Glimpse

[Aardvark]

Ominous black clouds loomed overhead as I trudged through the burnt wastes. The cloth wrapped around my feet barely keeping out the sand; the leather encasing me fighting off the stinging cold of the desert winds. The storm had been gaining strength and power for the past hour or so. It was going to be a big one. Fortune was smiling, though, as the storm was travelling against me, away from the settlement that was my goal. But it was hindering my progress. Costing me valuable time, something a desert wanderer values as highly as fresh water.

 

The settlement could've easily survived the storm, being located deep beneath the shifting dunes, down where the sand compacts into rock. Hidden away from the shattered world, safe from bad weather and bandits, the inhabitants of this small community spent their lives working on their own survival. Survival of the family as a whole, even if it cost them one of its members.

 

That member was me. I'd drawn the short straw. The straw many others wanted. Few were ever permitted to leave, as the resources to sustain one man for a day in the wastes could keep one alive for a week beneath the sands. But there were things we needed, from time to time. Things we couldn't produce ourselves, despite the technology we possessed. The technology that sustained us, but at a cost. Right now, that cost was me.

 

My boots had been discarded months ago. Hard leather general purpose really didn't suit desert travel. Most days, my leather clothes, designed to protect me from dust storms, were kept in my pack. In the hot desert sun, the last thing you want on is dark leather. But when choosing between slow dehydration and having the flesh ripped off your bones by fierce sandstorms, the decision was easier to make. When the clouds formed overhead, dropping the temperature, I chose to don the armour, fearing the dark portent.

 

Another reason I was chosen was my physical condition. I was the strongest in the settlement. Which would be needed, as my objective was heavy. The machines that supported us down there all ran off a fission reactor. They burnt uranium fuel rods to keep us alive. And we were running slim. All I had to do was find a supplier of uranium out there, the bring some back. I'd left, all those months ago, well equiped for the journey. Automatic rifle, ammunition, air filter, electronic map with attached motion sensor and several months worth of dried rations and water. Now I had cloth on my feet and over my mouth, barely enough food and water, blistered feet, a pistol and enough uranium to keep the place going 'til a supply line could be properly established. Everything else was discarded as it broke, none of it being designed for the wear it went through.

 

Over the months, I'd encountered so few people. We'd reasoned that there would be other survivors and small uranium reactors were common enough that there'd be someone who would've stumbled across one of the old mines and started trading the stuff again, but there was no one. I'd passed through so many ancient towns, some still in fairly good condition, some total wrecks, all ghost towns. Even at fortified military bases, there was no one. The only people I did encounter were a small family of nomads. They took my broken equipment and my boots, told me the best way to dress for the desert and gave me water. Then they left and I never saw them or anyone else again.

 

Growing up underground, I'd always assumed that's how everyone had always lived. Underground, unable to visit the surface. No one had told us of the old age, before the apocalypse. No one ever spoke of that, either. When we were old enough to know, the elders allowed us access to the history files. We learned about how from humble beginnings, mankind rose from nothing and almost touched the stars. But that was all we ever learned. The computers had nothing on the events which lead us to dwell beneath the earth and the elders were tight lipped about it. We'd learned not to ask, as questions brought many of them to tears.

 

Up here, all I'd been able to figure was there had been some kind of war. There had been signs of war everywhere. Craters, skeletons, the occasional rusted vehicle. But I'd found nothing more. Finding the mine and refinery in perfect condition had frightened me a little. The mines were deep shafts into the earth, the refinery had been built into a cavern near the entrance. After searching the place long and hard, I found nothing. Not a trace of the old workers. The computers had been wiped of all but basic operating protocols and mining/refining instructions for uranium ore.

 

After mining and refining several kilograms of the stuff by hand, I created a map to the place and left, but not before leaving a message for anyone else who may have passed by. Just a simple hello. I didn't want to provoke anyone or tell them that settlers would soon be coming to plunder the place on a regular basis. Encaced in lead cylinders, I packed my weighty cargo and returned. Still, the world made no sense to me. There had been fighting, I could tell. But there were too few corpses around to indicate some kind of wholesale slaughter. Where had everyone gone? And how had we known to be spared?

 

The storm had passed me by. Eyes shielded from sand by goggles scanned the area. Around here somewhere... ahh, there it was. Poking out of the sand at the bottom of one of the dunes was an ancient digging machine. The one that got me up here. I brushed off the sand, opened the machine up and hopped inside. None of the internal computers worked, only the main computer attached to the engine was functioning and it was programmed to take me up and return me when I returned. As I closed the hatch, I felt the machine sink into the sand. My journey was over.... almost.

 

A delegation of elders greeted me as I arrived, the digging machine surfacing in an underground sanddock. I'd taken longer than expected, but not anticipated, so was just in time. The fuel rods were taken from me and I was lead away for debriefing.

 

At the debriefing, there was one elder. He said nothing to me, just handing me a silver disc. I recognised it as an ancient CD. One thing was written on it. Revelations. He left the room without speaking a word, leaving me more confused than before. I had to find something to read this disc.