Last One Out of Eden

It didn't take long to verify that she had been traveling by herself. He tracked her footsteps out to the edge of the sand coming into the base from the south. It was clear that she had walked here from somewhere, but if she had come across the trackless desert, it was a miracle that she had found this compound.

By the time he returned, he was happy to see that her bodies elevated temperature had dropped considerably, and she was already looking far less flush than she had when she had come into the dormitory. He let her rest setting an alarm to remind him to check on her throughout the night, but as near as he could tell she never woke once. By morning, he had changed out her I.V. twice, and she appeared to be improving at a steady pace. After applying some more cream to her wicked looking sunburn, he left to go for his morning run another habit he couldn't shake even though keeping in shape seemed to be a waste of time.

The early morning air was less brutally hot than it would be by afternoon but was still dry as a bone forcing Jeffery to slow periodically and take a long pull from his water bottle. He had made a full circuit of the mostly deserted base and had the dormitory in sight when a loud sizzling noise drew his attention to the sky. A meteor shot across the horizon throwing off a smoking trail behind it, and nearly making it to the ground before it broke up with a loud boom that echoed off the surrounding mountains.

"That was a big one, probably like a small car," thought Jeffery knowing it was just the first harbinger of many to come.

The noise had awoken his patient who sat huddled under her sheet, looking very pensive as he walked in.

She pulled away when he tried to step close to check her I.V., and he held up his hand's palms out trying to speak in calm, soothing tones.

"It's o.k. I'm not going to hurt you. My name's Jeffery. I'm not sure if you remember you sort of dropped at my feet last night."

The scared girl looked him up and down then tried to answer, but her voice came out as barely a croak. Jeffery helpfully stepped to his right and fetched a water glass with a straw showing it to her before he slowly approached holding it out. She took a long drink, nearly draining the glass while watching him warily over the rim.

"Go slow you don't want to choke," advised Jeffery.

The level of water stopped dropping, and she pulled the glass away from her parched lips.

"You're a soldier," she said in a low voice.

Jeffery looked down at his fatigues and backed up, "Yes...technically, I'm a Captain in the U.S. Army, but I'm not entirely sure that means anything anymore."

"You left us to die," she stated.

"I'm sorry. I'm not sure what you're talking about."

"When people started looting and burning you left. They burned my house, my whole neighborhood to the ground..."

"I'm sorry, Miss, that wasn't me. I mean it was soldiers like me, but I wasn't involved I've been here for almost two years."

"Is this where the rockets came from? My brother was sure it was in this direction," she asked suddenly.

"Your brother? Where is he? Was he with you? If he's still out there..." said Jeffery worriedly looking out the window toward the desert.

"He isn't...He's dead...We left together to get away from the burning and all the looters, but out on the road, we got stopped. We thought they were a stranded family stuck out in the heat, but it was a trap. They were just scavengers looking for food, supplies...My brother told me to run, so I did. It was dark, and they couldn't find me, but I heard gunshots and my brother..."

The girl started to sob, looking down at her hands.

"I heard him scream...and then...more shots and then...nothing," she said as tears tumbled down her face.

Jeffery had never been comfortable with strong emotions, growing up without a mother, and a father who was often distant at best had not equipped him for handling moments like these, but he did his best awkwardly stepping up and patting the young woman's leg.

"I'm so sorry about your brother..."

"Carrie," she breathed between sobs.

"What?"

"Carrie...My name...is Carrie Morton."

Carrie's tears slowed, and she showed remarkable resilience pulling herself back together and straitening on the bed.

"It's nice to meet you, Carrie Morton. I'm Jeffery Hawke," replied Jeffery holding out one hand which she took limply in one of hers for a brief shake.

"You asked about the rockets?"

"Yeah...My brother saw them go up and he thought he could calculate where they came from and head that way. I think he was hoping that he might convince someone in power to take us with you."

"I see. Well, you did find the right place the rockets were launched from here, some of them anyway, but they're all gone now."

"What are you still doing here then?"

Jeffery quickly filled her in on his situation.

"So you're stranded here with all the rest of us," observed Carrie.

"That's about the size of it, yes. Are you hungry?"

