THE ARK

Mike and Wade had enjoyed better evenings. They had been involved all day in a foraging trip, and now they were being sent to the generator shed. Neither of them particularly minded the generator shed. The problem was that the storm was intensifying and they knew that at least one of them would have to sit by the ancient machine and fight to keep it running for as long as it was needed.

The crazy part about this whole thing was that the generator was started every Saturday morning. They kept running for twelve hours, every week. It was a schedule that had been in place ever since arriving here almost a year before. The schedule never changed, and while there were several other generators that were used in the village, this one was known to have a special purpose.

Now here they were about to go out into some of the nastiest weather imaginable to start the blasted thing on a Thursday evening. This made no sense. However, from what they had heard, these orders had come directly from the old man. No one would even consider arguing with him. Not after all he had done for all of them. If it were not for the old man, most of them would not be alive.

His efforts over the last year had not just brought the group to this town but had enabled them to grow in numbers. There were now twice as many of them as there had been before.

Mike could still remember sitting with the old man in the cave shelter, asking him questions about what things were like before the comet.

The old man could describe the old days with such detail, that as a young boy Mike could envision living back in those times. Even better were the promises that in the future they would all be able to leave the shelters and return to that life. The old man even told of his dreams that people from the days before the comet would be waiting for them and help them start over.

Mike nodded his head, and Wade forced the door open. The two teens raced into the storm.

Wade stopped just long enough to make sure that the door was tightly shut, before running after his friend. By the time the two had run the twenty yards to the generator shed they were completely soaked.

Since it was night and they could not leave the door open for moonlight, they used matches and lit a kerosene lantern that was easily more than a century old. The dim light that it gave off was just enough for the boys to do their work.

It took less than ten minutes of work and they had the generator running at full power. As soon as the generator came to life, the two overhead light bulbs lit up brightly and the old lantern could be extinguished.

Mike leaned over and pressed the talk button on the intercom that was mounted to the wall. “Generator on,” He called.

Mike thought that this final act was rather ridiculous, the lights in the offices of the main building would have come on as soon as the generator was started, and if the lights were on the generator must be working. Nevertheless, that was the required procedure.

“Thanks, boys,” came the friendly reply.

“Was that him?” Wade asked with a look of shock on his face.

“Sure was. You almost never see him in the admin building at this time of night.”

The boys picked up a deck of worn playing cards that they kept stashed in the shed and were just a few hands into their game when there was screaming and yelling coming from the administration building. The storm was loud and fierce but the boys still heard it.

Without thinking about the rules that required at least one of them to stay with the generator at all times that it was running, they both took off on a dead run.

Mike reached down and felt for the revolver that was always on his hip. The only explanation was Desert Raiders.

The Raiders refused to join the community, but were more than willing to slip in and try to steal whatever they wanted. Usually, they rode motorcycles, on one occasion they had a small pickup truck which they had gotten running.

There were times that community members had tried to resist them but someone always got hurt or killed and most of the time it was not the raiders.

Mike managed to jump over Wade’s body which had fallen on the slippery mud. Mike ripped open the door and raced on with his hand on his holster. A mud covered Wade was right behind him. The noise had settled down some, and as soon as Wade entered the main room, he could see that his initial assessment was wrong.

Everyone seemed to be in one of the most joyous moods Mike had ever seen. Almost as happy as the day the old man had declared that it was safe to leave the shelter.

The group turned and looked at the boys and saw the confused expressions on their faces.

“We heard screaming, thought something must be wrong,” Wade tried to explain.

The adults were now focused more closely on the mud covered teen and at once, as a group, they started laughing.

Mike removed his hand from the gun and moved into the group. “What’s going on?”

“Quiet! it’s starting again,” a man from the equipment console started.

“Turn it louder!” someone shouted back.

Over the old speakers hanging on the wall, a female voice began. “Greetings, this is the commanding officer of a special team of specialists that was prepared before the comet devastated our civilization. We have a team of over ten thousand men and women that are specially trained for rebuilding our once great nation. We have all the technology, tools and knowledge of the past with us and will be using these talents to rebuild. Please contact us on this frequency and we’ll send a team to meet with you to begin the long project ahead of us all. Thank you.”

The cheering began all over again.

“It looks like the message repeats every three minutes on all frequencies,” the man at the console said.

“What do we do now?” a woman somewhere in the crowd asked.

“I’ll answer them,” A deep voice said. With that, a tall strong-looking man began moving through the crowd. He walked slowly and with confidence. The silver gray hair was the only visible feature that would have caused anyone to realize that he was as old as he truly was.

With respect bordering on awe, the crowd quickly parted for the old man. He walked to the console, turned, and faced the crowd. “For years I’ve been telling you the stories about the past. Many of you as children heard me speak of how one day we would rebuild. I also said that I envisioned people waiting to help us as we fought to turn things back to where they were. These are the people that I spoke of.”