Lurranus 4 (Part 1)

1.

2256

“Hey folks, it’s the Captain again. We’re no closer to getting the power back, we’ve really no idea what happened. We’d send a message back to the base, but we can’t get anything to work. I don’t know. I’m really sorry for the inconvenience. Maybe it’s some kind of problem on Intrexal’s end, or a space related one of ours. We really don’t know. I’ll be sure to keep you posted over the next few hours. But don’t panic. I’m sure, with hard work and-or luck, the situation will be resolved. I’ve no doubt about it. Until that time, take care folks. Captain out.”

Liam sat still, surrounded by silence and darkness.
The emergency lights had long since gone out. Beside him, his new companions James, Connor and Andy remained equally motionless. The energetic, youthful Connor had initially tried to entertain the group with funny comments, but after the stoic captain had delivered his third message concerning their dire state, Connor’s optimism had wavered, before all traces of it had disappeared, leaving only fear he struggled to hide with restless movements. His older, war veteran friends were more experienced with fear, and with agonising waits, but Connor was the child of the group, and Liam could tell the boy was trembling behind him.
Liam was used to waiting. To doing nothing. He had spent sixty years doing exactly that. For a long time he didn’t fear death, he only feared more life. More of the same, of a tedious existence. He had often willed death to come to him, but he was unable to do the deed himself, always fighting for something he didn’t really want, spurned on by his survival instincts and nothing else. But now, for the first time since his friend Chris died in his arms, and he failed in his mission to honour him, and since John left him, he had something to live for. He had friends. So now he did fear death. He feared dying, before he had another chance to truly live.
 

2.

John Closer sat patiently.
He sat, alone and still, in a room, light only by red light, filled with computers, surrounded by white walls and just past that, what had to be layers on layers of debris. The rubble the former Intrexal base, home to Lurranus, had been reduced to. He had expected that rubble to crush him too, but the room was obviously made for emergencies, and had managed to hold out.
The sound of activity had been continually increasing. The room he was in, while not only surprisingly sturdy, was mostly soundproof and that he could hear these sounds with some clarity indicated the recovery teams were getting close.
John hadn’t expected to survive. He had been quite ready to join his family. His work was done. He had fulfilled his plans to save humanity, and those plans hadn’t expected to accommodate for any kind of aftermath for John himself. Still, perhaps he could oversee the result of his work. Then again, if Intrexal knew it was him who had destroyed their headquarters, it was unlikely he would get the chance to see his vision come to fruition.
A single light appeared, shooting into the white room. It was painfully bright, and John swirled around in his chair, turning to face the opposite wall. The light just reached that wall, but was considerably less painful, and proved an effective middle ground to allow John’s eyes to adjust. He waited a minute, as the salvage efforts came to be painfully near, and watched as two giant yellow claws tore up a path to the door. Two masked individuals walked down. They approached the door, which had held out against the rumble for at least a day, and opened it with a simple voice command.
In that moment, John contemplated playing the hapless victim. An innocent man (which he was, but not in the eyes of Intrexal) who had played no part in the destruction that had occurred. But as the two masked figures approached, he stayed silent. He looked just right of the door, to see the blood of the two men he killed earlier, to complete his plan, and looked down. This wasn’t who he was, he thought, more annoyed than anything. All this violence, it painted the definitive image of John as a madman, a supporter of Oaktrus, an image not likely to fade from anyone’s mind. He had saved the world, but now he had to endure the company of the people who saw him only as a murderer.
The two figures stopped. One of them spoke.
“John?” She said. John recognised the voice of Brenda, an old friend and armed guard, and sadly noted the tone of disbelief. He also noted the way he eyed up his scarred, bald head, and slowly looked away from her gaze.

“Brenda.” He muttered slowly.

Her shock turned into anger. “What did you do?” She hissed, taking a step closer.
“I’m sorry, for any losses of yours, I truly am.” He said slowly, in the most kind tone he could. “But I did what I had to, to save the species.” He paused, speaking to himself. “I did what I had to.”

3.

