“The engineering team has been having trouble loading the ML data onto the Ark’s computer,” Commander Chin said. He was sitting across from the Nikola’s Children Board of Directors. He hadn’t had much experience interacting with the Board, but Commander Chin was now the highest ranking officer not in stasis, and the Board had been demanding daily progress reports. “Some kind of problem with storage. They’ve assured me it’ll be sorted by tomorrow.” Shadow cloaked the three Board members–amorphous dark figures against an even darker backdrop. The Board room had one light on its high ceiling, pointed down at the top of Commander Chin’s head. “The Ark launches in one week, Commander Chin,” said one of the board members. “The rest of Engineering was to board tonight.” It wasn’t clear which of the three dark figures was speaking; Commander Chin always assumed the one in the middle did the talking, because that’s the only one he had ever seen move–a slight nodding motion in response to good news. He wasn’t nodding now, though. “Yes, sir, I know that,” said Commander Chin. He felt the heat of the light beating down on his skull, and felt beads of sweat trickle down his forehead. “They said it was a minor problem, they’ll be able to board tomorrow. The launch schedule shouldn’t be affected.” The middle shadow nodded, and Commander Chin stifled a relieved sigh. “What of Deluge?” came the voice from the darkness. Commander Chin had been waiting for this question. He smiled. “We transferred the payload to the Ark this morning. Doctor Ghani and I personally oversaw its installation. We ran a full system diagnosis afterwards and all criteria registered within expected parameters. Project Deluge is now primed.” The middle figure nodded again. “Excellent job, Commander Chin. When the engineers complete their task tomorrow, they must board with you and the remaining security officers. The compound must be empty as we make final preparations.” Commander Chin nodded. He stood and saluted by crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Thank you, Sir. May the Children be praised!” “The Children be praised,” said the shadowy figure, and Commander Chin marched out of the board room. “Do you remember the one where you stuck a Roman candle in your butt?” Sarah giggled. Heady sighed. “Yep, I remember alright. I still have the scar.” Sarah stopped giggling and gawked at him. “Oooh,” she said. “Can I see?” Her cheeks turned pink and she started giggling again. “How far down does this go, exactly?” Doyle asked. Sarah glanced at him, annoyed at the unwelcome reminder of his presence. “It won’t be long, just chill,” said Sarah. She looked Doyle up and down and shook her head before returning her attention to Heady. “Sarah,” said Heady. “Exactly how deep underground is the compound? I’d like to know, you know, for the video.” “Oh, it’s pretty deep,” said Sarah. “It has to be, to hold the Ark.” She studied Heady in the bright fluorescent light of the elevator. He looked so much better in Officer Thompson’s uniform than Officer Thompson ever had. Sarah found it hard to believe that it was the same uniform at all. “The Ark? What’s that?” asked Doyle. Sarah suppressed the urge to scream. Why couldn’t Shit-for-Brains shut up already? She wished Doyle had stayed behind on the surface. Officer Thompson only had the one uniform, and there was no way it would have fit Fatso. She told them it would be dangerous for Doyle to be inside the compound in civilian clothes, but they wouldn’t listen. Sarah needed to figure out a way to bring Heady to the Ark alone. “I’d like to know what the Ark is too, Sarah,” said Heady. “Oh!” said Sarah. “Well, the Ark is our ship. It’s going to take us to the New Home. Away from all the war, disease, climate change, you know… All the bullshit we gotta put up with here. Plus there’s that whole apocalypse thing.” “The… Apocalypse? New Place?” asked Heady. “Hold up, come stand next to me. Let me get this on camera.” Sarah’s heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She knew this video would never actually get posted, but the idea of Heady asking her to be in it excited her anyway. She sidled up next to Heady. Heady handed his phone to Doyle, who stepped back and continued to film. “I know it sounds corny,” said Sarah, blushing a little. She hadn’t expected to feel so nervous. “But Nikola’s Children got all the best scientists and engineers here working on it. The Ark is totally legit. Dudes came from NASA, Space-X, plus all kinds of companies I’ve never even heard of that do artificial intelligence and stuff. Oh and the stasis chambers–those were a big deal, tons of scientists worked on those.” Doyle’s face perked at the mention of scientists. He lowered the camera a bit and looked at Sarah. “What about a physicist named Kirsten Ghani? She would have showed up about a year ago. Is she still here?” “Um, yeah, I seen her around,” said Sarah, disdain in her voice. “Of course she’s still here. Why would she leave? I don’t know what she’s working on though. Something important I think. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s already in stasis. Almost everyone is by now.” “Hold up a sec,” said Heady. “Ship? NASA? Stasis chambers? Are we talking about what I think we’re talking about here? Like a space ship? A fucking space ship that’s taking you to… Where? Space?” “Yeah,” said Sarah. “Preposterous,” said Doyle. “And the ‘Ark?’ Couldn’t you think up a more generic name than that?” “Fuck you,” said Sarah. “Wait, wait, wait…” said Heady. “What exactly does being ‘in stasis’ mean? Where’s Kirsten?” “On the Ark,” replied Sarah. “I don’t know how it works, that’s what they got all the scientists for. It’s so we don’t grow older while we travel to the New Home… They’re like freezers for humans, or something. Almost everyone’s on board in their stasis chamber already since we launch in a week. Just a handful of us left but we’re boarding tomorrow.” “This is nonsense” said Doyle. He sounded irritated. “Even if I believed all this prattle about space ships and stasis, what about your lives here on Earth? Family, friends, possessions, pets, you’re just leaving all that behind? And where the hell are you even going? The Moon? Mars? Kirsten’s not stupid, she wouldn’t believe any of this crap any more than I do. Where is she?” “We’re not going to the Moon you idiot,” said Sarah. “Why would we need stasis to go to the Moon? We’re going to the New Home, Kepler something.” Sarah scratched her chin for a second, trying to recall the name the scientists had used. “Kepler-1649c. It’s like three hundred years away. And we’re not leaving family or friends behind–the whole compound is going. And the Ark has everything we’ll need to survive at the New Home.” The elevator finally came to a shuddering halt and the doors slid open. Sarah looked at Heady. He was looking back at her with an astonished expression. “Heady, I uh… I think you should come film the Ark with me. That’s why you’re here right? You came to film me… I mean Nikola’s Children. Before we leave. Right?” Heady nodded, but said nothing. His mouth was agape. “Fuck,” said Doyle. “I need to know where Kirsten is. How do I find that out?” Sarah thought for a moment. