The Light Thief

The Light Thief

It was cold in Area 71… or, previously known as the Primorsky District off the Northern coast of Russia. Biting winds and sharp snowflakes that could cut into a person’s cheek like dozens of tiny knives, blindly pelted over and over, unrelenting and without any penitence. Whoever could possibly think of choosing to be there, or any other part of Russia for that matter was far beyond Margot McCallahan’s imagination. She shuddered at the thought while adjusting the meter on a long iron pole, trying to read the digital numbers around the ice build up.

A northern girl herself, Margot had grown up in Chicago - with her family tucked away on the outskirts of the city. She remembered with fondness the Christmases and the holiday seasons where her brothers complained about too much snow on the wood for the fireplace before heckling off some joke in the distance and the family home becoming warm with from the fires and the laughter trails of their voices wafting through and filling the halls.

But that was before ….

She pushed the thoughts away. Emotions were a luxury that neither she or anyone else for that matter could afford these days.

And with the painful reminder of her current reality, she looked up and out over the horizon of the craggy, bleak, landscape she found herself surrounded by. The grey skies and the whistling wind slicing through the ice caps were hostile and unwelcoming, and yet somehow they were the most comforting and grounding reality she could mentally grasp. And grasped it she did - with all her might - as her eyes continued to survey the tundra till they landed on the metal fortress just down the way, half buried in snow with flashing red warning lights on either side.

She’d rather brave the snowflake daggers in her cheek than re-enter the compound, but she couldn’t allow herself to think that way. No. That trail got too dark too fast, and it was a slippery slope. Besides. Her family needed her. Surely they were out there somewhere.

Margot shivered into her coat, the worry lines in her forehead creasing deep. Surely she’d aged ten years in the past two.

It was unexpected. The glacier melt. The world’s greatest scholars and scientists described it as a wild phenomenon - unparalleled to any they’d seen. They weren’t supposed to melt down like that for several hundred more years. But in what reports had called “the most catastrophic event since the end of the dinosaurs,” the ice caps of the Arctic had cracked - September 26th, 2057, at 12:04am EST - plunging deep into the oceans, and setting off a chain reaction into a much greater disaster. The sudden overflow and aggression of water from the cracks had caused extreme imbalances of water levels throughout the globe.

Tsunami waves, hurricanes and tornadoes from the heightened humidity levels, swirling rain storms and crashing floods - not a single part of the earth was left untouched.

Religious fanatics called it “The Second Flood - referencing the story of Noah in the Bible - saying that surely this was the ‘second coming’ and the end of the world as everyone knew it.” Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t.

But where were the religious groups now?

So many had died. And after the loss of more than 3/4 of the world’s population in wreckage, disease and malnutrition, nobody cared anymore to keep track.

Margot took another quick scan of the horizon, adjusting the straps on the camera ties. She needed to get back. Rhodes had lost part of his left ear last week from staying out at this meter too long. She shuddered as she packed up her tools. She wasn’t made for this. None of them were.

Gathering the bulky tool bags up in her arms, she shuffled back through the snow to the compound. The ragtag, misfitted team at the loading bay greeted her with grunts and nods. There weren’t many of them up here at the compound. About 120 people had been living there for the past 6 months, sent as a research team from the New Alliance - the remains of several of the world’s most prominent political powers.

“Anything to report, Callahan?” A burly man with red and white whiskers and a pot belly called out from the lift.

Margot shook her head. “The readings haven’t changed since yesterday’s spike. I think we’re getting close.”

“Hmmm….” He grunted as he nodded his response. “Better tell the boys.”

Margot began to unwrap her gloves as she paced down the side corridor to the development office.

“The boys” were a team of ten other guys and two other scrappy female comrades besides Margot, who had all come from backgrounds in forensics, biochem, and cosmology, and they were busy evaluating a strong gravitational pull - a bizarre stream of energy that had curiously entered their radar below the newly flattened surface of the Arctic about 8 months ago, causing strange river tides and bizarre new ocean current patterns. This gravitational pull was the reason the compound existed - to see if something could be done to determine - and survive - what remained of the world.

Margot dropped her gloves on the side console as she entered the room. “Hey, Dave. The spike has held. We’re still running at 71.2.”

David Rilke - a young, wirey guy from South Africa with round glasses - lifted his nose above his screen. “You’re positive? You checked the history?”

“Yes. I’m sure. I double checked everything.”

Dave nodded. “Right. You heard her, boys.” He stood and directed his attention to the rest of the room. “Nobody’s sleeping on this, let’s move.”

“On it.” Higgins piqued from the back.

