Nighthawk Rider

You know that feeling right before something bad is about to happen? If you don't, I feel sorry for you. It has saved me more times than I can count and without it, I would not be telling this story.

I've always assumed that's what saved me that day...The day of The Event. I knew it was coming- I could feel it.

That feeling...It starts slow, really deep in your gut-an uneasiness you just can't shake. I feel like I've known what that sensation is my whole life. Call me a cynic, it has always felt innate.

A part of me.

I remember the news leading up to that day. Democrats and Republicans fighting at The Hill. Buildings collapsing with hundreds inside. Increased terrorist threats from the far East. Mistrust with the Police force and unrest in foreign trade and relations. The comic relief was always some billionaire tycoon memeing about how we are going to be an interplanetary generation and the world would run on cryptocurrency, clean fuel, and rocketships….

What a joke that all seems now; and how ungrateful humanity as a whole seemed at that time. Empathy, almost nonexistent, with school shootings and mass shootings at an all time high, mental illness barely being acknowledged as a legitimate diagnosis, and corporate capitalism continuing to scrape away at any connection we once had to our planet and the health benefits it provided us. People were sick by the millions. Life expectancy plummeted. Doctors were doubted by a majority of the population and podcasters were considered The Authority on relevant and truthful information. That's if you didn't count all the Internet channels and people that became experts overnight. No one knew who to believe….

With this being a daily reality, I wasn't surprised on the day of The Event. We had warning signs. Even the large silver boxes that began to creep up all over the planet.The reports ended up on the news, but so did global warming, icecaps melting, and human cages at the borders, but hardly anyone took that seriously. So, of course most believed the signs were a hoax. Reality and the truth seemed out of most people's comprehension; information being flipped by world leaders, as we watched the riots happen around us. We should have known there would be a reckoning for our abuse to our planet.

They started with the UN offices in New York and Geneva. If any location was going to hit the vein of humanity, this was an effective choice. It brought the country to arms, but before we knew who our enemy was...chaos ensued.

When you live with an innate sense of dread and complete awareness of your existence within the fragility of life and death, time slowed down for you like it did for me. Like a fog lifted from my state of being, I knew exactly what I had to do.

A lifetime of being raised on video games and television had taught me to have a ready bag. Whether I was learning about the FBI or watching Dora the Explorer as a child, all my memorable teachers had taught me that lesson.

As I turned on my legally-purchased-military-grade-radio, the TV blaring in my living room went to the emergency broadcast system. Luckily, I had ignored my parent's threats (advice) about pulling their financial support, and had taken motorcycle lessons when I turned 16. My biggest character flaw, “insolent daughter,” I considered one of my biggest strengths, constantly questioning The Authority my whole life always ended up pushing me where I needed to go.

The TV went blank at the same time all power went out in the city.

I walked into the hallway, and opened the closet door where I had stored my ready bag. I attached the straps of the hiking backpack and walked to the shed where I kept my 1982 Nighthawk 750. The solid off-roading tires and customization I added to the bike last year, would prove to be a valuable investment for my journey.

The Caves were 32 miles away. Not far, but during The Event-a war on civilization-maybe a slight challenge.

I straddled the bike, phone in hand, and sent out the only cryptic message I had ever pre-recorded. The message went out to 19 people, all those I considered family, blood or otherwise.

All I felt was adrenaline now, and I was going to need it to make it through the next 15 days. I set my bike northwest and hoped that the bulletproof nature in its craftsmanship held true. As I pulled out of my neighborhood, I heard the city's tornado alarm going off without a cloud in the sky. Like I said, an innate sense of dread. It does not get much worse than the confusion of the world as we know it coming to an end.

And I had been ready.

My military radio was static with people yelling for the first hour I was on the road. I heard a crackled voice say something about how we lost Paris, Tokyo, and Moscow. It would not take years to bring down centuries of civilization- it would only take days.

I stuck to every back road, going into the woods every chance I could. I saw traffic start to build as I hit my third turnoff, horns, yelling, and people getting out of their cars going it on foot, was the last thing I saw of normal civilization that day.