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to ditch the loser so she could bring Heady to the Ark alone. “Do you know how to use a computer?” she asked. “Follow me.” Sarah took a left out of the elevator and Heady and Doyle followed her down the corridor that led to her security office. If Heady had showed up even a couple weeks earlier, the halls would have been bustling with activity and sneaking two outsiders through the compound would have been unthinkable. But since almost everyone had already boarded the Ark, Sarah felt confident that she could keep at least Heady from getting caught. She wasn’t so sure about the moron in civvies, but that wasn’t important anyway. The two men Sarah had in tow were whispering to one another, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Doyle felt terrified and angry. From his research he knew the cult was up to something colossal and expensive, but he could never have conceived it to be something as outrageously stupid as what that Sarah girl had described. A space ship called the ‘Ark’ with some kind of cryogenic stasis chambers? A three hundred year trip to a new planet? This wasn’t fucking Mass Effect, shit like that wasn’t possible in real life. Right? “This video is going to go so viral!” whispered Heady. “Can you believe this? We’re inside the compound! This couldn’t have gone any better.” The two men trailed behind Sarah, trying to keep out of earshot as she led them through the claustrophobic concrete hallway. “No I don’t believe it. I don’t believe any of it,” Doyle whispered back. “Kirsten would never get mixed up in something so asinine. There has to be something else going on here. And who the fuck is this girl anyway? Why is she helping us?” Heady and Doyle passed between evenly spaced pairs of windowless steel doors on each side of the hallway as they walked. Sarah stopped at one of the doors and waved a card attached to a retractable cord on her belt at a panel on the wall. There was a quiet beep, and Sarah pushed the door open. She ushered Heady and Doyle through into a cramped room. Doyle thought it must be some kind of monitoring center–there was an office chair sitting on the other side of what looked like a metal desk with a grid of embedded monitors. “You, Boyle,” said Sarah. “It’s Doyle,” said Doyle. “Whatever. The computer in here can access the personnel records so you can look up that bitch you mentioned. There’s a spare key card in that drawer.” Sarah gestured toward a cabinet nestled under the console. “The pin is 1234. Think you can remember that, or should I write it down?” Doyle sat down at the console. He opened the drawer and fished through a pile of crumpled up papers and empty soda cans, looking for the key card. His hands wrapped around something slim at the bottom. He pulled out a small black book. Sarah saw what Doyle was holding and gasped. “Give me that!” she yelled. Sarah tried to grab the book from Doyle and knocked it out of his hand. The book landed open and face up on the console. Doyle saw what looked like sketches of some kind, but Sarah snatched it up before he could make out any details. “Oh my God!” cried Sarah. “This is personal!” Doyle scoffed. Did she think he cared about some girly diary or whatever that was? Did she think he’d make fun of her for sitting down here God knows how deep underground writing the names of boys she liked in a little black book when he had just learned that a cult had most likely brainwashed Kirsten with this nonsense about interstellar colonization? Absurd. Doyle felt the edges of his lips curl back in a grin or grimace, he couldn’t tell which–probably a bit of both. He let out a pathetic monosyllable of sad laughter. “Hwah!” “Don’t fucking laugh at me!” yelled Sarah. Doyle leaned forward and put his face in his hands. He stared through his fingers at Heady. Heady had put his hand on Sarah’s shoulder and was patting it, trying to calm her down. Sarah was red-faced, breathing in short loud gasps. How soundproof was this room? Doyle half-expected a platoon of armed guards to burst through the door at any moment. Sarah let out a deflated whimper, spun and pulled the door open, then disappeared back into the hall. The door clunked shut behind her. Heady and Doyle stared at one another blankly. “Shit,” said Doyle. “Heady, make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. If it turns out this Ark thing actually exists, see if you can get it on video. Try to buy me some time on this computer, but be careful. Meet me back here and then let’s take that elevator the fuck outta here.” Heady nodded with a determined expression on his face. “This is gonna be epic sick!” he said. Heady lifted his phone to start recording again and stepped out into the hallway, leaving Doyle alone in the security office. Doyle returned his attention to the cabinet by his legs and managed to find the key card. He scanned the console and spotted what looked like a touch screen displaying a login prompt with a slot for the key card next to it. He inserted the card and entered the pin Sarah had told him. He was in. After tapping through some menus, Doyle found what he was looking for–a personnel list. He used an on-screen keyboard to type Kirsten’s name into a search box and watched dozens of names zip past as it scrolled to her record. Doyle scanned the screen for any mention of her location. If it said she was somewhere on the compound, then maybe he could get to her. His heart sank when he read the last line of her record. It listed her status as a single word in all-caps: ARK. Doyle groaned and started tapping the screen haphazardly, desperate to find anything–anything at all–that could tell him what ARK actually meant. There’s no way it meant what Sarah had described. The idea of Kirsten boxed up like a frozen pizza for delivery on a space ship to another planet was patently absurd. Wasn’t it? Doyle soon found his way to a list of documents that looked like they could be about the Ark. He tapped the first one and it asked him to re-authenticate. He looked at the key card sticking out of its slot, then yanked it out and studied it closer. It wasn’t Sarah’s picture or name on the card–the picture was of a man who Doyle guessed was in his late fifties, and had the name Jeff Jefferies printed next to it. What a stupid name, thought Doyle Tingler. What was Sarah doing with his card? He slid the card back into its slot and keyed the pin into the touch screen. The document opened. Doyle skimmed through the paragraphs of text and diagrams without understanding any of it. His focus zeroed in when he spotted Kirsten’s name. It listed the project that Kirsten had been working on as something named Project Deluge. Doyle was about to abandon the document, as it didn’t appear to contain any further mentions