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This week’s podcast features two spooky stories for your listening and/or reading pleasure. Wake Words starts at around 3:40 The Walled Garden starts at around 17:05 Wake WordsThe sun hung low over the horizon, its fizzled edges shimmering through the soup of thick brown smog obscuring the tops of distant skyscrapers. Three kids–Mohammed, Jack, and Wendy–stood facing each other, casting long dark pillars of shadow across patches of yellow-brown grass and frowning down at a smoking machine in the dirt. “Augmented reality projector? More like augmented shit projector,” Jack said. He spat, missing Wendy’s foot by an inch. “Eww, gross!” Wendy cried, taking a step back. Mohammed shook his head, still looking down. “But it worked,” he said listlessly. “We had it working.” “Yeah, for three seconds,” said Jack. He scuffed his foot across the dirt toward the broken projector. “Maybe we can try again tomorrow,” said Wendy. She glanced hopefully at Mohammed. Mohammed looked at Wendy, then back down at the machine. “Nah,” he said. “Jack’s right, it’s a piece of shit. I’m sorry I wasted our money, guys.” “Why did you buy this one anyway?” asked Jack. “Kevin’s is a Samsung. Nobody’s ever heard of this brand. You shoulda bought a Samsung.” Mohammed shrugged. “This was the only one I could afford with our allowances. Besides, Amazon recommended it.” “F**k Amazon,” said Jack. In her pocket, the Alexa app on Wendy’s phone listened. The three friends stood in silence around the metal contraption that had vexed them all afternoon. Oh, what promise the day had held–it had arrived! Their very own augmented reality projector! At last they would know first-hand the delights of AR gaming that, until now, they could only experience vicariously–watching strangers on YouTube, or hearing Kevin brag about his projector at school. But as the afternoon dragged on, the crisp, visceral excitement in the air gradually faded into bitter frustration. The projector was impossibly complex. None of its functions made sense. They pushed buttons, connected it to apps on their phones, swiped screens, screamed crude voice commands at it–all in vain. As the sun dimmed, dipping below the haze and signaling the onset of evening, it seemed all was lost. In what was to be his final attempt, Mohammed hit an untried combination of buttons on one of the projector’s control panels. There was a flash of light, and for a moment the field transformed into a vibrant AR space–a glowing playground filled with strange and exciting holographic toys. Then the machine sparked, fizzled, and the environment evaporated, taking with it the kids’ last glimmer of hope. “Can you return it?” asked Jack. “I want my money back.” “I dunno. Maybe. I guess I’ll take it home and see,” replied Mohammed. “Well I’m gonna give it a shit review,” said Jack. “I’m gonna give it zero stars. Can you give zero stars on Amazon? I wish you could give negative stars.” Wendy’s phone vibrated in her pocket. Mohammed and Jack watched as she took it out and swiped its screen. Wendy shrugged and put the phone back in her pocket. She glanced toward her house, then behind her at the fast-setting sun. “I gotta go, Mom gets mad when I stay out past dark.” A small black dot rose into the air in the distance, accompanied by an almost imperceptible hum. It started moving, cutting through the smog hanging over the city center as it approached. None of the kids noticed. Mohammed knelt and delicately prodded his finger at the projector, bracing for electric shocks or hot surfaces. Finding it safe, he gathered it up in his arms. Jack watched with a look of disgust. Wendy looked over her shoulder at her two friends as she walked toward her house. “See you guys at school tomorrow.” Mohammed waved to her, then headed to the path where he had stashed his bicycle and backpack. Jack stood and wa

Three million years was a long time. An awful long time. It was so long that Doyle Tingler believed his brain fully incapable of processing the implications of its length, and so did his best to spare the poor thing that unpleasantness. Doyle vacillated his thoughts between two subjects. The first was his quest to find his girlfriend Kirsten, who ran off to join the Nikola’s Children cult shortly after Doyle had proposed to her. Three million years crammed in a stasis chamber with Sarah the security officer–his friend’s would-be-kidnapper–had not dulled his desire to complete that quest, though thinking about how he might go about it now, given his current predicament, tended to darken his mood considerably. The other subject towards which Doyle more frequently steered his thoughts was, much to the chagrin of those around him, thinking of and listing all the films, television shows, and books he knew of that resembled his present situation in