“What are you doing there?”
“What?” Andy asked, turning around.
A young boy approached him. A boy of around seven, with black hair similar to his own, only considerably more messy, wearing a loose orange hoodie and jeans. He smiled, oblivious to Andy’s state of mind.
“What are you doing out here?” He said waking slowly towards Andy. “There’s a party down at the village. It is so cool.” He smiled, swaying from side to side, unable to stay still. “There are so many hot girls there.” He paused. “Can I say that? I dunno. And is it weird that I could be attracted to people a century older than me, because they look good. That Slow-Down thing, man. Plus, they have, like, actually food. Not just those Cubes. They are so bad, I honestly just wanna...” The boy put a finger to his head, pulling a mock trigger and pretending to collapse. He laughed, and looked at Andy, seemingly expecting him to do the same. Andy just looked down uncomfortably at the gun in his hand, and slowly hid it from the child. He looked away.
“You know kid...” he began in a gently aggressive tone. “There’s a lot more to life than sex and fucking Cubes.”
The kid stopped moving, perhaps stunned by the sudden curse.
Andy turned around. He thought back to his own family, who only a month ago had been shoved into a truck, reduced to little more than a food supply for some cannibals. He started to cry, and his voice began to break. “You got a family, people you care about? Because that is what life is about. The people... the people that give your life meaning... that’s what it is.”
The boy looked down, then continued, seemingly oblivious. “What about those electric things?”
“Electric things?”
“Yeah.” He continued eagerly. “Those machines you can play games on.”
Andy sighed. “Goddamn it kid. Looks like you got all the answer to the big questions.”
“Thank you.”
“Anytime.” He smiled, and normally Andy would have found it grating, but there was something pure and likeable about the kid. In a world so ruined as this one, it was refreshing to see someone was unjaded by time.
“So... what’s your name, kid?”
“Connor.” He replied, pushing his shoulders up and putting his hand out, looking like a child trying to be an adult and failing.
Andy smirked, before shrugging and shaking the kids hand. “Andy.”
“Can I call you Andrew?”
“No.”
“And can you buy me a fizzy drink?”
Andy raised his eyes, before laughing. “You’ve just come up here to extort me.”
Connor looked around, as though he were searching the ground around him for the definition of “extort”. “I... I do know what that means, but I just don’t feel like giving a big reply.” Connor eventually responded.
“Ok. I’ll get you a drink.” Andy agreed.
“Thank you... Andrew.” Connor said, giggling.
“I’m being extorted by a five year old.” Andy muttered, slowly walking away, his gun, the one he had spent the morning preparing to use, all but forgotten about.

Andy found himself thinking back to that day as he sensed Connor restlessly moving about, clasping his hands, unclamping them, crossing and uncrossing his legs, banging the table. In twenty years, he had barely changed, physically or mentally.
Still, in a world where everyone of the previous generations was in a permanent state of unhappiness, his giddy optimism was a refreshing change, despite having its more aggravating moments. It made it even harder to see him down. For everyone else, imminent death was an old friend, but Connor had lived a very peaceful, largely sheltered life, and naturally, the idea in a few hours he would cease to exist, was absolutely terrifying. Connor hadn’t said anything in hours, no quipping to lighten the mood, and out of concern for Connor, Andy had been reduced to a similar state
“You good?” Andy asked.
“Alright... I mean, I’m alright.” Connor whispered.
“You’ll be fine buddy.” Andy said, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m just gonna get up and have a look at what’s happening. That ok?”
“Sure.”
Andy walked off, stumbling in the darkness, guiding himself only by touch and familiarity with the space stations layout. He eventually saw a low blue light and walked towards it. The captain, a man with dark skin and bruised hands, and two other figures, were crouched over a collection of exposed wires below the metal floor. They didn’t look up for a while.
“Any progress?” He asked.
The captain sighed and stop up slowly. Even in the low light, he looked physically and emotionally broken.
“We’ll get there...” he said, in a parental voice, similar to the one Andy regularly used to address Connor.
“For real...” Andy said in an equally gentle tone. In that moment they both understood they were equals, that Andy was a friend and former soldier too. He wasn’t someone to be treated like a child. “What’s the deal? How long have we got?”
The captain looked down. He still spent a few moments debating whether to tell the truth, before admitting “A few hours, at most. Then we’ve got a few tanks - I don’t know how many - and then that’s it, that’s all the oxygen. I’ve tried every Intrexal frequency - hell, even old The Empirius frequencies - but we’ve got no response. Only from the other stations - on Mars, out further, wherever - but they’re just reporting the same thing. If it’s happening everywhere, I think this might have been a sabotage down at the ground.”
Andy sighed, thinking only of Connor and James. “If you need a break, you want someone to sub in...”
“There’s nothing you can do - that anyone can do.” One of the other staff replied.
“That’s not the point.” Andy growled.
“Look...” The captain began, “there’s nothing we can do. We’ve tried. If you want to try, you can. But at this point, we’re just trying to keep ourselves busy.” He breathed in slowly. It was clear to them both this was the end. “If you want to, take a lamp, play some games, keep everyone busy. Make your peace with the world, with your friends... with Connor. It’s all you can do now.”
Andy looked down sadly. He stuck out his hand. “Sir.”
The captain took it. “Thanks for trying.” Andy finished. The captain smiled warily, and Andy nodded at the other two, before taking a lamp and leaving the room.
He returned to his prior spot, putting the lamp down in the middle. Liam and James looked up at him. He slowly shook his head, and sat down next to Connor.
“Don’t worry buddy,” he said, pulling his friend in for a hug. “It’s gonna be okay...”
 

