06:00.
That was the time it was when I touched Earth for the last time.
It had been 21 days since I’d last been able to see my mother. She couldn’t come. She was already sick and they weren’t taking any sick with us. Well, not sick from our level anyway.
I’d heard there were some sick among the Top Deckers, but it was their ship.
They’d made us say our goodbyes with enough time to quarantine all the hands and crew. Once we were up there, closed quarters would make too good a breeding ground. A few people did start showing symptoms after the first few days. They were removed and sent back home.
Back home to stay.
It was a death sentence and we all knew it.
That morning, the sun rise was a brilliant cacophony of reds and pinks. Some of the swirls of color were almost fluorescent. It looked like most mornings. The pollution made for an impressive display as it choked us all out. I wanted to take my mask off so I could really see it, but that wouldn’t have ended well for me.
By 06:05, my back was to the growing light and I’d never see it again.
07:00 found me securing my seat in the belly of the beast that was stealing me from home. Saving me from home. It was all kind of the same thing.
It’d be another day to get to The Outer Sky.
Stationed in near orbit in proximity to the moon, this technological monstrosity had shown as brightly as it’s cratered neighbor in the night sky. Especially since the moon is much smaller than I’d heard it used to be. The titanium and iron was just going to go to waste if we left it here.
The Outer Sky was more than a ship. It was almost a planet unto itself. Paid for by the powerful on the backs of the rest of us with one purpose: to carry us away from our sins and heartaches.
They won’t tell us exactly when they started building this thing. There’s rumors that it’s been going on for generations. The governments of the world were never going to have the funding or resources to get this thing built. And they’d never collaborate enough to finish it in time. But anyone with any sense could see this meek planet wasn’t going to sustain us for too much longer.
They also won’t tell us exactly how it got started. Who the folks signing the checks were. As it got bigger, they had to go to greater and greater lengths to hide it. What was several small independent “satellites” suddenly got bigger. They weren’t moving much like satellites either. That’s when the powers that be pressured to limit the space programs. That only kept the quiet for so long though. Eventually they had to take control of the governments themselves. In the span of a few decades, CEOs became POTUSs, old money retook it’s age old birthrights of ruling the plebians, and the economy had been violently pulled out of the shadows. That upper echelon of status no longer tried to hide their power, smooze the public, or deny that their only concerns was their own longevity. They didn’t have to.
By then, it was obvious things had gone too far. Too much had been taken for too long. The air was toxic. Plants shriveled and receded. In the wild places and in every town, animals were growing cancerous or outright dying. We became an extinction event. Or maybe the extinction event was sent to clear us out. Like a virus being attacked by the immune system. Some days I think we cheated it.
The common people around the world could only think to do one thing: beg the powerful to save them. They in their infinite riches should be able to buy our way to clean air and drinkable water. In a way, they did.
Children in my generation remember the call outs. We thought it was a promise of a future.
Our parents knew what it meant.
They still diligently groomed us to sit in these mildly padded seats surrounded by hundreds of others dressed in the same sterile off white suits heading into the Great Unknown at this exact moment.
The alternative was to stay and go extinct.
Twenty one days before strapping into that almost uncomfortable seat, I’d seen for the last time the woman who gave up so much for me to have this life.
We were all headed into a new life filled with more chance and opportunity than any other human generation had ever had. The air in this cramped shuttle felt vibratingly still and chokingly heavy, like a funeral. Not a one of us could muster the excitement you’d think we’d have had.
Tension is a funny word. It sounds like it feels, but it feels so much bigger than it sounds. When your throat goes taunt, eyes strained, chest tight, stomach acidic, feet bounce, muscles twitch, head hazy, and breathing becomes something you have to think about to do. No one was doing much talking on the ride up. We were all concentrating on remembering. At least that’s what I was doing.
“What is this?”
“Journal entry for Hand 042-MCU-KOCH.”
“Another one? How many journals do we have to listen to? Why in bloody hell are they wasting our time on this? We all know they’re going to get jettisoned. Zero tolerance. That’s the policy. What good is evidence?
“Clearing their conscious?”
A coughing snort preceded “Careful, son. You’re assuming there’s any conscious left at the Top.”
“Don’t say that. It sounds bad. You know they record everything.”
“Oh bah with that. I never believed that one. And even if they did, how would they actually listen to all those recordings? Nah, I figure we’re ok. They trust us to work the case, right?”
“Even if they already know the end game?”
“Because they already know the end game.”