some way. “Red Dwarf,” said Doyle, staring absentmindedly at the ceiling. Sarah put her face in her hands and sighed dramatically. “You’ve said that one.” “Have I?” Sarah nodded emphatically. She put down the small black book she had been writing in before Doyle had interrupted her, and launched into a nasally voiced imitation. “Dave Lister, after being put in stasis for smuggling a cat aboard the deep space mining ship Red Dwarf, finds himself resurrected in deep space three million years later and…” “It’s odd, isn’t it?” interrupted Doyle, ignoring Sarah’s mockery. “I mean that it was also three million years.” “Whatever,” Sarah said, rolling her eyes. “Except in that show Lister was the last human alive, so it’s not exactly like this, since there’s two of us. We do have an android, though,” Doyle added, thinking of Desmond, the artificial intelligence that had piloted the Nikola’s Children ship–the Ark–for three million years before crashing it into a planet and copying himself into the robot body they found abandoned there. Doyle shook his head. “But no holograms. What about Farscape? Have I mentioned Farscape yet?” “You mean the show where John Crichton finds himself flung to a distant corner of the galaxy where he has to navigate the socio-political fabric of several unfamiliar alien races as he searches for a way home?” asked Sarah. “Yes,” said Doyle. “Never heard of it,” said Sarah. She returned her attention to her book. “That doesn’t fit, either,” said Doyle. “It didn’t take place in the future. Also in Farscape there were aliens, but I think everyone we’ve met so far is essentially human, give or take a few million years of evolution. Zuli says it’s a widely held belief that all known life originated from a common source. I suppose that would be Earth, though I gather that’s a religiously contentious opinion nowadays. “No, Farscape is close, but I feel like I’m forgetting something even better…” Sarah snapped her book shut and stood up. “Well, be sure not to bother me with it when you’ve figured it out.” She pushed past Doyle toward the hallway that led to her quarters. Bae, the tiny rhino-pig that had been napping at Sarah’s feet, woke up and stretched lazily, then trotted after her. “Oh, I know! Planet of the Apes. Not the new ones, but the old Charlton Heston one. Or the Tim Burton remake. Except those were all on Earth,” Doyle mused, following Sarah and Bae into the hall. “Leave me alone,” said Sarah, quickening her pace. “Maybe the Culture books by Iain M. Banks. Or Dune. Didn’t that desert planet with the sand worm remind you of Dune?” “I’m not listening,” said Sarah. “Oh! Did I tell you about Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy yet?” Sarah screamed. Zuli leaned back in the captain’s chair and frowned at the patterns that danced across the large curved screen in front of her. She had agreed to help Doyle find Takkah

It all started on a dreary Friday afternoon. It had been over a month since my last case, and twice as long since I’d heard from Magnus. They say idle hands are the devil’s workshop; if that’s true, my devil was either on vacation or one lazy son of a bitch. I must have looked a sorry sight–a lone, courageous dribble of saliva fought its way through five days worth of stubble on its way down my chin as I leaned back in my chair, feet up on the desk, with a fat stogie in one hand and a bottle of Johnnie Walker in the other. The rain crashed in hypnotic waves against the rickety window at my back. I’d been drifting in and out of sleep all afternoon–dreaming that I was on the deck of some ancient wooden barge, swaying back and forth on its creaky deck, staring out at an endless dark ocean. The clock on the wall was broken, but the dimness of the sun fighting its way through the rain clouds told me it was about time to quit drinking at the office and pick it back up at my apartment. I deposited my long-since expired cigar into my ash tray and placed the bottle of scotch next to it. The scattered envelopes, unpaid bills, and old case files that littered my desk were marred by stains. Magnus used to joke that my desk aged like a tree–you could tell how long it’d been since our last case by counting the overlapping rings of spilt booze and coffee. I glanced sidelong at his abandoned desk next to mine, glistening and pristine as always. The only thing on it was the plastic tray at its corner where he kept active case files–it was empty except for the handful of envelopes that had arrived for him in the weeks since his disappearance. I’d wrestled with the idea of opening them, curious if any bore some clue to his whereabouts, but thought better of it. His last words to me, spoken in hushed tones over the phone, were that he needed to lay low for a while and I should make no attempt to find or contact him. I had reluctantly agreed, and