of Kirsten, but he stopped cold when he noticed two words that seared into his mind even stronger than Kirsten’s name. He read the words over and over, hoping he had been mistaken. But there the words were: Nuclear warheads. A sense of dread filled Doyle as he began to comprehend more of the document he had scrolled past. Blast radius diagrams, tonnage reports, target coordinates, fallout projections. Doyle discerned that Project Deluge comprised of at least ten nuclear warheads, to be fired back at Earth once the Ark had launched. What the fuck had Kirsten been doing? Feeling a sense of panic rising within him, Doyle reflexively wheeled the chair away from the console. He felt dizzy. His initial research led him to believe these people were crazy, and everything Sarah had said had confirmed as much. But this catapulted the cult to a level of crazy beyond comprehension. Did they actually have nukes? Had Kirsten actually built nukes for an insane sci-fi cult? A horrifying thought crossed his mind–was launching the Ark code for nuking the planet? Was this some kind of global-scale murder-suicide cult? One that wasn’t content in merely predicting the apocalypse, but intended to be its instigator? Was “stasis” a euphemism for… For… No. Fuck, no. Can’t think like that. Doyle stood up and rushed to the door. He had to find Heady and get out of there. He had to let the authorities know. He had to make them listen. Doyle pulled the heavy metal door open and peeked out into the hallway. Still empty as far as he could see in both directions. He took one last glance back at the office, and his eyes rested on the key card sticking out of the console. He grabbed it and shoved it in his pocket. He ran, searching for his friend in the unfamiliar concrete hallways thousands of feet beneath the surface of the Earth. Sarah led Heady through the hallways toward the Ark chamber. Heady followed a few steps behind and recorded with his phone. “This way, it’s not far,” said Sarah. “The Ark is really big, you can’t even see the whole thing at once. Half is below the boarding deck. Only the top half with all the stasis chambers is sticking out.” “What’s in the bottom half?” asked Heady. “I dunno,” said Sarah. “The computer and engines, I guess. Fuel for take off. Also all the supplies for the New Home, like temporary shelters and tools and stuff.” They came to a junction with a larger hallway. Sarah motioned for Heady to be quiet and they slowed down. Sarah peeked her head around the corner. “Good,” said Sarah. “It’s just Officer Wiebe, he’s a push-over. Wait here.” Sarah strolled around the corner, leaving Heady out of sight. “Wiebe, I’m relieving you,” said Sarah to the gray-haired officer sitting in a chair next to the Ark chamber doors. “Huh? I wasn’t told,” replied Officer Wiebe. This irritated Sarah. “I’m on Ark duty tonight!” she said. “So move it. Or do I need to call daddy and tell him you’re disobeying orders?” Officer Wiebe sighed. “Whatever,” he said. “I need to take a piss anyway.” Sarah watched as the old man walked away down the central corridor. She held her breath when Officer Wiebe paused briefly and glanced down the hallway where Heady was waiting. The moment passed after an eternity, and Officer Wiebe continued on his way down the central corridor. Once Sarah was sure that Officer Wiebe was good and gone, she exhaled and jogged toward Heady. “Holy crap,” said Heady. “I thought I was done for. I guess the disguise worked.” “Come on,” said Sarah as she grabbed Heady and pulled him into the central corridor. “Get your camera ready, that’s the Ark chamber up ahead.” Heady raised his phone and filmed the large double doors that Officer Wiebe had been guarding. Sarah retrieved her dad’s key card from her pocket. The card was one of a handful of spare copies she had “borrowed” from her dad over the past months. At first she had merely wanted to access the Ark’s hard drives; she needed to be sneaky since the Board of Directors wasn’t permitting cell phones or anything else that she could save her videos on to go to the New Home. It seemed fitting that the same key card that allowed her to preserve Heady’s videos would now also help her preserve the genuine article. Sarah pushed the doors to the Ark chamber open, and she and Heady stepped into the control room that overlooked the boarding deck. “Holy shit,” said Heady. A large glass window revealed the boarding deck to be a metallic floor hundreds of feet below the control room. At the center of the impossibly tall chamber was the Ark itself. The visible upper half of the Ark stretched through a hole in the boarding deck past the control room and towered above Sarah and Heady. Sarah looked far below to where a gangplank connected the ship to the boarding deck and saw there was one lit doorway remaining. Following normal procedure, after the next person boarded through that doorway, the ship would raise itself to reveal the next ring of vacant stasis chambers. Normal procedure didn’t apply anymore, though. One more chamber was all Sarah needed. She gripped her dad’s key card tight in one of her sweaty palms, and her own key card in the other. “Come on,” said Sarah. “You’ll get way better footage down there on the boarding deck!” Heady was still filming and staring dumbfounded at the Ark through the observation window. Sarah gave him a gentle shove in the direction of the control room’s elevator that would take them down to the boarding deck. She handed him her key card. “Call that elevator with this,” said Sarah. “I need to, uh… I need to make sure nobody else is down there.” Still looking dazed, Heady tore his eyes from the Ark. He turned to look at the elevator, then looked at the key card Sarah had handed him. Comprehension seemed to wash over him like molasses and he started shuffling toward the elevator doors. Once Heady’s back was turned, Sarah slid her dad’s key card into the launch control panel and tapped its touch screen. She couldn’t stand her dad, but she was grateful at least for his tendency to lose his key cards. She looked up at the Ark and realized that she didn’t even know if her dad was already on it or not. It felt strange to think she may never see him again. She returned her attention to the launch control panel. She decided on a one minute delay–that should be long enough to get Heady down to the Ark before the launch countdown started, which would set off alarms and alert the whole compound. Sarah rejoined Heady as the elevator doors slid open. “Coast is clear,” she said. Sarah followed Heady onto the elevator. He looked like a kid who had lost his parents in the supermarket. That was good, she thought. It will make this easy. She idly traced her finger around the edge of the concussion pistol in its holster on her thigh as the elevator doors slid shut. Commander Chin leaned back in the brown leather chair in his living quarters. He had scheduled an hour of leisure time starting at 21:00 hours and had only missed it by thirty minutes. He looked at