that it tasted bad, although the texture was strange, but she would’ve given anything for a piece of crusty bread with butter and a nice glass of red. She wasn’t sure she remembered what bread or wine tasted like after twenty-one years, but she knew she loved it.

Bread was just one of the many foods that she couldn’t bring along. Not due to weight restrictions or anything of the sort, but because the crumbs could get into the electronics and cause serious damage.

She realized that she’d eaten the entire serving of “lasagna” while thinking about bread and hadn’t even noticed the taste or the odd texture. Luz chuckled to herself. Twenty-one years, and now I figure out the trick to dealing with the “space food”…think about something else.

As the days dragged on, the conversational lag got shorter and shorter, until she finally reached Earth orbit and was able to talk to Mission Control with less than a second of lag. The tiny windows of the ship had darkened and failed to clear up when she made the slingshot around Venus. One of those “manageable” things. The external camera worked, though it was often oriented in the wrong direction.

Like the windows, Luz had always darkened in the sun without fail. As pale as she currently was, she wondered if she would burn instead. She looked at the sun on the screen, currently the only thing visible due to the camera’s orientation. She knew the Earth was right there and a high-orbit lander should be approaching to make contact and slow her down, but it was hidden from her.

The radio chatter as the lander moved in position to capture when her elliptical orbit was at its aphelion kept her from thinking too hard about anything else. “Capture One, Solar Pebble. I have you on instruments. Maneuver to docking position complete.”

“Roger, Solar Pebble. Ten seconds to capture.”

The jolt was lighter than Luz had expected but the sound of the capture vehicle docking rang through the hull. The last time the hull had rung like that was when she impacted a small piece of ice twelve years back. It had startled her so much she’d jumped…not a good idea in microgravity. Her hand brushed over the scar on her forehead where she’d impacted the edge of the console.

The airlock alarm buzzed, pulling her back into the moment. She tucked the photo into the small bag of personal items she’d brought along and waited to leave the ship for the first time in what felt like forever.

The airlock opened, and a wave of sweet-smelling air washed over her. Oof, she thought, the air in here must smell foul. “Apologies to your noses,” she said, before she realized that the two figures waiting for her were in full hazard suits.

“Sorry about the suits,” the taller of the two said, “but we’ll need you to put one on and go through decon. Twenty-one years is a long time for bacteria and viruses to evolve.”

“Right,” Luz said, “makes sense.” She put on the suit with an ease borne of two decades of floating and waited while the decontamination cycle ran.

They led her into the main passenger area where a couch was prepared and waiting. The taller one removed her hazard suit and shook her hair free to float around her face like a blonde halo. “You probably wouldn’t be able to handle re-entry and landing in a seated position,” she said, “so we’ve got you set up here. Dr. Ondale is waiting on the ground for you. Welcome home.”

“Thanks,” Luz said, as she let herself be strapped into the couch. “It’s weird, isn’t it? I spent twenty-one years in the Pebble, and I still don’t know why.”

There was a slight shudder in the lander as they disconnected from the Solar Pebble and dropped it into a parking orbit. Luz closed her eyes as the first re-entry burn began. Each burn, each deceleration, was harder than the one before, until she felt the lander begin to shake in the atmosphere.

She tried to slow her breathing, control her heart rate. When the lander had slowed enough to be flying rather than hurtling through the atmosphere, she felt the pull of gravity. She could raise her head if she tried hard enough. It was easier to raise her hands, though she didn’t remember it ever being so difficult.

Once they touched down and rolled to a stop, there was a minor commotion in the cabin, until a gurney was wheeled in and she was transferred to it from the couch. As they rolled her down the ramp, the sun blinded her and she squeezed her eyes shut until they could adjust.

“Oh, we’ll get you inside as soon as we can,” a familiar voice said.

Shielding her eyes with a shaky hand, Luz looked over to see Dr. Ondale, followed by a grizzled poodle. “No hurry, Doc. Is that…?”

“Yes, that’s Custard. She’s a bit older now, like all of us, but she’s still here. He turned to the person pushing the gurney. “We need to get her out of the sun.”

“No, no,” she said. “I haven’t seen the sun or felt it like this in so long, I’d like to enjoy it a bit if that’s okay.”

“Did you ever figure out why?” he asked.

“No, Doc, I didn’t. Your guess is as good as mine.”

prompt: Write about a hero or a villain deathly afraid of doing their job.

available at Reedsy

The hot, humid night air clung to Lieutenant Terrance Crowder like a damp sheet pulled too soon from the dryer. He swallowed the pill down dry. He’d gotten so used to it that it was something he did daily without thought. The doctor swore they were helping, but he didn’t feel it; still, orders are orders.