Carrie nodded, and Jeffery helped her stand on shaky legs, guiding her toward the cafeteria. He made sure that she started slowly with just some applesauce, which she quickly devoured.

"I'm guessing it's pretty bad out there from what you were saying."

"Yeah, pretty bad. A lot of folks stayed in their houses and took the fast way out. The ones who didn't...Well...I guess it varies some of them drink themselves into a stupor and run around partying like its an all-night rave while others roam the streets grabbing anything or anyone they want. It's anarchy."

"You're safe here," put in Jeffery trying to comfort her.

"Really? You've got like a big bomb shelter or something?" she asked hopefully.

"I'm sure if you watched the news you know that there is nowhere to hide from Nomad. It's just too big. No shelter is going to save anyone," replied Jeffery realizing she had taken his meaning too literally.

Her face fell, and she toyed with her spoon swirling it around.

"So my brother died for nothing..."

"This probably sounds cruel, but we're all going to die soon at least he was trying to do something holding on to what hope he could find for you and him. I certainly can't blame him for that."

Carrie nodded but couldn't manage more than a wain smile.

"My skin hurts," she said, rubbing at her arm.

"Try not to touch it. You got a pretty nasty burn, but I've seen worse. Come on. I'll get you some more cream to put on it."

They returned to the infirmary where Jeffery helped her apply some more burn cream. Then he took her into the main dormitory studying her with a careful eye.

"We can't have you just walking around here in a sheet," he said, "I think you and Private Walsh were about the same size."

He stepped to a bunk near the far wall and returned with some clothes for her to try on guiding her to a lavatory. When she exited a minute later, he sketched a hasty salute in her direction, making her smile for the first time.

"That's more like it. You look like a first-class recruit!"

"So I've been drafted," she said with a quiet laugh.

"Welcome to the Army. You have your choice of bunk and free run of the cafeteria. That may be about all the perks I have to offer at the moment."

"It's more than enough. Thank you for helping me, Jeffery, or should I call you, Captain?"

"Ha! Jeffery is fine. I think we can dispense with military protocol under the circumstances."

They returned to the cafeteria, and Carrie stepped up her food intake to include a turkey sandwich eating it like it was the most exquisite meal she had ever tasted.

"It was getting hard to find food," she said, trying to apologize for her lack of table manners.

"No need to apologize."

"This place seems immense. Were there a lot of people here?"

"About a hundred or so, you're in the biggest building. The rest of the base is given over to labs and staging areas for the rockets, as well as maintenance facilities. I can give you a tour when you're feeling better."

"Actually, I'm feeling pretty run down. I need to sleep some more if that's o.k.?"

"I understand. Your body is going to be worn out for a bit."

He guided her back to the dormitory, and she picked a bed at random, choosing one close to the entrance. It was apparent just how exhausted she was since she was asleep in a flash snoring softly. Jeffery watched over her for a while, and when he was sure she was sleeping soundly, he left to clean up the cafeteria mess. As he washed up the dishes that Carrie had been using, he mused on how good it made him feel to have someone around to talk to again. He hadn't realized how much he missed simple human companionship until he was all alone with no real prospect of finding it.

Carrie proved to be a fast healer, and within a few days, her skin had begun to return to a more healthy pink from the red it had been. This did have an added effect that Jeffery hadn't anticipated. The more she healed, the more he had to admit that Carrie Morton was a very pretty girl. Her small, round face was accentuated by a pair of brilliant blue eyes that twinkled when she smiled and dimples that were distracting in the level of cuteness they added to that expression. She had some very full, soft-looking pink lips, and hair bleached out into a very light blond that fell around her shoulders like a fluffy cloud of waves and curls.

It wasn't like Jeffery Hawke had no experience with women, but his career had always come first, and dating had been a very distant second. His last significant relationship had flamed out years ago, and even that one had lasted only about eight months. He had always imagined that one day, he would put some serious effort into settling down, but there had seemed to be plenty of time for that sort of thing. The coming of Nomad had made it clear that he had perhaps made a mistake in that regard. It was turning out that the old truisms about not putting off the important things in life were coming back to haunt him.