though I may not be much else, I am at least a man of my word. As I stood, bracing myself against the desk while grasping at booze-hazy memories of how my legs worked, I heard the front door in the lobby burst open. The wild hissing sound of the rainstorm flooded my office for a moment before the door slammed shut, drowning it out again. I collapsed back in my chair, leaning forward with my eyes fixed on the frosted glass window that looked out on the hallway from the lobby. Magnus always boasted that he could predict everything he needed to know about a case from the client’s silhouette as they passed by that window. He made a game of it–whispering his prognosis for each new client as they walked past. “Bad luck,” he’d say; “Memory loss;” Or, one of his favorites, “unwanted impure thoughts.” He was wrong more often than right, but every now and then he’d get lucky–the client would finish explaining and Magnus would catch my eye and give a self-satisfied nod. It usually irritated me, but now that he was gone it surprised me how much I missed that little ritual. In Magnus’s absence I was left to formulate my own preconceptions about this new potential client. From the shape of the silhouette and the sound of the heeled footsteps clicking across the hallway, the best I could come up with was “probably female.” As to the nature of her visit, I didn’t venture a guess. Nothing I could have imagined, naive as I was at the time, could have landed even remotely near the mark. The silhouette rounded the corner, confirming my initial impressions. The woman stood tall in the office doorway, wearing a dark blue trench coat with the collar pulled up and a matching wide-brimmed hat. Remnants of the storm dripped steadily onto the hardwood floor at her feet. The woman’s face was pale and gaunt, looking almost skeletal in the dim light. She glanced around the room and spotted the coat rack in the corner, then walked to it and hung her hat, revealing her should

The station’s docking bay doors soundlessly swung open on Dak’s viewscreen, like the gaping maw of a hungry rust-covered space creature. Dak hated mining colonies–they stirred up too many unwanted memories. Under normal circumstances Dak wouldn’t have so much as farted in the colony’s direction as he blinked past, but for some reason they had gone out of their way to hail him. It wasn’t normal. Mining colonies in the Orubus Belt were xenophobic to the point of madness. The one Dak had grown up in would have preferred mass suicide to dealing with outsiders. That this colony was hailing passing strangers meant they must be in trouble. Real trouble. The kind of trouble that paid well. “Initiating automatic docking procedure.” The ship’s voice reminded Dak of his sister, to the extent that he had started calling it by her name. He didn’t believe in reincarnation, but the fantasy that Aylix somehow lived on in the ship’s computer brought him comfort. “What do your scans show, Aylix?” Dak asked out loud. “There are three thousand seven hundred and three humanoid lifeforms on board,” replied Aylix. “Two are present in the docking bay. Neither armed with conventional weapons.” Dak nodded. The station grew larger on the viewscreen at a steady pace. “I recommend caution,” Aylix added. “It could be a trap.” Dak changed into his carbon fiber bodysuit while Aylix finished docking. He pulled the hood up and slid its visor down over his eyes, and clipped his weapon harness across his chest. Two men in grime-covered overalls were waiting for him in the docking bay. “Best watch yourself here, stranger,” said one of the men. “We appreciate you answering the hail and all, but know that we got our eye on you.” “Appreciate the warm welcome,” said Dak. “Your message mentioned a reward.” The miner who had spoken–a toothpick compared to his silent companion–nodded, then looked Dak up and down. Unimpressed, he turned his attention to Aylix. “Never seen a ship like yours before,” said the miner. “She got any firepower to her?” “When she needs to,” said Dak. “Will she need to?” “I reckon she will,” said the miner. “Come. The Foreman will give you the details. Give my friend here your weapons while on board.” The taller, heavier, less talkative miner stepped forward and held out a hand that was larger than Dak’s head. Dak glared at him. “No weapons, no job,” said the smaller miner. “No job, no reward. Your choice.” Dak sighed. The interior of the station was hewn from rusty metal pipes. The walls, ceiling, and even the floor beneath the grated walkways were one big snaking maze. Dripping stalactites glistened in the station’s dim lighting. The air smelled of smoke and dampness. The two miners led Dak up a set of rattling stairs to a catwalk overlooking the refinery–a cavernous reservoir of smoking machinery and crisscrossing walkways and conveyor belts. The indistinct