I am just pushing forward. I want to keep writing regardless of review count.
Chapter Nine:
August 12, 2100
We're a day out from Las Vegas. Our newest traveling companion may have provided the resources to enable our survival, but she is getting on everyone's nerves. Particularly Reid's.
Celia knocked on his helmet. She touches him constantly to check to see if he is still moist. Her questions about his bodily functions are invasive as he still hasn't eaten anything and lacks an appetite for anything but sips of water. I wonder when his is going to snap at her and I think Kara and Willard are taking bets behind my back.
I can tell the more awake he is, the more depressed he is. I think he was playing possum to avoid me as I experienced the thrill of my life in seeing Star Wars on a screen. The chess board is his constant companion. He tried teaching Celia, but she just wanted to play checkers with it. Willard tried playing him, but he beat him in five minutes. Reid looks so lost and I wish I could help him more.
Luckily our troubles with bandits have been minimal. With a revolver aimed at the leader's head, we offer a small pop bottle of whiskey in exchange for safe passage. They know better than to mess with a vehicle as large as ours.
…
"Do you think I could still lose my virginity here in exchange for a bottle of whiskey?" Celia asked.
"Probably," Willard said as the approached the outskirts.
"Is there any place you want to see, Reid?" Lindell asked.
He was rapidly reading a Lord of the Rings book.
"A cemetery," he said. "My father was probably put in a mass grave during the Cataclysm like my mom in DC. I want to see where my maternal grandparents are."
"What are their names?" Kara asked.
"Grace," he said.
"Are you sure you can't remember anything about how you ended up in that tube?" Celia asked.
Reid took a deep breath.
"As I have repeatedly explained Celia," he said. "I think the shock of the abduction has given me amnesia."
She flicked his helmet.
"Maybe we should take that thing off."
"Not now," he said.
"When?"
"Where's the cemetery?" Willard asked.
"I'll direct you, once we get off the highway."
"We're about to hit a checkpoint," Willard. "Celia, it's your turn to go in the trunk."
"But's my car!"
"It's going to look weird having a teenager with us when none of us look old enough to be your parent."
"But—"
Willard turned around.
"Hide in the trunk or I tell them what you do in the middle of the night."
"Okay," she said quickly.
He pulled over to the side and Celia buried herself under their supplies.
"Thank you," Reid said.
"You still mad about my comment about— "
"A little," he said.
"Fair enough," Willard said.
"So, what's her secret?" Kara asked.
"I'm keeping that bit of ammunition for as long as possible."
…
The cemetery was completely overgrown with weeds. They were lucky his grandparents had a headstone and not a marker. Reid also had a clear memory of exactly where to go. Even as Reid was slowly redeveloping his muscles, Willard still had to carry him to where the tombstone was.
Shaped like a heart flanked by flower sconces, the Grace tombstone looked to be in better shape than some of the others.
"It's kind of romantic," Celia said. "The place is quiet and beautiful. The bodies have been literally left to rest in peace here."
Reid stared at her hard. All of four of them were clearly thinking the same thing: This was the least annoying thing Celia has said since this journey started.
"Look, someone left something in the flower holder," she said.
"Probably a stem," Willard said.
"Are stems metallic?" she asked pulling out encased in plastic, a recorder like the one Lindell used.
"Let's listen to it in the hummer where the acoustics are better," Lindell suggested.
"In a minute," he said.
Tears leaked down his face.
"I never knew you, but I knew you loved her," he said. "Thank you for giving me a mom I could love and cherish forever."
They waited a couple more minutes. He nodded and Willard picked him up. Lindell looked back one last time. It truly was a beautiful setting.
…
"Uncle Spencer, it's Henry," he said. "My voice has changed a bit since you last heard it. Everyone I know thinks you're dead after you disappeared in that train station in Houston a week before the Cataclysm. I believe you're still out there and I won't stop until I'm proven wrong.
Michael and I are on the outs right now. After I hide this where I think you might find it, I'm heading back to DC to make amends. I am two weeks away from my fortieth birthday, and I hope I can see my nieces and nephews one last time.
Here's what I've found out Uncle Spencer: Three weeks before you disappeared and a month before the Cataclysm, there was a meteor strike. One hit an area in northern California a farmer found touched a sample and died immediately. But when the son touched it, he didn't die. The meteor is only the size of a baseball and was sent to the Nevada research facility known to conspiracy theorists as 'Area Fifty-One.'
It wasn't like other meteors. It began to affect the lights in the facility and transmit a code. Your name was in it along with a molecular equation for how to a keep a human preserved alive indefinitely and used as a power source. It warned that if you were not contained before the date of the Cataclysm you would solve it and avert the disaster.
How do I know all this? I did a lot of things you would not be proud of. Kidnapping. Bribery. Blackmail. The only thing I didn't do was murder. I promise. No murder.
The person who monitored the data and enabled the Cataclysm is James Redden. He died after the cataclysm but enabled his daughter to rise through the leadership ranks. So, there you have it. One man just wanted his daughter to create a political dynasty and the world was destroyed in the process.
This is my confession. My dossier. I'm leaving it here because I believe one day you will come looking for a place of peace and my voice will be waiting. No one wanted to hear what I had to say, and I was shunned. Maybe they'll listen to you. Fix the world Uncle Spencer. We need you now more than ever. I love you."
Reid was in tears at the end. The other adults exchanged looks. Celia looked to them.
"I don't get out much, but isn't Robert Redden the president?"
