A necessary disclaimer
: this is a story about a group of adults, traumatized by their life experiences, trying to survive, stay sane and find love in the post-apocalyptic world. This is a slow burn story, and you won't likely see any lewd activities for quite a while, so if this is not your cup of tea, find something else to read. Also, all characters are 18+ years old.
You've been warned.
Love,
Cy~
Empty World
Chapter 01
'Cause we lost everything
We had to pay the price
"This is an automated broadcast for everybody who's still there. For anybody who's still alive... If you can hear this, head to the Tower on Buffington Island, north of Ravenswood. It's got food, water, power and climate control. It's safe here. This is an automated broadcast..."
Max sat in the security room adjacent to the lobby of the Tower, a 40-story autonomous habitat in the middle of the island on Ohio river. Message he recorded two days ago fired into the air every minute by the Tower's ELF broadcast system, hitting all channels in a 60 mile radius. Wall of displays was switched to stream feeds from all the outdoor cameras on the island. The air was dead, movement sensors detected nothing.
Ravenswood, small city two miles south wasn't only dark - power grid seemed to be down too - the thickest fog he'd ever seen descended and wouldn't dissipate for the last two days, hiding even the most prominent features of surrounding West Virginia landscape, so a lit up Tower with its autonomous power source would be a perfect beacon, visible from miles away, day or night.
"Should finish the projector system, they might not see a damn thing in this fog," he muttered, the sound of his own voice in the empty silent building was strangely soothing. "Alright then, time to get to work I'm being paid for," he chuckled. He was the chief engineer of the building, after all, overseeing all the works for the Tower's grand opening a week from now.
Was
, because two days ago he woke up completely alone in the world filled with fog.
All the insane preachers of the world, who were screaming 'the end is nigh' for the last couple decades, would be probably having the biggest 'I told you so' moment of their lives - if they still had their lives, he thought, making his way across the grounds. Fighting climate change wasn't a success. Stopping endless mindless wars wasn't a success either. The only two good things that happened to the world in the last several years were discovery of subspace siphon, technology that allowed to produce endless amounts of free clean energy, and invention of organic matter replication, which should have nearly instantly ended world hunger. The Tower - he stopped and looked up, admiring its futuristic architectural design - had both, ahead of many government entities and institutions. Designed and financed by the most powerful philanthropists of the nation, it was supposed to serve as the last fortress of humanity in the post societal collapse world.
"Too late though - no society to save. It seems Mother Nature finally got tired of our bullshit before we could make the change", he grumbled to himself, making sure the last projector had its cables plugged in. The entire array was installed a week ago by the maintenance team, he only had to make sure they've been connected to the grid and point roughly at their respective reflector plates, scattered across the Tower facade.
Max returned to the Tower and took the stairs down to the maintenance floor - the heart of the building's life support, walked into the power control room and sat in the swivel chair in front of a huge console. He still preferred manual control for everything, but to save some time...
"Mother, check the projector array for me, please." Mother, an omnipresent AI of the Tower, was in control of all technological and security aspects of the building and surrounding area. She still needed humans to do grunt work, though. Schematics and diagrams pertaining to the projector system appeared on the central display, followed by a long list of checks, each marked with a green checkmark.
"
Projector system is ready, Max.
" Soft deep middle-aged female voice reported. He always imagined her to look like Shohreh Aghdashloo, the star of an old sci-fi TV show. The voice was certainly a close match.
"Good. Fire it up, calibrate projector gimbals to point at their reflectors. Show me."
Display switched to a security gate camera, looking at the building from below. Tower lit up like a Christmas tree, getting shinier with each passing second, as Mother adjusted projectors to perfection.
"
Projectors are calibrated and operating at 99.8% efficiency.
" Well, a hundred percent is a bit too much to ask for.
"Perfect. Thank you, Mother." Show respect to your machines, and they won't turn on you. He didn't really know if that was true, but that rule never failed him - he had no problems with machines his entire life. Max got up and left maintenance to resume his duty in security.
--//--
Lucia opened her eyes and watched the white panel ceiling for a minute, gathering her thoughts. She didn't sleep, no, it didn't feel like sleep. She turned her head to the only source of light in the room - the window. Gray light streamed through half-closed blinds, giving no indication what time of day it was. Her gaze wandered, then stopped at the machines surrounding her.
"Hospital. I'm in a hospital."
As the sudden rush of memories flooded her mind, she gasped and shook, the slight movement causing faint pain in her lower abdomen, left side, right where the bullet hit her. Wincing, she pulled her hospital gown up to inspect her body, peeled the tape holding the bandage and slowly took it off. Tiny pink scar was all that's left - the only reminder of her wound and following surgery.
"Thank gods for medigel, I'm going to wear bikini again..."
Perfect timing, Lu, she chastised herself and exhaled through her nose. Wait, that didn't feel right. Oh fuck, the tubes. She carefully took off the oxygen tube from her nose - bleargh - then extracted the IV needle from her arm.
"The IV is empty, why didn't anybody change it? Machines are turned off... Blackout?
Por qué carajo está tan tranquilo?
Never imagined a hospital could be this quiet... Nurse?" she called weakly, gingerly turning her body on the bed to put her feet on the floor. "Nurse?.. Anybody?.."
Getting no response, she tried to stand, overcoming the thumping in her head and ringing in her ears. Her legs gave in immediately and Lucia collapsed on the floor, luckily not hitting her head in the process.
"Ah,
mierda
..."
The world went black for her.
--//--
"Gone, gone. They're all gone, Molly, you don't have to worry about them anymore. Gone. You're a free woman now. Don't cry for them, whatever happened to them, they were bad people and deserved it. They're gone now."
Molly was walking south, carrying what little she managed to scavenge in her backpack. Jalopy she took back in the Mormon Nomads camp had to be abandoned miles ago after nearly a full day of driving empty roads - the poor old thing stalled and wouldn't start anymore; her old sneakers, stitched and taped - she didn't find any better footwear - were about to quit on her too; her left ankle she bruised taking off the chain was swollen and hurt like crazy, but she pressed on.
"Blasted chain, had to be more careful with it. You need a medkit, or this leg will kill you."
She looked around as she walked, keeping her distance from dark buildings.
"No, not going inside. Don't need no more bad people.
What if they're not bad?
No, shut up. You don't know what good people look like. Been too long since you seen one.
But my supplies...
No, you're not going inside. You still have some cans left," no electricity, no means to make fire - she resorted to eating cold canned beans for the last two days, opening the cans with an old rusty kitchen knife.
Fog, fog everywhere. She didn't know the distance she covered so far, everything around looked the same in the fog. The road made a turn, joining the interstate, and Molly looked up, trying to read the signs above, when a faint glow somewhere far ahead in the fog grabbed her attention.
