One by one, the countries of the world had gone dark as news stations went off air and communication broke down in the panic that followed. I wondered if anywhere else had fared better than the United States. Were there underground compounds sprinkled throughout Europe? Asia? Africa? Were people thousands of miles away huddled together thinking they were the last of the human race just like us? I hoped so, but I doubted it.
The United States had got lucky to avoid extinction. With no formal government left standing, one man had stepped up to rally what was left of humanity. He’d called himself the Noah after some biblical story about a man saving the human race in a big boat called an ark. He’d arranged for the survivors to flee into the four underground nuclear bomb shelters located in each corner of the United States. And once we were out of the way, the dinosaurs quickly reclaimed the world, and we’d never been able to get it back.
I pulled up my copy of Jurassic Park on my port and flipped through the pages, looking for something I could use in my analysis. I’d hated reading Crichton’s book, and I doubly hated having to write about it. His descriptions of life topside made my insides burn with jealousy. It wasn’t fair that one generation’s colossal mistake could ruin things for every generation to come.
I was the first one to finish the analysis. I was always the first one to finish an analysis. Poor Shawn was sweating, his tongue protruding from compressed lips as he scribbled furiously. When the bell rang ten minutes later, he finally walked up to plug in his port and I could tell from the look on his face that it hadn’t gone well.
“Miss Mundy,” Professor Lloyd called out just as I was slinging my bag over my shoulder to leave, “a moment, please.”
My heart sank, but I dutifully filed up to wait by the side of his desk as the last few students plugged in their ports and left. He gazed at his own port, moving his finger down the list of students, ensuring that all of our assignments had been uploaded for him to grade before turning to me with a frown.
“It didn’t go unnoticed that this was your third tardy in three weeks, Sky.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” I hung my head.
“I believe you know what to do with this,” he said, pressing a button on his port screen. Immediately my own port vibrated and I glanced down to see a work detail form filling my screen. There was a place at the bottom for a parent’s digital signature, but Professor Lloyd had crossed out the word Parent and instead typed the word Guardian.
“Yes, sir.” I slipped the paper into my pocket. It would get signed for the following day, but I would be the one doing the signing.
I bolted for the door, and almost ran headfirst into Shawn.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed, catching my port screen deftly before it could hit the concrete and shatter, again. “Where’s the fire?”
“No fire,” I scowled, taking back my port. “Just another stupid work detail.”
“Work detail is a character-building experience,” he said sarcastically.
“Then why don’t you serve it for me if they’re so great?” I asked.
“Because my character is already flawless,” he grinned. “It would be a waste of our compound’s precious resources.”
I gave him an elbow to the ribs as we headed towards science class. We paused in the hallway to let the kindergarteners totter past us on their way back from the library. Shamus waved at us shyly and I noticed Toby Lant slumped at the back of the line, his head down. He had the greasy, unwashed appearance of a kid whose parents didn’t keep track of how often he bathed and a hollow look that I’d seen in the mirror a bit too often. My heart hurt for him, even if he had been bullying Shamus.
“Do you have a lunch ticket?” I asked Shawn as we watched the kids’ progress down the hall.
“I have my pack for the whole week. Why?” I snatched the entire pack from him before he had them halfway out of his pocket and hurried over to crouch by Shamus. Tucking the lunch tickets into his hand, I whispered in his ear. He smiled nervously at me but nodded. After a quick ruffle of his hair, I hustled back to join Shawn.
“Why did you just give Shamus my lunch tickets? Not that I’m complaining, but I was planning on eating at some point this week.”
“I don’t think you’ll starve to death,” I grinned. When Shawn had stopped growing at five feet one inch, he’d decided that what he lacked in height he could make up for in bulky muscle. I doubted that a few missed meals would affect him. “Besides, you know your aunt could get you more. Just tell her you lost them. Shamus needed to buy lunch for his new friend, Toby.”
“Does Toby know he’s Shamus’s new friend?” Shawn asked. I shrugged. I would have given Shamus my lunch tickets, but I had lost those last week for not reporting to work detail on time.
Shawn must have understood, because he didn’t say anything else about it as we ducked into our science classroom. This was my favourite class of the day because the room had a domed skylight ceiling. Of course, the Plexiglas of the skylight had been patched, repaired, barred over and reinforced in so many places that it didn’t really afford much of a view of the outside world any more, but the natural light still managed to filter through, and it was a relief after the harsh fluorescents. Humans weren’t meant to live their lives underground, and sometimes my skin practically itched for the sunlight.
Soon, though, even this little piece of the outside world would be taken away when the workers began concreting over the glass. Noah had insisted that we fortify all topside surfaces. This new decree seemed silly to me. The dinosaurs had never penetrated the barrier that separated our world from theirs, so why waste the resources? Unfortunately, no one asked my opinion on the matter, especially not the most powerful man in the world.
I glanced around at the rows of plants lining the walls and frowned. They would all be dead soon unless we brought some grow lights up from the farming plots. The rest of my class filed in, all eight of them. Professor Murphy moved to the front of the room to begin trimming back a fern whose leaves reminded me of Shawn’s hair – floppy and out of control. Shawn sat down beside me and slid a bag of crackers on to my desk. He knew that I’d have skipped breakfast in order to make it out to the maildrop. When I went to thank him, I saw that he was working furiously on the homework from the day before. The crackers had the slightly chemical taste that most compound food had, but I savoured every one, especially now that Shawn’s lunch tickets were gone. As the class began, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have resorted to stealing lunch tickets if I hadn’t had a best friend who was willing to share.
Shawn and I once joked that the entirety of our education in North Compound could be summed up into two lessons. Lesson one was some variation of a history lesson about how the human race had found itself living in underground compounds. Today’s English lesson with Professor Lloyd had fallen under that heading. Lesson two was how to actually survive in the compound. Professor Murphy’s lecture landed squarely in the second category. She started discussing the finer points of artificial turnip germination and I zoned out immediately. Since the majority of the supplies and food for the compound were generated within the compound, lessons like this were common, but I just couldn’t get excited about turnips. From the way Professor Murphy kept stifling yawns, I had a feeling that she felt the same way.
Seven hours later, when the last bell of the day finally rang, I made my way through the crowded south tunnel to find Shawn. Being crowded was a good thing. North Compound had started off with just twenty survivors. Luckily the immunity that had saved those original twenty from the Dinosauria Pandemic seemed to pass on genetically in most cases,