Twilight of the Fifth Sun: Lifeboat
Title: Twilight of the Fifth Sun: Lifeboat
Author: Tzzzz
Category: McKay/Sheppard (eventually), AU, crossover SGA/SG1
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~6,500
Spoilers: None
Summary: The world ends and a young John and Rodney are among the group evacuated to Atlantis.
The waters have risen,
The springs are unbound--
The floods break their prison,
And ravin around.
No rampart withstands 'em,
Their fury will last,
Till the Sign that commands 'em
Sinks low or swings past.
Through abysses unproven
O'er gulfs beyond thought,
Our portion is woven,
Our burden is brought.
Yet They that prepare it,
Whose Nature we share,
Make us who must bear it
Well able to bear.
-Rudyard Kipling, "An Astrologer's Song"
Twilight of the Fifth Sun: Lifeboat
December 21th 2012: Judgment Day.
That's how this story would start, if it were a Terminator movie. But it's not, and the world doesn't end with the graceful arch of nuclear warheads. There are no machines. There aren't even any aliens - except for Teal'c, but he drinks coca-cola and can recite Star Wars word-for-word, so he doesn't really count.
Somewhere deep in Earth, deeper than the lowest basement of Cheyenne Mountain, deeper than the well of the largest volcano, in the core of the planet itself, something wildly improbable happens. It is followed by another impossible happening and then another, and another. Something shifts, like a switch being flipped, and the countdown starts.
It's not the geologists or the seismologists that note it. In fact, nobody on Earth would have been the wiser, if it were not for a flashing blue light deep beneath the snows of Antarctica.
The Ancients built cities that could fly through space. They built gates to travel between worlds, devices to control the weather, ways to turn people into beings of pure energy. But though their technology was advanced enough to detect it, not even they could stop a planet from destroying itself once it had decided to.
The call came at 3:27pm on December 21st. Rodney McKay was home sick with what he was convinced was the first case of Bird Flu on the North American Continent. He'd just picked Jeannie up at the bus stop (despite the fact that the cold weather would probably exacerbate his symptoms) and was just hunkering down for an afternoon of beating smart-asses in Quebec at video games. A part of him knew he wasn't really sick, just as a part of him knew that his parents didn't even seem to care enough to take him to the doctor, but it wasn't as though this would effect his grades, and he could do without another wedgie for today.
The phone rang and he moaned in its generally direction until Jeannie hopped up from where she was painstakingly finger painting on the dining room table.
She handed him the phone a minute later, stained red with paint that looked like blood. He rolled his eyes, whispering, "who is it?" quietly.
"CSIS," she piped up.
Rodney grimaced, eyeing the red paint carefully. But, as he'd learned from the whole nuclear weapons debacle a few years earlier, you should always take government security agencies seriously.
A harried-sounding, though bizarrely monotonous voice spoke clearly from the receiver, held just far enough away from his head to avoid his looking like he had a head wound. "Meredith Rodney McKay?"
"That's me." He held back that 'who the hell are you and why are you wasting my time.'
"Social Insurance Number?"
"What kind of moron do you think I am? I'm not just going to give you my number over the phone! Have you ever heard of identity theft? Well, I don't doubt that you have, considering that's what you're probably engaging in right--"
"The first six digits are 046 454. Please finish it off to confirm."
"286."
"Thank you. We are initiating Project Lifeboat. You have ten minutes to collect what you can carry. No items of currency or identification will be necessary. Do not bring weaponry of any kind. The device you received as part of the program will initiate a verbal countdown sequence in nine minutes. Hold on to your belongings and hit the button when the light flashes red. Tell no one where you are going. This is not a drill."
"Wait? What the hell is going on? Project Lifeboat? What should I bring?"
Rodney had a million questions, but the line had already gone dead. He thought back to two years ago, locked in one of the bland conference rooms at the American consulate, two CIA officials and a CSIS officer sitting across from him. He'd been scared out of his mind, afraid they'd lock him away for life, when instead they'd offered him a summer internship and a bland manila folder with the code PL-33489 printed neatly at the top. 'Never lose this,' the tall one had said. 'It could save your life someday.'
"Oh my god. Oh my god. This can't be happening. It isn't happening. There's no way." He grabbed the remote, but there was nothing but daytime soaps and political commentary, nothing to suggest what the name Project Lifeboat so clearly suggested. It was a prank. It had to be.
He ran upstairs, throwing open his closet and rooting around behind his old Lego sets, an X-box, some circuit boards and a pile of clothes. Buried at the bottom was the envelope, a little frayed at the edges and rumpled, but still there. He tore through the paper, pulling out the device and a laminated paper with a barcode, his name and basic medical information and several meaningless numbers and categories on it. The device itself was small, just an opaque white pushbutton with not setting or instructions whatsoever, mounted on a large piece of plastic like the key to a gas station's bathroom - made larger to keep you from losing it. Rodney must have pushed it a hundred times the second the CIA agents had dropped him home, only to have nothing happen. But it wasn't flashing yellow like it was now.
"Oh Jesus," he breathed, making a mad dive for the phone to call his parents.
"You are not authorized to call anyone. Communications to your area have been cut. Pack your belongings. You have eight minutes," a mechanical sounding voice said.
Rodney couldn't think. What was happening? What would happen to everyone else? His parents? Jeannie? Jeannie. He tore into the hall, pulling two duffle bags out of the hall closet. "Jeannie!"
He found her washing her hands in the kitchen, finger paint still sticking in her curly blonde hair. He handed her the smaller bag. "Pack this with clothes and anything else you need to take with you for the um -- for the foreseeable future. Quickly."
"Rodney," she began, her face getting that tight look that signaled that she might just start crying.
"There's no time for this!" He grabbed her by the shoulders, staring into serious blue eyes, far wiser than her six years. "I need you to be a big girl for me, okay, Jeannie? I need you to pack your clothes for all weather and your boots and maybe your Boo-bear and a blanket. Can you do that?"
Jeannie nodded, biting her lip and holding in the tears before rushing up to her room.
Rodney looked around the kitchen, dumping the house's entire stock of snack bars and juice boxes into a side pocket before flinging open the kitchen cabinet and pulling out the allergy kit. Next, he ran upstairs, dumping in the contents of the clean laundry basket he hadn't bother to put away yet, a few pairs of shorts, his hiking boots and his winter coat and mittens, flashlight and Swiss army knife. Next he grabbed his backpack, dumping out the textbooks and binders before stuffing in his two laptops as well as the one he'd grabbed from his father's study, five external hard drives, his soldering kit and circuit tester, iPhone, and DVD stack with some of his work backed up. He finished it off by stuffing in as many of his various notebooks as he could fit.
"One minute!" The device announced.
Rodney rushed into Jeannie's room, where she was trying to fit a stuffed unicorn into her Bratz backpack. He grabbed it from her, stuffing the thing in and zipping it up quickly, not caring if he was tearing the fur. "Everything packed?"
She nodded solemnly. He handed her the backpack, grabbing the duffle in one hand and his sister in the other, tugging her back to his room and the innocuous-looking button, which was in the middle of proclaiming, "30 seconds.”
He handed Jeannie her bag, lifting his mattress up at the last second and pulling out five Batman comics and a Playboy he stole from his father's basement stash and stuffing them into the side pocket of his duffel before hefting it and his backpack.
"Ten seconds," the device said, beginning to blink red. Rodney grabbed his sister's hand, closed his eyes, and pressed the button.