He checked his plate carrier vest, slung his rifle, and strapped his helmet on. The plate carrier provided protection against standard firearms but did little against the energy weapons of the enemy.

The platoon was waiting for him in the ruined lobby of the bombed hotel they’d taken shelter in. They’d lost contact with the company days earlier and were doing their best to get back to known friendly territory. Traveling by night, they were usually able to avoid the cold-blooded enemy who grew sluggish as temperatures fell but seemed to favor no rest period. Tonight, however, the continued heat worked against them.

“Gerson, keep an ear on the comms. You hear even a peep on today’s freq you let me know right away. Hasni, take fourth squad, rear guard. I’m with first squad. Pilot, you’re point. Anderson, you’ve got the map, with me. As fast and quiet as we can; don’t bunch up, eyes and ears open.”

“Lieutenant, you think we’ll run into any bugs tonight?”

A shudder ran down Crowder’s spine, and he turned to look the questioning Private Gerson in the eyes. “It’s still about thirty degrees, so I’d say that’s a strong possibility. It’s warm enough that they’ll be busy…and fast.”

Pilot leaned over to the private carrying the radio. “Thirty degrees is probably ninety in your freedom units,” she said.

“Eighty-six, but thanks for educating the dumb Yank, corporal,” he said, keeping as straight a face as possible.

She sighed. “You’re no fun any more. Can we trade Gerson in on a new Yank?”

“How about,” Anderson said, “we quit picking on the Yank, you Aussie git.”

“That’s enough.” Crowder stood. “Let’s move out.”

Pilot moved to the door at the rear of the hotel, checking the alley before waving them on. They moved through alleys and side roads, the former resort city dark and silent…ominous.

Anderson walked beside the radioman. “How did you end up in His Majesty’s army, Gerson?”

“I was in uni at Teesside when they attacked. No way to get home, but I wanted to fight, so I signed up and they took me, no questions asked.”

“And you ended up in infantry, hunting bugs in South America. Welcome to the clusterfuck.”

Pilot held a hand up, calling the platoon to a halt, then moved her hand down parallel to the ground, signaling them to take a knee. With her left forefinger she touched the brim of her helmet.

Crowder nodded and moved forward to her position. “What do we have, corporal?” he asked, in a whisper.

“Bug convoy left, and another two bug vehicles right blocking the road. Unless we can find a way around this area, we’ll have to fight our way through.”

Crowder turned to face Anderson and pointed at his palm. She came forward to join them. “Is there a way around here?” he asked. “Somewhere we won’t be spotted crossing this dual carriageway?”

Anderson unfolded the map they’d found when they first landed. It wasn’t a military map, but it was good enough. GPS had stopped working the day of the first attack, and paper maps and compasses were once again king.

“Unless we want to go back, we’re stuck,” Anderson said. “The bugs have control of the jungle here, and anywhere we try to go around we run into the sea or the open square where the bug ship is.”

“Right. You two stay here and keep watch.” Crowder moved back and signaled for the squad leaders to join him.

When they had assembled, he got them up to speed. “Convoy sitting still on the left, two vehicles blocking the road on the right. We’ve got two LAWs remaining, and a six-lane dual carriageway to cross with no cover.

“With one, we take out the lead of the convoy; make it harder to get moving. We use the other to take out the vehicle on the far side of the carriageway. We’ll have to rely on grenades for the vehicle on the near side.”

“It’s a big kill zone,” Hasni said.

“How much smoke do we have?” Crowder asked.

“Five or six,” Hasni answered, “unless you want to include the CS canisters and launcher we snagged from the police station.”

“Oh, I do. After we figure out which way the wind is blowing.” He held up a hand. “And before anyone says it, bugger Geneva. I don’t think it applies to alien bugs and even if it did, I’ll take the fall. Hand over the launcher and the canisters.”

He took the belt of canisters and slung it over his shoulder like a bandolier before taking the launcher and loading in the first round. “So we’re clear: fire the LAWs, toss the smoke, I’ll start laying down CS, and we cross all-out, spray-and-pray.”

The squad leaders returned to their squads and passed on the plan. The two remaining LAWs were brought forward, the soldiers carrying them setting up at the edge of the building where Pilot and Anderson were keeping watch.

When Crowder raised his shaking hand, all eyes were on him. When he dropped it, the first LAW fired, then the second, the booms of the exploding vehicles echoing around the buildings. Smoke grenades were tossed, even as the beams of the bugs’ energy weapons began to cut into the corners of the buildings.

