Eve and I throw our bags together. This time, Jinx shows us where the designers stowed a pair of backpacks. The gray packs match our cargo pants and contrast against my white T-shirt and her tank top. Not that we're looking to make a fashion statement. The materials are drab and void of color, not camouflage, but not standing out either.
Our bags are bigger and hold a week of freeze-dried food and a quart-sized canteen for each of us with water purifying filters on the drinking spouts. All we need to do is submerge the canteen, screw the screen on tight, and the filter cleans the water as we guzzle. One filter purifies a gallon of water. That means four refills, and we have a dozen filters each. Forty-eight refills of our canteens, but after that we'll have to resort to boiling our water and constructing a crude filtration system, until our bodies grow accustomed to the bacteria in the rivers and streams. Or it kills us. Hopefully, we'll build up a resistance.
In the drawstring bags, we stuff a change of clothes and seed packs for crops, if we ever plant a garden. If this so-called Cain character pursues us, intending to kill us, I'm not sure if we'll be able to slow down enough to camp out, much less reap a harvest.
Jinx urges us to move faster. I'm not sure how Cain got past Abraham, and how he swiped a ride to the surface, but he's on his way, and we have little time to spare.
Each of us brought a knife we strapped on our belts and Jinx has percussion blasters. I suspect Cain armed himself with a far greater arsenal, more than Eve and I, but I hope not more than the sphere-shaped drone that Jinx controls.
We hustle past the Embryo Lab and the Farm Lab, and burst into the Animal Barn.
"We could use the 3D printer to make better weapons," I say. "Like swords, or guns."
"Can it make guns?" Eve asks.
"Theoretically, it can." Jinx hovers behind us. "You'd need gunpowder and time to make ammunition. We have neither."
"What about swords?"
"Time would be a problem. Cain has already passed the space ark, in-route to intercept us. As soon as he drew within range, the ark's radar system picked him up."
"Wait." My brow furrows. "He didn't come from the space ark, just like us?"
"No. He came from somewhere else."
"And where is that?" Eve stares at Jinx with wide eyes and tight lips.
"That information is unavailable, but the memory transfer should grant you access to it when you use the transmitters. But we don't have time for these questions. We need to hurry."
With that, we continue down the main corridor and hang a right leading to the catwalks. As we cross the shallow channel beneath us, a sense of uneasiness grips my stomach and twists it into a knot. My thoughts whirl like a windstorm. All these feelings about leaving and staying and knowing what's out there, and wondering why there's someone other than Abraham awake from stasis. A new person. Another player in the madness that is this alternate version of Earth. Someone named Cain, but as Jinx grants us passage through the rear airlock door, the emotions and thoughts fade away when I realize that once again, it's me and Eve that must struggle to survive. Our relationship has ventured into deeper depths. And fire will test it. Soon.
We rush out of the habitat and stick to the river, choosing the path Jinx and I took to reach the pod and the transmitters earlier.
"We have two things to worry about," Jinx says. "Cain and the vile bears. If we follow the river, and stay out of the forest, we have a better chance of avoiding the bears. But if we remain in the open, Cain will see us much easier. We'll be easy targets."
CITEȘTI
OBLIVIOUS
Ficțiune științifico-fantasticăNoah Grey awakens to a world wiped clean by a global flood and reseeded with new life, but not all of it is good. When Noah wakes up on a space ark and discovers Earth has recovered from a global ocean, he meets Eve and learns about their mission t...
