At World End

Morning came faster than I thought it would and Johnny was starting to wake up after sleeping in a bed for the first time in two years. I couldn't go anywhere without the pooch, not even to the lavatory. As I stood there, half-awake, trying to relieve myself for the first time today, Johnny stood watching me carefully. I could tell that he was in a hurry to go for a walk, and probably do the same thing. After I finished, tucking myself back in the khaki pants I found in the closet when I got out of bed, I tapped my thigh, motioning for my trusted pal to follow.

The Dell building was a nicer home than I would have imagined an old office building would turn out to be and the outer corridors were done in with art, fancy mirrors, and plants at every corner. Our hosts had truly outdone all of my expectations. Yet, I wondered how they were achieving the niceties while the rest of the world continued to burn in the ashes of the impact. Having not really pushed for answers on day one, Strauss wasn't exactly volunteering to give up any information on the miracle oasis. Admittedly, I felt pretty good about designing a bunker that could withstand the impact and the fallout from the asteroid striking the planet. This...this was completely different than a bunker. People were living their lives beneath the dome and appeared to be enjoying their survival.

I wondered, were there other cities with domes protecting them from the radiation, from the mutants that roamed the badlands, praying on anyone that was lost out there? If so, maybe my Cherie made it to one of the domes before the asteroid strike. Maybe she was in a city with one and remained safe this whole time. As we walked outside, seeing glimmers of sunlight above, I let Johnny go find a bush to relieve himself on as I stood and enjoyed the warmth on my face. After two years, we were experiencing sunshine, even if it was through the filtered energy field of the protective shielding around the city.

“Would you look at that,” I said to Johnny, not knowing anyone else.

Standing beneath the shielding, lost in the moment, I almost missed the 1967 Shelby GT sitting alongside the street. Somebody had gone to great lengths to save the classic from being destroyed during the apocalypse. Considering the amenities of the building I wondered how much money people paid to come here. Surely Prefect Strauss had to have garnered investors before constructing the machine that powers the field around New Chicago. They were probably some of the other tenants of the Dell Building unless they had their own abodes already here in the city. If I had known about New Chicago, would I have still built the bunker or would I have just moved my family here? It was a thought that I would never know the answer to, no matter how much I wished things could be different.

Johnny was done peeing all over a rose bush alongside the curb and back at my side. I really hadn't thought past the point of him getting to walk around on not urinate all over the floor. There was a corner room in the bunker, one that was designed with a dirt floor just for Johnny. After two years down there nothing I did could cover the smell of a dog kennel as it wafted out into the common area. I knew that Cherie would never have left Johnny behind, or maybe I would have thought twice about designing a room for him. Looking back I'm glad I had taken the steps to keep him safe as he turned out to be my only companion.

“Well, honey, we made it,” I said, looking up to the heavens, hoping that somehow, somewhere, she was alive and looking at the same blue skies I was seeing.

Johnny barked, bringing me back to the present and returning my focus to him and my current situation. There was a lot to do if I was going to find out what happened to Cherie. Now, however, I feared I had more questions to answer than I had time. We went back upstairs to check out our new home. I should do an in-depth look at the place if it was going to be where we stayed for a while. The bunker would be there, no matter what happened. We could always go back, so walking into the Dell building and heading back up to our floor, I started to develop plans in my head. The first of those was breakfast.

Our new home away from home came completely furnished and stocked with all the supplies of home. Everything we could want was there, including snacks for a pooch. Johnny had come to prefer beef jerky while living in the bunker. It was the staple of his diet for the past six months. I honestly thought it was because he was sharing my favorite food and didn't want to be left out. If dogs were known to seek out bonding experiences with their owners then I would have thought he wanted to bond.

Eggs and bacon were the choices of the day, even though I questioned where they were getting the supplies to stock apartments and suites with fresh food. I fed Johnny a piece of bacon while I sat and began to eat. Five bites into breakfast there was a knock at the door. As a good watchdog would, Johnny hopped up and started toward the door, barking the whole way. He sat at the door alerted to the sound of someone on the opposite side.

I asked who was there and it turned out to be Sasha. Looking at the clock above the door I was surprised she waited as long to come by as she had. It was nearly ten already. Since taking Johnny out and making breakfast, we had somehow killed two hours. Telling Sasha to come in, the door opened with a swish, disappearing into the wall. Sasha stood there in her combat boots, khaki cargo pants, and black polo shirt. She smiled when she saw Johnny drop down on the ground and roll over, showing his belly and panting for attention. I looked down a the little traitor, amazed how easily he'd prostitute himself for the affections of others.

“He seems to like you.”

“The feelings mutual,” Sasha said, rubbing her hand up and down Johnny's belly.

“So, you two have had breakfast. That's good,” she told me. “I'm here to take you on your official tour of the city.”

Tour of the city, I thought to myself. Why would I need a tour of what used to be Chicago? It's one of the most well-known cities on the face of the planet, even if only part of it is still intact. Play along, I told myself. If they arranged a tour of the city then they were still attempting to sell me on becoming a citizen of New Chicago or they were going to take me around and familiarize me with areas they wanted me to see. It was a perfect way to steer me away from anything that they didn't want me to discover on my own if I went out to explore.

“Sure,” I said. “Let me grab my keys.”

“We'll take my squad,” she countered.