Seeing that the smoke was drifting to the left, Crowder ran forward and began lobbing the CS canisters toward the convoy. “Go! Go! Go!”

He could just make out the creatures’ vile shapes in the smoke: giant centipede-like beings that made some part of his brain screech and hide. He kept loading and firing CS canisters at them, even as he screamed in uncontrolled fear. Tears blurred his vision, but he didn’t need to see well to fire gas canisters in a general area.

Their movements became erratic, and some of them fell to the bullets of his soldiers, and still he fired the CS launcher and screamed. The bright blue beams of the bugs’ energy weapons stopped, and so did the sound of small arms fire. Crowder had run out of breath to scream and was trying to load another canister but couldn’t find one in the bandolier.

A hand gripped his sleeve and pulled at him. “Let’s go, Lieutenant. They’re all dead, but more will be here soon.”

That unfroze his feet and he began to run, dropping the now useless anti-riot gun. In the broad median he saw a troop that had been cut in two by an alien energy beam. The burned-out radio next to the mangled corpse made it easy to identify as Gerson.

Crowder keep running, catching up to the platoon who were still moving toward their objective. Anderson still had hold of his sleeve but let go as they came up on the rear squad. “Sir,” she said.

They returned to the head of the formation, with only Pilot in front of them, still on point. Anderson looked at the Lieutenant, still shivering and tears still running down his face. “You made it through, sir,” she said. “Is your head back in the game?”

Crowder nodded, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. “Thanks, sergeant. I…can’t help it.”

“We know, sir, we know.” She elbowed him. “And yet you keep leading us right through them.”

“Not like I have a choice.” He thought about the pills he had left…four. When he ran out, would it actually be worse?

“Now we know another weakness of theirs,” Anderson said, “CS.”

“I couldn’t really tell, but it seemed like there were hundreds of them…but that’s probably the phobia talking.”

“There were about thirty.”

“And we hit them all?”

“No, we hit a few, including the four by the barricade, but the CS took the rest of them down.”

They continued, moving one block at a time, avoiding the bug patrols and sticking to the alleys and side streets. Crowder trotted up to Pilot and signaled a halt.

“It’ll be light soon, and bollocks-hot. The resupply depot should be close.”

“About four kilometers, I’d guess,” Pilot said.

“We’ll head there and see if the bugs left us anything. Hell, if it’s still standing, we might have taken it back already. If not, there’s warehouses there to take shelter in for the day.”

“Yes, sir,” Pilot said. She turned toward Anderson and pointed to her palm to let the sergeant know she needed the map.

Crowder left them to it and took a knee, taking deep breaths and trying to think of anything other than centipedes.

prompt: End your story with a character looking out on a new horizon.

available at Reedsy

Elspeth had run when the first warnings came, before the evacuation orders. Long before the bombs, long before the world was turned upside-down.

She’d been on the continent, which meant she hadn’t had to try her luck on the ferries or the Chunnel. The shelter survived intact, and well-stocked, which was the best that could be said about it.

Somehow, the well in the shelter had run dry. Elspeth figured she had a month of clean water stored away, if she was careful.

She wasn’t supposed to be alone. Her family and friends never showed up. For a while, she’d tried to convince herself that they’d found another shelter. Not likely, though. Her family had kept this shelter in the Italian Alps for generations. Most others had either been filled in and built over or forgotten to time.

She wondered how many of the ultra-rich made it to their “survival condos.” Costing as much as three million pounds each, they were not for the average person, and hidden away in distant, remote places. This shelter, though, built inside a cave, was on a chunk of otherwise unusable land in the Bergamo Alps that had passed down through the generations of her father’s family.

In the early days of the conflict, there had still been some shortwave radio. No one knew who launched the first, or whether it was intentional. The consensus, though, was that everyone followed their worst-case scenario through to the bitter end. The policy of MAD, or “Mutually Assured Destruction” had resulted in its inevitable end. Mad, indeed.

Every nuclear weapon in humanity’s arsenal had been launched against someone else. The first targets were military, followed quickly by major population centers. The last transmission she’d picked up was from Siberia, where they said the glow of nuclear weapons carpeting huge swaths of Asia lit up the night sky like the sun had landed just beyond the horizon.

