The Seventh Night

Progress

Jakub smirked amusedly as Rik grabbed the free weights. The scrawny dutchman was panting hard from exertion but he refused to give up.

A few of the soldiers stood watching, taunting him for his physique, asking if there was anything they could do to help 'grandpa'.

"No," Rik assured with a sheepish smile as he looked at them through the mirror before him.

The mechanic from the flight 21 group sighed as he ended the series of sit-ups and changed position so he could do a set of squats. He found himself wondering when Rik would stop trying to chat up and/or impress the soldiers. He didn't need them, he just needed to believe in himself. Jakub didn't know why Rik always appeared so insecure. He was constantly in need of someone telling he was doing good.

Some of the others would say Rik was a weak character, hiding behind someone whom he considered stronger and able to defend him. Jakub figured that Laura would no doubt say that the older man was a classic bully. But during their journey Rik had also showed remarkable character strength. He had told Ayaz he'd seen him at the NATO headquarters and that he had been afraid to go against Terenzio even if it would have meant Ayaz's death. It took some courage to say that – Jakub wasn't sure he would have revealed such a thing, but then again, he would never have left the man in the first place. There was something sad about Rik even though, deep down, he was a good guy. Now, Jakub didn't want to think Rik's desire to be liked by everyone would cause them any trouble but at the same time he couldn't help but to wonder if the man could become a liability.

OOOOOO

"Death," Ines whispered. "It's like a bad apocalyptical movie. It's so insane I can't believe it's true."

"Hush," Laura said, trying to comfort the younger, slightly hysterical woman. "We are safe now. It's going to be okay."

Ines turned to glare at her, her eyes red-rimmed, the left-over makeup from the day before smeared beneath them. "How can you say that?" she asked in bewilderment. "The world-," she chuckled. "-God, the world we used to live in; it's gone and the people-,"

Laura gently wiped away a tear from Ines's, cheek trying to comfort her, wishing she could do something to help.

"All the people I knew," Ines said dejectedly.

"It's the same for everyone here," Laura said in a soothing voice. "You are not alone, Ines, and you'll never be."

"Flight club 21, huh?" the younger woman remarked in a quivering voice. At Laura's frown she added; "Something the soldiers said."

"We're a team," the nurse said resolutely. "Together we are strong. Look how far we've come already."

Ines snorted. "Yeah, to a bunker full of crazy soldiers," she replied sarcastically.

"Don't let them push you around. The moment they start to bully you – you go to one of the ambassadors or the colonel," Laura suggested.

"What good would that do? They see me as some kind of freak. Some idiot who can't do anything than to post ridiculous pictures on the internet."

"The world needs everyone at the moment," Laura assured her warmly. "You're good at communication, marketing and that sort of stuff. You're an entrepreneur, a driven woman. Why don't you offer your services to the ambassadors?"

"They see me as the new cleaner," Ines drawled. "Colonel Lom showed me the broom closet, said I could familiarize with it when I was done in the kitchen. Like I am some third-class citizen uncapable of doing something important."

Ines pushed herself up into a sitting position on the bed and gently dabbed the blotchy skin under her eyes. Still caring about her appearance, she grimaced at what she must look like at the moment.

"No, that isn't true," Laura corrected. "Besides, cleaning is very important. It may not be a glorious job but it's important."

Laura reached for a clean and soothing wipe and handed it to Ines. The younger woman was slowly pulling herself back together. A moment of silence passed before the nurse spoke up again.

"Have you talked to Sylvie or Mathieu-,"

Ines laughed bitterly as she rolled her eyes. "And say what? That I need something else to do? Besides, they're probably busy. Everyone seems to seek their attention."

Laura was about to reply when the door suddenly opened and Mathieu happened to walk in.

"Speaking of the devil," Ines whispered as she hastily tried to get her greasy makeup away.

"If this is a bad time," the pilot began.

"No, actually this is a perfect time," Laura insisted and motioned for him to sit down in an empty chair.

"Ines?" he asked softly, concern in his voice. "What's wrong?"

"The soldiers," Laura volunteered angrily.

The pilot looked troubled for a moment. "What about Markus?"

Ines managed a sigh.

"He's alright, isn't he?" Mathieu tried again.

"He's the only one," she admitted in a subdued voice.

"Stick close to him then," he suggested simply. "Try to stay clear of the others, if you can, for the time being. Look, I know it's hard but you really have to keep your disdain for them to yourself."

She glared at him now, her temper rising. "That's easy for you to say. You are a man and you are pilot. I am just a nobody they can't wait to get rid of."