I was 9 miles out from The Cave. A spot I had predetermined while looking at a map of my state one day going through a pile of my parents old travel AAA clutter. They were a generation where AI technology was not as helpful as an 8-fold map; and with cell phones down and signals scrambled, most people got lost and stuck on freeways during The Event without one.

I stopped on the edge of a tree line as I watched smoke clouds form in the distance. I heard the low rumble of explosions as the ground shook slightly underneath me. I took a drink from my water canteen and brush strands of hair away from my eyes.

Staring off into the distance, I noticed something odd about the landscape. About 200 yards away, I started to focus on what my brain had originally thought was a corn field. Between the far off thunder of bombs, I started to notice a low humming noise and tried to discern what I heard and saw in front of me.

It's wasn’t stalks of corn I saw. They were people. Rows of people in perfect formation, unmoving, heads all turned towards the sky.

I flipped the kickstand on my bike and powered down, slowly removing my backpack and setting it on the ground. I grabbed the closest branch next to my shoulders and hoisted my chest up, reaching for the next branch as I climbed a 50 foot oak tree.

My heart stopped.

There, under the formation of people, was the emblem of the largest genetic editing company in the world burnt into the grass. The symbol was unmistakable. A marketing tool put on every billboard, every commercial, every ad, for the past 5 years.

I looked above the unnaturally turned up heads and determined that the humming noise was coming from hundreds of tiny drones. They were just sitting there, like strange little bees above the rows and rows of upturned sunflower-like faces; their mouths hanging open.

They are being watched.

I pulled a small telescope binocular from my pocket. They were wearing green jump-suits, most with blonde hair, making the appearance of corn stalks even more apparent. As I focused in, I noticed the same symbol from the burnt ground, as a sort of raised scar-like marking, on the side of each person's neck. My stomach turned as I realized the rows of people looked as though they were being...charged. They held their hands out slightly, almost as though trying to soak up the sun, mouths slack, heads towards the tiny, buzzing, drones.

They aren't human.

I pulled out my phone and recorded the scene for the next 7 seconds. It was time to go.

I jumped out of the tree and back onto the Nighthawk, following the row of trees another mile before turning the bike up a hill and farther into the woods towards the entrance to The Cave. After another hour of driving through the forest I stopped the bike by a large boulder, pulled off my backpack, and slid to the ground my back resting against the cold, hard stone. I could still hear the rumble of the chaos The Event had ensued in the distance. I rubbed my forearm across my head as beads of sweat dropped down and hit the dead leaves between my shoes. I reached up and took a gold, heart-shaped necklace from around my neck. A memento from my grandfather when I turned 16, now would be the marker to the entrance of The Cave.

The last part of my cryptic message had said, "...you will find rest by keeping sight on the heart of humanity."

My grandfather had always said that empathy was the heart of humanity. Those closest to me had heard him say it a thousand times. The 19 had heard him say it too. I hoped there was still some humanity left to save.

Sitting there on the ground, I did not want this to be the beginning of the end. We had developed so much as an advanced, scientific society. We had become gods able to change the genetic codes of all organic material! And now we created an army standing in a field that was blended with AI technology. We had become so arrogant in our genius, we never stopped to ask if we should create genetically altered beings and the inevitable consequences this would bring.

I reached up and hung the necklace over a large branch, securing it back against the trunk of the tree, the gold reflecting in beams of sunlight as dusk streamed through the trees. I carved a small arrow in the trunk of the tree directed towards the entrance of the cave. I looked around at the last glimpses of sunlight I would see for the next 15 days.

Carefully, I hid the Nighthawk in the mouth of the cave, out of site, but upright and ready if I had to leave quickly. I turned the headlamp mounted to my forehead to the lowest setting and adjusted the shoulder straps of my backpack. As I continued down into the deepest part of The Cave, the brisk air cooled my face as I hiked deeper into the Earth. This is where I stay. This is where I wait. We will survive.

Come find me.