Survivors in the After

Chapter 1-1

1

Sebastian McConnell vaulted over the railing of the second-story fire escape and landed easily among the debris on what used to be a side street in Manhattan. Dusk lengthened the shadows. Most of the buildings still standing in this area were unsafe for habitation. Anything of value had been looted in the months following what survivors had termed as The End, which later became divided into the Before, the During, and the After.

For years, countries played Chicken with their red buttons and secret launch codes. Five generations had existed under the threat of a Third Global War. The last generation had pleaded on live broadcasts for leaders to cease the actions of their warring countries even while troops were deployed, fighter planes were launched, and explosions observed from space lit up the world. They attempted to gain the attention of those whose fingers hovered above the horrifically forbidden, believing there was a better way to deal with the kidnappings and abuses that had occurred to those who had been treated in secret facilities. A population of over eight billion had been reduced to four billion before the clouds of radiation spread and a nuclear autumn—rather than a winter since the warheads had been destroyed higher in the atmosphere—gripped the earth. Over the next twenty years, the population on the planet dropped another two billion due to starvation, localized violence, and radiation sickness. Some say those who died in the first days were the lucky ones.

Those who survived fell into three categories, plus the Claimless who denounced any group membership and clung to their previous life, law-abiding or criminal. Having witnessed the horrors of human-generated evil, some had retreated into isolation, physically and mentally. Living in shelters, made or found, usually far from others, they existed as Fringers, their trust in humankind, shattered. The educated ones who witnessed the hell of their own creation worked tirelessly to reestablish law and community. They devised ways to hasten the end of the results others of their kind had unleashed on the only habitable place in the solar system. Doctors, scientists, engineers, teachers, and others who had skills to contribute to the survival of those who remained, worked to improve the quality of life by providing clean running water, a sewage system, and converting manufacturing plants once used for textiles and vehicles to packaged food factories. Those who declared themselves part of the quasi-government once again drew lines of separation between land and beliefs and class. The Heads, they were called. In what had been the United States, this new government claimed D.C. as its seat. To gain control over all the populace, not just those who looted, destroyed, and murdered, they turned the military against the citizens. Curfews were put in place. Drones, commanded by those in uniforms, searched for lawbreakers. And those in uniforms, referred to with the derogatory term ‘the Heads’s dogs’, had the authority to mete out punishments upon the people as they chose. Courts of law no longer existed. But it was the third group to which Sebastian belonged.

He was eight when everything changed forever. His mother died months after all that everyone knew—cities, government, agriculture, factories, transportation, religion, currency, home and family, and a known future—disappeared. He had heard stories from his mother about his father, but didn’t remember the brilliant scientist who planned to save the world and yet had a part in its destruction.

Carefully picking his way around and over chunks of concrete, skeletons of vehicles, and the macabre sculpture of twisted steel, Sebastian easily kept pace with the old man his leader and friend, Leo Novak, told him to find. Every afternoon, the old man arrived at the slab, which was all that remained of the Manhattan District Library. And each day children attended, taking seats around him. From somewhere, the old man had procured a rocking chair. He sat and rocked, and whatever he told the children, they listened with quiet attention. With instructions from Leo to not interfere with the children, only to gather information about what the old man did, where he went before curfew, and discover his identity, Sebastian admitted his own interest in those answers.

Sebastian didn’t remember much of what occurred in the Before. He thought this was partly due to his young age before the world blew to hell, and mostly because all that had occurred in the time marked the During and the After. As if his brain had a finite capacity for memories, and the During and the After contained so many more that were significant to his survival, the memories of the years in the Before were just shoved aside. A respectable scientist who studied in the field of the human psyche might say trauma forced his mind to separate from the Before. He supposed that could be true. Everyone alive had experienced trauma of some sort. Each dealt with it by numbing out and living on the fringe, resorting to crime, or keeping the company of others who wanted to save what was left of this human race.

Keeping to the shadows of the buildings, he considered that perhaps the psych scientists might be interested in how and why each faction of survivors chose to deal with the personal and societal fallout as they did. Sebastian had many interests, especially in ways to survive. Rumors abounded regarding the remaining government militaries worldwide that had captured some who had been changed. Some like him. More than a few times, he would have been caught or killed had it not been for his enhancements. He used them now to keep track of the old man and ignore the Fringer who watched from the belfry of the Gothic church.