"Okay," Mathieu said seriously, his voice calm. "I think you have to help me out here. Is this low self-esteem thing a common thing in this group?"

When no one answered he continued. "Because it feels like I've had this conversation in the cockpit already." Frustration had seeped into his tone of voice to the extent that he was unable to fully conceal it. "No one is more important than the others. Don't play the victim in their game, Ines. That's what they want."

"Earlier they tried to come at me," she let on, almost ashamed to say it out loud, even though none of it had been her fault.

Laura's eyes darkened.

Mathieu swallowed. He wasn't comfortable having a conversation about a topic such as this, especially not with the only two people in the group who knew he'd cheated on his wife.

"Well, then. If Markus isn't around, make sure to stick to us," he suggested. "Ayaz, Jakub, Horst."

Ines nodded at that and a smile suddenly appeared on Mathieu's lips. "Although, I think you are capable of a lot more than you think," he said with a faint twinkle in his dark brown eyes.

She couldn't help but to return the smile. "I did try out taekwondo once," she stated.

"There you go," he replied kindly and grimaced as he got out of the chair.

Laura studied him with slight concern.

"It's been a long day – or night – or whatever we call it. I am going to turn in."

Laura gently squeezed Ines' shoulder as she made to stand and follow the pilot out in the corridor. "Would it be alright if I stepped out for a minute?"

"Don't worry," Ines said. "If those creeps knock on the door, I'll just take up my taekwondo."

The nurse chuckled lightly. Relieved that Ines was in a lighter mood. The young woman needed to process everything that had happened – they all had to do that sooner or later.

"Mathieu," Laura called as she quickly closed the distance between them. "You wanted to see me about something didn't you?"

"I think the boy, Dominik, is getting worse. Maybe you should go and see him?"

"Sure, I can do that," Laura concurred. "But I am not a doctor. I don't think there is anything I can do to help."

"You'll never know that until you've tried, right?" he answered.

She smirked. She knew he was right. "Let me see your hand first."

"My hand is fine," the pilot replied quickly.

"You'll have to forgive me if I don't take your word for that," she pointed out.

"I didn't want to worry anyone," he reasoned, trying to rectify his earlier decision to downplay his condition.

Laura snorted. "Huh, instead you ended up worrying everyone. Did you even consider-," she paused as she realized she'd raised her voice and that it was tinged with a mix of anger and frustration. "I am sorry."

"No, you shouldn't keep things bottled up," he stated with a faint dimpled smile, trying to assure her he could take the chastising.

"I was just so afraid," she admitted.

"Maybe I should let you in on a little secret?" he volunteered. "I have never been so on edge in my entire life."

"But you and Sylvie-," Laura made a vivid hand gesture. "-you kept us going, prevented us from going insane back there by your steady presence."

Mathieu laughed and shook his head. "If we'd lost an engine back there, or a wheel or a primary system," he said darkly. "If we hadn't made it in time somewhere, if we'd reached a heavy stormfront, if we hadn't found enough fuel. There were so many things that could have gone wrong. So many what ifs."

She shuddered at that. "I am grateful I was too dumb to realize any of it at the time," Laura said, trying to smile but it never reached her eyes.

"I don't expect you to know anything about flying," he assured her. "Just like I hope you don't expect me to know anything about nursing?"

She shook her head, thinking he was hopeless. "You've made it perfectly clear you don't know anything about home nursing," she teased.

"So, how is it going in the lab?" he asked suddenly. "I've hardly seen Horst since we got here."

"I know what you mean. He's almost barricaded himself into that place that he shamelessly calls a lab. It's unsanitary and those strung up rats gives me nightmares. I can't believe he thinks it's fascinating."

"So, there is progress then?" the pilot asked hopefully.

"I wouldn't go that far," Laura cautioned.

Mathieu smiled as he reached for the door to the men's quarters. "He'll get there. I am sure of it."

OOOOOO

"Breathe deeply," Zara said sternly and grimaced as it had almost sounded like an order.

"I am," Dominik whined.

"But you sound so out of breath," she protested as she reached for the battery he was carrying around. "Maybe there is something wrong with this?"

"Mamushka," he said, drawing the word out. "Don't worry."

"You're all I've got. I have to worry," she replied seriously.

There was a soft knock on the doorframe and through the door, standing ajar, Zara saw a smiling Laura.

"I am not disturbing, am I?" the nurse asked kindly as she looked from the mother to the boy and back again.

"No, no," Zara assured her.