silhouettes of miners lining the walkways were visible through the haze. There was a door at the end of the catwalk; the two miners ushered Dak through. In the room, sitting behind a desk, was the most obese man Dak had ever seen. Presumably the Foreman. Dak recognized the symbol tattooed across his face at once–the mark of a Takkah agent. An unexpected sight; either Dak was further from the outer rim than he thought, or the Takkah Empire had expanded its control over mining operations in the Orubus Belt considerably. The miners waited outside the office. They didn’t bother introducing Dak. “I take it you’re interested in the reward,” the Foreman said. “What should I call you?” “Syphon,” said Dak. “Dak Syphon.” The Foreman leaned forward in his chair. “We can’t offer currency, Mr. Syphon. But you’ll get a full tank of fuel and a crate of this if you can help us.” The Foreman slid a half-empty bottle across his desk toward Dak. Dak picked

There was no doubt about it–the old man’s coordinates were in the Orubus Belt. The Belt was a lawless zone, claimed by none of the prefectures. Whispers of missing ships and entire crews gone mad kept all but the most foolhardy of adventurers far from its borders. All trade routes between neighboring systems circumnavigated it, leaving the Belt almost entirely uncharted. Zuli was a more than a little apprehensive, but she had promised to deliver the old man to his coordinates. And Zuli was not one to break her promises. Zuli made the sign of the Prophets across her face and muttered a short prayer. She pressed the comm button next to the navigational display on her console. “Are you certain of these coordinates?” Zuli said. “They are taking us into…” “Yes, I’m sure!” the old man’s voice came crackling over the comm system. “I know where it’s taking us. You promised! You can’t back out now!” Zuli frowned. She had no intention of breaking her promise. “No worries,” Zuli said. “The Prophets shall watch over us, even in the Orubus Belt.” “Yeah, yeah,” the old man’s voice blurted. “Just let me know when we approach the coordinates. I’ll have preparations to make.” Zuli scowled and released her finger from the comm button. She made the sign of the Prophets once more and asked for a blessing of patience. Zuli had taken pity on the old man at the New Antilles spaceport. She noticed him at the docks, dragging his large cargo container behind him and begging every passing merchant and trader for passage aboard their ship. Those who didn’t ignore him outright were quick to dismiss him once they learned of his destination. Now Zuli understood why. Zuli flicked her finger across the navigational chart on her console and flung it to the bridge’s main display. A spider web of specks and lines appeared near the bottom of the large glass screen, illuminating Zuli’s face with their dull green glow. The top half of the screen remained ominously blank. The blank space gradually expanded downward, pushing the web of charted systems and trade routes off the bottom edge of the display. Soon they would cross the border into the Orubus Belt. A red dot started flashing inside the empty map of the Orubus Belt. Zuli blinked and stared at the spot. The hairs on the back of her neck tingled, the way they always did when the Prophets were about to test her. Pulsing concentric circles expanded around the dot and faded away, like ripples in a red pond. A distress signal! Based on its proximity to their destination, intercepting the distress signal would require a slight deviation from their current heading. She tapped the alteration into her control panel, and felt an almost imperceptible shudder from the ship as it adjusted course. “What are you doing? Why have you changed course?” the old man’s voice boomed over the comm. “You promised!” Zuli sighed. “No worries, friend,” she replied. “I have detected a distress signal not far from your coordinates. I must investigate and help if I can. It is on the way.” “No!” cried the old man. “You promised to take me!” “I did promise,” said Zuli. “And I will take you. If you are unhappy with the path the Prophets have chosen for me then you are free to disembark and seek another ship whose captain is more willing to…” “Gah!” the old man cut Zuli off with a frustrated grunt. “Do what you must, but remember your promise.” Zuli sighed. The ship’s sensors indicated that the old man was still in the cargo hold. “It will be several cycles yet before we reach the distress signal or your destination,” she said into the comm. “Perhaps you would be more comfortable in one of the crew quarters, or here on the bridge with me.” “I’m fine where I am,” said the old man. The old man’s answer didn’t come as a surprise. He hadn’t left his cargo container alone for a nanocycle since boarding the sh

