The First Flame part 11

She was trying so hard to remember that word that a headache bloomed.

NASA… NASA… NASA.

Something creaked behind her. She kicked away from the window to stare at a leering Siox. He was covered in a brown cape. His blue skin was purplish where she hit him hard.

She had a few injuries herself. Her hip hurt so badly that she couldn’t stand for much.

He approached, and just when she thought he was going to hurt her, he shoved something against her lips. It was a colorful, round thing. Maybe it was a fruit. She wasn’t sure, because Ezron didn’t have any that looked like it.

“What happened to the ship’s rations?” she asked.

“The ship is no more. Be quiet and eat.”

She bit into the thing hesitantly. It tasted half-sweet, half-foul. It was probably rotting. Something told her that coming across fresh fruit was hard during these times.

Siox threw the core aside and kneeled beside her. “Good. No more waiting now. Come here.”

“Stop!” she cried, kicking him with her good leg and catching him in the stomach.

“Silence!” he yelled, slapping a filthy hand over her mouth.

She looked around, desperate to escape what was coming. She reached for some cylinder-shaped item and swung it around. A hissing sound came out, and she pressed down a second time. Siox screamed when his eyes were burned by whatever chemical sprayed out.

As he rubbed at his eyes furiously, she crawled to the cracked, tall window.

“I am tired of waiting on you, Ran. I am tired.” He reached his hands out, scanning the air for her because his eyes were still irritated. She reached with the bottle, and tapped the glass a few feet away.

Siox charged in that direction, unable to see the cracked window, and hurled himself off the third floor. She peered out and saw him sprawled on the concrete, frozen with what she hoped was death.

With her hands still handcuffed, she limped out of the room, pulling a dusty curtain off a corner to wrap it around her half-naked body. She rushed as best as she could down the steps, and then toward NASA.

It was hard to hide in the shadows when it was daylight. Her senses were taking so much in that they disoriented her. There were so many strange things in this world. Why were the sculptures so high? Where were the trees? Why were there so many bulky, metal monsters?

The sound of voices made her drop and hide behind a monster. Based on the sound of footsteps, there were two men. She watched their scuffed boots from her hiding spot, her heart caught in her throat.

They walked past, ignorant of the fact that they just walked by their salvation.

Ran continued to weave through the enormous sculptures, headed for NASA. It took her hours to reach it, though she wasn’t sure how long. The pain on her side took up most of her concentration. She passed three more groups of men, almost getting caught in the last time. This trip better be worth it.

She carefully navigated through the glass, peering into the gaping hole in the entrance before entering. It was dark in there, but she could read the graffiti sprayed on the walls.

TheRealArea51
FuckNASA
SatanWasHere
#WeAreKira

Kira? Why was her mother’s name written there?

She remembered everything then. Kira had been a mechanical engineer for NASA, before becoming the first woman to get teleported off the planet.

“Hey, I just got looted. There’s no food here.”

She reached for a glass shard and scanned the area for danger.

“Wow, a transgender? Crap, I didn’t know there were any of you left. I thought they killed the last of you.”

“What?” Ran blurted.

“Are you asking what a transgender is? Forgive me if this isn’t politically correct, but to my understanding, it’s a male by sex that identifies as a woman.”

She pulled the dusty curtain further up her face to cover it. This man wore a white coat. He was old, with white hair and hazy blue eyes, but he was still a man.

She inched toward the entrance, wanting out.

“Hey, it’s alright. I don’t give a damn what you are.” He waved her over. “I’ve never been the religious type. I find that in the process of “saving” others, people tend to lose their own soul. Come, come. Let’s drink.”

She hesitated. “No, thank you. I should go. Goodbye”

“That’s one weird accent you’ve got there. Your eyes are freaky too. Are you an alien?”

She flinched.

“An alien female. Interesting,” he mused.

She didn’t understand him. Shouldn’t he be chasing her down to assault her or sell her to the highest bidder?

“Ah,” he snapped his fingers. “Kira. Is she your mother?”

What the fuck? 

“Don’t look so shocked. I’m old as dirt and have two PhDs. I can connect dots faster than the next guy. You look young, around twenty, which is when your mother went missing. Your eyes aren’t normal, so Kira must have had some fun time with IT.”