"Then again would I want to be witness to someone I love dying by my side? I'm not sure if that would make me feel better or worse."

"Did you say something?" asked Carrie.

Jeffery looked up from where he was chopping up some tomatoes not aware until now that he had spoken out loud.

"Sorry, too much time alone I'm used to talking to the air...I tend to spout off everything I'm thinking."

She came over with the salad greens she had put in a bowl, "That can get you into trouble no matter what women say about wanting to know what a man is thinking."

They both got a laugh out of that comment as they sat down to eat.

"Do you feel up for that tour now?" he asked after they had cleaned up.

"Sure...I'm tired of being cooped up inside. I've always been an outdoors girl."

They left the dormitory and Jeffery walked her to the far end of the base, pointing out the various buildings.

"I would take you inside, but I shut power off to most of them, so there isn't much to see."

"What did you do that?"

"This place runs on generators, and I only have so much gas left for them. A few of the buildings have solar panels, but that's not enough to run the air conditioners, and I'll be darned if I'm going to die sweating, at the very least I can go out comfortable."

It was gallows humor, but it still drew a laugh from his petite companion.

"Wait! What's that? I thought you said all the rockets were gone?" said Carrie pointing at TPRT-11.

"That isn't an escape rocket. It's the prototype we used to test the technology on the Arks. It has rockets to get it into orbit, but then it splits off into a separate module with a rudimentary fusion engine that can glide back into Earths atmosphere and be landed like the old space shuttles."

"Why couldn't you use it to escape?" she asked.

"Oh, I could get it into orbit, and the telemetry computer could be programmed to follow the main Arks, but without preservation gas, I would die of old age long before I got anywhere near a new home. That, and she isn't equipped to carry much in the way of supplies so I would more likely die of thirst long before then."

"What's preservation gas?"

"It's the stuff we used to emulate a long hibernation kind of like what bears do in the winter. We coupled it with low-temperature suspension to slow everything down even more so that you hardly age while you're traveling through space."

"It sounds like science fiction," said Carrie wrinkling her brow.

"Well, it's a good thing we made it fact or those Arks wouldn't have a prayer of making it where they are going."

"So you don't have any of this preservation gas?"

"It was seriously difficult to manufacture, and almost all we had was loaded onto the Arks some time ago. Here, I can give you a taste of what I'm talking about."

Jeffery led her to the doors of the lab and inside.

"Give Chuck a wide berth," he advised as they entered.

"Who?"

The ear-splitting howl that greeted their arrival in the lab was all the explanation Carrie turned out to need, and as Jeffery had recommended, she stayed far from Chuck's cage as she circumnavigated the room. In spite of this precaution Chuck still tried to lob a large chunk of his smelly poop in her direction making Carrie frown in disgust.

"He really knows how to make friends."

"Chuck is not known for his winning personality. I'm surprised one of the lab techs didn't take him out long ago," said Jeffery.

"OH! They're so cute!" cried Carrie running over to the rabbit cages.

"Beatrice and Barney," said Jeffery by way of introduction.

Carrie scooped up the largest of the pair into her arms, hugging the fluffy critter to her like a long lost relative.

"You are so soft! I bet you would like a carrot?" said Carrie in a sing-song voice as if addressing a small child.

"Here...We're almost out of these but under the circumstances..."

Jeffery passed her a carrot which she began to feed to the docile creature in her arms.

"I always wanted a pet rabbit growing up, but we moved around a lot, and my parents thought pets would be a hassle," said Carrie regretfully.

"I had a dog when I was a kid. A German Shepherd named Private Schultz."

"Private Schultz?" said Carrie with a raised eyebrow.

"We were a military family, what do you want?" replied Jeffery with a shrug.

"Were you and Private Schultz buddies?"

"Given how much we moved around ourselves there were times I thought he was my only friend," admitted Jeffery.

As soon as Beatrice had finished her snack, Carrie lifted her back into her cage and followed Jeffery into the next room.

"Whoa...This is like a mad scientists lab," said Carrie looking around.

The room was slightly smaller than the one they had left with half-a-dozen small glass globes each connected by hoses that ran into the floor sitting on individual small tables in the middle of the room.