the small pile of books on the table next to his chair. He was half-way through a book titled “Discipline and You” that he had hoped to finish before launch. But there was no way he’d finish it before boarding the Ark tomorrow, and the deadline for adding items to his personal storage allotment had passed weeks ago. Maybe he could just skim through the remaining chapters. The few weeks leading up to the launch had been more hectic and stressful than anything Commander Chin had experienced since joining Nikola’s Children three years ago. The level of alcohol consumption and partying that had gone down during the nightly Ark boarding parties had caused Commander Chin and his security team no end of problems. Hard to believe a bunch of science nerds and politicians could get so rowdy. Now that everyone but a handful of guards were already in stasis, Commander Chin had been enjoying his nightly relaxation time immensely. His doorbell sounded as he picked up his book. He sighed, put the book down, then got up and walked to the door. He pressed the comms button. “What is it?” asked Commander Chin. “Just wanted to inform you that Officer Jefferies relieved me on Ark Chamber duty, sir. Was wondering if you had a different assignment for me.” Commander Chin became confused. “Wiebe, is that you?” he asked. He pressed another button below the comms panel and his door slid open to reveal Officer Wiebe. “Yeah,” said Officer Wiebe. “I thought I had Ark Chamber all night, but now that Jefferies took it I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. Any orders, or can I hit the cafeteria?” What the hell was Officer Jefferies doing taking over Ark Chamber? That incompetent wouldn’t even qualify for latrine duty if Commander Chin had his way. Irritatingly, the Board of Directors wouldn’t allow him to fire the Commander in Chief’s daughter, or even transfer her to a different department. He thought he had found an acceptable compromise by putting her on perimeter duty, since the job practically handled itself through drones and sensors, but she even managed to screw that up on a regular basis; plus it meant she would be one of the last to board the Ark, so he was stuck with her straight to the end. He prayed that once they reached the New Home he wouldn’t have to deal with her anymore. “I don’t know what Officer Jefferies is up to,” said Commander Chin. “But you need to get back to the Ark Chamber now. She is not authorized to relieve you of that post.” Before he could respond, the radio on Officer Wiebe’s shoulder crackled to life. “Commander Chin, do you read me? I think… They got my… I don’t…” came Officer Thompson’s voice. He sounded disoriented. Commander Chin grabbed the radio off of Officer Wiebe’s shoulder and pulled it to his face, stretching its coiled wire until it was almost straight. “Officer Thompson? Is that you? Report!” He hadn’t heard from Officer Thompson since he went to repair the section nine surveillance camera with Officer Jefferies. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but a sense of dread started to grip Commander Chin as he waited for Officer Thompson to respond. “She shot me, sir,” came Officer Thompson’s voice. “Jefferies, she… They took my uniform. I think… I think she took them into the compound.” Commander Chin’s jaw dropped and he looked at Officer Wiebe, who stared back wide-eyed. “Officer Thompson, please confirm,” said Commander Chin into the radio. “Are you saying there are outsiders in the compound? With Officer Jefferies?” The silence that followed felt like it lasted a hundred years. “Yes,” came Officer Thompson’s reply. Commander Chin dropped the radio and sprinted to his desk where he could broadcast on the compound’s intercom. “All units, head to the Ark Chamber immediately,” he belted into the microphone. The lights in his room and the hallway behind Officer Wiebe dimmed. Klaxons started blaring, red and white lights flashing. That was quick, thought Commander Chin, and he wondered who had triggered the alarm. But something wasn’t right–this wasn’t the same alarm used during their security drills. This alarm meant something different… This alarm meant… His legs suddenly felt weak and Commander Chin dropped to his knees. Officer Wiebe took a step forward. “Sir? Are you alright? What’s going on?” “Go,” said Commander Chin in a strained voice. “Get to the fucking Ark Chamber now!” Doyle moved as quick as he could through the hallways while still keeping quiet, desperately searching each corridor for Heady, or at least some sign that Heady had been there, hoping against hope that he didn’t run into anybody else. Doyle started to get the impression that the hallways were all at slightly different angles, like spokes radiating out from a central location. He oriented himself and started moving toward what he hoped was the center, and eventually reached a hallway that was much wider than the others. By then he had lost all hope of ever finding his way back to the elevator. His only goal now was to find Heady. Once they were together they could formulate an escape plan. Doyle felt terrified alone. The large hallway ended at a set of enormous double doors. There was a key card scanner on the wall next to them. Doyle reached into his pocket. Jeff Jefferies, don’t fail me now, thought Doyle as he waved the card in front of the reader. To his relief, he heard a beep as the doors unlocked. To his horror, an angry voice erupted at him as the doors swung open. “All units, head to the Ark Chamber immediately,” said the voice. Doyle looked up to a small placard above the double doors he had just opened. “Ark Chamber,” it read. Oh, great. White and red lights started flashing in the hallway, accompanied by a deafening alarm. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” mumbled Doyle as he pushed his way through the doors. What he saw on the other side took his breath away. A large window revealed what could only be the Ark. A giant white pillar reaching up from hundreds of feet below to hundreds of feet overhead. Above the window was a large monitor counting down in giant white numbers on a red background. Whatever they were counting down to was happening in ninety-eight seconds. Doyle stepped closer to the window, forgetting the alarm and the countdown for a moment. In awe, he tracked his eyes down the full height of the Ark–from its conical top towering above him all the way down to the floor of the hangar below. Way down there, in front of what looked like a gangplank leading to a lit doorway in the base of the Ark, Doyle saw Heady. Heady had his hands raised slightly, and Sarah was with him. It looked like she was pointing something at him, and they were inching their way toward the gangplank. Doyle squinted and moved closer to the window. Was that her concussion pistol? “Oh, fuck,” moaned Doyle. He glanced around the room he was in, and spotted what looked like an elevator. He looked back up at the countdown. Sixty-two seconds to go. “I mean, that’s probably not what