“You’re… not shocked?”

“Should I be?”

“Um… yes? I’m the only female on your dying planet.”

“Let me tell you a story. Over whiskey, of course. Let’s go upstairs. I’ll take out the good stuff.” He turned and walked down a corridor.

Ran slowly trailed after him, looking out for traps.

“I apologize for the mess. I’ve been trying to get in contact with cleaners, but they’ve been ignoring my calls for about twenty years now,” he crackled.

Ran didn't understand the joke. What was a cleaner and why would you call for them? “Do you live here?”

“Yes. I worked here before shit hit the fan, so I figured I should move in. I never met your mother, though. She worked in the East coast. In Washington DC.”

“Did you figure out what caused it?”

“What made the portal open? No. It was destroyed, and we never recreated it. We’re stuck in this sinking ship.”

“I mean, did you figure out what made your women Vanish,” Ran clarified.

What made all our women vanish. 

“We never worked out The Wipe, either. Ah, here we are.” He led her to a corner. His bed was on the ground, surrounded by books and bottles. He filled two foggy glasses with whiskey and handed her one.

“Let us toast to… uh, death? I think that’s the only thing we have going for us.”

She gave him an odd look before sipping on the alcohol.

“Now, I did promise you a story, so here it is… it was the Africans.”

“What?”

“The Africans. Did your mother tell you about Africa? The continent that was stripped down to its bones. Its natural resources, art and people were stolen. They bled for centuries. They bled from their backs as whips tore their flesh apart, bled between their thighs. Then, after slavery, the bleeding was sewed shut, and the world pretended that it made it all better. The injury became infected, though– segregation, discrimination, racism. We wouldn’t let them develop educationally, financially, we wouldn’t let them heal. But oh,” he grinned. “They got the last damned laugh.”

Kira knew the story well. Her mother made sure to educate the next generation about Earth’s mistakes.

“What do you mean?” she encouraged.

“They won.” He raised his glass. “I congratulate them for it.”

“How? Won what?”

“In 1977, NASA sent the Golden Record into space. It contained images, sounds and a map from Earth that we hoped would be found by an intelligent race sometime, somewhere.”

Ran did the math. “That was three-hundred and forty-five Earth years ago. What does that have to do with anything?”

“We thought The Golden Record was the most revolutionary message that ever left Earth. We were wrong. A decade after that, a new African republic whose name translates to Genesis, sent a little something up into space. They said it was a satellite, or some harmless thing along those lines. It wasn’t. Ten human bodies in stasis were hurled across the stars. Five males, five females. All young, healthy, and black. Genesis admitted this to the world after The Wipe happened. Do you get it? If humanity survives, it won’t be on Earth. It will be in a new home, where our new mothers and fathers, our queens and kings, will be black. All other human races will go extinct. Judging by your eyes, the humans in your planet aren’t genetically pure. You’re mixed with something else. Isn’t that great? Africa got its revenge,” he laughed madly.

“What about… their stasis technology? Did they share it?”

“They refused to. Even after all the countries in the world went to war with them, and Africa was plundered a second time, they refused to share their science. We don’t know if those bodies that were thrown into space three-hundred years ago are still intact, or if they’ve been found. All we know is that they’re far away, unreachable just like your planet.”

Unreachable just like your planet.

She shook her head. “You’re wrong. I’m going home.”

He shrugged and took another sip. “Good luck with that, kid. NASA didn’t succeed in recreated the portal although they tried for twenty years. The remaining scientists have decended to madness or killed themselves by now. I’m on my way to one of them. I’m just not sure which one yet.”

She stood up. “I need to go to Genesis. How do I get there?”

He pointed to the left. “Just go a few thousand miles that way and cross the Atlantic. You can’t miss it.”

“I’m serious. They’re my best bet of getting back home. If they know about this stasis, maybe they know about the portal.”

“I think you should really just cut your hair, wear some baggy clothes, smear some mud on your face, and hope to become unrecognizable. You’re stuck here like there rest of us.”

A/N: fun fact: The Golden record is real and is traveling through the stars, hoping to be found by an intelligent species. It was sent into space in 1977 and includes instructions on how to find Earth. Here are some of its contents:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BMH5pKV6gU