4.

For at least eight hours, the Intrexal complex that housed Lurranus had been on fire. Presumably, a disaster on this scale had not been foreseen, and the nearest emergency personnel, located to the edge of the sight, had been killed. The next response team hadn’t arrived for another hour, simply because there was no one left alive to tell them anything was wrong. Eventually, they missed their usual correspondence with the base, and casually went to check out what was happening.
It was immediately clear to them the magnitude of the problem. The eight man team had been far too small, so they had driven off and came back another two hours later with the cavalry. A good hundred people, probably the only ones who hadn’t been in the system.
Salvage operations began digging. There was much yelling, cursing... there seemed no hope, no potential for any silver lining. Eventually, one figure was retrieved from the rumble, however he was promptly shoved into a gritty buggy, and driven away by two armed Intrexal personnel. As they departed, the futile recovery efforts continued. But it seemed that man was the only one who had survived. All the other personnel had died. And that was to say nothing of the billions who were in Lurranus. Their former bodies were destroyed. And the system itself wasn’t backed up, it wasn’t on some sort of cloud. The only store of that conscious data was in that location and it had been irreversibly destroyed, along with almost every human in existence. Whatever had happened, whatever the cause, it had resulted in near total genocide.
A kilometre away, watching through his binoculars and hiding in a mostly intact house in an otherwise destroyed village, Aaron smirked, and began walking back home. This was good news. It was the best news in a long time. The others would want to hear about this. They were going to drink to all those burning pigs later. They were going to get completely drunk. It was going to be great. So, so great.

5.
Everyone remained more or less silent. It hadn’t been verbally stated but when Andy had enthusiastically taken to the middle, he gave of a potent scent of forced optimism. Still, the four men and several others had formed a circle. Some people remained distant, while others seat on nearby tables and overlooked proceedings, dimly lit by the overhanging blue lamp.
“A game of Monopoly, anyone?” One person said.
“It’ll certainly pass the time.” Andy laughed.
“I never finished a game of that.” The first speaker remarked. “My greatest regret.”
“Sadly, all they have is twister and connect four.” Andy said sarcastically. “Still, I’m up for the former.”
Andy felt someone tapping his back, and looked around. It was Connor, gesturing with his head. The two got up, and walked to the relative peace of the corner of the room.
“Hey pal.” Andy said.
“Hey.”
“So...” Andy decided to try a joke. “if you’re looking for advice about a last minute hookup...”
Connor suddenly reached in for a hug. Andy dropped the act and gripped onto him tightly.
“Thank you.” Connor said softly. “I know I’ve always been that annoying child. That kid who doesn’t know anything, who lives with all these veterans and whose never lived through anything, so much as done anything important...”
“You saved me, buddy.” Andy whispered. “You’re the best goddamn man I know. You’re my brother. And, yes, you’re a pain in the arse, but I still love you.”
“I love you too.”