The rustling of papers began with people hustling this way and that through the office. The meter read the strongest it ever had and had held for more than 12 hours. Something was going to happen - they were sure of it. But what?

Margot stationed herself in a corner in the back - out of the line of commotion. Her hands were so cold. She squatted down against the wall to think by herself.

“It’s the gods, you know.”

Margot looked up.

It was Asya Semenov - the compound crazy lady. She liked to venture into the research team’s office from time to time, and saw it as her personal duty to instruct them on spiritual matters. Her straw like black hair fell in her face as she stood in front of Margot. Personal boundaries weren’t her strong point. “It’s true. My grandmother told me ‘ven I ‘vas a girl. One god ‘vill come to take the light for himself. One ‘vill come and return it…to create new world.”

“What’re you talking about, Asya?” Margot was annoyed. And hungry.

“Ze Light Thief.” Asya looked past Margot into the distance and started playing with the gold, heart shaped locket around her neck. “He comes to take for himself. Happiness. Joy. Every'sing light and beautiful in 'zis world. But someone must come bring back the light.” She nodded to herself as her voice inflected up - as if it was all so obvious.

Margot frowned at Asya, perplexed. She was a strange one.

The next three and a half hours felt like an eternity. Monitors beeping, papers rustling, shouting, planning, plotting another venture out to the radar to get a better read with stronger equipment.

Then suddenly - everyone stopped.

It was 03:47:12am.

And the floor beneath the compound began to vibrate.

The team’s eyes all grew wide as they stared at one another.

“What in the…” Higgins breathed.

Radcliff, Jones and O’Leary scrambled out the side of the room and up to the viewing deck.

“You guys! You have to come see this!” O’Leary shouted.

The room turned to instant chaos as the research team ran towards the deck.

It was unlike anything they had ever seen.

The body of water that HAD at one time been the ice caps of the Northern tundra, was swirling and sloshing around like water in a big, sudsy pot. Waves crashing into each other, back and forth in no particular cadence. The sky was still dark above, but they could see just over the horizon the slightest shade of pink emerging as the sun started to rise…Then the pink began to grow in tenacity.

Stronger, and stronger, and stronger…

It didn’t take more than two minutes for the sky to erupt into the most beautiful and brightest shades of pink, orange and yellow that the group had ever seen. The colors were in fact, so bright, that they were all left completely stunned.

But it didn’t take long for the sun to follow the preceding entourage of hues.

03:49:05am - The moment the tip of the sun peeked over the horizon, something changed.

The swirling water below began to grow uniform.

Asya gasped and clutched at the locket as it rose from her chest in the direction of the sunrise. “He’s here…” she whispered.

Margot spun her head around to see Asya’s locket lift from her hands and levitate in the air, being held only by the gold chain around the Russian woman’s neck. “W-who?” She stuttered.

Asya looked at her. “Ze one to bring back ze light.”

No sooner had the words left her lips than Higgins yelled from the side corner. “Brace yourselves!”

Margot turned and looked out the viewing deck just in time to see what was happening. The waves had all become completely unified and had GROWN.

SUBSTANTIALLY.

The team was now looking at a wave no less than 70ft high. It had all seem to gather under the sun and was now looming ominously over the compound and the rest of Area 71.

“Watch out!” Rilke shouted. The team scattered, but there was no where to go. Asya and Margot ducked underneath the desk as the compound was plummeted by the body of water.

The iron creaked under the weight of the force and screws rattled like a train crossing over a wooden bridge.

Louder and louder the surge raged over the encampment, and the warm, laughing faces of Margot’s brothers flashed before her eyes.

…..till suddenly it was quiet.

“Are we dead?” O’Leary asked first from under a chair.

“Get up, Leary!” Rilke ordered, jumping into action, clambering up to look out the deck. They all did.

The wave had completely washed over them and had settled into a quiet, steady sea. The sun now risen enough over the water and the colors having calmed down into a soft blue, with purple hues still leaving residue of what they had just witnessed.

“What was that?” Margot was stunned, looking around frantically at the others for answers.

Asya nodded with a small smile.

“Ze Earth is at peace. It has been reborn.”

O’Leary frowned. “What’re you talking about woman?”

Asya clutched at the locket and with her slow, thick accent tried to explain. “Ze thief has been reconciled and the earth is as it should be. The light has been returned. Yes, it is how it should be. Now we can rebuild.”

The team looked at each other in hesitation and awe as to what just happened.

A old wives tale? A “reborn” earth?

But they’d seen some strange things - how else could they explain this?

“Yes, now we rebuild.” Asya said firmly. “We create. We dream.”

Dream… Had it all just been a dream?