it looks like, right?” Doyle said to himself. Sarah had said they weren’t launching for another week. The documents he saw on her computer confirmed that. It had to be something else. It had to be related to the alarm he had triggered when he opened the doors–like a delayed lock-down or something. If that was the case, he had to act fast if we was going to save Heady. He rushed to the elevator and used Jeff Jefferies’ key card on the scanner next to it. The countdown continued and the sirens blared and Doyle tapped his foot as he waited for the elevator doors to open. Heady backed away from the madwoman pointing a gun at him. “Trust me,” said Sarah. “You’ll love it at the New Home.” “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” said Heady, desperately combing his mind for any idea to stall. “I just, you know, like Earth. All my fans are here.” “Your fans? Who cares about them? You’ll have me!” said Sarah. She briefly pointed her pistol back at herself to make her point before turning it back on Heady. “I’m your biggest fan! And you’ll make new fans. We both will. We can make videos together!” Heady glanced back over his shoulder at the light shining out of the doorway at the base of the massive Ark. The doorway that Sarah was clearly shepherding him towards. “Can’t we talk about this?” asked Heady. “I mean, we can make videos here, too. I’m sure the rest of my crew would love you. I could show you the studio, introduce you on the channel, you could even make your own videos.” Sarah paused, her pistol lowered slightly and she stopped moving toward Heady. “Really? You’d introduce me on your channel? Like as a friend, or… Or maybe as…” “Sure!” said Heady. “I think the fans would love you! We could go to the studio right now!” Sarah shook her head. “No,” she said. “No there’s no point. Earth is doomed. The New Home is the only way. You can make a new studio. You and me. We could be… We could even… I mean, I’m a girl and you’re a boy… Right?” Heady’s panic renewed as Sarah started moving toward him again. He took another step back and heard a metallic thud as his foot made contact with the gangplank. His eye caught some motion behind Sarah. Something was moving near the far wall where the elevator was. It was hard to tell in the dimly lit hangar, but it looked like a man. A man who was running toward them. Heady squinted and looked past Sarah at the figure as it approached at a blurring pace. “Doyle?” Heady said. Sarah smirked and shook her head. “You think I’m gonna fall for that?” Before Heady could answer, Doyle screamed out “Geronimo!” Sarah spun around at the sound behind her. Doyle grunted as he tackled Sarah head-on. Heady dived out of the way as Doyle and Sarah tumbled past him, then watched from the ground as Doyle tripped on the gangplank, falling forward and taking Sarah with him through the glowing doorway into the Ark. Almost as soon as they were through, a metal panel dropped from above and the doorway sealed itself shut. Heady stood up and moved toward the Ark. All signs of the entrance had vanished–the surface where the doorway had been a moment ago was now smooth. “Doyle!” Heady cried, and slammed his fists against the ship. “Dude can you hear me?” The ship started rumbling, then the entire hangar. Heady stepped back from the ship. The rumbling intensified and Heady had trouble keeping his balance. Hot smoke blasted up around the walls of the Ark through the circular gap around it, forcing Heady to retreat further. The hangar floor separated, bisecting along a line that ran the length of the hangar through the Ark. The two halves of the floor moved slowly apart as more smoke blasted violently through the widening crevasse. More and more smoke filled the hangar and Heady found himself lost in a sea of swirling white. A pinpoint of movement appeared above him–a dark, distant circle, gradually expanding. The circle contained stars. The hangar’s ceiling was opening to the sky. A blast of intense heat and a booming explosion knocked Heady over. He scrambled to his feet and ran away from the center of the Hangar as fast as he could, helped by a strong, searing hot wind that buffeted him from behind. The sound was deafening. Then the roaring ceased. The floor stopped moving and shaking. Heady felt numb, and was vaguely aware of arms grabbing his shoulders and men yelling as the smoke began to thin out and blow around him in temperamental wisps. He stared. In the place where the Ark had been there was now a thick column of gray smoke. Heady followed the pillar of smoke with his eyes, up through the gap that had opened in the floor, up through the center of the cavernous hangar, up through the giant hole that had opened to the surface far above, and up into the starry night sky beyond.

“Punch me as hard as you can, bruh!” A shirtless, flaxen-haired Heady Armstrong pounded his fists into his well-defined abdominal muscles and laughed. His friend, also laughing, stepped back until he was out of the frame. “Here I come dude, you sure?” the unseen friend called out. “I’m ready! Do it bruh!” Heady’s friend barreled into view and raced across the screen. Heady visibly braced himself. The still-charging friend swung his arm back, and then thrust it forward. Swinging fist connected with Heady’s groin. Heady yelped and keeled forward. The camera started shaking as its operator burst into laughter. “Officer Jefferies?” Sarah looked up from the phone hidden beneath the monitoring control panel that doubled as her desk. She was startled to see Officer Thompson standing in the small security office. Sarah wondered why he hadn’t used the intercom, like a normal person. Probably to annoy her. Sarah pushed a loose strand of jet black hair behind her left ear, surreptitiously grabbing the wireless earbud she was hiding there. Damn it, how long had he been standing there? “Officer Jefferies, the highway outpost has radioed that they saw a suspicious vehicle. It might be heading toward the compound. Keep a close eye on the perimeter, OK?” Officer Thompson spoke slowly and enunciated his words, as though he were suspicious of Sarah’s grasp of basic language concepts. Sarah loathed him. “I heard the report too,” Sarah lied. “I’m not stupid y’know. You don’t need to tell me how to do my job.” Officer Thompson nodded. “Yes, sure. Just making sure you got the message.” His eyes darted down toward Sarah’s control panel. Sarah saw his gaze shift and slid her chair forward, shoving the phone in her hands further out of view. “Right,” said Sarah curtly and forced a disingenuous grin. “Message received. Thanks.” Officer Thompson frowned and peered closer at the array of display screens splayed across Sarah’s control panel. His eyes lingered on the one that was off. “Did you fix camera nine yet?” he asked. “Not yet,” said Sarah. She hated Thompson so much. Why did he have to be so irritating? His stupid freckled face infuriated her. His dumb red hair made her blood boil. “It’s only been broke two days. Plus that section’s