It was 11:07am when they came for John. He was used to seeing men in military uniforms, by virtue of sneaking around the Air Base while his father was working. He was used to their crisp salutes and the placid stoic way they always seemed to look through him instead of at him. He just wasn't expecting to see two Airmen in combat gear anywhere near the English classroom, looking thoroughly out-of-place with a backdrop of Shakespearian sonnets and drawings depicting different scenes from The Odyssey.
"John David Sheppard?" One of the men asked.
John raised his hand, feeling his stomach drop out from under him. He'd seen the movies, with the soldiers coming to people's doors, knocking and starting with the words, 'I'm sorry.'
He was home alone this week. His father was conducting an inspection in Colombia. He couldn't. There was no way. He balled his hands up into fists, willing himself not to cry. His mom was already gone. He couldn't lose his father too. What would he do?
He rose, shaking. Somehow he made it to the front of the classroom and out into the hallway, though he couldn't tell you how his muscles moved, or what he saw along the way. The faces of the Airmen were blank as stone, though he heard, as if under water, one say, "I need you to come with us, son."
He nodded, blinking fiercely at the tears trying to escape his eyelids and gathering all the strength he possessed to ask, "My dad? Is he--"
"This has nothing to do with your father, son. He's fine, so far as we know," one of them said. He had dark skin and an easy smile, memorable for only a second while he spoke.
"Then why--"
"We couldn't tell you even if we knew," the other replied. This one was short and stocky with sharp birdlike features and a distinct southern twang to his accent. "Our orders are to pick up you and a few others and drive you out to Dreamland, ASAP."
"But--" John tried to continue conversation in vain, but the short Airman just grabbed him by the arm and hauled him out towards a nondescript black SUV.
John was apparently the last to arrive, as the other five seats in the back were already filled, the trunk stuffed full with baggage. There were two older men, one wearing glasses and clutching a beat-up looking black laptop bag to his chest, the other with mustard stains on his decidedly un-stylish checkered shirt. There was also a young, frightened-looking woman with mouse brown hair and a four-year-old boy leaning against her, asleep. The last man, John recognized as one of the cashiers at the local bookstore. He couldn't be more than twenty-years-old, and he smiled at John wanly, eyes clearly saying, 'Don't worry, I don't have any idea why I'm here either.'
The two older men made John climb in the backbench between him, glaring down his curious stares. The drive was quiet, like a funeral procession, everyone on edge or two scared to speak.
"Where are you taking us," John found the courage to demand, halfway through, remembering his history about the holocaust, and how many Jews had walked unknowingly onto the trains at Auschwitz. The only problem was that the people in this car seemed to have nothing so obvious in common.
"I told you, kid," one of the men replied with a chuckle. "Groom lake. You know, Area 51?"
John had seen Independence Day and read about aliens and secret research and everything. He nodded, keeping his mouth shut as the Airmen laughed about stupid kids.
John wasn't old enough to know much about what to expect at secretive military bases out in the desert, but even he could tell that there were too many planes, C-17s and C-22s, cargo planes in what was supposed to be an experimental aircraft testing facility. He moved onto his knees, squinting against the glare to see more people disembarking than a medium-sized airport. The man to his left pulled him back down to a seated position, where John squirmed uncomfortably. What were all these people doing here?
The SUV pulled right up, hooking around the tarmac to a large hangar, already filling with people. The woman grabbed her child and practically catapulted out of the open door. The two older men pushed John out between them, grabbing bags from the trunk. Why did they get bags and he didn't? John frowned.
The hanger was a teeming mass of people, many of which had bags. John heard rumors among the crowd, everything from concern about their friends or spouses to talk of an alien invasion. There were tense jokes about Noah's ark and long conversations in harried whispers. He even thought he'd spotted a few celebrities, though nobody seemed to be paying much attention to them either. John though he might have gotten told off by Jay Leno when he accidentally bumped into him.
Just when John was considering stealing a Jeep and making a run for it, a man in a plain black shirt, green BDUs and glasses stood up before the crowd, holding a megaphone in his hands. "Hello, my name is Dr. Daniel Jackson. Some of you may already have heard of Project Lifeboat, so please be patient." Daniel Jackson sounded far too conversational, like he didn't know that the purpose of a megaphone was to shout. "There's no easy way to say this, so I guess I'll just go ahead. Project Lifeboat is the last backup plan of the United States and several of its allies in the case that the Earth should ever face the prospect of certain annihilation."
A gasp went up in the crowd, though Daniel Jackson seemed to expect it. If John had thought people were restless before, they were practically frantic now.
"I know that this is a difficult thing to ask of you, but you all need to remain calm. Your names are on a long list of those chosen for evacuation should we have a twelve-hour or more window of opportunity. We are at the twelve hour mark now, with thousands still on the waitlist, so the faster and more efficiently we do this, the more people we can get out."
Another whisper rippled through the crowd. "Out? How can we get out of a planet?" someone shouted from the depths of the crowd.
Daniel Jackson seemed almost amused by the question. "We can get off this planet using a device called a Stargate. The first one was discovered in an archaeological dig in Egypt more than a century ago, the remnants of an ancient civilization that used a network of these gates to travel between the planets of this galaxy and others.” The background noise of frantic whispers a roll of thunder now. “The United States Air Force has been operating this device for the past twenty years, now under the oversight of an international committee. In a few minutes, you will be transported our base of operations in Cheyenne Mountain, and from there to our Atlantis Base, where you will be given a more in depth orientation. I'm sorry. I know this is a lot to take in and you are all probably feeling overwhelmed, but please remain calm and everything will be all right."
Part of John believed Daniel Jackson when he said that. He said it with such conviction that it had to be true. But at the same time, he didn't know how the destruction of the Earth could possibly be all right. What about the people they were leaving behind? And why John? Why a fifteen-year-old boy when they should be evacuating geniuses and heroes and people who'd actually done things with their lives? Then it hit him. There must have been a mistake. John shared a name with his father. They must have gotten it wrong and gone looking for John Sheppard Senior.
The crowd was pushing forward, moving into a large circular design painted on the floor. When the circle was filled, Daniel Jackson called something out, and a pile of rings seemed to rise up out of nowhere. In a flash of light, the people in the center were gone. Others gasped. Some were crying or clutching children to their chests to hide the view. But throughout it all there was the whisper: was this really how it would end?
John pushed his way over to one of the soldiers standing guard at the hangar's door. "There's been a mistake," he panted. "I'm not supposed to be here. My father's supposed to be here. He's John Sheppard, too and--"
The Airman just looked at him sadly. "I'm sorry kid, but there's nothing I can do."
"He's in Colombia. You need to call him!"
"If he's not in the area, he might have been transferred to another site."
"Can you check?"
The guard shook his head. "Count your lucky stars that you're here, kid. You'll probably see your dad on the other side." He looked sad, and for a second John wanted to know why.
"Aren't you coming, Mister?"
"Yeah, if they finish their list in time to bring support staff through. My family, though--" His eyes seemed to glisten a washed-out grey, but he stared straight ahead, nudging John towards where the last of the crowd was gathering at the platform. "See you in the City of Atlantis, kid."
Someone grabbed John by the elbow. He didn't fight when they dragged him into a ring of light.
It had been a transporter, just like on Star Trek, and if that wasn't wonder enough, they were now in an underground military complex straight out of Wormhole Extreme. And who would have thought the event horizon of an honest to god Lorentzian traversable wormhole would look kind of like an inflatable kiddy-pool? Rodney just stood there staring at it until he felt Jeannie tugging on his pant leg.
"What?" he snapped.
"I don't want to, Mer. I'm scared. I want Mom."
