Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
“KAI” She stretched in bed and yawned, “Please play to be free by passenger.” The band was practically ancient but she loved them anyway. They were basically one with nature. In their music videos she saw the earth, the way it used to be.
“KAI, play to be free.” Silence.
“What’s wrong with it this time?” She murmured under her breath as she left her room. She entered the computer room.
“Oh.” The processor was unplugged. She plugged it and booted the computer.
“KAI, play…”
“Please get to the surface immediately. Critical mass will be reached in 102, 99, 96, 90…” Her father’s voice warned. Critical mass? She had weeks till then. And what was with the strange countdown?
“KAI, ready the jets.”
“Battery store low. Unable to…”
“No! No, KAI. I’m not going to die buried beneath this rubble. Ready the fucking jets.”
"Mind your language, young lady." She could almost hear her father say.
Instead she heard KAI say, “Gladys, you used up all the batteries trying to transmit…”
She stopped listening to KAI and started looking for a spare cell. She threw open all the drawers and found nothing. God, of all the ways she imagined dying! Well, this was fifth on the list.
Critical mass means the jets would not be able to generate enough power to get her out from under all the rubbish.
Her father’s room! He always had a spare of everything. She ran there and sure enough, she found one in his desk.
“30, 22, 16…”
“Shit!” She removed the old cell and replaced it with the spare. “KAI…”
“On it.”
The jets sputtered to life.
“Now, KAI!” She yelled.
The earthship broke through the rubble and made for the skies. The sheer blue of it never ceased to amaze her. She exhaled slowly, relief washing over her entire being.
“Warning. Battery power is low.”
“What? Can’t I catch a break?” She wailed.
“Prepare for rough landing” KAI stated simply.
“What’s wrong with the solar panels, can’t they charge the batteries enough so I land this thing?”
“Nope.”
The ship stopped mid-air.
“And you said to prepare for rough landing. Free fall is more like it!” She held on to the desk and braced herself. She screamed when the ship hit surface and began to somersault. She lost her grip and banged her head on the corner of something sharp. In that instance, everything turned black.
Her hands went straight to her head when she came to. She heard a loud banging sound coupled with equally loud ringing in her ears. She must have hit her head really bad. Plus, there was a huge hole in the ship’s floor.
“God, KAI.”
“Gla-dys”
“KAI, are you alright?”
“G-gla…” KAI was malfunctioning.
She tried to get up. The ringing had stopped but not the banging. She lost her footing but broke her fall with her hands.
“Hey! Hey! Is someone in there?” So that was where the banging was coming from. Someone was banging on her ship.
“Hey!” She called back. “I’m in here.” Gladys staggered out of the computer room and headed for the room that used to house the travel pod. There was no saving the greens now. She trampled them on her way to the pod room. There was a door that led outside. She opened it.
“Careful!” A voice said. She looked up and saw a crate falling. The cube of rubbish was an inch short of crushing her skull wide open when it stopped right over her head.
“You gotta be careful on the surface, missy.” She finally saw him. He was just a scruffy and lanky looking teen pointing his watch at her. “You almost killed me flying this junk around.” He hit his fist into the ship. He looked at her wrist. “Where’s your umbrella?”
“What umbrella?” She staggered forward. She had still not fully recovered from the crush.
“People who come this way usually have one. Hey Careful!”
That was the last thing she heard him say before she started her free fall to the ground. Luckily, he reached out and broke her fall before she hit the crates of rubbish.
She tried stretching her legs when she recovered consciousness. They hit something rubbery.
“You’re up!”
“Where am I?”
“You are in my travel pod. We are going to get your head checked.” He said with a smile spreading across his face. Gladys sat up. “You are the first missy I've had in my pod. Here,” He tapped the seat on his right. “come sit by me.”
She arched a brow at him.
“Come on, the view’s much better from here.”
His pod was small. She could not stand up straight in it and she was a solid five foot five. But he was right. The blue sky, though dotted by some large drones which were releasing their junk unto the surface, was a great view. She smiled.
“So, do I keep calling you missy?” He asked.
“I’m Gladys. What’s that?” A large edifice zooming right into the sky caught her attention. She did not see it from afar since its glass panels reflected the skies. The closer they got, the more she realized how huge it was -- magnificent, really.
“I am Danny,” he said.
There was a huge entrance cut right in the middle. Danny’s ship went right through it. Gladys’ eyes widened at the awe-inspiring sight.
“Welcome to Rubble City.”
