THE ARK

6 months later

Brad Warren drove the Humvee down the gravel road that leads out to Airport. In the passenger seat next to him sat an eager David Cowan. This was an exciting day, in that the first group of survivors would hopefully be arriving. David looked to be in better health than he had six months before. The day in and day out stress of leading his people had taken a toll on the man.

Now that they were here, and even though things were more exciting than ever, he finally felt that he could slow his pace a little.

As they drove on Brad reminisced about what had been accomplished in the short amount of time since the awakening.

After the initial meeting between Brad and David, relations and interaction between the former sleepers and David’s people went better than anyone had hoped. Long ago plans were modified and put into motion. There had been massive amounts of building construction and road repair.

Over eight thousand of the sleepers had been awakened and were contributing to close to a hundred different projects.

The local power generating facilities along the Colorado River were partially back online and relatively reliable electricity was flowing.

Cellular phone service was available in the three adjoining towns that were now designated as stage one of the rebuilding project.

The local hospital was still in need of repairs but was open and operational. Advanced medical care was now available to people, many of whom had never seen a physician before.

The raiders were no longer a threat in the Tri-town area. Very shortly after that first encounter with the raiders, armed helicopters and ground troops swarmed in on the Raiders camp as they slept. Without a single shot being fired all the Raiders were rounded up and their weapons and equipment confiscated. They were given just two options. Behave and join in the rebuilding or leave the area and do not make trouble. Most of the raiders chose to leave but some joined the growing community.

Within a month of the awakening, the local airport was reopened and many of the sleepers’ aircraft were permanently moved there. The rest would also be moved there as soon as more hanger space was available.

Soon reconnaissance flights began, using F-15E fighter jets. Instead of missiles, these aircraft carried sophisticated cameras that were used to look for evidence of other groups that were rebuilding.

Night flights were equipped with thermal imaging cameras and groups of survivors were located by heat signatures given off by equipment and cooking fires.

There were several dozen groups located, and it was decided to focus first on a collection of groups in the New England area, these would be the first ones contacted.

As soon as they were all located and charted, the F-15s took off again. This time they “bombed” the sites. Several thousand printed leaflets were dropped to each location. Each described what the sleeper mission had been, where they were setting up to begin the rebuilding, the radio frequency that could be used to establish contact and a date and location that a that a representative would be arriving to further discuss the situation and inviting anyone who wished to return with them to do so.

For those that did not wish to return to the tri-town area, there would be efforts to maintain regular communication for the purposes of information exchange. Experts on farming and engineering and medicine would make regular visits to any friendly settlements who wanted to participate.

Before flying out for this initial meeting in Massachusetts, RJ had been concerned about how she and her party would be received. She knew that a large part of the success of their mission revolved around their being able to work with the different groups of survivors that they located.

The Humvee entered the airport property, and Brad saw the two old school buses pull in behind him. Since the busses had been inside a garage that had mostly survived the last fifty-four years, it had taken only a couple weeks to get these buses back on the road. Now, Brad hoped that they would not be leaving the airport empty.

David Cowan and Brad Warren exited the Humvee and went to the terminal where a makeshift control center had been set up since the control tower was in the process of being rebuilt.

“Do you have an ETA on them?” David asked.

“I suspect about ten minutes, sir. We had them on the radar a while ago, and then the radar went down again. It’s been really unreliable. I have someone looking into it now.”

“Ok, thanks.”

The two men walked out towards the old observation area. There was construction going on all around them but they did not seem to notice.

“So, how many are you guessing will be onboard, Brad” David wondered.

“If we get twenty I’ll be happy,” Brad answered.

David started to respond, but was cut off by Brad’s shout, “There they are!”

Brad pointed to the North and it took only a few seconds for David to locate the spot in the sky that was rapidly growing.

Eight minutes later the large C-141 transport plane rolled up and the doors opened up. As soon as the stairs were in place RJ emerged from the plane, she looked tired as she descended the stairs.

Both David and Brad watched with growing concern as seconds passed and no one else appeared at the doors.

Finally, a young girl cautiously stepped out, followed by an older man. Brad counted thirty people before his cell phone rang and he lost count. He quickly answered it all the while watching more and more people get off the plane.

“Brad, it’s me.”

“RJ, how did everything go?”

As he asked, he saw her standing below his window, looking up at him as the line of people walked past her.

“We only had room for one hundred of them, we’ll go pick up the other half in a few days. Many others are staying there and want to work to build their own community and want us to help.”

“Sounds fantastic we’ll be right down,” Brad exclaimed.

He quickly told David the news and saw the single tear that formed in the old man’s eye just before he turned and anxiously run off to meet the new arrivals.

Thank You for reading ‘The Ark’.

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Christopher Coates