John and Emily had been in contact with an evacuation team up until the hospital they had been in was attacked by looters. They escaped and brought the radio along but it was damaged in the process so for the past week or so they had been unable to make contact again. Unfortunately, even if they were evacuated, there was no guarantee of a spot on a colony ship. At least not for them, but there was a good chance for the girl to get on one. At first the girl was excited at the prospect of leaving with all the other kids on a spaceship. But as they continued to climb and she thought more and more about it, she began to grow quiet and melancholic.

Here was proof she was likely never going to see her parents again. Her friends, gone. Her life, gone. Changed forever. She had known that this was logically the case, but as she went through the troubles of the here and now, she often got distracted and forgot. It was as if the idea that this was all a brief adventure, a temporary intriguing event, kept creeping into her mind. But then when she was once again confronted with the truth, it shocked her again and again. Her goal was no longer to go back to middle school or high school, then college to become a marine biologist or scientist or something else. It was now to board a starship and fly far far away to scrape out a place to survive on worlds unknown.

And that was the best case scenario.

John and Emily had grown quiet as well. Most likely from fatigue. The girl was now helping Emily with her sled now that it was laden with yet more stuff. They had strapped her suitcase to John’s sled. She tried to match Emily’s pace which, it turns out, wasn't that hard. Emily appeared to be slowing down drastically and they had to take more and more breaks. The stairwell was silent save for their footsteps, the creaking of the rope, and gentle scraping of the sleds on the glossy staircase.

It was nearing sunset again when they finally reached the top floor. It was quite hot due to the sun beating down on it all day.

“We’re here!” exclaimed the girl as she flopped face first onto the couch. “Oof. Wake me up when it's bright outside. Thanks.”

John opened up windows and large doors leading out to the patio to let in the cool high-altitude air.

Emily sank into a nearby recliner, hazmat suit and all, and began dozing off.

It seemed no one else had had the energy to climb all the stairs as the rooms were largely untouched. The floor contained only two suites in total, but they were sprawling and luxurious. Or they would be, had there been power. The enormous indoor theaters, sound systems, and jacuzzis provided little entertainment without movies, sound or water jet streams. The furniture was very soft though, and there were pool tables in each suite. They had decided to stay in the two suites on the West Wing, so that they could sleep in and not be awoken by the sun at dawn.

John finished setting up the biohazard tent and began unpacking their sleds. The girl hopped up and began digging food out of her backpack.

“Oooh look there's some tuna here.”

“You like tuna?” asked John. “There aren’t that many kids I know that like canned tuna.”

“Well I guess it’s an acquired taste," the girl said, “Y’know you start liking it more as you grow older.”

“Is that so? I guess you’re a grown up now huh?” replied John with a crooked smile through the face window of his suit. He finished setting up a small metal pot with hot water from a heat pack, then went over and poked Emily. “Hey, it’s time to eat.”

“Hrmm-mleh," replied Emily as she jerked awake before slumping back over. “Mrrm…”

“Sure," said John as he helped get her up and into the tent. “You can probably put some noodles in now”, he said to the girl. “It’s not that hot, but still be careful about burning yourself.”

The girl threw two packs of noodles into the hot water, pouring sauce packets all over. Then she got out her swiss army knife to try to figure out which sharp metal appendage was the can opener. She poked at the can a bit before John stuck two gloved hands out of the tent to help her. Pretty soon they had a pretty decent meal of bland calorie rations, ramen noodles, canned tuna and some chips. The girl thought about making some instant cocoa but thought better of it. Best to save it for a rainy day.

The girl chatted a bit with John over mugs of tea while the three Gerald Jrs listened from the living room table. She helped grab a bunch of pillows and cushions from the couch to tuck under their quarantine tent making it a sort of large enclosed bed. John lay there talking about the radio and the evac team while Emily snored next to him. As they talked, a gentle breeze wafted in, though as the night went on, it started to get rather cold and they eventually closed the windows.

This was the first time John told the girl that he thought she may be gifted.

“Hmm," the girl said. “That’s pretty neat.”

“That’s it?” asked John, “You’ve got magic powers, kiddo.”

“Well…I think I’ve always kinda known," she responded hesitantly. “Like just sort of suspected.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah with the weird dreams and the voice that tells me things.”

John sounded slightly alarmed. “Voice that tells you things?”

The girl explained the voice that had appeared at certain times to warn her. “In fact I probably would’ve never met you guys if it hadn’t told me to go look for food.”

“Huh that’s interesting," She could hear him scribbling in a notebook in the tent. Then he asked, “Does the voice say anything about me and Emily?”