They were trying to steer me away from something. The only reason not to take the Conquest was to get me to leave my eyes off of it or steer me away from the mystery of the dome. One way or the other, I needed to know.

“Johnny has to come and I've got a kennel for him to ride in. It'd be easier to take the Conquest. Besides, that beat-up government vehicle of yours didn't look that comfortable.”

“Fine, I suppose I can let you drive,” she relented, realizing my points were right.

We were finally off and going a few minutes later as Sasha told me to head north. I set out, with my guide in two, to learn as much as I could. The Conquest had its' perks, perks that Sasha would have to earn my trust to learn about. Sasha seemed to get comfortable in the shotgun seat, admiring the numerous knobs, buttons, and readings that were displayed on the dash and up the center of the console. The Conquest had a rear active camera that gave a one-hundred-eighty degree view. There was no way anyone could follow us without knowing. What Sasha didn't see was the switch between views on the steering wheel. I could download views from above and down alleyways and side roads, or activate the cameras and watch for interceptors or tail cars coming in behind us. Most of these were additions I designed five years ago, imagining the possibilities we would see after the impact.

“This is a really nice rig,” Sasha said, looking around. “Turn here.”

“Where are we heading?” I asked.

“I thought, with your apparent tactical ability, I might give you a tour of the training center.”

I turned left onto what used to be Lake Shore Drive. I had been on Lake Shore before. Heading north, I knew that there was an old entrance station on Lake Shore. The Military Entrance Processing Station had been moved to Lake Shore in 2025. Most of the intelligence officers believed that the move was a front to get it onto the river and make moving goods and supplies in easier to hide from public view. They had their own set of locks to dock large craft and unload. Intelligence believed the station was constructed a couple of hundred feet deep into the surface and there was a research and development lab down there, working on a solution to the asteroid crisis. If there were any developments that came from that lab, none of it was ever taken public or acknowledged.

I decided to stay mum about where we were and let Sasha go through the motions of her touring schedule. If she admitted where we were going on her own then she was being less covert about the tour than I expected she would be. If she waited until we got there then she was staying on script.

As we pulled off Lake Shore into the front lot of the old station, Sasha told me all about the training facility. She admitted that the base was an old military operation that Strauss converted to train the New Chicago Guard, the troopers that kept the inner city peaceful and kept a perimeter around the outside of the dome. Strauss commandeered the base the day the soldiers were called away, most of them being sent to Washington to help secure the transport of key officials as they were all taken to Cheyenne Mountain. Sasha was being surprisingly forward about the base and how it came to exist.

“So, this peaceful utopia of yours isn't without its' problems,” I said, coming to a stop.

Sasha sighed, “It's not that we have a lot of problems, but the first few months were scary. If we hadn't had the troopers to keep things in order, who knows how our future would have unfolded.”

She made Strauss sound like a prophet, capable of seeing the needs of their new society before anyone else. For all of his successes, he came off far too perfect for my comfort. Sasha started toward the entrance, motioning for us to follow along. Johnny and I tentatively followed her as she waved a badge at the front gate officer, motioning toward us that we were with her. The gate officer waved her past and let us follow without saying a word. This officer was as quiet as the troopers, stoic almost, but wore a slightly different uniform. As I passed, I realized that the training center was run by the NCPD and not the guard. The guard just trained there, Sasha told me when I asked.

“Come on inside,” she told me, “I'll show you the operation. The city built it but Strauss knew we needed a military force, in case things devolved between the surviving cities.”

Surviving cities, had I heard her correctly. I grabbed Sasha by the arm and turned her toward me. “How many?”

“What?” she said looking confused.

“Cities,” I told her. “How many other cities survived the disaster?”

There were twelve cities that survived the event when the asteroid struck two years ago. Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix, Dallas, Portland, Denver, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Nashville, Philadelphia, and Chicago all survived the event and moved into the future. There were twelve domes in total and twelve cities or colonies that moved on separately at the end of time. My heart sped up hearing the news. There were survivors spread around the country, places that my family might have found a safe haven.

“So, Strauss saved twelve of the biggest cities in the country. What about people that weren't from those areas?”

There was a secret lottery held but as the asteroid arrived nearly thirty days ahead of time most of the people that qualified wouldn't have made it to the cities. It would have created congestion on all of the highways, all the roads would have been closed down or impassible. Nobody would have survived and people that lived in the cities that were away would have never made it back to their homes. People were sacrificed because there wouldn't have been a safe way to get them relocated to the city centers in time. They hadn't even tried.

“Look,” said Sasha, “It wasn't perfect, but we made the decisions that needed making at the last minute. If the geeks at NASA and the ESA would have been a little more accurate with their predictions...maybe we could have done more.”

She was right. The predictions put the event out thirty days longer than we had. It was why Cherie didn't make it home in time to shelter in the bunker before the event. If the scientific community had worked harder, maybe been more together, then maybe the eight billion people on the planet wouldn't have dwindled to less than one hundred million. Maybe more than thirty million would be protected by domes and security forces in new societies like New Chicago. There were so many maybes that my head spun from the possibilities.

“I'll tell you more after we finish up here,” said Sasha.

The history behind the new domes was of interest more than anything. Strauss designed them but he didn't build them alone. Who were his investors and why wasn't the existence of the domes something that the public knew of ahead of time. I nodded, my head spinning, the anger in my chest swelling inside me. So many people were left behind and Sasha could so easily find a way to justify it all.