A hook formed out of thin wire carved a narrow trench through the sand as Doyle steadily dragged it toward him. In his right hand he held a chunk of metal shaped like a cricket bat, which he had christened Grub Smasher. He had salvaged both the wire and Grub Smasher from the debris that had dropped from the Ark. The sound of shifting sand came from the loose end of the wire. Doyle’s muscles tensed. “Come on you little bastard,” whispered Doyle. A small hole appeared in the ground next to the wire, and a pale finger-sized worm poked out. The squirming creature snatched the loose end of wire with dozens of hair-like tentacles surrounding its mouth. Before it could drag its prize underground, Doyle swung Grub Smasher down. A cloud of dust puffed up around the impact. Doyle turned the weapon over and observed a wet purple smear at its center–confirmation of his kill. He put Grub Smasher down and yanked the dead worm’s body out of its hole. Purple slime dripped from its smashed head onto the sand. Doyle tossed the carcass behind him and it landed with a splat on top of the others. Doyle sneered at the pile of dead worms. That last one made two dozen. They looked like a pile of rancid uncooked hot dogs sitting in a puddle of their own liquefied remains. If only they tasted as good, thought Doyle. He shuddered. Doyle and Sarah had been ecstatic when they first discovered the creatures. After nearly two days without food or water, the worms had saved them. They spent hours luring them, yanking them out of the ground, then consuming them–two bites, then on to the next–purple goo smeared across their cheeks and dripping from their chins. Fuller bellies and clearer heads ushered in the realization that the worms left much to be desired in the way of flavor. They paced themselves to limit their disgust–one meal a day, forcing down as many of the creatures as they could without vomiting. “How many is that, my dude?” Doyle looked over at the pile of cables and computer components that had spoken. The Ark’s stasis chamber was too heavy to drag around, so Desmond had walked Doyle through the process of extracting his computer core and a few key peripherals. It involved Grub Smasher and a lot of swearing, but the end result was a tangled but much more portable version of Desmond. “About two dozen,” said Doyle. “Should be more than enough. Yesterday Sarah could only choke three of them down. Don’t think I did much better.” “Shit, bro,” said Desmond. “I wish I could do more to help you guys find different food. I feel totally useless like this.” Sighing, Doyle glanced over at the derelict spaceship that he, Sarah, and Desmond had been calling home for the past two weeks. The ship had been half-buried in sand, but not in a way that implied it had crashed–rather abandoned and forgotten for so long that the wind was gradually tucking it in. Doyle had spotted it while they were searching the perimeter of the city ruins for anything that might help them survive. The ship was exceptionally large–it consisted of a spacious rear cabin connected by on over-sized doorway to a cockpit with similarly over-sized controls and chairs. The chairs made comfortable beds and, despite having its rear door stuck open, the cabin did an acceptable job of shielding its three stranded inhabitants from the elements. And best of all, it had power. Somewhere deep in the ship’s guts was a backup power source. A power source that had sat dormant for ages, automatically activated by the arrival of a couple humans and an AI stranded three million years into their own future. The cabin had working lights, a comically large but fully functional stove top, a toilet the size of a small car, a sink, and–Sarah’s favorite–an enormous bathtub that filled with hot water at the press of a button. After having spent over a week sleeping on the barren dirt ground in the open, discovering the ship had felt like booking int

The phone rang at around three in the afternoon. I stared at it for a long time–the beige rotary antiquity sitting far back on my desk next to a scrambled Rubik’s cube and a book of chess puzzles. I had almost forgotten the thing even existed, despite the fact that it had directed the flow of my entire life for the last three decades. Its ring was loud and tactile–like those old alarm clocks with a hammer that physically pounds back and forth against two bells. The sound gave me goosebumps. I guess for you to understand why something as innocuous as a ringing phone could cause me such trepidation, I had better start from the beginning. When I was in high school, I was a gaming fanatic who was blessed with wealthy parents and a generous allowance. I owned every home console available in North America, as well as a couple that weren’t, and every penny that didn’t go towards expanding my game collection got converted to quarters at the arcade on a regular basis. An obsession