Jeffery waved her over to the same Guinea pig he had stopped to look at the other day. She leaned down to get a better look at the sleeping animal whose chest didn't appear to move.

"Are you sure he isn't dead?"

"He's respiration has been slowed to the point that he doesn't need to breathe but once in a blue moon, but, no, he isn't dead."

She stood and walked around the tiny glass dome, examining the mechanism.

"Is this the gas you said you needed?"

"Yeah, and I know what you're thinking, but there isn't enough circulating in all these tiny containers to nearly fill the volume of a human-size sleep chamber."

Carrie nodded, still looking at the hibernating animal.

"Do they dream?"

Jeffery shook his head, "I have no idea...We didn't exactly have time to test for that kind of thing."

"Can you imagine how many dreams you could have in a couple of hundred years of sleep?"

"Or maybe just one long dream," offered Jeffery.

"I would have hoped mine involved Chris Hemsworth," said Carrie grinning.

"Seriously? You would want to spend two-hundred years dreaming about Thor?"

"I can think of worse ways to spend two-hundred years...What about you?"

"I would probably spend a good chunk of it dreaming about Coca-Cola. I love a good Coke, and we ran out in the cafeteria some time ago."

"A man of modest needs," commented Carrie.

"I like to keep things simple."

"Then you must never have had a girlfriend," shot back Carrie rolling her eyes and grinning.

"I've had a few along the way."

"I'm guessing no one right now, or you would be trying to get back to them."

Jeffery looked away wondering how Carrie had hit so perfectly on the very thing he had been thinking about earlier. If there was someone he loved out there, he might well have been moving heaven and Earth to find them, but whether that was a good thing or not was a matter for debate. Was it better to die alone or watch someone you care about die along with you? Poets and lovers might say the latter, but he wasn't so sure it seemed a bit selfish to him.

"Everything o.k.?" asked Carrie and it hit him he had been silent for longer than he realized.

"Fine...Hey...uh...I don't suppose you play ping-pong?"

The grin on Carrie's face grew wider.

"This is game point lets look alive out there!" called Jeffery as he held the lightweight white ball in one hand and took a few practice swings with the paddle in his other.

"Just serve the damn ball!" yelled back, Carrie, her face locked in a look of fierce concentration.

Table tennis had been one of the few distractions on the base in the months leading up to launch day. The dormitory had four tables, and tournaments had quickly sprung up with many a soldier or civilian scientist vying to be the local champ and gain bragging rights over everyone else. Jeffery wasn't particularly competitive, but he had gotten caught up in the excitement, and discovered to his surprise that he had a natural ability at the game. He had claimed more than a few matches against his colleagues, but Carrie had surprised him by more than holding her own. She had turned out to be a little ball of fire with a paddle in her hand, and their games had all been decided by a narrow margin.

He nearly started to laugh at her approximation of a game face but decided she might find it a little condescending and contented himself with a quiet chuckle as he served the ball.

They began a back and forth volley that went on for quite some time neither able to get the other out of position enough to get the ball by them. Carrie was starting to labor a bit, and Jeffery thought he might edge her out by merely waiting for her to wear down when he made the mistake of backhanding the ball over the net just a hair too high. Carrie's eyes lit up, and she went for the smash, driving the ball hard and fast for the far corner on Jeffery's side. He saw the move coming, and as she drew back her arm, he made the only play he had diving hard to his right, almost laying out in the air. The ball was a white blur coming back across the table, and he swung blindly, barely feeling the contact before his body smacked into the hard tile floor of the dormitory knocking the wind out of him.

He lay sprawled across the ground, trying to get his breath then rolled onto his back to find Carrie looking down at him with her hands on her hips.

"You o.k?" she asked.

"Yeah...I'll live..." grunted Jeffery.

"So what are you a super-soldier or something like Captain America?"

"You mean I made the shot?" asked Jeffery, sitting up in astonishment.

"You sure as Hell did and it caught me so off guard all I could do was stand there and watch the damn thing go by me. I have to say that was the best return I ever saw. You deserve the win."

Carrie helped him to his feet as Jeffery shook off her praise.

"It was blind luck I didn't even see the ball I was just swinging where I thought it might be as I went down."