Ozymandias
Title: Ozymandias
Date posted: 01-11-07
Fandom: Alias
Disclaimer: I don't own Jack or Nadia.
Spoilers: Spoilers for the end of Alias. I guess.
Notes: This kind of fits into a series of ficlings that I've been playing with for a few months. It was written for alias500's challenge "end of the world."
He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
- Horace Smith, "On A Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below"
"I remember the first moon landing," Was Jack's reply when told of the end of the world.
To be fair, it wasn't the end of the world he was referring to. It was the colonization of the moon.
Nadia didn't want to move to the moon, and neither did he. In Jack's case, he simply wanted to stay on Earth. Nadia was looking into Mars. She thought a modified atmosphere was better than having none at all.
They had visited planets before. The moon was first, with its bustling trade in tourism. The capital, Selene, was an innovative new destination with all the comforts of Earth but without the disagreable weather changes. (It had given Nadia the chills the first night, looking out their hotel window and seeing Earth. The atmosphere bubble that was Selene was brightened for day and shielded the sun at night, keeping inhabitants of Earth comfortable. To Nadia, an entire planet of artifice was disturbing. This was a century before Earth started floundering and artifice became the new reality.)
Mars was even more exotic, with more tours of natural formations and better stores. It was exclusive, even moreso than the moon.
Expeditions to the planets had been occurring for years- settlers who thought they would have a better life had started moving fifty years before, and space travel had advanced so much since then. Faster and smoother ways to launch, more accurate projectories, and quicker voyages. From Cape Canaveral, it was a few hours ride to the moon, and no more than fifteen to Mars. They were starting construction on Venus, and the industrious were already purchasing passage to Aphrodite, better known as Cloud City.
("Wasn't that the name of-"
"Of what?"
"In those movies."
A scoff. "What movies?"
"The ones Sydney liked.")
The inhabitants of great cities despaired at leaving. Memoribilia usually taken only by tourists were now snatched up by people who grew up in the shadow of Eiffel Tower, lived walking distance from amphitheatres and sacred temples. Omni was the language of the new planets, and on their ident chips, they would be labeled as Terrans first, with their former nationalities ignored.
The fire had started in Egypt, raining from the sky. There was one explanation- Heavenly Wrath, which was favored by zealots- but newscasters and governments insisted it was an anomaly that would end, soon, even as the Nile bubbled and boiled fish as they swam. But when the storms moved north to Europe, and east to Asia, Jack had told Nadia to choose a planet.
She chose the moon for Jack, although she wouldn't admit to it. In the decades to come, personal transport would be available for interplanetary travel, but then they took a passenger shuttle, with everything they owned and ten other people, and left for Selene.
Both of their daughters died the same way they were conceived: by accident. Cristina was before planetary fervor, just as they were vacation spots. For her fifth birthday they took her to Selene, and she had been dazzled, bouncing excitedly when they sat and hopping from one foot to the other as they walked. Jack's memory of this is strong: he remembers how her hand clutched his as they walked, her childish babble, her pleas for gifts as they passed a toy store. They didn't think much of the slight cough she had, or the flush in her cheeks. A mild allergy to a new environment, the excitement of the trip.
The government had created a vitamin pill to give to children. Every child was given the vitamins twice a week at the insistence of pediatricians and officials alike. Jack hadn't quite trusted the vitamins (he didn't like the government involving themselves in his daughter's life) but couldn't find anything wrong with the combination of vitamins listed on the bottle. Nadia had told him not to be so paranoid.
When Cristina was six, the government abruptly stopped distribution of the pills, and within six months they heard reports of widespread death in older children- deposits of vitamins and poisons in their systems. It was too late Cristina, who suffered her fate with grace and poise as her organs failed.
(After her death, Jack would walk into their bedroom to find Nadia pricking herself with pins. "I can't feel anything," she would say dully, "all I can do is watch.")
They moved to Venus shortly after Maria was born. The pain of Cristina had subsided- they had both learned that pain faded but never left. There were few infants in Aphrodite, and even fewer children. It was a relatively new planet, and people were finally settling into lives on other planets as the evacuation of Earth was drawing to a close. (The fire storms made the oceans too hot, which created hurricanes. The fire storms melted ice caps, which caused flooding. Vegetation was either drowned or scorched; people were saving were saving what they could while they were able. Those who couldn't afford to move were being transferred to one of the lesser cities on the Moon by their goverments- Naxos and Pandia and Endymion- they hoped. No one had much faith in their governments anymore, least of all those who had been burnt.)
The governor of Aphrodite didn't think to warn immigrants with children, and the deaths were kept secret. They instead touted their many wonders: The entire collection of artwork and artefacts collected from the Louvre in Paris had been moved to their new museum, Francia; they had the largest collection of Earth artefacts; they were known for shining brightest in the sky. The official cause of Maria's death was suffocation. They left out that it was because the precautions taken to create a suitable atmosphere for Terrans hadn't taken infants into consideration.
"Maybe," Nadia said with the first sound of hope in her voice that he had heard in many years, "this curse will stop working once Earth is gone."
"We should be that lucky," Jack had replied, and to their right, Earth gleamed gold.