with video games was certainly not an uncommon condition among boys my age–I merely took it to a level that few others could even dream of. I started my freshman year at university in ‘92. My parents kept paying me the same allowance and covered the tuition, but everything else was up to me. It became apparent early on that maintaining my former gaming budget while also paying for the dorm, food, and other living expenses was, to put it mildly, financially untenable. For the first time in my life, the horrifying prospect of needing additional income had dawned on me. Wandering around campus during the day was something I tended to avoid–too many people were out and about; it made me anxious. As such, it wasn’t until well after dark one Friday night that I hit the campus job boards in the hopes of finding something that could ease the burden on my wallet while minimizing the burden on me. I was not an ambitious kid–I wanted to earn just enough cash to keep a roof over my head and feed my stomach and gaming addiction while doing as little work as possible in the process. My prospects were grim. The postings on the board were all volunteer positions or part-time retail gigs. The retail jobs would have paid enough, and bagging groceries probably wouldn’t have been too mentally taxing, but the thought of wearing a fake smile and dealing face-to-face with an unending stream of people every day made me dry heave. There was one posting for a data entry job, but all the dangling tabs with the phone number to call had already been torn off. Data entry sounded like it could be up my alley, so I decided to visit the smaller job board outside the computer lab in the hopes of finding more. To my dismay, the cork board hanging in the dimly-lit hall outside the computer lab displayed a smaller selection of the same jobs I had already seen. I was about to head back to the dorms to lament over my poor luck, when something white jutting out from behind the board caught my eye–the slightest hint of a sheet of paper someone had slipped between the wall and the cork board. My first ham-fisted attempts at fishing it out with my fingernail failed miserably. I pulled out my student ID card and pressed the edge of it against the sliver of paper, then dragged it along the wall. The sheet of paper slid right into my hand. Grinning at my cleverness, I looked the paper over. There were two lines typed out in all caps at its center: DO YOU LIKE VIDEO GAMES?CALL FOR MORE INFO There was a phone number printed at the bottom of the sheet. My heart rate amped up a notch. Could this be the Holy Grail that it appeared to be? I would have given my left arm for a paying job that involved video games, and that seemed to be what I had stumbled upon. I felt absurdly protective of that little piece of paper. In my mind it was a divine treasure, hidden there for me to find. I glanced down the hallway in both directions. There was a couple down at one end who were plai

Orange fingers of flame gripped the Ark like a slender fiery hand as the battered ship plummeted through the upper atmosphere. Flecks of carbon tore from thermal plating and flashed as they burned up in the ship’s wake. A mile from the surface, the Ark’s retro booster burst to life, further slowing the Ark’s descent. Three yellow parachutes deployed from the uppermost section of the Ark. Two of them inflated, the third flapped limply in the wind. The imbalance caused the ship to tilt. The Ark’s corrective thrusters attempted to compensate, streaking their blue flames brilliantly across the night sky as the Ark spiraled out of control. Crumbled ruins of an ancient city cast quick-moving shadows across a barren desert landscape as the tumbling ship passed overhead. The Ark crashed at the edge of a dry lake bed, buckled slightly in the middle, then toppled and skidded half a mile. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, the damaged Ark lay on its side, half-buried in the valley-sized trench it had gouged. Stillness settled, as though the night were eager to claim it back after the Ark’s uninvited intrusion. Interrupting the silence yet again, the Ark ejected one of its stasis chambers with a loud pop. The metallic chamber landed a hundred feet away, then started venting white mist into the warm air. Doyle rode his bike through the University campus as often as he could–to and from the grocery store, trips to the public library, and as on this occasion, heading home from the communal office building where he sometimes worked for a change of scenery from his home office. It had been almost a decade since he was a student himself, but he still cherished the feeling of nostalgia that washed over him as he pedaled over the familiar paved path and relived some of his favorite memories. The bike path meandered past and around most of the buildings, and