covered by the motion sensors so it’s not like we need the camera. I’ll get to it later.” “Make sure you do, Jefferies,” said Officer Thompson. “Before your shift is out, OK?” Sarah hated the way Officer Thompson called her “Jefferies.” Everyone called her that, but the way he said it seemed to drip with contempt and superiority. Like he thought he was better than her because he outranked her. Officer Thompson held his arms crossed out in front of him, forming the standard Nikola’s Children salute. “The Children be praised,” he said, then turned and left the security office. Sarah listened to his footsteps recede down the hall and out of earshot. “Dickweed,” Sarah muttered under her breath. “Children be praised,” she said in a mocking tone and put her earbud back in her ear. She returned her attention to her phone and the video that Officer Thompson had interrupted. An old one she’d already seen countless times, but one of her favorites. “Are you sure this is the way?” Doyle Tingler asked. They had turned off the main highway onto an unnamed dirt road close to an hour ago and had seen nothing but darkness and trees in the moonlight outside the car windows. “Yeah,” replied Heady Armstrong. “My boys scouted the coordinates you sent me a few days ago. The compound was right where you said.” “Ah,” said Doyle. “Can I assume that by ‘your boys’ you are referring to those half-witted imbeciles who star along side you in your idiotic videos?” “Yeah,” said Heady Armstrong. “And they’re not idiotic videos, I have almost ten million subscribers.” “Mmm,” said Doyle. “That’s where you’re wrong. You see, the majority of people who watch YouTube are, by definition, idiots, and the idiocy of a given YouTube channel is directly proportional to the number of idiots who subscribe to it.” Doyle enjoyed ribbing Heady about his YouTube channel. Heady and his friends started it six years earlier in college and it had exploded in popularity since. But it catered to an audience which Doyle considered to be lower than the lowest common denominator; the channel spotlighted a plethora of disgusting bodily functions, stupid pranks, terrible music videos, and horrendously unfunny (and typically offensive) “comedy” skits. Doyle was certain that the channel’s popularity was due entirely to the fact that Heady and his friends found reasons to take their shirts off in every video. Doyle’s objections to the YouTube channel were entirely based on its intellectual merits (or lack thereof) and certainly had nothing to do with, as Heady sometimes postulated during his less forgiving moods, jealousy over the idea that nobody wanted to see Doyle with his shirt off. Sure, he was a little heavier than Heady and his friends, a little less muscly, and his hair was a bit wispier and thinner on top, but he wasn’t all that bad. And at any rate, he was already spoken for. Or at least had been, and hopefully would be again soon, if the night’s plans were ultimately successful. “Uh huh,” said Heady. “If I’m such an idiot then why did you even ask for my help?” “I didn’t say you were an idiot, Heady. Only your videos. And the millions of idiots who idolize you.” “Those millions of idiots paid for my house,” said Heady. “And this car, plus a few others.” “Don’t rub it in,” Doyle said, and sighed. “Look, I’m grateful to you for agreeing to help. Someone needs to expose these assholes for who they really are, and I can’t think of anyone more suited to it than you.” “Because of my millions of idiots?” Heady shot back. “Well, yeah,” said Doyle. “Do you really think this will work?” asked Heady. “I mean, I know this vid’s gonna be bangin’, but do you really think it’ll make a difference?” “I really think so, Heady,” said Doyle. “I mean, despite appearances I believe you’re actually capable of great things. You’re so much better than that drivel you put out. I mean, what you did for me–that was the darkest period of my life and you… without you I…” “Don’t sweat it, bud,” said Heady. “Kirsten was–is my friend, too. You helped me through it as much as I helped you.” Doyle did his best to stifle the sudden wellspring of emotion he found himself swimming in. Heady was exaggerating, he knew. Heady liked Kirsten well enough, but not like Doyle did. Doyle hadn’t told Heady, but he proposed to Kirsten about a week before she disappeared. She hadn’t said yes right away, but she hadn’t said no either. She would have said yes, Doyle was certain, if only that fucking cult hadn’t… Doyle snapped out of his thoughts when his eye caught a glint in the distance. “Shh, slow down,” he told Heady, staring keenly through the windshield at the dirt path that stretched before them. “And kill the headlights, I think I see something.” Heady relaxed the accelerator and cut the lights. The sound of the gravel crunching under the car’s tires slowed as the two men squinted into the darkness. There was some kind of light in the distance, too far away to make out any details. Heady pulled off the road and maneuvered the car behind some trees before coming to a stop. “We gotta walk from here,” he said. “The guys found a spot where the wall crumbled away a little. They said we should be able to get in there. They took out a nearby security camera with a rock before they left.” Doyle unfastened his seatbelt and opened the car door. “You don’t think they’d have repaired the camera by now? Or the wall?” “Hopefully not,” said Heady. The two men shut the car doors and started walking along the tree line next to the road, toward the light in the distance. “Keep an eye out for a red cloth tied around one of these tree branches,” said Heady, motioning to the dark tangle of trees that lined the road. “That’s where we cut into the woods and make our way to the wall.” The men walked in silence for a while, trading nervous glances down the road in both directions, scanning for any sign of motion or approaching headlights. “I’m not going to make those videos for ever, you know,” Heady said, breaking the silence. Doyle glanced at his friend’s face, pallid in the moonlight and brushed by the jagged shadows of the treetops. “I mean, that’s why I’m collabing with you on this in the first place. I want this video to really help people. The first ever footage from inside the Nikola’s Children compound, together with all the dirt you’ve dug up on them over the past year, that’s gonna blow these mother fuckers wide open, right?” “I hope so,” said Doyle. “People haven’t cared about Nikola’s Children for a while though. I’ve offered my research to every investigative journalist who’ll give me the time of day but none of them were interested. They said there’s no story in it. It’s just another boring cult to them.” “That’s because they’re so good at keeping a low profile,” said Heady. “We’re going to end that, man. We’re gonna get people interested again. If even half the stuff you dug up on them is true, people are gonna flip their shit.” “Maybe,” said Doyle. “But honestly I just want some kind of sign that Kirsten’s OK. That