The shuttle landed safely in the desert landing field amidst multitudes of media crews, rescue vehicles, soldiers and Unification officials. Inside, Jim stood facing the exit, the jar in his trembling hand. Sarah, kissed his cheek and stepped back. The door began to lower, a brilliant blue-white rectangle of sky expanding in their vision. Jim had the feeling of a bird flying out of a cage as he stepped down the stairs and looked out at the rows of dignitaries and soldiers. As Division staff rushed to assist him, he stopped and raised his jar. Stunned soldiers stood in silence as he unscrewed the lid. A wisp of dust flew out into the dry air, and everyone watched the tiny reddish plume as it floated off to the west.
Jim and Sarah were quickly apprehended for violating Division policies about contamination control, and they were questioned closely about the disaster at the station, and about Jim’s “little stunt” with the dusts. The two rebels told them nothing, though the officers applied all of their sophisticated arts of interrogation. Some experts thought the two Martianauts had lost their minds, but analyses showed them to be sound. When it became clear that they would not cooperate, Jim and Sarah were sent to the “education” program.
Meanwhile, a murmur of questions rippled through Command—questions about the dusts of Mars and Jim’s little jar.
Deep in the mountains of New Mexico, Resistance members watched the coverage of the return of the Martianauts. Command production technicians had “edited” the footage, and the viewers across the world saw only a peaceful and successful return of the Director and Chief Technician after a freak natural disaster at the Martian station. But the technicians had missed one little detail: They had not noticed that Jim’s insignia was upside down. Leah was the first to notice it, “Look, John, his insignia!” John and the others moved closer to the screen, and a hush fell across the room. Jim had given them the signal. Something big was going down. The “newscast” ended, and John shut off the monitor. “Well,” he said, “let’s get ready.”
Meanwhile, somewhere in the deserts of Arizona, a dust devil spun across the plain. In it’s wake, new, smaller vortices were formed. Spinning off a little distance, they followed the same sinuous path as their parent, and they grew. As each devil reached roughly 5 meters high, it too began to spawn new vortices, until the dirvishes covered the plain like an ethereal army… and then the host split into two parts.
In the months that followed, strange dust storms erupted from the desert, and Command assigned the Environmental Division to the task of investigation. Even while the Division team was on its way to Phoenix, the storms were growing and spreading, and by the time they had begun their work the following week, the storms had spread throughout the Southwest. Command began to piece together the puzzle that Jim had assembled months ago, but it was too late.
From their home in the ravine, the Resistance forces looked out as a dark cloud of dust billowed over the mountains. Wind lashed at the fir and pine, and the lightning… the lightning generated by the dust was unbelievable. It seemed almost systematic, igniting fires across the mountain slopes. The scene was apocalyptic, and the rebels filed into their artificial cavern just as the flames approached the ravine. Before he shut the door, John looked up at the sky and watched the sun fade behind the murkiness of the storm.
Soon, the sky began to darken across the continent, and the Unification finally activated its emergency response procedures, but to no avail. The sky darkened daily, fires spread, and temperatures plummeted. The Unification, perceiving the threat, and awakened to the real nature of the cause, scrambled to make provision for its leadership. Caught off guard, they had no time for proper preparation, and no way of staving off the chaos that loomed.
Within months, worldwide temperatures had fallen 20 degrees, and there were few plants left alive. The barren soils of the breadbaskets of the world became endless sources of new dust, and the atmosphere was a dark cloud. The Unification had been trying to maintain order by maintaining food, alcohol, and entertainment rations, as well as propagating false reports of improving conditions. But as food supplies dwindled, they abruptly aborted all programs, and the leadership retreated to their bunkers with whatever provisions they could gather in that short period.
As the Unification leadership hid, widespread riots erupted in the cities. Months of hunger, darkness, dust, and cold, had destroyed all remnants of order. Some people fled to the wilderness, but most stayed in the cities, hoping that the Unification would solve the problem. Those who ventured outside had to fight strong winds—winds which intensified until buildings began to succumb to their destructive power. The winds and lightning destroyed fusion generators, Unification transmitters, and electrical networks, and everything was coated in a layer of dust, or dust and snow.
The unification leadership, hidden underground like a queen bee robbed of her hive, consoled themselves with their secure fusion generator and two year supply of food, and clung to the hope of power reclaimed. Soon they heard only white noise through their CommandLink monitors, and their scouts returned from the whistling wasteland above with food only for despair. They would soon be alone in the world with their god-like enemy, or so they thought. They were unaware that somewhere in the mountains of New Mexico, 200 rebels lived on the way they had for two decades.
Leah and John Weaver stood on the peak of Shaler’s mountain and looked out on the desolate landscape. It had been 25 months since the retreat of Command. The sun was shining faintly through the still dusty atmosphere. It was the first they had seen of it since the storms began. Down the mountain slope, the charred, skeleton tips of half buried trees poked out of a thick layer of dust and snow. As far as they could see was a wasteland, bare rocks and dead trees sinking in a rolling sea of dust and sand dunes. It was strangely beautiful, stark and sublime. They watched a cluster of dust devils dance across the bare valley below. It was hard to believe that this was earth, that the entire world was like this, but the reports were accurate.
Leah unzipped her face mask, and the cold wind bit at her cheeks. She pressed closer to John and kissed him. It was funny, she thought, that in such a cold and barren place, she could have hope, but she did. She had never been more hopeful. In a few more months, they would begin. The Resistance forces would soon be in motion. They expected little trouble from the Unification forces now, and there was no one else.
As she zipped up her face mask and tightened the cord on her parka, she turned back toward Headquarters. She breathed deeply and yelled over the wind. “It’s like the slate has been brushed clean.”
John nodded, took her gloved hand in his, and smiled.
THE END