Doyle was rounding a blind corner when he nearly ran over a kneeling woman. She was trying desperately to stop a flock of fluttering papers from blowing away in the wind. Doyle squeezed his brakes and swerved to avoid her, rolling down a rocky embankment next to the path and winding up flat on his back. He stared up at the woman. She stared back down at him, forgetting briefly about her escaping papers. “Oh my God I’m so sorry!” cried the woman. “Are you alright?” Doyle got to his feet. He was out of breath, and guessed he’d have more than a few bruises in the morning, but nothing felt broken. He nodded to the woman and rolled his bike back up the embankment. After expressing her profound apologies, the woman introduced herself as Kirsten. Doyle helped her chase down the last of her errant papers. Kirsten explained that they were term papers she had finished grading that night. This doesn’t look like a term paper, Doyle thought as he studied one of the sheets in his hands. Blast radius diagrams, tonnage reports, target coordinates, fallout projections. It seemed so familiar, and yet out of place at the same time. He looked up at Kirsten, who was holding her hand out, eagerly awaiting the return of her document. Her expression had changed. Her eyes seemed hollow, her smile emotionless. Was this how it went? Doyle couldn’t remember. The edges of his vision were getting dim and closing in until Kirsten’s frightening, grinning face was all that remained at the center of a black void. Then even she faded away. The next sensation Doyle became aware of was the taste of dirt. He choked and spit, then rolled over onto his back. Light crept back into his vision in the form of a dim haze. “Kirsten? Where’s… Where’s my bike?” Doyle’s voice came out a raspy whisper that he almost didn’t recognize as his own. He sat up and tried to feel around for his bicycle. His arms seemed reluctant to respond, like rubber tubes flopping around in slow motion. His hand brushed against something. A foot, an ankle, connected to a leg. Was it his? Doyle

“The engineering team has been having trouble loading the ML data onto the Ark’s computer,” Commander Chin said. He was sitting across from the Nikola’s Children Board of Directors. He hadn’t had much experience interacting with the Board, but Commander Chin was now the highest ranking officer not in stasis, and the Board had been demanding daily progress reports. “Some kind of problem with storage. They’ve assured me it’ll be sorted by tomorrow.” Shadow cloaked the three Board members–amorphous dark figures against an even darker backdrop. The Board room had one light on its high ceiling, pointed down at the top of Commander Chin’s head. “The Ark launches in one week, Commander Chin,” said one of the board members. “The rest of Engineering was to board tonight.” It wasn’t clear which of the three dark figures was speaking; Commander Chin always assumed the one in the middle did the talking, because that’s the only one he had ever seen move–a slight nodding motion in response to good news. He wasn’t nodding now, though. “Yes, sir, I know that,” said Commander Chin. He felt the heat of the light beating down on his skull, and felt beads of sweat trickle down his forehead. “They said it was a minor problem, they’ll be able to board tomorrow. The launch schedule shouldn’t be affected.” The middle shadow nodded, and Commander Chin stifled a relieved sigh. “What of Deluge?” came the voice from the darkness. Commander Chin had been waiting for this question. He smiled. “We transferred the payload to the Ark this morning. Doctor Ghani and I personally oversaw its installation. We ran a full system diagnosis afterwards and all criteria registered within expected parameters. Project Deluge is now primed.” The middle figure nodded again. “Excellent job, Commander Chin. When the engineers complete their task tomorrow, they must board with you and the remaining security officers. The compound must be empty as we make final preparations.” Commander Chin nodded. He stood and saluted by crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Thank you, Sir. May the Children be praised!” “The Children be praised,” said the shadowy figure, and Commander Chin marched out of the board room. “Do you remember the one where you stuck a Roman candle in your butt?” Sarah giggled. Heady sighed. “Yep, I remember alright. I still have the scar.” Sarah stopped giggling and gawked at him. “Oooh,” she said. “Can I see?” Her cheeks turned pink and she started giggling again. “How far down does this go, exactly?” Doyle asked. Sarah glanced at him, annoyed at the unwelcome reminder of his presence. “It won’t be long, just chill,” said Sarah. She looked Doyle up and down and shook her head before returning her attention to Heady. “Sarah,” said Heady. “Exactly how deep underground is the