Laura walked inside the room. "I know we've had our disagreements but just let me know if there is anything I can do to help in any way," she said.

"I appreciate that but I honestly don't know what you can do. The air down here is-," she threw out her hands in frustration. "-bad for Dominik. Even with the nasal canula it's getting harder for him to take deep breaths."

Dominik looked embarrassed by the conversation as he fidgeted with the night vision googles.

"I don't know what to do when the battery is drained," Zara let on.

"You have a spare one, don't you?" Laura asked.

"Yes, but if this is the way we're supposed to live from now on," Zara glanced around the semi-dark room and shook her head in defeat.

"We'll get through this together, like we've done so far," the home nurse told her warmly. "If nothing else works, then we'll have to invent something that does."

Zara took her hand into hers and squeezed it. "Thank you," she whispered.

OOOOOOO

Rik tip-toed in the semi-darkened corridor, curious to see if he'd managed to trap any rats. The rats where night active animals so he guessed their world hadn't changed that much. Those who still lived that was. Because, as with every other living thing, the gamma radiation emitted by the sun had most likely caused both tissue and DNA damage. That, in turn, had most likely killed off the entire population of rats which had not been shielded during the daily exposure. Apparently, since the sun changed polarity, its now, deadly, rays had leaked into the atmosphere through the weakened barrier encapsulating the planet and caused all this.

Rik shook his head and smirked. He was actually quite proud of himself for managing to understand what had happened – of course - Horst had explained it to him several times by now but that didn't really count. The real eye-opener had come when Rik had walked in on a meeting where this particular topic had been the focal point of the discussion. Ambassador Bisset had been kind enough to let him stay and listen. Horst, Laura, the ambassadors, Sylvie and Mathieu had been the intended participants of the meeting.

Rik's mood had plummeted as he'd realized that the solution was not easy. Gerardo regretfully informed all of them that part of the scientific elite in the field had not managed to get to their safety zones in time. A bit further into the monologue, Laura had interrupted the ambassador as the man had complained about the missing important competence and told him he should have considered all the other people out there who no one had thought important enough to care about. That by playing God, comes a great responsibility.

Gerardo had twisted uncomfortably in his chair at that remark while Thea seemed more at ease. Mathieu looked like he'd aged ten years just hearing it and Sylvie suddenly found her twiddling thumbs interesting to study.

Rik snorted. 'DNA, huh?' he thought to himself. Before all of this he didn't care for biology at all. He didn't know anything about how the body worked, just that it needed to be fed, get some sleep and use the bathroom every now and then to function. Now, the human body functions didn't seem so trivial anymore and it scared him to know that it was so complex, that it appeared it was dumb luck that something didn't go wrong any day. He'd always been a little nervous but now he felt he was becoming a hypochondriac. That certainly didn't help when he was cleaning toilets and showers in the bunker.

He shuddered at the thought of the facilities and crouched down to observe his make-shift cages of cardboard only to notice that the foul-smelling cheese he'd put in still was untouched.

He rocked back on his heels grumpily as he crossed his arms over his chest, wondering how Dominik made it look so easy. Wondering how the child could find those large rats and bring them triumphantly to Horst every day.

OOOOOO

"Mathieu," Zara called from behind.

He turned to look over his shoulder to see the Russian woman make her way toward him as he reached for the jacket. "I am heading out for a while," he informed.

"Then I'll come with you," she replied and grabbed the nearest jacket she could find.

He said nothing, only acknowledging her statement by holding the door open for her. "What is it?" he asked as they stepped out of the bunker and out in the open.

"I am worried about Dominik," she admitted. "I would do everything for him."

The pilot nodded as he walked toward the temporary radio receiver that had been set up.

"I was wondering if-," she swallowed. "-if you or Sylvie have been in contact with some other base? Someone with medically trained professionals."

"Zara, we have only scratched the surface," he reasoned.

"They can't all be dead. There must be doctors somewhere in the world," she insisted.

"I am sure there is but I can't say where at the moment," he answered softly. "Let me do some digging and I'll get back to you on that."

She nodded in appreciation. "Thanks Mathieu. And-," she turned to level her eyes with his, the fire in them replaced by regret all of a sudden. "I am sorry for rushing your recovery in Brussels. I was beginning to panic; the sun was about to rise in just an hour."

"You don't have to explain. Besides, it all turned out for the best," he replied. "We made it to safety. Now, go back inside, the soldiers will probably join me at any second."

Zara nodded and turned to leave.

OOOOOO

To be continued

7/8