Chapter Six: The Debt Life Brings

She was huddled under a damp tarp in an aluminum fishing boat. Her  child was clutched to her chest tightly and she shushed him gently as alien drones investigated the shoreline. Sniffles and breathing came from the other huddled masses under the thick plastic cloth. There was a group of boats, the largest being a commercial fishing vessel, and the smallest being canoes and kayaks, all with their human passengers hiding. She had come across a few folks who heard of a place where the planet eaters don’t go, that's up north, and decided to travel with them. The group grew on the way to the Californian coast, and had scavenged for boats and supplies to head north.

The smell of the tarp reminded her of her childhood, of camping in the forest with her parents. She shook off the memory as the drones finally moved off. After a safe wait, the group of invasion survivors shoved off. shoved off, all loaded to the gills with worse-for-wear humans of all ages and ethnicities. A week into the voyage, packed food began to run low, and they were almost out of fresh water. Someone had brought a water recycler, and a compost toilet, which helped a little, and they had hung tarps to collect rain water. The group of humans was in rather good spirits though, because there hadn’t been a drone sighting since the last landfall, and fish were plentiful in the waters, some speculated that the fish were driven north by planet eater activity in the ocean at the equator, mining some rumored. Sighing, she gave half of her food ration to her babe and tried to not think about water, but of their destination instead. There was a rumor that somewhere up north, in the Arctic ocean, there was a land mass that was untouched, safe from the planet eaters. 

Her mind went to the information she had learned from the other survivors. One in particular had been a part of a very short-lived U.S. military defense, and had details none of the other folks in the group had known. Apparently they had captured one of the aliens at some point, and had scientists studying it for about a week, before it dissolved into a  puddle of metal with microscopic silicon crystals floating in it. They call themselves the Xilthran and come from another galaxy where life is silicon-based, the Velthari galaxy. They go galaxy to galaxy, planet to planet, draining them of  minerals, metals, and other resources,  leaving behind hollowed rock and dead soil, stripped of every mineral worth taking. The aliens had no faces, no mouths, no eyes, only a smooth, metallic‑serpentine body that slithered across the landscape like a slow-dancing scar. Their two limbs attached to their thorax were not arms, but long, smooth tentacles, their bodies not flesh but a metal and crystalline silicon network, seamlessly woven together naturally through evolution. Humans had nicknamed them the planet eaters. To the human mind, they looked like extremely advanced robots. To their own, they were simply alive, and hungry.

There were seventeen adults now, and a handful of children, some with parents, some orphans group members picked up along their treks to the coast. They lost a few along the way; stragglers picked-off by drones,  drowning of a capsized boat when an argument broke out, and one person froze in their kayak when they refused to huddle together in the overcrowded bowels of the fishing ship at night. As each day passed, the air grew chillier, and ice began to form on the seawater. They had finally reached the Bering Sea. Every scrap of cloth and waterproof material was used to shelter their fragile flesh from frostbite. The children were snuggled together day round, below deck of the commercial fishing vessel, between the tarps and blankets and old mattresses, keeping the driest and warmest of the lot. A farmer had brought seeds and some soil. In a few scavenged pots, cups, and other found containers the seeds were planted. As gross as one thinks it is, urine gave the seeds what they needed to grow, nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, and they began to slowly sprout under layered grocery bags, acting like tiny greenhouses in the cold northern air. She hoped it would be enough to keep them warm in such a northern climate, but doubted it. Then, chaos struck.

Suddenly, she plummeted into the icy water, breathless and in shock. Her baby! Her beautiful child! With all the strength she could muster in her half-starved body, but having a mother’s heart, struggled against the strong current with all her willpower, but it was no use. She sank deeper and deeper, losing the last little air remaining in her lungs and going into hypothermic shock. The light from the sun was so far away now and all she could do was accept her fate, and then she blacked out. 

Digital illustration by Rachel Beeson, woman falling overboard, sinking into the dark depths of the ocean.

She landed with a thud on something metallic and smooth. With her primal brain engaged and she awoke, barely, to search for a porthole latch. After some fumbling around, she found something that felt like a possible entrance and pulled at it with what little strength she still had in her body. She was pulled into a tiny chamber by the water around her. Frantically and still by feel, she closed the porthole she had come through and pushed the buttons next to the opening. A motor clicked on somewhere, and the water was pulled from the room as air was pumped in. The next thing she knew, she was sputtering, coughing, and dry heaving,  spitting out two lungs worth of water, gasping for air. 

She lay still as death for a time, but something pushed her soul back into her body. Dragging herself by her arms, she made her way to the inner hatch. Another motor whirred, opening the circular entry way. Weakly, she made her way through it breathing rapidly. Wiping the water away from her eyes, she looked around foggily. There was a metal wall with matching tarnished silver doors, closed, and a single light that was sputtering to life on the c-shaped console in front of a long curved window showing the dark water beyond. To the left, there was railing and a gradual ramp leading to a lower split-level console area, and two chairs were welded to the deck at the console. As she was getting her bearings, her hands began to shake, and her legs weakened under her. She collapsed, fast asleep from the drop in her blood-sugar post-adrenaline rush.

