Samantha remembered it pretty well. It had only been a couple of months. Back when she was able to actually use the tub for other things. Normal things like showering or shaving her legs.

It was a typical afternoon. Samantha was reading a book on the couch, Larry was sitting on the floor with his back propped against the furthest arm of the couch, tinkering with his watch. Bernadette was pacing in the kitchen, listening to music with her headphones in and taking stock of the kitchen and planning dinner. Then there was Captain Hal in his private quarters at the end of the hallway that broke off adjacent to the bathroom. And it was the Captain that stormed into the main chamber and disturbed the rest. Bernadette pulled her headphones off, Larry sat his watch on the floor, and Samantha looked up from the page she was on.

"Have any of you tried contacting anyone recently?" asked Hal.

"How recent?" asked Larry.

"I don't know. Within the past half hour."

Everyone else shrugged as if to say no.

"Come to my room, there's something you guys might want to see."

The four of them crowded into Hal's small quarters and he sat at his desk in front of his computer monitor with each of them lining his shoulders. He tried logging into the Scepter database. Nothing. Then he tried logging into his own personal chat to call his family. Nothing.

"Wait," Larry pushed his way onto the keyboard. "Let me just pull up a few of the satellites."

"What good will that do?" Bernadette leaned in.

"Well, public channels. Things like- well the channels that Scepter uses could be down for maintenance. That could make sense. But it can't just be a coincidence that everything's down. Private communication networks. It just wouldn't make any sense. It couldn't be. The whole Eastern Seaboard's down. It has to be some kind of error on this end. Something like this couldn't have happened." The smaller man was talking fast. Jittery even. And he was shaking. This unsettled Samantha terribly. Larry was never the courageous type; he was always the logical, rational, cool-headed one. If Larry thought it was bad, it probably was.

And then he pulled a map of the western hemisphere up on the monitor and she knew exactly what he meant. It was almost surreal, but she watched as the little communication blips or lights that illuminated the screen were blown into darkness by large sporadic circles. It was as though someone was scrubbing away big areas of earth's broadcasting networks with the wave of their hand. Everything that meant anything to the human race was disappearing with every blink.

Hal pointed at the screen. "What's this mean?"

Larry shrugged and leaned out of the larger man's way. "Could be several things. Global meltdown? It doesn't seem to be slowing. Nuclear disaster maybe? I don't know. I can't tell you without being on the surface. And everything is shut down on this end. I don't know what to tell any of you. It's either bad or it's the fucking apocalypse."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"C'mon," Bernadette fondled the headphones wrapped around her neck. "It can't be that bad. That's impossible. It's probably just something wrong with the hardware. Maybe a satellite went down. It could be that, right?"

"I wish it could be," Larry shook his head, uncomfortably twiddling his thumbs. "But even if it were the satellites, Scepter would have directed another one in our direction to tell us what's happened. It's the protocol they have in place for this sort of thing. And if it's satellites going down, it's definitely more than one. It looks like we're down by at least half by now on the western hemisphere. And it's still going. We'll see."

Hal spoke up. "Larry," he pointed at him. "I want you on this monitor. Keep doing your thing here. See if you can get ahold of anyone down there. See if we can get a message out. Even if it's an S.O.S. or something like that. I'm serious. I don't want you off this monitor until we hear something from the outside world." He rose and let Larry take his position at his desk. "Bernie, dear, get dinner ready." Hal tapped the physician on the shoulder and mustered a toothy grin. "This will all be fine. It's nothing to get worked up over until there's a problem we can deal with. We'll probably get word that there was some kind of major malfunction with the hardware down there and that's all. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about." Before Hal left the room, he turned and looked at Samantha. "Oh, I want you to bring your gear in here and see what you can do to help Larry. I need you two to figure this out for me."

After Hal and Bernadette left and it was just Samantha and Larry, she turned to him and finally asked the words she'd been meaning to ask the entire time. "Is it really as bad as you think?"

"Let's just say it's not. Well, if it's not, then that means that the last three years I've spent with the Scepter Agency has meant jack shit and they might as well fire me." A moment of silence entered the room. Neither of them was moving. Both of them just stared at the monitors all askew on the Captain's desk. "What really gets me," said Larry, "Is Hal's total lack of interest in this. It's like he doesn't even mind. Which either makes him an idiot or ignorant. He's either too dumb to care or doesn't know enough about how our network works. Either way, it's not good."

"Give him a break." Samantha took a sip of coffee. "It's literally his job to boost morale. Like the sea captain with the red coat so that his crew mates won't see him bleed."

"I certainly hope you're right about that. If it's just some kind of game he's trying to play with us so that we won't panic, I guess it's working for the most part. I just wish there were a sliver of worry."

Samantha reached across the gap in between their chairs and grabbed Larry's wrist. "I wouldn't worry about him so much. If anyone has anything to worry about back home, it's Hal. He's got family down there." This was true. Hal was newly married with twins.

"I suppose you're right." Larry shrugged. "God, I hope I'm wrong."

They heard Bernadette scream from the other room. "Oh my god! Oh my god!" The words were shrill like the violin in a horror movie.

Samantha bolted down the hallway with Larry on her heels. What they saw next stopped them in their tracks. Samantha literally heard Larry's sneakers squeak against the floor.

Bernadette had revealed the giant window in the main chamber to expose the blue floating orb of earth in a black nothingness. She'd used the window's telescopic feature so that every little detail on the sphere was visible. Hal walked around the counter of the kitchen to stand with the others. Everyone was silent. It took a moment for Samantha to realize what she was looking at, but once it clicked in her head what it was, she lost her breath. Springing up all across the face of earth were little lights. She knew what the lights were. They all did. It was like watching someone set a ping pong ball on fire with gasoline. Hal crossed the room and pressed the panel near the window. The wall crossed the glass and closed completely.

"Dinner is ready." He told them.

Earth was dead and every person in the room knew it.