She was crying again now, and what was Rodney supposed to do with that? He couldn't just tell her that her mother wasn't there. She wouldn't be there ever again. He held out his hand. "I'll be here, Jeannie. You just have to trust me."
But then Jeannie looked up at him with wide blue eyes just like Rodney's own, just like their mother's. "I'm not stupid, Mer. I heard what the man said. Mom and Dad aren't coming."
"Jeannie," what did he say to that and her proudly jutting chin and brave but terrified eyes? "No, they're not. But we have to go. This is the only way." He had no idea how explain it to her. Maybe she was too young to understand, but life was made up of choices and human beings always made the choices that allowed them to survive. There was no why, but there was a choice and she was too young to understand that. "So you just have to suck it up and do it. I'll be right here."
But before they could step through, the most beautiful woman Rodney had ever seen came running into the room, some kind of large opaque orange cylinder clutched to her chest. She had short pixie-cut blonde hair and clear blue eyes, the figure of perfection in a tight black t-shirt and blue pants.
"Carter, what are you doing?" a somewhat sarcastic sounding voice came over the PA system. Rodney could just make out some figures behind the glass overlooking the 'stargate' staring at her incredulously.
"It's recharging itself now, Sir. The exotic particles forming in the core are overflowing our space-time and entering the self-contained pocket created by the ZPM. All of the empty ones kept in storage should have charged themselves by now as well. We need to ship them over to Atlantis. We can keep the gate open for the next eight hours with just this one if we plug it directly into the gate."
"Well what are you waiting for?" the commander in the mission control asked.
The woman smiled wanly, the very picture of the Earth's destruction - beautiful but tragic and full of regret. No one else in the crowd now shuffling through the shimmering pool seemed to notice her, fixed as they were in their own personal tragedies, but Rodney understood. He knew, the people of the Earth -these people- had sewn the seeds of its destruction.
It was like flying, stepping up into a pool of water that was really a roller coaster of stars and ripples like those tubes at water parks with only the gaps at the seams to let in light. John would have let out an excited whoop if he'd had a voice, or even a body. But it was over to quickly, reality slamming the breaks on wonder. It was still an emergency chute off the planet, even if it was a really cool one.
He stepped out into a cavernous room, all bronze and stained glass, like a bizarrely modern church. A glass atrium and walkway were suspended overlooking where he stood among the crowd, many of whom were busy being sick in trash bags offered by the soldiers flanking the newcomers. But more powerful than it all was the feeling that settled at the back of John's mind, a delicate refrain of intangible warmth and comfort: everything will be all right; you are welcome here. It was somehow familiar.
John looked around, almost expecting to find someone behind him, whispering in his ear, but there was no one, just soldiers urging them out a set of high doors and down a hallway. Looking around for his father, John pushed himself towards the front of the crowd, where a particular soldier was walking backwards, holding a P-90 close to his chest like a shield.
"My name is Lieutenant Colonel Nick Lorne and I'm the current XO on this base. The Military Commander is currently Colonel Marshell Sumner and the civilian in charge is Dr. Elizabeth Weir, who will be by to see you shortly. There will be changes in leadership once the brass get here and get settled, but for the next week we'll be the ones getting you settled.
“You are all Groom Lake Group 1 and we will be settling you and the other three groups from that evacuation point in temporary emergency quarters on the East Pier shipyard. Don't worry, there aren't any ships there at the moment. We have plenty of individual apartments and rooms available for everyone, but until we have everyone sorted and the spaces cleaned out, we request that you stay confined to your designated living area. We will be posting guards, just to keep an eye on things. Please allow them to do their jobs and direct your questions to the civilian volunteers in the blue uniform shirt assigned to keep you informed. I know that this place is mysterious and exciting, but we're taking in 25,000 people with a staff of 500, so it would really help us out if you all stayed out of trouble. Now, about the toilets, don't be alarmed when they--"
John tuned Colonel Lorne out after that. He couldn't find it in him to care, thinking about 25,000 people, compared to seven billion still stuck on a doomed planet. It seemed like a lot, but it was nothing compared to the monumental loss of life that was happening light years away. He couldn't stop thinking about his father, his classmates (even if they sometimes seemed vacant and uninteresting to him), Mr. Peterson, the Hendersons next door, the people at the grocery store, the guys on the base that sometimes let him climb into the cockpits of their planes. Twelve hours, the man had said. In twelve hours, they'd all be dead.
John felt his knees wobbling at the sheer unimaginable enormity of it, but he steeled himself, straightening and following after Colonel Lorne as if in a trance. After what seemed like a long walk, they emerged out onto a high pier overlooking a brilliant aquamarine ocean. The sound of the waves slapping against metal jolted John out of his trance.
The shipyard was a large building, walls composed of alternating glass and shimmering panels. There were several portable stoves and what looked like a rudimentary canteen set up in one corner with hastily drawn bathroom signs over two doors on the far wall. About ten soldiers and the two people in the blue shirts the colonel had described were waiting for them. They immediately asked everyone to line up to give them names and social security numbers.
John lingered at the back of the line, catching Lt. Colonel Lorne as he was making his way towards the door. "Excuse me, Colonel?"
"Yes?" Up close, the man looked weary, too small for his grey uniform and tac vest.
"I think there's been a mistake. I got picked up instead of my father. He was oversees in Colombia and I was wondering if there's any way you could check to see if he's here."
Lorne sighed, gripping John's shoulder. "I'm afraid we don't know much about the Earth end of things. We've been out here eight years now and to be honest, planning for an evacuation of Earth was never a priority. I haven't even seen a copy of the list. Once we have everyone here and checked in, I'll be able to tell you." He managed to give John a strained smile before standing to leave. "Hang in there."
Well, if no one was going to help, then John would just have to find his dad on his own. He hunkered down against one of the metal panels in the corner, watching a group of Marines distribute thin camping mattresses and MREs. Now all he had to do was find a way out of here.
No one was more surprised than John when the panel behind him simply slid open. In fact, nobody else seemed to notice.
Rodney scowled, glaring down at his lemon chicken MRE. He'd been able to trade Jeannie's for a spaghetti and meatballs, but everyone else seemed too concerned with their own problems to listen to a fussy kid claiming to be allergic to citrus. So he'd had Jeannie's leftovers and a few Oreo snack bars, but it certainly wasn't enough for a growing boy.
He was glad that he'd asked Jeannie to pack a blanket. Even a pink My Little Pony comforter was better than the scratchy military-issue blankets the soldiers had handed to everyone else. If Rodney didn't know any better he'd say that this was a some sort of con on behalf of the governments and the movie studios of the world to get rid of all the intelligent life forms on the planet so they could make nothing but sequels to bad action movies without rebuke.
And yet, this base must have originally been a holding area for the idiots of the scientific community, considering their two assigned civilian 'volunteers.' Despite the two PhDs between them, Rodney doubted that Doctors Brown and Parrish could manage to screw in a light bulb. They'd just looked at him strangely when he'd asked what kind of equipment they'd been using in order to detect the creation of exotic particles at the Earth's core. Then Dr. Brown had started crying. Botanists.
There had been a lot of crying, actually. Jeannie included. And a psychiatrist, Kate Meyerwitz or something, had come to talk to them. She'd been handing out valium like candy and now most everyone was asleep, bedded down on the floor of what some particularly annoying (and short) soldier had referred to as the West pier landing bay. He, like everyone else, had been supremely unhelpful. It wasn't bad enough that the Earth was hours away from being destroyed and they were all in a 10,000-year-old city on another planet, but they weren't even going to tell people what had happened.
