Evolution

“Well, no one asked you. I just have a gut feeling about this that I want to follow.” She stood, leaving her dirty plate on the table for me to clean. “We’ll be in the air in five minutes.”

Makara headed for the cockpit, just as Anna sat down next to me with her breakfast.

“Hey,” I said.

“What’s up?” She started to eat.

“Try to be up in the cockpit in five,” Samuel said, rising to go.

He left Anna and me at the table.

“I had this random thought this morning,” Anna said.

“What?”

“You know that toothpaste we use, the minty one?”

I paused. “Yes?”

“Well, where the hell does it come from?”

I frowned. “Skyhome?”

“Yeah, I know that. Back when I lived on the surface, you were lucky to find anything salvaging, and most of the time it would be so old that it was like brushing your teeth with caulk. Mom and I would always use ashes from our fires mixed with water.”

“Ash and water? I would have never thought of that.”

“It’s because you’re from a Bunker. What did you guys do for toothpaste?”

“I don’t know. We just always seemed to have it. How it’s made is probably in the archive, somewhere. Or maybe they stocked up enough to last for a long time.”

She shrugged. “I guess it will always be a mystery, then, huh?”

She went back to her food. Like Makara, Anna favored cantaloupe.

“I’ll have to remember the ash and water thing. Might come in handy.”

The ship began to hum as the fusion drive warmed up. Within minutes, we would be in the air.

Anna finished the last of her food. I touched her shoulder, causing her to pause mid-bite.

“Come on, let’s go up front.”

After she swallowed the rest of her food, we left the table and the dirty dishes behind.

* * *

It was midmorning, and we had been searching three hours. The long, pink border of the Great Blight crawled north to south on the ship’s right side. Just seeing that field of blaring pink, orange, and purple was unsettling. The xenofungus coated the desert floor, climbed over rocks, stretched over plains, slithered up mountains. The eastern sun cast a red, fiery light on the alien growth, setting its colors aflame. Swarms of creatures — probably birds — flew in tornado-like clouds, for the time being ignoring our presence.

It was like staring at the surface of an alien planet. And I guessed, for all intents and purposes, it was an alien planet. This was what we were fighting. Seeing all that alien growth was depressing.

We followed the line of the Great Blight until it started veering northwest. As the minutes passed and we continued our search, the Great Blight’s border turned even more toward the west. The Great Blight stretched not only to the east, but also endlessly to the north.

“Was all this here before?” Makara asked.

We stood in silence seeing the fields touch the far horizon. We had never been this far north before, so maybe it had always been like this. Or maybe it had only recently expanded in this direction. It gave me a sense that time was definitely running out.

“I don’t know,” Samuel said. “Keep following the border, toward the west. That’ll put us closer to Vegas in a couple of hours.”

We followed the ground at a low altitude of about a thousand feet — high enough to be safe, yet low enough to easily see anything, or anyone, below. The Great Blight persisted in its westward crawl, sliding past our field of view. A purple lake glimmered far to the north, making me think that it was filled with purple goo rather than water. The xenoviral flora stood thick along its alien shoreline in a tangle of webbed growth.

The comm on the ship’s dash began to beep, lighting red.

“Did anyone check in with Ashton last night?” Makara asked.

We all looked at each other. We were supposed to update Ashton once a day on how things were going.

“I forgot,” Samuel said. “Put it on speaker.”

Makara answered the call. “Yeah?”

“Give me your update from yesterday,” Ashton said.

“Nothing to report, really,” Makara said, angling the ship as the Great Blight’s border started heading due west. “Did some more recon on the coordinates I sent you. We found nothing but dust.”

“Makara, if you can’t find anything soon, then…”

“We will,” Makara said, interrupting. “I feel it in my bones.”

“Feeling has nothing to do with it,” Ashton said. “We are on a limited timetable, and I can’t have you guys wasting time searching for a needle in a haystack.”

“I understand that,” Makara said. “But I know Char. If he went anywhere, it would have been to his brother.”

“Even though he hates him?” Anna asked from the copilot’s seat.

“I need you on my side, Anna,” Makara said.

“I’m allowed my own opinion,” Anna said. “Maybe Ashton is right.”

“Alright,” Makara said, annoyed, “if not the Exiles, then who do we go to?”

No one said anything.

“Well, there’s Vegas,” I said. “There are the northern Bunkers, 76 and 88…”

“Have you tried calling those Bunkers, Ashton?” Samuel asked.

“Repeatedly. I’m getting nothing. On 76, the line is going through, only…no one is answering.”

“That’s not a good sign,” Makara said.

“What about Bunker 88?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Ashton said. “It’s safe to assume they are both offline, though at some point, you guys will still have to check it out yourselves. That is, if we have time. With what we’re facing from Augustus and the xenovirus, we need every ally we can get.”

“So, what about Vegas?” Samuel asked. “Why not just go there first?”

“Did you not learn from the Empire?” Makara asked. “If Char and Marcus back us up, we’ll be bargaining from a position of power. We’ll have hundreds at our back from the get-go. The Vegas Gangs will be more willing to listen to us.”

“Good luck getting those two to work together,” Anna said.

“They will work together,” Makara said.

“I hope you’re right, Makara,” Ashton said. “Because this is your last day. I cannot allow you to waste any more time on this exercise.”

“It’s not an exercise,” she said. “It’s a necessity. I’m not allowing us to walk into Vegas with our pants down. From what I’ve heard, it’s just as bad as L.A.”

“That remains to be seen,” Ashton said.

“How’s your project coming, Ashton?” Samuel asked.

“I’ve finished one of the two wavelength monitors. The one Makara and I dropped earlier is still functioning, so getting these two done will help us triangulate the Voice’s exact point of origin. Although I’m missing a few parts that I will have to find down on the surface.”

“Where are they?” Samuel asked.

There was a pause. “Bunker Six.”

Bunker Six. It was just a hop from Bunker One, toward the north. Like Bunker One, it had fallen in the xenoswarm’s first major attack on humanity. That place was going to be thick with crawlers, if our time at Bunker One was any indication.

“Ashton, it’s too dangerous,” Makara said.

“I can handle myself,” Ashton said. “I’ve gotten in and out of Bunker One half a dozen times over the years.