She looked in the mirror. The face that stared back was her but wasn’t. Her mother’s wide eyes, the blue of her father’s, in a face that was not as heart-shaped as her mother’s or sister’s. Her skin was always on the verge of tan, but just beige enough to wash out her blue eyes and mousy hair. Her father’s olive skin and dark hair made his blue eyes stand out. Her mother and sister had pale, freckled skin with flaming orange hair and bright green eyes.

Her hair was filthy. She’d have to use water to wash it or cut it off to save water. “What should I do, mom? You always knew.”

Unsure how long she’d been standing there, she wiped her eyes and nodded with a sniffle. “Right. Let’s get this over with.”

Her back to the mirror, she began. The clippers buzzed and echoed through her skull. She ran a hand over her head, the feeling alien. The movement of air through the shelter touched her scalp and she felt more naked than she ever had.

Turning back to face the mirror, she didn’t recognize herself. More than before, she her mother and father in her face, and fell to her knees weeping for the loss. At the same time, a voice in the back of her mind scolded her for feeling sorry for herself.

“Pull yourself together, Els,” she said, mimicking her sister’s voice. “You’re the big sister, act like it.”

Elspeth chuckled in spite of herself. “If this goes on much longer, I may really lose it,” she said to no one in particular.

After a meal of freeze-dried curry rehydrated in a carefully measured amount of water, she went to the back of the shelter, where a low rumble vibrated the heavy steel door.

The box of nitrile gloves near the door was empty. Not the first thing I thought would run out, she thought. She unsealed the door and swung it open, the low rumble opening into the chugging of one of the diesel generators.

She’d been lucky with the generators. If the exhaust had been blocked at the outside, they would’ve died long ago, or flooded the room with diesel fumes and carbon monoxide. Instead, they kept on.

She didn’t have a way to tell how much fuel she had, but she rapped on the 4,000-liter fuel tank to gauge how low the levels were. The flow meter showed that she was using around half a liter per hour, and the tank sounded about half-full. As long as she didn’t put any additional strain on the generator, the fuel could last the better part of a year.

Along the far wall were enough cases of oil to last probably twice as long as the fuel. She started up the second generator, switched the power source switch to that one, and shut down the first. The oil on the now-silent generator was a little low, easily remedied.

After the daily switch-over and maintenance check, Elspeth went back into the main shelter and shut the heavy steel door. Somehow, she’d gotten oil on her hands again. Should’ve stocked up more on gloves, she thought.

She wiped them the best she could on a rag, and then prepared two washcloths for her “bath.” One she soaked and rubbed with the soap, the other she left sitting in the bowl of clean water.

She washed her body with the soapy cloth, including her now-bare scalp, then followed up with the other to remove the soap and the grime that stuck to it. The bowl of water was then used to wash the cloths before rinsing them in a second bowl of clean water. Two liters to wash herself, and the washcloths was as efficient as she could get.

Without anything else to occupy herself, she picked up the box the gloves had come in. She’d been out for six days…or was it seven? The box originally held one hundred gloves: fifty days’ worth. It was one of four in the case. She’d been down here for at least two hundred days, probably more.

“Okay, mom,” she said, “I’m losing it in here. Should I risk it?”

She waited for an answer that she knew wouldn’t come. “Dad would say, ‘Whatever you feel comfortable with.’ Megs would say, ‘Stop being a baby and go for it,’ but what would you say, mom?”

Elspeth dressed in her cleanest clothes and sat with her back against the exterior door. The steel felt cold against her bare scalp as she wondered what she would find out there.

The exterior sensors, including the outside Geiger counter had stopped working when the first bombs fell nearby, shaking the shelter in a quake. The levels in the shelter remained in the low normal range for a concrete bunker.

Elspeth took a deep breath and stood. “No risk, no reward,” she said. She took the Geiger counter in hand and opened the huge blast door.

The counter tick increased, but not to a level that was immediately dangerous. She looked up from the counter to the sunlight pouring in the door. Sunlight that shouldn’t be there, in the north-facing door hidden in a small mountain cut. Sunlight accompanied by a slight breeze of clean, heady air.

Elspeth stepped outside the door of the shelter to see that hers was one of hundreds dotted across a wide plain of grayish grass. The sky was a deeper blue than she’d ever seen, and along with the sun, two small moons danced in the sky. As she walked on the plain, away from the shelter, she looked back to see that, like the others, it was still surrounded by part of the mountain as though it had been carved out by a giant melon baller.

“Thank you,” she said toward the sky, “whoever and whatever you are, for saving us from ourselves.”

She sat down heavily; the gray-green grass soft beneath her. She watched as one of the moons moved down the sky to set, across a horizon in a place no person belonged, and wept for the loss of Earth.