Glancing at the sky, Sebastian knew the sun had set, and dusk would quickly fade. In the time called the During, when ash filled the atmosphere and darkened most of the sun’s rays, it was difficult to determine the rise and set of the star that allowed life to exist on earth. But since the geoengineering scientists and those who worked on HAARP tweaked the layers of the atmosphere to reverse the climate change that had already altered weather patterns, and therefore the geo-economics of the world, they were able to wash the debris from the sky. Creating clean water provided a challenge for a couple of years until those same scientists designed filters large enough and strong enough to contain the ash and radioactive particles. With the sky clear now, and the atmosphere resetting the weather, seasons returned, as did the ability to observe the rise and set of the sun.

Nights in the City were dangerous. Sections that hadn’t been safe in the Before continued to be unpredictable in the After. But he wasn’t concerned. The weapons strapped to various parts of his body, his enhancements, and his training could be called up before an enemy got close enough to cause damage.

Pausing at an alley opening, he watched as the old man stepped into an alcove. Sebastian knew the building used to house journalists who reported for The New York Times. Some buildings in particular parts of the City that hadn’t been demolished, either during the bombing or burned and looted soon after, remained pristine, as if all the people who once inhabited the structures disappeared in a single moment in time, the actions of their lives permanently interrupted. The upper floors of this building still held the equipment of the journalists and their trade—computers, maps, furniture, office supplies, cameras—like they stepped out to cover a story and never returned. He knew, as he’d investigated each floor and every office. In the first days of the After, the lower floors, barren of anything that once had value, became a temporary home to displaced survivors. Now, faded graffiti and trash covered the walls and floors, and broken windows allowed the elements to further rot the wood and plaster interior.

Few buildings in this section had electricity, so elevators didn’t work. And even if the building had power, the lifts became death cars if hydraulic fluids weren’t added to certain motors or if the cables had been damaged or stolen. One would have to be extremely determined to climb the stairs to the fifty-second floor of this particular structure. Rushing forward to not lose his prey, Sebastian peered into the alcove and through the open doorway. The old man disappeared around a corner on the second floor landing. Sebastian crossed the marble-floored lobby. It was littered with glass, dirt, leaves, and trash brought in with the storms and pushed up against the walls and the bank of elevators. He tipped his head, listened for the old man’s footsteps to fade, to tell him which floor the man was on, or to echo down the stairwell if he traversed a particular hallway.

Silence. Sebastian wondered if the old man felt he was being followed and decided to wait out his pursuer. To his left, behind the closed metal elevator doors, there was a clunk, then a whirl of gears. Shifting quickly to the side in case something emerged from the elevator, he removed his stunner and waited. Nothing. He strode to the doors and leaned an ear close. Had the old man saved himself the exertion of climbing flights of stairs and devised a way to use the lift?

The sound continued and Sebastian raised his gaze as if he could watch the car rise up the shaft to one of the top floors. It took nearly two minutes before the noise stopped. He climbed the stairs to the second floor. The elevator doors were open, the shaft empty except for the cables. Stepping closer, he looked up. Way up, he could see a faint light and the bottom of the car. He dropped his gaze and smiled. The old man had attached a massive chunk of metal to one of the cables to act as a counterweight. An antiquated idea that served well in these current times.

Taking the stairs by twos, Sebastian kept his weapon ready. He hadn’t been through this building in months. Then, there appeared to be no one using the structure for shelter. But people moved frequently. He wouldn’t be surprised to find a Fringer making his home in the stairwell, or an Enhancer who had no place to go and hadn’t sought refuge in the tunnels. The Heads didn’t stay in this part of the City. Sebastian knew all of those who resided in the tunnels and most who lived in small apartments in functioning sections of the City. Only pieces of the infrastructure of previously developed nations remained intact. Utilities, food production, commerce, and community provided for basic survival and hygiene. One couldn’t guarantee anything regarding safety, even from functioning governments.

Sebastian, relieved to have the stairwell to himself, slowed his pace as he neared the fifty-second floor. Easing open the heavy door, he listened. Voices and music drifted in the corridor. Had the old man led him to a party? An ambush? How many people would he find inside? What faction did the old man belong to? Carefully opening the door wide enough to peer inside, he squeezed through when the hallway and office space appeared empty.

Lights were on. Computer monitors flashed data in the shape of charts and graphs and tables, replaying whatever existed on their hard drives since the Internet vanished with the electromagnetic pulse from the warheads. The source of the sound, the voices, came from videos, not real people. Sebastian scanned the office area, noting the half-walls that grouped desks and chairs, computers and phones. On the solid wall opposite the widows hung maps of the world and pictures of those who had worked here or gained fame because of the reporters. Wandering the space, he paused by a desk. A video played on a screen while a bottle of liquor, sans cap, and two mugs sat in the center. He turned at the disturbance of air behind him, raised his weapon, and held his gaze on the old man.