compound? I’d like to know, you know, for the video.” “Oh, it’s pretty deep,” said Sarah. “It has to be, to hold the Ark.” She studied Heady in the bright fluorescent light of the elevator. He looked so much better in Officer Thompson’s uniform than Officer Thompson ever had. Sarah found it hard to believe that it was the same uniform at all. “The Ark? What’s that?” asked Doyle. Sarah suppressed the urge to scream. Why couldn’t Shit-for-Brains shut up already? She wished Doyle had stayed behind on the surface. Officer Thompson only had the one uniform, and there was no way it would have fit Fatso. She told them it would be dangerous for Doyle to be inside the compound in civilian clothes, but they wouldn’t listen. Sarah needed to figure out a way to bring Heady to the Ark alone. “I’d like to know what the Ark is too, Sarah,” said Heady. “Oh!” said Sarah. “Well, the Ark is our ship. It’s going to take us to the New Home. Away from all the war, disease, climate change, you know… All the b******t we gotta put up with here. Plus

“Punch me as hard as you can, bruh!” A shirtless, flaxen-haired Heady Armstrong pounded his fists into his well-defined abdominal muscles and laughed. His friend, also laughing, stepped back until he was out of the frame. “Here I come dude, you sure?” the unseen friend called out. “I’m ready! Do it bruh!” Heady’s friend barreled into view and raced across the screen. Heady visibly braced himself. The still-charging friend swung his arm back, and then thrust it forward. Swinging fist connected with Heady’s groin. Heady yelped and keeled forward. The camera started shaking as its operator burst into laughter. “Officer Jefferies?” Sarah looked up from the phone hidden beneath the monitoring control panel that doubled as her desk. She was startled to see Officer Thompson standing in the small security office. Sarah wondered why he hadn’t used the intercom, like a normal person. Probably to annoy her. Sarah pushed a loose strand of jet black hair behind her left ear, surreptitiously grabbing the wireless earbud she was hiding there. Damn it, how long had he been standing there? “Officer Jefferies, the highway outpost has radioed that they saw a suspicious vehicle. It might be heading toward the compound. Keep a close eye on the perimeter, OK?” Officer Thompson spoke slowly and enunciated his words, as though he were suspicious of Sarah’s grasp of basic language concepts. Sarah loathed him. “I heard the report too,” Sarah lied. “I’m not stupid y’know. You don’t need to tell me how to do my job.” Officer Thompson nodded. “Yes, sure. Just making sure you got the message.” His eyes darted down toward Sarah’s control panel. Sarah saw his gaze shift and slid her chair forward, shoving the phone in her hands further out of view. “Right,” said Sarah curtly and forced a disingenuous grin. “Message received. Thanks.” Officer Thompson frowned and peered closer at the array of display screens splayed across Sarah’s control panel. His eyes lingered on the one that was off. “Did you fix camera nine yet?” he asked. “Not yet,” said Sarah. She hated Thompson so much. Why did he have to be so irritating? His stupid freckled face infuriated her. His dumb red hair made her blood boil. “It’s only been broke two days. Plus that section’s covered by the motion sensors so it’s not like we need the camera. I’ll get to it later.” “Make sure you do, Jefferies,” said Officer Thompson. “Before your shift is out, OK?” Sarah hated the way Officer Thompson called her “Jefferies.” Everyone called her that, but the way he said it seemed to drip with contempt and superiority. Like he thought he was better than her because he outranked her. Officer Thompson held his arms crossed out in front of him, forming the standard Nikola’s Children salute. “The Children be praised,” he said, then turned and left the security office. Sarah listened to his footsteps recede down the hall and out of earshot. “Dickweed,” Sarah muttered under her breath. “Children be praised,” she said in a mocking tone and put her earbud back in her ear. She returned her attention to her phone and the video that Officer Thompson had interrupted. An old one she’d already seen countless times, but one of her favorites. “Are you sure this is the way?” Doyle Tingler asked. They had turned off the main highway onto an unnamed dirt road close to an hour ago and had seen nothing but darkness and trees in the moonlight outside the car windows. “Yeah,” replied Heady Armstrong. “My boys scouted the coordinates you sent me a few days ago. The compound was right where you said.” “Ah,” said Doyle. “Can I assume that by ‘your boys’ you are referring to those half-witted imbeciles who star along side you in your idiotic videos?” “Yeah,” said Heady Armstrong. “And they’re not idiotic videos, I have almost ten million subscribers.” “Mmm,” said Do