Images flashed behind his eyes. He thought of familiar faces - his teachers, the people at the local Tim Horton’s, his moronic classmates, his Aunt and Uncle, his parents coming home to find him and Jeannie gone. They'd spend their last moments worried or angry, thinking that their kids had run away from home (again). Rodney blinked hard, as though that would keep the memories at bay.
Thinking about strangers was no better. Did they know what was happening? Did the media catch wind of strange disappearances and the leaders of various countries mysteriously vanishing? Were all leaders invited? Paraguay? Kenya? He doubted it. He wondered if they'd even bothered saving anyone from the whole continent of Africa. And what about the Middle East? The American military, who seemed to be running things, would probably be glad to finally be rid of Al Queda. Maybe even Muslims in general. From what he'd seen so far, the racial mix of the saved wasn't anywhere close to proportional. Then again, this room was the combined evacuees from Canada and Western Europe. It was almost making him wish he paid better attention during French.
What were they doing now? he wondered. Were they rioting in the streets or were they safe asleep in their beds? Was the world shaking itself apart or did it just stop from one breath next, like his dog, Max, when they'd taken him to the vet to be put down: there one moment, gone the next. Rodney wondered how Douglas Adams had ever managed to make this funny.
He pulled out his laptop, the only glow besides the two moons shining through the high windows that lined the walls of this hangar. One of the soldiers, a blonde woman wearing a beret tilted jauntily to the side, gave him a look, but didn't come over to tell him off. He smiled, accessing some form of wireless network, though the source was strong enough that he might as well have been sitting on top of it. Bingo. If they wouldn't give him answers, he'd just have to hack them
Rodney smiled to himself. There didn't seem to be a password for access to the data stream, though no networks seemed formatted to come up automatically. He brought up the data in a basic code-reading program he'd invented to hack the family mini-van (it'd seemed vital at the time that his father never be allowed to play another easy listening station, ever). But the second he even tried anything, a window came up with two buttons, both with symbols in a language he didn't understand. Rodney clicked on the one that was already highlighted and the screen exploded with color, scrolling text that he couldn't understand floating every which way against what he assumed would be the iTunes visualizer on about a gallon of acid.
Rodney had no idea how long he'd stared at it - coding, hell visual representation, like he'd never seen and barely even brushed up against imagining floating by almost casually. But understanding was there just behind his reach and Rodney sensed something he'd never before felt in his life - a real challenge.
He might've kept staring at it all night long if he hadn't noticed movement just out of the corner of his eye, a shadow slipping along against the back wall to a corner that didn't catch the moonlight. After a quick look at where Jeannie was thoroughly entangled in the pink pony comforter (after having cried herself to sleep) and a check to see if the blonde soldier was still watching, he put his laptop down (and Jeannie's hand on top of it to deter theft).
He wasn't sure what prompted him to follow the shadowy figure. He wasn't particularly brave. In fact his standard response to the school bullies was pretty much to run. He supposed he wouldn't have to face them ever again. It wasn't the relief he would have expected it to be. Maybe he was just in a strange mood - the end of the world could do that to a person.
Or maybe it was fate -not that he believed in that- because when he was almost upon the shadow (a woman, as it turned out), crouched behind stack of MRE boxes, a patch of moonlight appeared before her and she stepped out into the night. She didn't see Rodney when he slipped out behind her, looking up at the stars of this new world for the first time.
The two moons shone with a different quality of light. Just as the sunset over the ocean had seemed too bright, the moonlight had a Hollywood quality to it, like they were moments away from the hero meeting his one true love under the star swept sky (or maybe a skin care commercial). But it wasn't just the moons. The stars, too, were different. He didn't expect them to be the same, of course, but there were so few recognizable astronomical traits that he suddenly felt the distance slam down on him the way a claustrophobic feels the walls close in. Light years away, the world was ending, and he was here looking up at the stars. They'd said that they saved 25,000, but he still felt suddenly desolately alone.
But then a splash jarred him back to reality. The woman - she had been standing out along the edge of the pier a minute ago. She must have -- he supposed it made sense: end of the world, commit suicide. He ran to where he'd last seen her anyway. The water was inky black even in the moonlight and who knew what kinds of space sea monsters could be down there, a talking giant squid probably. He thought he spotted a bump in the waves out there, but it was hard to tell. She had been wearing black or navy.
He was squinting, trying to get a better look when he heard footsteps behind him. But he was expecting one of the soldiers, not a tall gawky-looking kid, no older than Rodney himself. The moonlight washed everything out so all he could tell was that the kid had dark messy hair to match his clothes and his skin was alabaster white and flawless enough for one of those moonlit commercials. He couldn't tell the color, but translucent eyes flashed with staggering intensity. He looked sort of like Harry Potter. "I heard a splash. What happened?"
"I--" Rodney stuttered. "She -- she jumped off, I think. She was just here."
Harry Potter grimaced, yanking off black converse sneakers and his hoodie.
"You're not serious!" The kid was a toothpick. How did he expect to save a full-grown woman who probably didn't want to be saved? And there was no way to get back up - the edge of the pier was metal-shear and at least a five-meter drop. "You'll drown! And she was obviously deranged, who knows what--"
"Go get help," the kid snapped, giving Rodney an almost mischievous smile before diving in.
"Shit!" Rodney yelled to himself before scrambling to his feet and running for the building. The blonde soldier was already poking her head out when he got there.
"Send for help!" he shouted. "There was a woman. And she jumped. And Harry Potter went in after her. And I doubt he could tread water long with stick-legs like that."
The soldier looked at him skeptically, but tapped some sort of radio and called for a medical team and several of her fellow soldiers. Before she had even finished talking, Rodney was running back to the edge of the dock, peering over looking for a shape in the slow rise and fall of the waves. At first he didn't see anything, convinced that the woman had drowned and taken the skinny kid with the martyr complex with her, but then there was a small bump bobbing up and down almost perilously close to the peer. "Are you okay?" Rodney shouted down to them, releasing a breath he didn’t even know he was holding.
"She's unconscious!" Harry Potter shouted back. "I can't tell if she's breathe--" he trailed off with a painful sounding choke.
"Just hold on, we're throwing a rope down!" the blonde soldier appeared beside Rodney, who pointed to her and shouted, "See, I brought help."
"Good for you! You get a gold star!" Harry Potter shouted back, taking giant gasps between words, which made Rodney wonder why he was bothering to respond at all.
Before Rodney could yell a suitably scathing response, however, two other men arrived, one tossing a length of rope down while the other tied one end down to an artfully inset bar on the dock. The blonde soldier pulled out a flashlight just in time for Rodney to see the kid and the woman slam up against the side of the dock, pushed by a strong wave. Luckily for them, they had the rope to keep them there.
"Hold on!" one of the soldiers was shouting, but Harry Potter was ignoring them, using his legs to brace against the pier while he tied a surprisingly competent-looking harness around the woman.
"Lift her up!" he shouted after a minute.
"You grab on too!" the blonde soldier yelled.
In the wobbling beam of her flashlight, Rodney could see the kid shaking his head and then, just like that, about a meter away from him a line of indents appeared in the flat metal surface of the pier - handholds.
The female soldier waited just long enough for the kid to start climbing before ordering the other guys to haul the woman up. Rodney was just getting ready to offer to help when they hauled her over the edge. "Well, if you don't need me," he mumbled to himself before making his way over to where Mr. Martyr was pulling himself over the side, panting.
"Are you okay?" Rodney asked, helping the kid sit up while he coughed up what looked like half the goddamned ocean. "Eww. Did you really have to do that?"
"Yes," the kid panted, catching his breath. "I'm John, by the way."