“Yes…” the girl responded, “It says you guys are friends but… that you’re dangerous.”

John stopped scribbling. “It’s not completely off, but… Me and Emily are trying our best to mitigate that.”

“Is that why you guys keep using hazmat suits and stuff?” asked the girl.

“Something like that," The scribbling continued for a bit then came a snap as he closed his notebook. “But you can move things with your mind! And you can see things happening far away, isn’t that exciting?”

“Yeah… I guess. But it doesn’t really… do much?” the girl said doubtfully.

“Hahaha! I guess not, at least not for now," John replied. “Maybe we could train it up and you can start moving bigger things with your mind.”

“I guess that would be pretty cool.”

“Hey cheer up, being gifted is a surefire way to get on one of those colony ships.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The girl sighed, then said in a small voice, “I don’t really want to go on a colony ship though. I just want everything to go back to normal.”

John was silent for a moment. “Yeah, you’re right. I wish it were that way too, kiddo.”

“But” he continued, “we have to make do with what we have. That’s just part of growing up. And unfortunately, the world has made it so you have to grow up faster than you should’ve needed to. I’m sorry about that, kid.”

The girl took another bath, this time she dumped her collection of high class shampoo and body wash samples into the large ornate bath. The bath looked large enough to fit five people. She sank into the fragrant hot water and leaned back feeling her tired muscles unknot. She took a moment to cry and let her thoughts unwind, following each nostalgic memory as they bled into one another. She thought of her friends Katie and Alec when they went to the mall and spent the day at the arcade. Of her parents during her last birthday when they got her a large blue whale shaped cake. Of her aunt and other relatives during their last christmas party in Canada. She must have been there for a while because she heard John call out asking if she was ok.

“Yeah I’m good!” she shouted back as she hastily got out of the bath. She toweled herself off and got dressed in her ocean themed matching pajamas. They had glow-in-the-dark jellyfish patterns.

“I guess we’re all pretty tired,” said John from the tent. “You can stay here tonight, but use one of the rooms ok?”

The suite had three bedrooms. She chose the one closest to the living room just in case anything happened. The room had a light green color scheme that was soft on the eyes but also sort of gave her a forest vibe. It also had a great view of the city, but she decided to close the heavy blinds just so it wouldn’t grow so hot in the morning. She opened the window a crack to let in a cool breeze, then huddled under the soft green covers. It was a strange combination but a cold face and warm body was the best feeling when sleeping, she thought. She wondered who’s thoughts she would travel to tonight.

That warm ocean place would be nice. she thought as she closed her eyes.

***

Kyle Wilson thought that it would be warmer when they finally reached the settlement zone. The first two of the “Pioneer Groups” ahead of them had nuclear powered machines. These were supposed to enable them to set up quickly and lay the groundwork for following groups to set up more permanent bases with omni-combustion generators, versatile machines that could be powered by coal or gasoline or anything burnable, that could last indefinitely. The nuclear generators were set up earlier because initially there was more support from the nations funding this project. The omni-combustion generators that would come after were built into massive vehicles dubbed “ice-crawlers” that could be torn apart for building material and remade into longer term settlements.

As with most plans, reality tended to disappoint. By some miracle both of the nuclear powered stations had been set up. However once the nations fell into disarray and supply chains began getting cut off, it became harder to maintain the plants in the cold climate. A lot of work to set up a permanent base had to be done, and quickly. This meant work-place safety secondary to getting things done. Of the 400 workers with the First Pioneer group, only 300 survived to greet the second group just one week later. The second group brought with them the second nuclear core along with 398 more workers (two died en-route). By the following week, the total population was only around 540. There were not enough people to bury all the bodies individually so there was a large frozen corpse trench dug out along the western crater wall.

Among those that had perished was one of the Operations Managers of the nuclear stations from the first group. The person chosen to replace him also died. In the resulting chaos before a 3rd person could be chosen, a key component malfunctioned resulting in the nuclear power plant being automatically shut down to prevent a nuclear catastrophe. When the third group arrived with another 400 people and the first omni-combustion generator, due to power shortage problems, not enough housing had been built because all construction vehicles had been relying on the output of nuclear plants. They had to ration power, people crowded together in key areas chosen to be heated.

Tough decisions soon had to be made. The remaining nuclear generator needed to be maintained every now and then, but without any stored power this would mean turning off power at certain times– leading to deaths of many in the medical bays. There were at least 260 people of the now 940 seriously crippled in some way due to frostbite or workplace accidents. However, if they did not maintain the generator, it might malfunction like the other one– a death sentence for everyone there. The omni-combustion generator could technically be run simply as a vehicle, but this severely limited its functionality, at least until another omni-combustion generator could arrive one week later.

