Sitting down in the control room I tapped the microphone on. “Hey guys.” The voices paused. “Yeah… still have no clue what you’re saying.” I glanced behind me at the piles through the doorway. “But I hope you’re doing better than I am.” My gaze caught on the stack of sheet music scattered across the floor. That gave me an idea. “Do you guys like music?”
Music was universal.
There was a sharp screech over the radio, like someone dragging a chair across the floor, and then the small voices started up again.
“It’s not the best. They’re high schoolers—but I’ve got a recording of our last performance. Tell me what you think.” I reached over and pressed play on the old stereo balanced on a pair of upside-down crates beside my cot. The recording truly wasn’t great, but it was better than Paul’s garage band collection—which, for the record, I’d also listened to on repeat because your girl was not a complainer. I’d give anything for a new divorced-dad rock album right now.
One of my student’s parents had recorded our fall concert and burned it to a CD for me. I’d shoved it into the bottom of my work bag and forgotten about it until my first real mental break. That was after Paul and Bridget left. After the others had gotten too sick to do much of anything but lie around.
I dug it out, popped it into the stereo and played it for them then, hoping it might offer some kind of comfort. Or rather ironically, some measure of solace. I don’t know if it did, but it helped me through their deaths.
I played it again a month later when I bore the task of dragging death’s first victim to the sealed room. I played it when I cut all my rations, trying to give myself a few extra days. I played it when I needed something to fill the cold.
My thoughts drifted to Jude as the song now filled the room. I’d dreamt of him nearly every night and for a while we’d never touched. Except there was more to hunger after than only food. It had been years since I’d touched anyone—even a hug, or a brush of a hand. Years since I’d talked to another human face to face. I was starving.
Leaning back in the chair, I closed my eyes to pretend that I was back in that auditorium as a teenager myself, conducting Satellites, and wishing that the boy I’d written it for would kiss me already.
13
Going Home
Jude
Lieutenant Jones and I sat shoulder to shoulder, hunched over a pair of headphones stretched between us while the translator spoke over the short-wave radio to the only survivors we had regular contact with on Earth.
She had arrived that morning from Station Two with a handful of other specialists. The translator—a short woman with tanned skin and dark eyes hidden behind oversized round frames—leaned toward us.
“He says they have no contact with anyone besides us,” she said quietly. “Only occasionally.” Then, she straightened and responded to the man’s voice crackling through the radio.
The bunker was somewhere near the Mediterranean. Of all the surviving groups we knew about, they seemed to be doing the best. The fallout hadn’t hit their region the way it had devastated other parts of the planet. Still, they waited below, like everyone else. We checked in with them whenever the signal allowed while they conducted their own experiments on surface survivability.
“There’s only one more,” Elias said, dropping his half of the headphones. “The team from Station Two toldCommander Zhang it’s difficult to reach them, so it might take a few days.”
“That’s fine.” I didn’t care, the deeper we got into this, the crazier I considered myself. After dreaming of Solace all night, I’d woken up and run straight to the lab. We’d run a few more diagnostics on SOL, rebooted the system to be sure, and then started working through the translators.
The signal from Earth had only grown stronger and this time we’d been able to narrow its location to the western corner of the United States. There were survivors there, and if there were survivors—and SOL could read their heat signature—then maybe the radiation was starting to lessen. Maybe,just maybe,we were seeing the first signs of life again.
Regardless of my nightmares and Solace’s ghost, it gave me hope. Still, my shoulders were wound tight beneath my uniform. I set my cap aside and dragged a hand over my face. “One more.”
“One more,” Elias echoed. “Want to head to the garage afterward and help Kit with the ship?”
I considered it. Kit was Elias’s wife, and a mechanic. Together, they had been building some kind of experimental craft. Supposedly it was almost ready to fly, but they’d been saying that for years. I wasn’t much of a wrench, but anything beat reheating my ration and staring at the ceiling all night.
“Sure.” I took the headphones from him. “I’ll finish this and meet you down there.”
“You sure?” he asked, already gathering his things. He tossed his tablet into a worn leather messenger bag.
“Yeah. Maybe see if you can swindle Marcia into giving you a couple beers on the way.”
He snorted. “Yeah right. I’m not as pretty as you. Last time she swatted me with a spoon and shoved me out the door.”
I shrugged, a crooked grin tugging at my mouth. “Worth a try.”
He laughed and slung the bag over his shoulder. “See you in a bit.”
“See ya.” I turned back toward the front of the room where the translator was sitting at the console.
She caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up. She was speaking rapidly in Mandarin, static crackling through the room as someone answered on the other end. Her expression shifted into a quick flash of surprise, then she pulled the headphones away and pointed at me. “They may have found your signal,” she whispered. “An American woman.”