"I'm Rodney."
Chapter Two: Lantern
Author: Tzzzz
Category: McKay/Sheppard (eventually), AU, crossover SGA/SG1
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~6,500
Spoilers: None
Summary: The world ends and a young John and Rodney are among the group evacuated to Atlantis.
The waters have risen,
The springs are unbound--
The floods break their prison,
And ravin around.
No rampart withstands 'em,
Their fury will last,
Till the Sign that commands 'em
Sinks low or swings past.
Through abysses unproven
O'er gulfs beyond thought,
Our portion is woven,
Our burden is brought.
Yet They that prepare it,
Whose Nature we share,
Make us who must bear it
Well able to bear.
-Rudyard Kipling, "An Astrologer's Song"
Twilight of the Fifth Sun: Lifeboat
December 21th 2012: Judgment Day.
That's how this story would start, if it were a Terminator movie. But it's not, and the world doesn't end with the graceful arch of nuclear warheads. There are no machines. There aren't even any aliens - except for Teal'c, but he drinks coca-cola and can recite Star Wars word-for-word, so he doesn't really count.
Somewhere deep in Earth, deeper than the lowest basement of Cheyenne Mountain, deeper than the well of the largest volcano, in the core of the planet itself, something wildly improbable happens. It is followed by another impossible happening and then another, and another. Something shifts, like a switch being flipped, and the countdown starts.
It's not the geologists or the seismologists that note it. In fact, nobody on Earth would have been the wiser, if it were not for a flashing blue light deep beneath the snows of Antarctica.
The Ancients built cities that could fly through space. They built gates to travel between worlds, devices to control the weather, ways to turn people into beings of pure energy. But though their technology was advanced enough to detect it, not even they could stop a planet from destroying itself once it had decided to.
The call came at 3:27pm on December 21st. Rodney McKay was home sick with what he was convinced was the first case of Bird Flu on the North American Continent. He'd just picked Jeannie up at the bus stop (despite the fact that the cold weather would probably exacerbate his symptoms) and was just hunkering down for an afternoon of beating smart-asses in Quebec at video games. A part of him knew he wasn't really sick, just as a part of him knew that his parents didn't even seem to care enough to take him to the doctor, but it wasn't as though this would effect his grades, and he could do without another wedgie for today.
The phone rang and he moaned in its generally direction until Jeannie hopped up from where she was painstakingly finger painting on the dining room table.
She handed him the phone a minute later, stained red with paint that looked like blood. He rolled his eyes, whispering, "who is it?" quietly.
"CSIS," she piped up.
Rodney grimaced, eyeing the red paint carefully. But, as he'd learned from the whole nuclear weapons debacle a few years earlier, you should always take government security agencies seriously.
A harried-sounding, though bizarrely monotonous voice spoke clearly from the receiver, held just far enough away from his head to avoid his looking like he had a head wound. "Meredith Rodney McKay?"
"That's me." He held back that 'who the hell are you and why are you wasting my time.'
"Social Insurance Number?"
"What kind of moron do you think I am? I'm not just going to give you my number over the phone! Have you ever heard of identity theft? Well, I don't doubt that you have, considering that's what you're probably engaging in right--"
"The first six digits are 046 454. Please finish it off to confirm."
"286."
"Thank you. We are initiating Project Lifeboat. You have ten minutes to collect what you can carry. No items of currency or identification will be necessary. Do not bring weaponry of any kind. The device you received as part of the program will initiate a verbal countdown sequence in nine minutes. Hold on to your belongings and hit the button when the light flashes red. Tell no one where you are going. This is not a drill."
"Wait? What the hell is going on? Project Lifeboat? What should I bring?"
Rodney had a million questions, but the line had already gone dead. He thought back to two years ago, locked in one of the bland conference rooms at the American consulate, two CIA officials and a CSIS officer sitting across from him. He'd been scared out of his mind, afraid they'd lock him away for life, when instead they'd offered him a summer internship and a bland manila folder with the code PL-33489 printed neatly at the top. 'Never lose this,' the tall one had said. 'It could save your life someday.'
"Oh my god. Oh my god. This can't be happening. It isn't happening. There's no way." He grabbed the remote, but there was nothing but daytime soaps and political commentary, nothing to suggest what the name Project Lifeboat so clearly suggested. It was a prank. It had to be.
He ran upstairs, throwing open his closet and rooting around behind his old Lego sets, an X-box, some circuit boards and a pile of clothes. Buried at the bottom was the envelope, a little frayed at the edges and rumpled, but still there. He tore through the paper, pulling out the device and a laminated paper with a barcode, his name and basic medical information and several meaningless numbers and categories on it. The device itself was small, just an opaque white pushbutton with not setting or instructions whatsoever, mounted on a large piece of plastic like the key to a gas station's bathroom - made larger to keep you from losing it. Rodney must have pushed it a hundred times the second the CIA agents had dropped him home, only to have nothing happen. But it wasn't flashing yellow like it was now.
"Oh Jesus," he breathed, making a mad dive for the phone to call his parents.
"You are not authorized to call anyone. Communications to your area have been cut. Pack your belongings. You have eight minutes," a mechanical sounding voice said.
Rodney couldn't think. What was happening? What would happen to everyone else? His parents? Jeannie? Jeannie. He tore into the hall, pulling two duffle bags out of the hall closet. "Jeannie!"
He found her washing her hands in the kitchen, finger paint still sticking in her curly blonde hair. He handed her the smaller bag. "Pack this with clothes and anything else you need to take with you for the um -- for the foreseeable future. Quickly."
"Rodney," she began, her face getting that tight look that signaled that she might just start crying.
"There's no time for this!" He grabbed her by the shoulders, staring into serious blue eyes, far wiser than her six years. "I need you to be a big girl for me, okay, Jeannie? I need you to pack your clothes for all weather and your boots and maybe your Boo-bear and a blanket. Can you do that?"
Jeannie nodded, biting her lip and holding in the tears before rushing up to her room.
Rodney looked around the kitchen, dumping the house's entire stock of snack bars and juice boxes into a side pocket before flinging open the kitchen cabinet and pulling out the allergy kit. Next, he ran upstairs, dumping in the contents of the clean laundry basket he hadn't bother to put away yet, a few pairs of shorts, his hiking boots and his winter coat and mittens, flashlight and Swiss army knife. Next he grabbed his backpack, dumping out the textbooks and binders before stuffing in his two laptops as well as the one he'd grabbed from his father's study, five external hard drives, his soldering kit and circuit tester, iPhone, and DVD stack with some of his work backed up. He finished it off by stuffing in as many of his various notebooks as he could fit.
"One minute!" The device announced.
Rodney rushed into Jeannie's room, where she was trying to fit a stuffed unicorn into her Bratz backpack. He grabbed it from her, stuffing the thing in and zipping it up quickly, not caring if he was tearing the fur. "Everything packed?"
She nodded solemnly. He handed her the backpack, grabbing the duffle in one hand and his sister in the other, tugging her back to his room and the innocuous-looking button, which was in the middle of proclaiming, "30 seconds.”
He handed Jeannie her bag, lifting his mattress up at the last second and pulling out five Batman comics and a Playboy he stole from his father's basement stash and stuffing them into the side pocket of his duffel before hefting it and his backpack.
"Ten seconds," the device said, beginning to blink red. Rodney grabbed his sister's hand, closed his eyes, and pressed the button.