Date posted: 01-11-07
Fandom: Alias
Disclaimer: I don't own Jack or Nadia.
Spoilers: Spoilers for the end of Alias. I guess.
Notes: This kind of fits into a series of ficlings that I've been playing with for a few months. It was written for alias500's challenge "end of the world."
He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
- Horace Smith, "On A Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below"
"I remember the first moon landing," Was Jack's reply when told of the end of the world.
To be fair, it wasn't the end of the world he was referring to. It was the colonization of the moon.
Nadia didn't want to move to the moon, and neither did he. In Jack's case, he simply wanted to stay on Earth. Nadia was looking into Mars. She thought a modified atmosphere was better than having none at all.
They had visited planets before. The moon was first, with its bustling trade in tourism. The capital, Selene, was an innovative new destination with all the comforts of Earth but without the disagreable weather changes. (It had given Nadia the chills the first night, looking out their hotel window and seeing Earth. The atmosphere bubble that was Selene was brightened for day and shielded the sun at night, keeping inhabitants of Earth comfortable. To Nadia, an entire planet of artifice was disturbing. This was a century before Earth started floundering and artifice became the new reality.)
Mars was even more exotic, with more tours of natural formations and better stores. It was exclusive, even moreso than the moon.
Expeditions to the planets had been occurring for years- settlers who thought they would have a better life had started moving fifty years before, and space travel had advanced so much since then. Faster and smoother ways to launch, more accurate projectories, and quicker voyages. From Cape Canaveral, it was a few hours ride to the moon, and no more than fifteen to Mars. They were starting construction on Venus, and the industrious were already purchasing passage to Aphrodite, better known as Cloud City.
("Wasn't that the name of-"
"Of what?"
"In those movies."
A scoff. "What movies?"
"The ones Sydney liked.")
The inhabitants of great cities despaired at leaving. Memoribilia usually taken only by tourists were now snatched up by people who grew up in the shadow of Eiffel Tower, lived walking distance from amphitheatres and sacred temples. Omni was the language of the new planets, and on their ident chips, they would be labeled as Terrans first, with their former nationalities ignored.
The fire had started in Egypt, raining from the sky. There was one explanation- Heavenly Wrath, which was favored by zealots- but newscasters and governments insisted it was an anomaly that would end, soon, even as the Nile bubbled and boiled fish as they swam. But when the storms moved north to Europe, and east to Asia, Jack had told Nadia to choose a planet.
She chose the moon for Jack, although she wouldn't admit to it. In the decades to come, personal transport would be available for interplanetary travel, but then they took a passenger shuttle, with everything they owned and ten other people, and left for Selene.
Both of their daughters died the same way they were conceived: by accident. Cristina was before planetary fervor, just as they were vacation spots. For her fifth birthday they took her to Selene, and she had been dazzled, bouncing excitedly when they sat and hopping from one foot to the other as they walked. Jack's memory of this is strong: he remembers how her hand clutched his as they walked, her childish babble, her pleas for gifts as they passed a toy store. They didn't think much of the slight cough she had, or the flush in her cheeks. A mild allergy to a new environment, the excitement of the trip.
The government had created a vitamin pill to give to children. Every child was given the vitamins twice a week at the insistence of pediatricians and officials alike. Jack hadn't quite trusted the vitamins (he didn't like the government involving themselves in his daughter's life) but couldn't find anything wrong with the combination of vitamins listed on the bottle. Nadia had told him not to be so paranoid.
When Cristina was six, the government abruptly stopped distribution of the pills, and within six months they heard reports of widespread death in older children- deposits of vitamins and poisons in their systems. It was too late Cristina, who suffered her fate with grace and poise as her organs failed.
(After her death, Jack would walk into their bedroom to find Nadia pricking herself with pins. "I can't feel anything," she would say dully, "all I can do is watch.")
They moved to Venus shortly after Maria was born. The pain of Cristina had subsided- they had both learned that pain faded but never left. There were few infants in Aphrodite, and even fewer children. It was a relatively new planet, and people were finally settling into lives on other planets as the evacuation of Earth was drawing to a close. (The fire storms made the oceans too hot, which created hurricanes. The fire storms melted ice caps, which caused flooding. Vegetation was either drowned or scorched; people were saving were saving what they could while they were able. Those who couldn't afford to move were being transferred to one of the lesser cities on the Moon by their goverments- Naxos and Pandia and Endymion- they hoped. No one had much faith in their governments anymore, least of all those who had been burnt.)
The governor of Aphrodite didn't think to warn immigrants with children, and the deaths were kept secret. They instead touted their many wonders: The entire collection of artwork and artefacts collected from the Louvre in Paris had been moved to their new museum, Francia; they had the largest collection of Earth artefacts; they were known for shining brightest in the sky. The official cause of Maria's death was suffocation. They left out that it was because the precautions taken to create a suitable atmosphere for Terrans hadn't taken infants into consideration.
"Maybe," Nadia said with the first sound of hope in her voice that he had heard in many years, "this curse will stop working once Earth is gone."
"We should be that lucky," Jack had replied, and to their right, Earth gleamed gold.