Page 27 of Taken (After the End #6)
Chapter Seventeen
Rhen
The storm rages through the night and halfway through the coming day, which is actually a blessing because it takes me all morning to clean up as much of the mess as I’m willing to clean up for the future of humanity.
I reset the protocol to put the Chamber to sleep, make sure the moisture levels look okay and that the water is recirculating.
I toss my uniform after retrieving my mangled green bean seeds from the back pocket. Then I grab a new uniform and a few additional seed sachets, even though Pam tells me not to. But I haven’t been great about listening to Pam so far. Why start now?
I set my Pam watch back in the tray underneath the remaining translator implants.
I record a long message for the next generation of humans to wake up to and erase the recording from the human who woke before me and died in agony.
I tell the next humans not to take the pills, to try for survival, that other creatures survived the fall of humanity.
It was a fall, but it wasn’t an end. We fell, but we got back up again.
Shaky and feeling strangely tender-hearted in a way I’m not used to, I go back to the pod I fell out of, the one that malfunctioned however many weeks ago that was now closed, and seal it. I write a message in Portuguese on the outside in a black permanent marker I then pack with me.
RHEN AND LACCHUS WERE HERE. STAY STRONG. I surround our names with a heart.
And then I end my message with the same suggestion Lacchus gave me before.
HEAD FOR THE MOUNTAINS.
Lacchus carries my bags to the portal that leads us up, up, up to the world he calls the Barrens. “Are you ready?” he asks.
I don’t know. I am, but I’m scared. After all, I joined the Sucere Project when I was prepared to die. But I’m leaving it now prepared to live.
“What is it, owelay?”
I sigh shakily and meet his soft gaze, finding it incredible that I could find such softness in a male like him. “I’m scared. I can’t believe I’m leaving to make a whole new life with you.”
“Only if you want to.”
I don’t have a choice, I know that, but I also know that even if I did, I’d make this same choice. I smile and step up to him, giving him a kiss on the cheek, and say, “I do. I really do.”
He kisses me back and heads to the ladder, wanting to be the first out onto the Barrens, to make sure it’s safe for me to go out and for us to make our journey back to the tribe.
Once he gives the go ahead, I grip the rungs in sweaty palms, but before I start to venture up, I speak aloud into the Chamber one final time.
“Pam?”
“Yes…Rhen?”
“If you had a body, I’d definitely have fucked you.”
Pam doesn’t respond right away. “I would remind you that I am not a sexual being…Rhen, but I believe, based on my understanding of your humor, that you may be making a joke. Ha. Haha.”
I laugh loudly with her. “I love you, Pam.”
She doesn’t respond, but as I grip the rungs of the ladder and start to climb, I hear her voice echoing up the dark shaft behind me. “Goodbye…Rhen. And good luck.”