Origins

hot shower that would last for eternity.

All these questions would remain unanswered… at least for a while. Even as I beheld the wonder of that floating city, I couldn’t help but feel sick at what we had learned: that Ragnarok truly was only the beginning.

Chapter 24

There was nothing to do but wait.

We had been in Skyhome for a full month, and it had taken me a week just to get used to the dizzy spinning of the stars from the three rotating rings. The fact that we were here, in space, never ceased to be mind- blowing.

Beginning in the Dark Decade, NASA devoted all of its energy to the Skyhome Program. Skyhome 1 was the only one to ever be completed. It had taken ten years, hundreds of launches, and billions of dollars just to get it livable. Skyhome was designed to be self-sufficient, but in the rare case that a spare part or supply was needed, the Gilgamesh could easily travel between Skyhome and one of the Bunkers. Odin, a second, smaller ship, was also docked in Skyhome’s hangar.

The Gilgamesh, as well as the Odin, had been constructed during the Dark Decade, along with two other ships. It was clear that launching rockets into space was inefficient — an advanced, reusable spacecraft was necessary. During the 2020s, huge advances were made in fusion power. These advances made it possible to equip the four under-construction spaceships with a fusion drive. Though the drive was massive, the enormous amount of energy produced was more than enough to make up for it. And to refuel, the ships would not need complex rocket fuel, a commodity that would not have existed for long post-Ragnarok. All they would need was hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe.

Unfortunately, Gilgamesh and Odin were the only ships that were operational. The other two, Orion and Perseus, were still docked in Bunker Six, a massive complex not too far from Bunker One. Of course, it was covered with the Great Blight, so getting in and liberating the ships was extremely risky. Skyhome just did not have the manpower to do it.

In that first month at Skyhome, we all got the chance to think, finally. We ate fresh fruits and vegetables, and there was even chicken. The Outer Ring, the largest of three, was entirely devoted to food production. The plants produced oxygen, and the humans and animals in turn produced carbon dioxide. All water was recycled within the closed environment, and there was plenty in reserve in case something went wrong. And of course, the sunlight provided more energy, both for electronics and plants, than Skyhome would ever need.

Living in space, however, brought two great risks, and Skyhome had so far been spared from both. The first was radiation. While Skyhome had normally adequate radiation shielding, a sudden solar flare would douse the station with unhealthy levels of radiation. It would fry electronics as well as anyone exposed to the harmful rays. There was also the threat of stray rocks and debris striking the station. Skyhome had a tracking system that monitored space debris orbiting Earth, but the system wasn’t perfect. There had been a couple times in Skyhome’s history where its occupants had to do an emergency EVA to change the course of debris on a crash course with the station. If good-sized debris hit, it could poke a hole large enough to depressurize the station in minutes.

Hits by smaller debris were a somewhat common occurrence. Usually, the pieces were not large and fast enough to go through the station’s shell, but if they were, there was a system in place within Skyhome that detected leaks. After the leak was discovered and pinpointed, it was a simple matter of covering the whole with resin until a more permanent repair could be implemented.

While living in space might seem as if it was safer than the surface, this was far from the truth. Solar flares were never a question of “if,” but “when.” And one day, a big rock or piece of space junk could hit the station and end it.

But for now, Skyhome operated, and within its three rings people lived and worked. It was strange, seeing so many people again. About eighty lived here. The entire community had reacted to our coming with a mixture of fascination and fear. The citizens of Skyhome treated us in much the same way as a Bunker resident would treat a Wastelander. None of them had seen anyone who had lived and survived on the surface. We had been the stuff of speculation, and even legend.

After the fall of Bunker One, Dr. Ashton and several Bunker One refugees had managed to pilot the Gilgamesh to Skyhome. There were already survivors from Bunker Six living on the station, who had used Odin to escape. Sadly, none of the survivors knew Samuel or Makara.

After a week of our presence, a week of nothing but eating, sleeping, and showering, the people of Skyhome grew used to our presence and asked us countless questions about living on the surface, life in the Bunkers, and what people were like below, all of which we answered. In turn, I learned about life here. I liked tending the plants, most of all. They grew lots of different fruits and vegetables: potatoes, carrots, corn, wheat, tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, cucumbers, apples, bananas, even lychee and dragon fruit, the lychee becoming a personal favorite of mine. There was enough to feed Skyhome’s population, and there was capacity for more growing space should the population increase.

We had countless questions of our own to ask of Dr. Ashton, from how he had contacted us in the first place, to what to do about the coming invasion. The doctor said that resting and regaining our strength was more important for the moment. None of us argued with him there.

After the first couple of weeks, though, Anna was stewing. She practiced her forms, much as she had done before heading to Bunker One. Though we had nothing but time up here, she had somehow grown more distant from me. I think the journey to Bunker One had taken more of a toll than she let on.

If Anna had grown a bit more distant, Makara had grown light years away. She was still reeling from Lisa’s death. Bunker One had been more than we all had bargained for, and it had cost us all something. But it cost Makara the most of all. Any attempt of mine to talk to her ended with her brushing me off. It got to the point where I just stopped trying, and ended up getting involved in my own activities.

I still felt the shock of it all. My life ever since Bunker 108 had been nonstop action; hunger, cold, being chased, and nearly getting killed hundreds of times had transformed me from an innocent kid into an adult. My face in the mirror looked tired, but tough. I had been scrawny before, but since Bunker 108 I had gained a lot of muscle, especially since starting to recuperate at Skyhome. I ran the rings every other day for an hour straight, sprinting during some of the stretches. I lifted weights, did pushups, ate until I almost burst, and slept. I threw myself into it, and even started practicing my hand-to-hand combat with Samuel.

Within a few weeks, Samuel’s sling came off. Being in Skyhome with the good food, warm sun, and close- knit community did wonders for his health. Though I still had to take it easy on him, he was a good teacher.

Up here, I finally had time to think. I thought about my dad, Khloe, and everyone I had lost back in Bunker 108. It got to the point that I didn’t even know who I was anymore. That was why I threw myself into my workouts, my reading, and my farming. It was as if everyone had their own sorrows to deal with. The sorrows were like walls that kept us on our separate islands. Maybe that was why Ashton wanted us to stay here awhile before continuing with our mission — whatever our mission was, these days.

As for Samuel, he was gone a lot. He and Ashton spoke every day, sometimes for hours. It made sense, because they were both scientists, and they were probably sharing information they had learned about the xenovirus. I hoped that, together, they could come up with some idea of how to stop it. Every day, when I saw Samuel at dinner, I asked him what the next step was. Finally, he told me to just chill out and relax.

I told him I didn’t remember what that was.

My nightmares returned up here, this time featuring crawlers, Howlers, and the monsters we fought with no name. Worse, I’d dream of my father and Khloe. With nothing to do, I had all the time in the world to process what I had just gone through. I tried to keep as busy as I could. I got back into my drawing. We each had our own rooms up here, and I kept the artwork in a drawer. I drew people, mostly. Anna let me draw her while she was practicing, although she had not been too happy about it. Said it made her feel self-conscious.

As much as it creeped me out, I also drew the monsters we had found. I thought they might be educational for Ashton in some way. I named some that had no names. The three-headed one we fought in the hallway on our