they haven’t… done anything too her.” “I’m sure she’s OK,” said Heady. “She’s just confused. They brainwashed her or something. Like all those other scientists who joined. I’m sure of it.” Doyle stopped and put his hand on Heady’s shoulder. “Shh,” he said. “What is it?” Doyle pointed. Wound around a branch of one of the trees, a thin scrap of red cloth flapped lightly in the soft moonlit breeze. Heady reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He started a video recording and handed the device to Doyle. “Showtime,” he said. Doyle held the phone up and pointed the camera at Heady. “Yo yo yo what’s up Heady Nation?” Heady cried using the exaggerated dude-bro accent he reserved for his videos. “Heady Armstrong comin’ atch’a and you are never gonna guess where from, bruh!” Doyle lowered his head and sighed. Everyone told him he was always too pessimistic–that nothing could ever go as badly as he expected it to. Tonight he hoped they were right. “Officer Jefferies, report please.” Sarah watched and giggled as Heady Armstrong attempted to eat twelve sticks of butter as fast as he could. “Officer Jefferies! Report!” Sarah jerked her head toward the speaker on her console, then paused the video and put her phone down. It was the voice of Commander Chin, head of security. “Uh, yes?” said Sarah, holding the intercom button. “The motion detectors around section nine have been lighting up like a Christmas tree for the last minute and a half. What have you been doing? What does the camera show?” Sarah looked at the array of displays on her control panel, and directed her gaze to the one numbered nine. The one that was off. “Uh, nothing?” she said hesitantly. It wasn’t exactly a lie. There was a short pause before the speaker crackled back to life. “Officer Thompson has informed me that the camera in section nine is not operational. Is that accurate?” Sarah scowled. Damn that Officer Thompson. “Well, I mean the camera itself is not quite in a state that I would exactly describe as fully operational. Yes.” She glanced sideways at her phone sitting on the console. It had locked itself and was displaying her “Heady Nation” wallpaper. “Officer Jefferies, please do your job and find out what’s going on in section nine. Use one of the drones.” “Right, sending a drone,” said Sarah. She looked longingly at her phone again as its screen turned off. It looked like she would have to wait to finish her video. She already knew how it ended–she had seen it dozens of times. Heady makes it through ten sticks before vomiting gooey butter sludge all over himself. But he was so cute while doing it, and took his shirt off after; she just had to watch it again. Sarah wheeled her chair closer to the touch screen near the right edge of her control panel. She navigated through the menus and ordered a drone to section nine, then routed the video feed to the section nine monitor. The screen blinked to life and showed her the drone’s feed as it lifted off from its perch in the drone bay. A few seconds later the screen went dark as the drone flew up through a ventilator shaft toward the surface. Sarah grabbed her phone and was about to continue watching her video when the intercom crackled again. “Officer Jefferies, report.” Sarah groaned. It would take the drone thirty seconds to reach section nine from the drone bay. She could have made it through two more sticks of butter in that time. “Right, yeah,” she said into the intercom. “Drone launched. I’ll let you know what I see when it gets to section nine.” Sarah fumed while she resumed her video. She pictured Officer Thompson sitting all smug behind Commander Chin at the other end of the intercom. What a dickweed. She hated him. He didn’t even like Heady Armstrong. He actually made fun of her for watching Heady’s videos. She watched as Heady bit into a fresh stick of butter on her phone, then glanced back up at the drone’s video feed. Heady Armstrong stared back at her. Sarah looked at the familiar face staring up from her control panel, then back down at her phone. Her eyes grew wide; her jaw dropped. She felt her face go flush, and started hearing her pulse throbbing in her ears. She blinked and looked at the drone’s feed again. It was him! She looked back down at her phone, on which Heady was now vomiting yellow slime down the front of his shirt. She dropped the phone on the ground and stood up, felt faint as the blood rushed from her head. A million questions raced through her mind. Is this happening? Why was Heady Armstrong here? How did he get inside the compound? “Officer Jefferies, report,” came Commander Chin’s exasperated voice over the intercom. Sarah sat back down and slammed her fist on the intercom. “I…! He…! It’s…!” she stammered, then hesitated. She released the intercom and took two slow and deliberate breaths. It wouldn’t do at all to panic right now. She needed to think rationally about what was happening. A loose plan formed in her mind. She needed to control herself if she was going to do what she knew in her heart she must do. “Officer Jefferies?” “Um… All clear, Commander,” said Sarah. She watched as the drone tracked Heady running somewhere up on the surface. There was another guy with him; some fat bald guy who Sarah didn’t recognize from any of Heady’s videos. “Please confirm, did you say all clear?” Commander Chin asked. “Confirmed,” said Sarah. “Drone shows some wildlife near section nine exterior, looked like a deer. It must have gotten too close to the wall and tripped the sensors.” There was a long pause. Sarah did her best to control her breathing and collect her thoughts. Heady and the other guy had stopped running from the drone. They were crouching down next to each other–it looked like they were trying to hide between some bushes and the compound’s inner wall, but they were easily visible to the drone’s camera. Sarah pressed the intercom button again. “Um, I’m going to recall the drone and head up to the surface to fix that busted security cam right now,” she said. “Should have done it days ago, don’t want another false alarm, y’know?” She turned to her console’s touch screen, recalled the drone, grabbed her phone off the floor, and was already sprinting down the hallway outside her office when Commander Chin’s unheard reply came over the intercom. “Very good Officer Jefferies. Officer Thompson will meet you out there to assist. The Children be praised.” “I don’t hear it anymore. Is it still there?” whispered Doyle. Heady peaked his head up over the bush. All he could see above them was the giant concrete ceiling that covered the entire Nikola’s Children compound. “I think it’s gone,” said Heady. Doyle sighed with relief. “Do you think it spotted us?” asked Heady? “Are you serious?” said Doyle. “A drone the size of a Jeep pops out of nowhere as soon as we enter the compound and hovers directly over us for several minutes before disappearing, and you’re wondering if it spotted us?” “Well, what should we do?” asked Heady. “Let’s just get out of here,” said