It was 11:07am when they came for John. He was used to seeing men in military uniforms, by virtue of sneaking around the Air Base while his father was working. He was used to their crisp salutes and the placid stoic way they always seemed to look through him instead of at him. He just wasn't expecting to see two Airmen in combat gear anywhere near the English classroom, looking thoroughly out-of-place with a backdrop of Shakespearian sonnets and drawings depicting different scenes from The Odyssey.
"John David Sheppard?" One of the men asked.
John raised his hand, feeling his stomach drop out from under him. He'd seen the movies, with the soldiers coming to people's doors, knocking and starting with the words, 'I'm sorry.'
He was home alone this week. His father was conducting an inspection in Colombia. He couldn't. There was no way. He balled his hands up into fists, willing himself not to cry. His mom was already gone. He couldn't lose his father too. What would he do?
He rose, shaking. Somehow he made it to the front of the classroom and out into the hallway, though he couldn't tell you how his muscles moved, or what he saw along the way. The faces of the Airmen were blank as stone, though he heard, as if under water, one say, "I need you to come with us, son."
He nodded, blinking fiercely at the tears trying to escape his eyelids and gathering all the strength he possessed to ask, "My dad? Is he--"
"This has nothing to do with your father, son. He's fine, so far as we know," one of them said. He had dark skin and an easy smile, memorable for only a second while he spoke.
"Then why--"
"We couldn't tell you even if we knew," the other replied. This one was short and stocky with sharp birdlike features and a distinct southern twang to his accent. "Our orders are to pick up you and a few others and drive you out to Dreamland, ASAP."
"But--" John tried to continue conversation in vain, but the short Airman just grabbed him by the arm and hauled him out towards a nondescript black SUV.
John was apparently the last to arrive, as the other five seats in the back were already filled, the trunk stuffed full with baggage. There were two older men, one wearing glasses and clutching a beat-up looking black laptop bag to his chest, the other with mustard stains on his decidedly un-stylish checkered shirt. There was also a young, frightened-looking woman with mouse brown hair and a four-year-old boy leaning against her, asleep. The last man, John recognized as one of the cashiers at the local bookstore. He couldn't be more than twenty-years-old, and he smiled at John wanly, eyes clearly saying, 'Don't worry, I don't have any idea why I'm here either.'
The two older men made John climb in the backbench between him, glaring down his curious stares. The drive was quiet, like a funeral procession, everyone on edge or two scared to speak.
"Where are you taking us," John found the courage to demand, halfway through, remembering his history about the holocaust, and how many Jews had walked unknowingly onto the trains at Auschwitz. The only problem was that the people in this car seemed to have nothing so obvious in common.
"I told you, kid," one of the men replied with a chuckle. "Groom lake. You know, Area 51?"
John had seen Independence Day and read about aliens and secret research and everything. He nodded, keeping his mouth shut as the Airmen laughed about stupid kids.
John wasn't old enough to know much about what to expect at secretive military bases out in the desert, but even he could tell that there were too many planes, C-17s and C-22s, cargo planes in what was supposed to be an experimental aircraft testing facility. He moved onto his knees, squinting against the glare to see more people disembarking than a medium-sized airport. The man to his left pulled him back down to a seated position, where John squirmed uncomfortably. What were all these people doing here?
The SUV pulled right up, hooking around the tarmac to a large hangar, already filling with people. The woman grabbed her child and practically catapulted out of the open door. The two older men pushed John out between them, grabbing bags from the trunk. Why did they get bags and he didn't? John frowned.
The hanger was a teeming mass of people, many of which had bags. John heard rumors among the crowd, everything from concern about their friends or spouses to talk of an alien invasion. There were tense jokes about Noah's ark and long conversations in harried whispers. He even thought he'd spotted a few celebrities, though nobody seemed to be paying much attention to them either. John though he might have gotten told off by Jay Leno when he accidentally bumped into him.
Just when John was considering stealing a Jeep and making a run for it, a man in a plain black shirt, green BDUs and glasses stood up before the crowd, holding a megaphone in his hands. "Hello, my name is Dr. Daniel Jackson. Some of you may already have heard of Project Lifeboat, so please be patient." Daniel Jackson sounded far too conversational, like he didn't know that the purpose of a megaphone was to shout. "There's no easy way to say this, so I guess I'll just go ahead. Project Lifeboat is the last backup plan of the United States and several of its allies in the case that the Earth should ever face the prospect of certain annihilation."
A gasp went up in the crowd, though Daniel Jackson seemed to expect it. If John had thought people were restless before, they were practically frantic now.
"I know that this is a difficult thing to ask of you, but you all need to remain calm. Your names are on a long list of those chosen for evacuation should we have a twelve-hour or more window of opportunity. We are at the twelve hour mark now, with thousands still on the waitlist, so the faster and more efficiently we do this, the more people we can get out."
Another whisper rippled through the crowd. "Out? How can we get out of a planet?" someone shouted from the depths of the crowd.
Daniel Jackson seemed almost amused by the question. "We can get off this planet using a device called a Stargate. The first one was discovered in an archaeological dig in Egypt more than a century ago, the remnants of an ancient civilization that used a network of these gates to travel between the planets of this galaxy and others.” The background noise of frantic whispers a roll of thunder now. “The United States Air Force has been operating this device for the past twenty years, now under the oversight of an international committee. In a few minutes, you will be transported our base of operations in Cheyenne Mountain, and from there to our Atlantis Base, where you will be given a more in depth orientation. I'm sorry. I know this is a lot to take in and you are all probably feeling overwhelmed, but please remain calm and everything will be all right."
Part of John believed Daniel Jackson when he said that. He said it with such conviction that it had to be true. But at the same time, he didn't know how the destruction of the Earth could possibly be all right. What about the people they were leaving behind? And why John? Why a fifteen-year-old boy when they should be evacuating geniuses and heroes and people who'd actually done things with their lives? Then it hit him. There must have been a mistake. John shared a name with his father. They must have gotten it wrong and gone looking for John Sheppard Senior.
The crowd was pushing forward, moving into a large circular design painted on the floor. When the circle was filled, Daniel Jackson called something out, and a pile of rings seemed to rise up out of nowhere. In a flash of light, the people in the center were gone. Others gasped. Some were crying or clutching children to their chests to hide the view. But throughout it all there was the whisper: was this really how it would end?
John pushed his way over to one of the soldiers standing guard at the hangar's door. "There's been a mistake," he panted. "I'm not supposed to be here. My father's supposed to be here. He's John Sheppard, too and--"
The Airman just looked at him sadly. "I'm sorry kid, but there's nothing I can do."
"He's in Colombia. You need to call him!"
"If he's not in the area, he might have been transferred to another site."
"Can you check?"
The guard shook his head. "Count your lucky stars that you're here, kid. You'll probably see your dad on the other side." He looked sad, and for a second John wanted to know why.
"Aren't you coming, Mister?"
"Yeah, if they finish their list in time to bring support staff through. My family, though--" His eyes seemed to glisten a washed-out grey, but he stared straight ahead, nudging John towards where the last of the crowd was gathering at the platform. "See you in the City of Atlantis, kid."
Someone grabbed John by the elbow. He didn't fight when they dragged him into a ring of light.
It had been a transporter, just like on Star Trek, and if that wasn't wonder enough, they were now in an underground military complex straight out of Wormhole Extreme. And who would have thought the event horizon of an honest to god Lorentzian traversable wormhole would look kind of like an inflatable kiddy-pool? Rodney just stood there staring at it until he felt Jeannie tugging on his pant leg.
"What?" he snapped.
"I don't want to, Mer. I'm scared. I want Mom."
She was crying again now, and what was Rodney supposed to do with that? He couldn't just tell her that her mother wasn't there. She wouldn't be there ever again. He held out his hand. "I'll be here, Jeannie. You just have to trust me."
