“All right, give us a second,” he said.
We patiently waited below, listening to all the voices coming from inside the pod. It was apparent that the man we had been talking to was addressed as the ‘foreman’ and delivered orders. It was interesting to hear their chain of command and how it functioned. We listened as buckles were unclipped and people organized.
Finally, the man popped his head back up again. “Okay, I’m going to start lowering people. I’ll be the last down, so that'll be interesting! But we can figure that out later. Ready?” the foreman asked.
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Jane replied.
The first person to be lowered was a woman. She was short-statured but very muscular. Her arms bulged from her shirt as she grabbed the foreman’s hands and descended slowly towards our reach. When the guys grabbed her, she grabbed hold of their shoulders and lowered herself. Very capable. She stood to the side and waited for her teammates.
The second man down was tall and muscular. Extremely muscular. As more and more people dropped from the pod, we realized this was a trend.
“Where did they get these guys from? Just go to every gym and pick the big ones up?” Smith whispered to me.
I nudged him hard. “Would you shut up?” I giggled a bit.
Once everyone was down except for the foreman, he stood atop the pod and laughed. “I think I’m just gonna go for it. What d’ya guys think?” he said.
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Spencer said. “It’s a long drop.”
“Yeah, I think I’m just going to go for it though.”
“I wouldn’t—”
Too late. Before any of us could talk any sense into him, the man did a backflip off of the pod, inverting once in the air, before landing on his heels and rolling onto his back with a thud. Quickly rolling out of his folly into a backwards somersault, he stood up. “Wow! That was awesome!” he yelled.
Murmuring under his breath, Garrett said “Are you fucking kidding me?” while looking away and rubbing his head.
“Just remember they’re here to help,” I offered quietly. “The muscles alone are enough to make me look the other way when one of them does something stupid. It’s fine.”
“Right.”
THE WALK BACK TO THE supply site was interesting, to say the least. We had a million questions. What was it like on Earth? What caused everything to happen the way it did? What parts of the world were untouched? What was the chaos like? Did they think Earth would ever be the way it was? These questions plagued our minds, but we never got the chance to ask.
Unrelenting, giddy introductions of the entire group of thirty-five ensued. I had never felt such apathy for someone’s name in my life. Of course, I was interested in eventually learning who the people were, but I wanted to know how my old home was first. We had been left in the dark about almost everything, only seeing very recent news reports. I had no idea if my mother was alive, or if she was okay. I yearned to hear about what parts of Earth were left untouched, unscathed. Instead, the foreman droned on and on about his and his teammates previous accomplishments.
He told us of how they had gone into Iraq after the war and built homes for the citizens whose houses had been demolished within a week. Another story about how they tilled the fields of Africa during a drought and brought water to a starving village, dragged on. In each story they were portrayed as the heroes. These stories that normally would have been interesting and exciting, angered me. I could care less what they had done before now. This was going to be different. Every once in a great while, between his babbling, someone from our group would try to squeeze in a question, just to be interrupted by another story.
Their word-vomit continued as they spouted on and on about everything they had done in the past, how they had a long history together as a team, and how they planned to change the world up here on Circadia. For being laborers, it sounded more and more like a SEAL team that had shared years of battle together than anything else. Some of their stories sounded made-up or embellished. Even when no one asked questions about the details of the story, they provided them unnecessarily. It was strange, and I was tired of it.
Suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Would you shut the hell up? We don’t give a damn what you did before now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice you have experience, but everything is different now. So, shut up!” I screamed. I couldn’t help myself. We were still processing the loss of everyone and everything we knew, and they cou care less. I’d had enough. I took a deep breath to calm myself, then looked up. Everyone was looking at me like I was crazy and dangerous. I glanced down at my feet, gathering some courage, and spoke again. “In case you were wondering about us at all, we have been in the dark about everything that happened. We have no idea why the things that happened did, we have no idea what is left. We have no idea about anything. The not knowing is killing me. I’m sure it’s eating other people up, too.” I took a deep breath once again. “You guys are the first people we have talked to from Earth in quite a while. It would be nice if we could ask some questions.”
The foreman’s expression was one of bewilderment. His eyes were wide, his jaw hanging from its hinges. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize. They didn’t tell us much about you, either. How much do