Doyle. “Look at this place, it’s empty. It must be a decoy or something.” Doyle gestured around them. They stood at the edge of an enormous grassy field encased in concrete. The wall behind them reached twenty feet up to the ceiling and stretched out for what looked like a mile in either direction. The entire compound was evenly lit by light panels in the ceiling so, despite its size, the two men could see clear across to the concrete wall at the other end. Aside from occasional bushes and disparately spaced concrete pillars, there didn’t appear to be anything else inside. There was no sign of the drone or where it came from or went to. “We can’t leave!” said Heady. “That drone didn’t vanish into thin air. And didn’t you notice how cool it is? I think this whole building is air conditioned. And the lights–why would they light it up if there was nothing here?” “Who knows,” said Doyle. “All I know is that whatever this place is, they know we’re here now. Our plan to sneak in undetected is officially a failure.” “All that money,” said Heady. “You found receipts for millions worth of supplies and equipment; and Kirsten and all the other scientists who fell off the face of the Earth; they didn’t spend all that money or go to all that trouble to build an empty concrete box in the middle of nowhere. There’s gotta be something here, we just haven’t found it yet. We can’t leave, we’ve got to keep looking.” “You’re right,” said Doyle, looking past Heady. “We can’t leave.” He pointed. Heady turned around and saw a red haired man wearing what looked like some kind of dark blue military uniform in the distance. The man was crouching near the crumbled section of wall–the only way in or out of the compound. “Run,” whispered Doyle, and the two men sprinted toward the nearest concrete pillar, about two hundred feet in from the wall. Neither of them looked back as they ran. Heady reached the pillar first and crouched low. Doyle arrived a few seconds later, dropping to his knees and panting heavily. “Do you think he saw us?” asked Heady. “I wish you’d stop asking that,” said Doyle. He peeked around the corner back toward the wall. The uniformed man was still standing where he had been, near the damaged section of concrete. “I don’t think so, he’s not coming this way.” “Maybe he’s waiting for backup,” suggested Heady. “Give me your phone.” “Why?” asked Doyle. He reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out, then placed it in Heady’s outstretched hand. Heady handed his own phone back to Doyle. “Stay hidden. You film with mine so they can’t confiscate the footage we already got if they take me away, I’ll film with yours.” “Wait, what do you mean take you away? What are you going to…” Before Doyle could stop him, Heady stood, put his hands up in the air, and stepped out from behind the concrete pillar. Sarah leered at Officer Thompson from behind her own concrete pillar. How did that jackass get here before her? She shifted her gaze over to the pillar where Heady and Baldy had run after they spotted Officer Thompson. Officer Thompson hadn’t noticed them. Too busy being an idiot, she guessed. She thought about what her next move should be. She had to get Officer Thompson out of there, but how? She could go tell him to buzz off, that she could replace the camera herself, but then Heady and Fatso would see her too and she might not be able to approach them without scaring Heady off. Using her radio was out of the question, the rest of the security team would hear anything she said, plus what would she tell him? Sarah was out of options and running out of time. She made up her mind, and stepped out from behind the pillar. “Officer Thom…” Someone yelled out at the same time, startling her. She shut up and dove back behind the pillar. That was Heady! What the hell was he doing? “Don’t shoot! I surrender!” she heard Heady shout. Sarah watched Heady wide-eyed as he started walking towards Officer Thompson. She saw Officer Thompson pull out his concussion pistol and point it at Heady. She felt a rage rise inside her. Nobody points a fucking concussion pistol at Heady Armstrong and gets away with it. As she watched Officer Thompson, he reached for the radio trigger on his shoulder. Sarah gasped and reflexively reached for her own. She mashed the trigger and held her breath, hoping that if she jammed the frequency, Officer Thompson wouldn’t be able to report what was happening. She watched Officer Thompson fumble with his radio, getting visibly frustrated. Sarah smiled, still holding her breath to keep her broadcast silent.Heady was much closer to Officer Thompson now, still inching toward him with his hands up. Officer Thompson gave up on his radio and put both hands on the concussion pistol he had leveled at Heady. “Don’t come any closer,” shouted Officer Thompson. Sarah released her radio trigger and lifted her own concussion pistol from the holster on her thigh. This was perfect. She would knock Thompson out, then approach Heady as the hero who had rescued him. He was sure to accept her! Maybe he’d even put her in one of his videos! Maybe he’d even… “Officer Thompson? Officer Jefferies? Report!” The voice of Commander Chin came from her radio with a burst of static. No time, thought Sarah. She took aim at Officer Thompson as he reached for his radio again. She fired. Doyle came running up behind Heady, who was staring dumbfounded at the red-haired man laying crumpled on the ground. “What the hell did you do?” asked Doyle. “Nothing, he just collapsed,” said Heady. “What? Like he had a heart attack?” “No,” said a woman’s voice. “Like he was hit by an incapacitating concussion blast from one of these.” Heady and Doyle both spun around to see a tiny-framed and young looking girl with short black hair. She was wearing the same military uniform as the red-haired man, and holding the same odd looking pistol in her hand. Heady and Doyle both took a step back and raised their hands in front of them defensively. The girl put her pistol into a holster on her thigh, then retrieved another device from her belt. It looked like a telescoping baton, which she extended to its full length of about three feet with a loud series of clacks. “Wha… What are you going to do with that?” asked Doyle. He took another step back and tripped on the unconscious man’s foot, landing in a sitting position on the ground. The woman approached with a wide grin on her face, holding the baton in one hand and slapping it against the other. Heady was frozen with a mixture of fear and confusion as he watched her advance. Sarah grabbed Heady’s arm, then spun him around so he was standing next to her. She attached a cell phone to the end of her selfie-stick and held it out in front of their faces. “Hi Heady,” said Sarah, then snapped a photo. “We’ve got to get out of here before the others get suspicious. Help me shove that ginger bastard through the hole in the wall and follow me.” “What…? Who… Who are you?” asked Heady. “Oh me?” said Sarah. “Just your biggest fan.”