An hour or so later she slowly opened her eyes, blinking a few times before quite jaggedly pushing herself into a sitting position. Where was she? It took her a few minutes to remember the boats and the storm. Her gut wrenched with worry and her child’s face visited her memory. She had seen one boat capsize, before being thrown overboard. Shakily, she pushed herself to her legs, went to the console, stared blankly at all the strange buttons and labels in Russian, and began looking for a manual. Finding a small button with the universal power symbol engraved in it, she pressed and released it. A larger motor whirred to life and the console lights and screen came on.  Next, the outside lights clicked on, revealing a rock shelf and a deep canyon below. She shuddered at the thought that she could have easily sunk to her death in the depths she was staring into.

Using the English section in the manual, she was able to get the propulsion on, and the small craft lurched from the sand and rock outcrop, groaning loudly. The main screen was the most helpful, and she was thankful the craft was rather user-friendly. She pushed the screen’s “surface” button, and bubbles rose outside of the small submarine. Her stomach gurgled as she anxiously waited and she shivered, watching the sub’s image on the console screen move toward the surface of the sea. She looked back at the tarnished metal door to the back of the cozy cabin. She went to it and it lurched open with a screech. It was a small cabin with a food 3-D printer, a cabinet filled with different cartridges for it, a tight squeeze of a shower, and a small bunk with reading light. At the end of the room, there was a hatch on the floor and a desk with some office supplies. She found a blanket and wrapped herself in it after discarding all of the wet clothes. 

Shaking still, she hastily went to the 3D-printer and put a few cartridges into it: plant-based fat, insect protein, a grain-based mix, a multi-cartridge of different seasonings, and a plant-based mix. A screen menu lit up and she pressed the first thing that was on it. While the food printer was working, the console chirped from the other room. Taking the warm burger and shoving it into her expectant mouth, she moved to the console, one hand holding the blanket around her freezing body, and scanned the surrounding area with sensors. There were some debris and a few souls less lucky than her, but no signs of any children, which were on the large commercial fishing vessel, and no sign of the surviving boats. Her son was alive! 

Dutch Harbor, Alaska was their next port to resupply. Provided they didn’t get lost in the storm, they should still be heading there. She prayed to the All for the souls lost, and that her green-eyed child was safe with the group. She wasn’t super religious but the dead deserved respect and a ferryperson. Finding an internal navigation system on the small personal submarine, she found out the group had been pushed off course and she was northwest from their location before the storm hit. She was in the Bering Strait, closer to Russia than Alaska and Canada. “This was not…” her thought got interrupted by beeping and an alert lighting up on the console screen. ‘Low Power’ “Well fuck!” she said out loud, the warning’s red light caressing her pale face, like an ill-fated lover.  

Just her luck, and no AI to help. Flipping through the manual, she found the power section and learned that the little sub ran on hydrogen. Following the schematics in the plex manual, she found the access plate on the deck floor to the bilge crawlspace. She removed the plate with a heave, upsetting sore muscles. Shivering from her fear of tight spaces, she climbed down into the confined space and saw the fuel cell stack. Following the fuel lines, even though there wasn’t any other direction to go, she crawled to the hydrogen storage cylinders and eyed the lit pressure gauges on each of them. Two empty, and one almost empty, she tapped each of the gauges, but the reassessment was the same. She looked around to see if there was an emergency canister or cell, nothing. Turning around, she headed back through the bilge, to the main cabin of the cramped vehicle. 

Using the internal tracking system and maps stored on the internal database, the closest dock was Provideniya, in the Chukotka region of Russia. It had been abandoned after the USSR collapsed in 1991. In the year 2175, after a huge spike in the unemployment rate due to billions losing their jobs across the globe, some Russians citizens made their way back to the ancient infrastructure, creating a seaside community, thriving on fishing, ship repair, and hydrogen refill stations. She plotted a straight line from her current location to the mapped refill station. Motors began to struggle to life and the small submarine lurched forward like an old cranky dog being asked to ‘come’.  She walked back to the cabin with the food printer, and printed a smorgasbord to fill her stomach with. She didn’t know what to expect at the refill station. She had never been anywhere outside of northern California. Thinking as she ate, she wondered if the aliens had visited this town she was headed to. If there were people there, were they manning the refill station? What could she barter with, and how could she possibly communicate? One of the bad things about her country of origin was the lack of education about other languages and cultures. 

***

  Stillness and a heavy fog hung in the silence of the dock as the personal submarine emerged, bobbing a little. A heavy lurch sound came from the top hatch, and emerald green hair popped out and she took stock of her surroundings. One foot on the ladder and one on the hull, she closed the gap between them with her legs, grabbed a heavy rusted chain bolted to the pier, and  looped it through one of the sub's exterior handles to secure the mini-sub. After climbing to the landing, she pulled her bag tight, with printed food in it. It was very cold and she pulled the blanket turned jacket around her wide shoulders. At the end pier there was an empty refill station, unmanned, and the now-familiar scent of rotting bodies filled the air. She didn’t know the first thing about hydrogen refill stations, and needed help. Maybe she could convince them to come with her? Covering her nose with her scarf, she looked around at the icy stillness, walking in the opposite direction, toward land, she kept scanning. Her head turned back in the direction she had just scanned a few seconds ago. The light had flickered on and then off. Holding her breath, she stared at it. It flickered again.