But then Jeannie looked up at him with wide blue eyes just like Rodney's own, just like their mother's. "I'm not stupid, Mer. I heard what the man said. Mom and Dad aren't coming."
"Jeannie," what did he say to that and her proudly jutting chin and brave but terrified eyes? "No, they're not. But we have to go. This is the only way." He had no idea how explain it to her. Maybe she was too young to understand, but life was made up of choices and human beings always made the choices that allowed them to survive. There was no why, but there was a choice and she was too young to understand that. "So you just have to suck it up and do it. I'll be right here."
But before they could step through, the most beautiful woman Rodney had ever seen came running into the room, some kind of large opaque orange cylinder clutched to her chest. She had short pixie-cut blonde hair and clear blue eyes, the figure of perfection in a tight black t-shirt and blue pants.
"Carter, what are you doing?" a somewhat sarcastic sounding voice came over the PA system. Rodney could just make out some figures behind the glass overlooking the 'stargate' staring at her incredulously.
"It's recharging itself now, Sir. The exotic particles forming in the core are overflowing our space-time and entering the self-contained pocket created by the ZPM. All of the empty ones kept in storage should have charged themselves by now as well. We need to ship them over to Atlantis. We can keep the gate open for the next eight hours with just this one if we plug it directly into the gate."
"Well what are you waiting for?" the commander in the mission control asked.
The woman smiled wanly, the very picture of the Earth's destruction - beautiful but tragic and full of regret. No one else in the crowd now shuffling through the shimmering pool seemed to notice her, fixed as they were in their own personal tragedies, but Rodney understood. He knew, the people of the Earth -these people- had sewn the seeds of its destruction.
It was like flying, stepping up into a pool of water that was really a roller coaster of stars and ripples like those tubes at water parks with only the gaps at the seams to let in light. John would have let out an excited whoop if he'd had a voice, or even a body. But it was over to quickly, reality slamming the breaks on wonder. It was still an emergency chute off the planet, even if it was a really cool one.
He stepped out into a cavernous room, all bronze and stained glass, like a bizarrely modern church. A glass atrium and walkway were suspended overlooking where he stood among the crowd, many of whom were busy being sick in trash bags offered by the soldiers flanking the newcomers. But more powerful than it all was the feeling that settled at the back of John's mind, a delicate refrain of intangible warmth and comfort: everything will be all right; you are welcome here. It was somehow familiar.
John looked around, almost expecting to find someone behind him, whispering in his ear, but there was no one, just soldiers urging them out a set of high doors and down a hallway. Looking around for his father, John pushed himself towards the front of the crowd, where a particular soldier was walking backwards, holding a P-90 close to his chest like a shield.
"My name is Lieutenant Colonel Nick Lorne and I'm the current XO on this base. The Military Commander is currently Colonel Marshell Sumner and the civilian in charge is Dr. Elizabeth Weir, who will be by to see you shortly. There will be changes in leadership once the brass get here and get settled, but for the next week we'll be the ones getting you settled.
“You are all Groom Lake Group 1 and we will be settling you and the other three groups from that evacuation point in temporary emergency quarters on the East Pier shipyard. Don't worry, there aren't any ships there at the moment. We have plenty of individual apartments and rooms available for everyone, but until we have everyone sorted and the spaces cleaned out, we request that you stay confined to your designated living area. We will be posting guards, just to keep an eye on things. Please allow them to do their jobs and direct your questions to the civilian volunteers in the blue uniform shirt assigned to keep you informed. I know that this place is mysterious and exciting, but we're taking in 25,000 people with a staff of 500, so it would really help us out if you all stayed out of trouble. Now, about the toilets, don't be alarmed when they--"
John tuned Colonel Lorne out after that. He couldn't find it in him to care, thinking about 25,000 people, compared to seven billion still stuck on a doomed planet. It seemed like a lot, but it was nothing compared to the monumental loss of life that was happening light years away. He couldn't stop thinking about his father, his classmates (even if they sometimes seemed vacant and uninteresting to him), Mr. Peterson, the Hendersons next door, the people at the grocery store, the guys on the base that sometimes let him climb into the cockpits of their planes. Twelve hours, the man had said. In twelve hours, they'd all be dead.
John felt his knees wobbling at the sheer unimaginable enormity of it, but he steeled himself, straightening and following after Colonel Lorne as if in a trance. After what seemed like a long walk, they emerged out onto a high pier overlooking a brilliant aquamarine ocean. The sound of the waves slapping against metal jolted John out of his trance.
The shipyard was a large building, walls composed of alternating glass and shimmering panels. There were several portable stoves and what looked like a rudimentary canteen set up in one corner with hastily drawn bathroom signs over two doors on the far wall. About ten soldiers and the two people in the blue shirts the colonel had described were waiting for them. They immediately asked everyone to line up to give them names and social security numbers.
John lingered at the back of the line, catching Lt. Colonel Lorne as he was making his way towards the door. "Excuse me, Colonel?"
"Yes?" Up close, the man looked weary, too small for his grey uniform and tac vest.
"I think there's been a mistake. I got picked up instead of my father. He was oversees in Colombia and I was wondering if there's any way you could check to see if he's here."
Lorne sighed, gripping John's shoulder. "I'm afraid we don't know much about the Earth end of things. We've been out here eight years now and to be honest, planning for an evacuation of Earth was never a priority. I haven't even seen a copy of the list. Once we have everyone here and checked in, I'll be able to tell you." He managed to give John a strained smile before standing to leave. "Hang in there."
Well, if no one was going to help, then John would just have to find his dad on his own. He hunkered down against one of the metal panels in the corner, watching a group of Marines distribute thin camping mattresses and MREs. Now all he had to do was find a way out of here.
No one was more surprised than John when the panel behind him simply slid open. In fact, nobody else seemed to notice.
Rodney scowled, glaring down at his lemon chicken MRE. He'd been able to trade Jeannie's for a spaghetti and meatballs, but everyone else seemed too concerned with their own problems to listen to a fussy kid claiming to be allergic to citrus. So he'd had Jeannie's leftovers and a few Oreo snack bars, but it certainly wasn't enough for a growing boy.
He was glad that he'd asked Jeannie to pack a blanket. Even a pink My Little Pony comforter was better than the scratchy military-issue blankets the soldiers had handed to everyone else. If Rodney didn't know any better he'd say that this was a some sort of con on behalf of the governments and the movie studios of the world to get rid of all the intelligent life forms on the planet so they could make nothing but sequels to bad action movies without rebuke.
And yet, this base must have originally been a holding area for the idiots of the scientific community, considering their two assigned civilian 'volunteers.' Despite the two PhDs between them, Rodney doubted that Doctors Brown and Parrish could manage to screw in a light bulb. They'd just looked at him strangely when he'd asked what kind of equipment they'd been using in order to detect the creation of exotic particles at the Earth's core. Then Dr. Brown had started crying. Botanists.
There had been a lot of crying, actually. Jeannie included. And a psychiatrist, Kate Meyerwitz or something, had come to talk to them. She'd been handing out valium like candy and now most everyone was asleep, bedded down on the floor of what some particularly annoying (and short) soldier had referred to as the West pier landing bay. He, like everyone else, had been supremely unhelpful. It wasn't bad enough that the Earth was hours away from being destroyed and they were all in a 10,000-year-old city on another planet, but they weren't even going to tell people what had happened.