The governess at the time of this settlement, now dubbed “New Anatoli”, made the difficult decision to perform maintenance checks every week. For the current week, before the next group arrived, they would delay the salvaging of the on-site omni-generator and keep it as an ice-crawler so they could house those in the medical bays. Many people froze that day when the nuclear generator was turned off as the ice-crawler did not have the capacity to hold everyone. Things became worse when the next omni-generator did not arrive.

The ice-crawler had broken down a third of the way there. Thankfully the core was still functional, however its occupants were stranded until they could repair it, which would take an indeterminate amount of time. By this time the population of New Anatoli had dwindled to around 780 people. Enough housing for around 800 people had been set up, but there was only power to heat one third of that. People began clamoring to stop the maintenance checks on the remaining nuclear generator reasoning, “Surely one week without maintenance couldn’t hurt?”

Governess Theresa Evans could not take the chance, however. The original plan had been made for the nuclear reactors to be maintained three times a week, having one take on a load while the other was partially shut down and maintained. Once a week maintenance was already pushing it. The risk of instant death for all of them was too much. However, the people did not see it that way. Living in such conditions sapped morale, many people were waking up with frostbite and others were not waking up at all. Soon there were rumblings of dissent, and there was much talk of going on strike. This would have been catastrophic. They needed to get greenhouses up to grow food fast. If they delayed too long, the supplies brought along would not last and they would all be starving in 4 months.

Eventually Gov. Evans passed a rule allowing the redistribution of coal from the ice-crawler to the housing units so they could at least have a heat source throughout the night of maintenance. The obvious downside was that now the ice-crawler was slated to run out of fuel faster than expected and they would need to up the timetable for coal excavation slightly. A reasonable trade-off and this decision satisfied both sides.

Since the breakdown of the second omni-generator vehicle, along with the fact that governments were beginning to be thrown into disarray, the funding nations began sending two vehicles at a time. These next omni-vehicles were less well supplied due to infrastructure slowly grinding to a halt, but the idea was that they would be able to support each other should anything go wrong. The two 3rd Wave Omni-Units made it to the stalled 2nd Wave Omni-Unit and were able to tow it to New Anatoli without too much trouble. They were only two days late, so overall, things worked out ok.

New Anatoli, at this point, had 700 people remaining, with the arrival of the newcomers– 1160 people, newcomers now far outnumbered the original population. There was chaos as Gov. Evans tried to figure out housing, task assignment as well as law enforcement and training for the new recruits. The three new vehicles could be used to house people while they were being trained. However, once they started taking them apart to reconstruct more permanent structures, there would be a gap in time where they would be down on housing and power.

At this point, they were far behind schedule. Weather forecast showed a storm coming in around 7-10 days. They needed to work fast and set up infrastructure or they would be stuck until the storm passed. This was when a group of bright engineers from the previously broken down 2nd Wave Omni-Unit put forth an idea. During the time they had been stuck in the snow, they had managed to jury-rig a setup that allowed vehicle-form omni-generators to power construction vehicles and other buildings. By using this technique, they could power the construction vehicles during the “day”, allowing the nuclear plant to undergo maintenance during that time so that during the “night”, they could keep it on, resulting in less casualties.

This new technique was obviously not how vehicles were originally intended to be used and there were downsides as vehicle-form generators had less power output. But overall, it was a success. They took apart one of the omni-vehicles and along with the combined materials brought along with the other three vehicles they managed to increase ground housing to 1000 and finished planting the omni-generator in fully operational form.

Current statistics: they had 1720 people, 1 nuclear power plant, 1 omni-generator, 3 omni-vehicles (each could house 400 people), and ground housing for 1000. It looked like they could barely scrape by and proceed with the plan. Once the next two ice-crawlers arrived, they could use their supplies to build enough housing to scrap another vehicle for its omni-generator.

Unfortunately par for the course, disaster struck once more. With so many hastily trained people with disorganized assignment of tasks, one of the omni-vehicles malfunctioned and lit itself on fire. They spent one day trying to put out the fire. They were not successful. In total, around 200 people perished and they had now lost one of their power sources. They still had not set up any greenhouses or coal mines.

It was at this time that Kyle Wilson (with the girl watching) arrived with his beat down group all crowding one ice-crawler. The 600 new arrivals had been hoping for warmth, but they had arrived just in time for housing shortages, a soon-to-be fuel shortage, with a storm looming.

Fucking hell, Kyle thought to himself. And to think it’s still summer.