2136: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (Book 1 of the 2136 Trilogy)

CHAPTER 2 - Part III

I unlatched my canteen from my waist and uncorked the top. I used the cap as a measuring dispenser and poured two caps full into each of the two plastic cups that held the future of the world in their Styrofoam. I took a quick sip myself before setting the canteen on my faithful assistant and confidant: Travis. The last of the Arabian horses from the Chateau de'Alvin. The carousel. I found him when I was going through the fairgrounds looking for spare parts myself. The Sifters had done a pretty thorough job at gutting the place, but I found Travis lying under some trash bins, his body completey dislocated from his mane down. I searched three days but could not find the rest of his body. His majestic face was all that was left; I brought him back with me. He was one of my three children.

The other two were green and growing rapidly.

"I'm so sorry, my darlings. I know you're thirsty but I promise I'll find more soon. The Wellers are getting close. They swear they'll hit water in a few days. Then, we'll all be drinking more water than we know what to do with!" I said.

I spoke to the plants every day. I hear it's good for them. They never talked back. I don't know why I talked to them. Maybe I thought it would help them grow. Perhaps I did it for me in a last attempt to keep my sanity.

Who knows. Chaos is chaos no matter how you look at it. One man's control is another's slavery. And we were on the short side of the seesaw waiting for our friend to kick off the ground with his heels and shoot us to the sky.

I repositioned the panels acting as the roof and sun filters to account for the angle of the sun in its ascent. I'd return later this evening to do the same for its descent. The plants would die if they received any direct sunlight from 1337 hours to 1608 hours when the angle of the sun's rays filtered unimpeded through the rift in the ozone layer. The other was sometime around 0100 hours. Give or take ten minutes. You wouldn't think that radiation from the sun could come in the middle of the dark, but you'd be wrong. The radiation levels were actually twice as deadly at night than they were in day now that there was a hole in our protective shield.

Only sections of the ozone had split. The rest remained intact. Due to the Earth's angle as it rotated on its axis and made its spin around the sun, 1/3 of the world was still inhabitable. Burned, dry, and dusty, but technically suitable for life. Mankind was resilient to a fault. Some might say we weren't living, but merely walking corpses; we just didn't know it yet. Maybe they were right.

I'm not sure I'd ever get used to the heat and the red sand. My hair used to be blonde at one time, but now it's reddish brown. Thank you pollution! No one ventured outside during the peaks lest they had a death wish. You certainly didn't want to get stranded anywhere without a means of shelter to block the poisonous rays. During that three hour window the radiation was so high that you'd die within minutes, having completely cooked your insides. Outside of those hours, it was safe to walk around. Just hot. Unbearably, suffocatingly hot.

I readjusted the fallen bumper cart that held the tarp in place. The tarp had no hope of shielding the sun's rays, but where it lacked in fortitude, it made up with convenience. It blocked out most of the sand during the day and night preventing the tiny trees from suffocating. The metal pans I used as sun panels acted as my makeshift ozone layer. They prevented the bad rays from filtering in, but allowed the safe ones entry when the sun was at a different angle: in the morning and in the evening. This allowed for the trees to sustain enough light, but not fry in the process.

I plucked the glass test tube looking apparatuses from the soil and checked to make sure the Magnetized Osmosis Microbial's (MOMs) were working properly. The purple oils were bubbling which meant they were working, which was a good sign. The MOMs were my life's work. In a world void of excess water, any amount was valuable. Each MOM extracted any remnants of moisture from the air and condensed it into liquid. The idea was if plants could gain moisture through osmosis, perhaps I could replicate that in a synthesized form to create water. Each one had a tiny antennae the size of a strand of hair that magnetized the microscopic particles of evaporated hydrogen and oxygen molecules in the air, then multiplied them through cell division. Each daughter cell then continued the replication process until the volume increased by 300%. Six years of work rested in the palm of my hand no bigger than a thumb nail. A simple pinch would be enough to shatter them, obliterating the last six years of my life in an instant. Such fragility brought a kind of euphoric peace over me. Life was fragile. And somehow, despite how easily it is for death to strike, life had survived and continued to thrive.

The MOMs weren't much, but they were sufficient for the trees, for now. Soon, they would reach a growth proportion that inputed more energy than what the MOMs could output. Basically, the trees would gradually suffocate the bigger they got as their need for water increased. I still hadn't figured out that dilemma yet.

I placed the MOMs back into the soil of each of the cups.

"I'll be back tonight." I said, then exited the tent. I walked past the clown hanging over the ledge of one of the ferris wheel passenger cars and through the maze of broken booths. I latched the lock to the fairgrounds and walked back to town.

My thoughts shifted as I neared the Market. Let's see what the Sifters brought in today from their junk yard raids. I was hoping Roxx could help me with my hole problem. If another storm blew through I'd be in trouble. Maybe I'd even find something useful for the baby trees I was growing. You never knew what treasures you'd find in the shop. It all depended on what the Sifters managed to salvage from the wreckage, the abandoned buildings, and trash during that week's run.

Today was lucky. Just how lucky, I wouldn't know until I felt the air leave my lungs that evening.