Images flashed behind his eyes. He thought of familiar faces - his teachers, the people at the local Tim Horton’s, his moronic classmates, his Aunt and Uncle, his parents coming home to find him and Jeannie gone. They'd spend their last moments worried or angry, thinking that their kids had run away from home (again). Rodney blinked hard, as though that would keep the memories at bay.
Thinking about strangers was no better. Did they know what was happening? Did the media catch wind of strange disappearances and the leaders of various countries mysteriously vanishing? Were all leaders invited? Paraguay? Kenya? He doubted it. He wondered if they'd even bothered saving anyone from the whole continent of Africa. And what about the Middle East? The American military, who seemed to be running things, would probably be glad to finally be rid of Al Queda. Maybe even Muslims in general. From what he'd seen so far, the racial mix of the saved wasn't anywhere close to proportional. Then again, this room was the combined evacuees from Canada and Western Europe. It was almost making him wish he paid better attention during French.
What were they doing now? he wondered. Were they rioting in the streets or were they safe asleep in their beds? Was the world shaking itself apart or did it just stop from one breath next, like his dog, Max, when they'd taken him to the vet to be put down: there one moment, gone the next. Rodney wondered how Douglas Adams had ever managed to make this funny.
He pulled out his laptop, the only glow besides the two moons shining through the high windows that lined the walls of this hangar. One of the soldiers, a blonde woman wearing a beret tilted jauntily to the side, gave him a look, but didn't come over to tell him off. He smiled, accessing some form of wireless network, though the source was strong enough that he might as well have been sitting on top of it. Bingo. If they wouldn't give him answers, he'd just have to hack them
Rodney smiled to himself. There didn't seem to be a password for access to the data stream, though no networks seemed formatted to come up automatically. He brought up the data in a basic code-reading program he'd invented to hack the family mini-van (it'd seemed vital at the time that his father never be allowed to play another easy listening station, ever). But the second he even tried anything, a window came up with two buttons, both with symbols in a language he didn't understand. Rodney clicked on the one that was already highlighted and the screen exploded with color, scrolling text that he couldn't understand floating every which way against what he assumed would be the iTunes visualizer on about a gallon of acid.
Rodney had no idea how long he'd stared at it - coding, hell visual representation, like he'd never seen and barely even brushed up against imagining floating by almost casually. But understanding was there just behind his reach and Rodney sensed something he'd never before felt in his life - a real challenge.
He might've kept staring at it all night long if he hadn't noticed movement just out of the corner of his eye, a shadow slipping along against the back wall to a corner that didn't catch the moonlight. After a quick look at where Jeannie was thoroughly entangled in the pink pony comforter (after having cried herself to sleep) and a check to see if the blonde soldier was still watching, he put his laptop down (and Jeannie's hand on top of it to deter theft).
He wasn't sure what prompted him to follow the shadowy figure. He wasn't particularly brave. In fact his standard response to the school bullies was pretty much to run. He supposed he wouldn't have to face them ever again. It wasn't the relief he would have expected it to be. Maybe he was just in a strange mood - the end of the world could do that to a person.
Or maybe it was fate -not that he believed in that- because when he was almost upon the shadow (a woman, as it turned out), crouched behind stack of MRE boxes, a patch of moonlight appeared before her and she stepped out into the night. She didn't see Rodney when he slipped out behind her, looking up at the stars of this new world for the first time.
The two moons shone with a different quality of light. Just as the sunset over the ocean had seemed too bright, the moonlight had a Hollywood quality to it, like they were moments away from the hero meeting his one true love under the star swept sky (or maybe a skin care commercial). But it wasn't just the moons. The stars, too, were different. He didn't expect them to be the same, of course, but there were so few recognizable astronomical traits that he suddenly felt the distance slam down on him the way a claustrophobic feels the walls close in. Light years away, the world was ending, and he was here looking up at the stars. They'd said that they saved 25,000, but he still felt suddenly desolately alone.
But then a splash jarred him back to reality. The woman - she had been standing out along the edge of the pier a minute ago. She must have -- he supposed it made sense: end of the world, commit suicide. He ran to where he'd last seen her anyway. The water was inky black even in the moonlight and who knew what kinds of space sea monsters could be down there, a talking giant squid probably. He thought he spotted a bump in the waves out there, but it was hard to tell. She had been wearing black or navy.
He was squinting, trying to get a better look when he heard footsteps behind him. But he was expecting one of the soldiers, not a tall gawky-looking kid, no older than Rodney himself. The moonlight washed everything out so all he could tell was that the kid had dark messy hair to match his clothes and his skin was alabaster white and flawless enough for one of those moonlit commercials. He couldn't tell the color, but translucent eyes flashed with staggering intensity. He looked sort of like Harry Potter. "I heard a splash. What happened?"
"I--" Rodney stuttered. "She -- she jumped off, I think. She was just here."
Harry Potter grimaced, yanking off black converse sneakers and his hoodie.
"You're not serious!" The kid was a toothpick. How did he expect to save a full-grown woman who probably didn't want to be saved? And there was no way to get back up - the edge of the pier was metal-shear and at least a five-meter drop. "You'll drown! And she was obviously deranged, who knows what--"
"Go get help," the kid snapped, giving Rodney an almost mischievous smile before diving in.
"Shit!" Rodney yelled to himself before scrambling to his feet and running for the building. The blonde soldier was already poking her head out when he got there.
"Send for help!" he shouted. "There was a woman. And she jumped. And Harry Potter went in after her. And I doubt he could tread water long with stick-legs like that."
The soldier looked at him skeptically, but tapped some sort of radio and called for a medical team and several of her fellow soldiers. Before she had even finished talking, Rodney was running back to the edge of the dock, peering over looking for a shape in the slow rise and fall of the waves. At first he didn't see anything, convinced that the woman had drowned and taken the skinny kid with the martyr complex with her, but then there was a small bump bobbing up and down almost perilously close to the peer. "Are you okay?" Rodney shouted down to them, releasing a breath he didn’t even know he was holding.
"She's unconscious!" Harry Potter shouted back. "I can't tell if she's breathe--" he trailed off with a painful sounding choke.
"Just hold on, we're throwing a rope down!" the blonde soldier appeared beside Rodney, who pointed to her and shouted, "See, I brought help."
"Good for you! You get a gold star!" Harry Potter shouted back, taking giant gasps between words, which made Rodney wonder why he was bothering to respond at all.
Before Rodney could yell a suitably scathing response, however, two other men arrived, one tossing a length of rope down while the other tied one end down to an artfully inset bar on the dock. The blonde soldier pulled out a flashlight just in time for Rodney to see the kid and the woman slam up against the side of the dock, pushed by a strong wave. Luckily for them, they had the rope to keep them there.
"Hold on!" one of the soldiers was shouting, but Harry Potter was ignoring them, using his legs to brace against the pier while he tied a surprisingly competent-looking harness around the woman.
"Lift her up!" he shouted after a minute.
"You grab on too!" the blonde soldier yelled.
In the wobbling beam of her flashlight, Rodney could see the kid shaking his head and then, just like that, about a meter away from him a line of indents appeared in the flat metal surface of the pier - handholds.
The female soldier waited just long enough for the kid to start climbing before ordering the other guys to haul the woman up. Rodney was just getting ready to offer to help when they hauled her over the edge. "Well, if you don't need me," he mumbled to himself before making his way over to where Mr. Martyr was pulling himself over the side, panting.
"Are you okay?" Rodney asked, helping the kid sit up while he coughed up what looked like half the goddamned ocean. "Eww. Did you really have to do that?"
"Yes," the kid panted, catching his breath. "I'm John, by the way."
"I'm Rodney."
Chapter Two: Lantern