The Prequel Chronicles: Jay & Jonah

The Prequel Chronicles

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Jay & Jonah

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Four Days…

At the sound of the engine, the young boy stood upright. The joints in his spine crackled and clicked as they adjusted to being straight. His bare skin was scorched by the overhead sun, though amply protected by his mother’s generous application of sun screen. The Sphere above him filtered most of the UV, but it was still better to be safe than sorry.

The only parts of him that felt cool were his hands, which had been buried in the dirt, tearing up crops and rooting through the soil for peanuts. But now the engine – from the truck that was tearing along a dirt road in the middle-distance – had drawn him away from his task. Away to the right-side of his vision, was the edge of the city: a suburban area of white houses, neat streets with clipped lawns and swing sets. Further still was the squat towers of Oklahoma City’s business district, dominated by the gleaming glass Devon Tower.

His gaze returned to the truck. He stared closely at the trail of dust and dirt that was cast up in the air by the tires of the vehicle. He stared closer. Amid the dust he could see it. A red truck. Battered, beaten and ugly. But unmistakable.

The young boy threw down the heavy bag of freshly unearthed peanuts he’d been dragging across the field and ran. Until then, energy had been hard to come by. But now his legs seemed to find new fuel as he dashed over the newly overturned soil, skipped over plant entrails and hopped over the occasional prairie chicken. The beautifully strange birds would often follow

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him as he dug out the peanuts. They’d scrap for the occasional nut which had escaped his attention (sometimes he fed them, but he’d never admit to it).

He grew closer to the centre of the farm, where there was a cute little house at the end of the dirt track that led into the suburbs. It looked so small and insignificant; dwarfed by the surrounding farm. Its wooden paneled façade was white-washed and faded by the sun. It was barely two storeys; the upper floor incorporated into the roof and often too cold to bear in the winter, and too hot in the summer. The windows were single glazed and frail-looking, contributing to the dilapidated feel of the ancient farm house.

The battered red truck was already parked up, and a deep jolly voice was booming from within. The boy’s face lit up in delight and he dashed inside. The door led straight into the living room – a room as wide as half of the house and filled with clutter. It was everything the boy’s mother had ever collected in her life, along with his and his siblings’ possessions as well as the necessary furnishings.

In the middle of the room was the bulk of his father. He was of average height but built like a wrecking ball. This, and his bushy grey beard, often caused children in the city to call him Santa Claus.

‘There’s my boy!’ his voice rumbled, making the boy’s heart pump with excitement. He ran into his father’s arms, who grumbled and chuckled as he held him tightly.

‘Jonah!’ a woman’s shrill voice cried from the shallow depths of the house. It wasn’t very big, once inside. There was just the

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living room – the biggest space – a kitchen and two bedrooms. Jonah and his five-year-old sister Amy shared one bedroom, whilst his parents slept in another with his youngest sister, Maisy. Upstairs was reserved for storage and punishment space, though it was rarely used for the latter.

‘What have you done now…’ Jay Jones chortled heartily.‘Jonah Frederick Jones, if you don’t have at least two sacks

of peanuts with you, you’re in big trouble my boy!’ his mother cried out and he could hear her pacing through the house towards him.

‘Quick, go’ Jay flashed him a quick smile and Jonah vanished back out the front door before his mother could catch up with him.

As soon as he was gone, his mother appeared from down the narrow hallway and Jay’s merry face turned to meet hers. They embraced and when they pulled back, Jay’s face was completely different. The smile was gone, replaced by stern, stiff lips and a troubled frown.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked him. She reached up with one china-doll hand and placed it on his worried face. Rosa Jones was the complete opposite to her husband in almost every way. Where he was large; she was tiny. Where he was round, she was slender. Where he was pale, her skin was richly dark. His eyes sky-blue; hers hazelnut-brown. Even her hair – long and lusciously brown and smooth, conflicted with his short, wiry grey hair. He was almost ten years older than her. They’d met when she’d arrived in Oklahoma City as a refugee from New Orleans. When it’d been announced that Oklahoma City had

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enough funding for a Sphere of its own, people had come from across all of America and Canada to be in with a chance of being accepted to live there. New Orleans itself had been devastated, though not by natural disaster as had so frequently ruined it in the past. The city was torn apart by its own people. Riots erupted and lasted for weeks on end, their demands too high for a Government that was growing weaker and weaker. With the fall of the American political system and leadership came the final days of New Orleans. As America crumbled and order was established and maintained inside the Spheres alone, the rest of the country was left to its own means.

Jay heaved a heavy sigh and eased his bulk into a frail old armchair. It was his chair; tattered and torn from use and placed right by an open fireplace.

He shook his head wearily. ‘There’s some news coming. Bad news’.

‘We’ve had some bad news in our time’ Rosa conceded, sitting down on the sofa next to the armchair. ‘Crop failures, dry spells, spending cuts, curfews…pretty much every damn thing I can think of’.

Jay was still shaking his head. ‘Not like this’.Rosa started to feel worried. It was unlike Jay to be

pessimistic. They’d been on the verge of bankruptcy little over a year ago and even then Jay had managed to keep a steady smile on his face and a spring in his step. He was infallibly happy and eternally optimistic. It wasn’t good that he was behaving like this.

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‘How bad?’ Rosa asked, in a voice that was barely a whisper.

‘They’re sending a SpaceShuttle in four days to take people to the International Space Station’ he answered.

Rose broke into a grin and slapped him playfully on the arm. ‘My god, Jay, you had me worried!’ She giggled but his face didn’t change. He looked up at her with sad, solemn eyes. ‘But this is a good thing…isn’t it?’

‘They’re sending just one SpaceShuttle’ Jay replied. ‘And it will be boarded on a first-come, first-serve basis’.

‘Oh my goodness’ Rosa said. Though she still didn’t grasp why Jay was being quite so serious about it. ‘I bet people are queuing already’.

‘Queuing?’ Jay chortled bitterly. ‘That would be nice. People don’t queue in this world. No one patiently waits for their turn. If you don’t grab hold of life in this world, it will turn its back on you and go to the next person. No. No one is queuing’.

‘Then what?’ Rosa refrained from raising her voice too much, but she was growing frustrated at her husband’s restraint.

‘Fighting’ Jay said stiffly. ‘Up in the northeast, over in Spencer and Jones. Fighting on the streets’.

‘Northeast? But honey that’s on the other side of the Sphere’ Rosa said reassuringly.

‘Rosa, people are killing each other. They’re fighting because they know not everyone is going to make it. Just one fifth of the city’s population is going to get on. Now they’re not bad odds. But they’re even better if you fight for it’.

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‘Jay, it’s just the northeast. You know what it’s like up over there’.

‘This is just the first day. It’ll spread, just you watch’ Jay turned his head and cast his gaze through the window and across their family farm. He could see Jonah, a short way off, dragging two huge sacks of peanuts. His sister was on the drive, bagging the peanuts up for sale. ‘I fear for them’ he whispered. He’d never cried in front of his wife, but now tears were shining in his eyes. ‘I fear for all of us’.

* * *

The sun was going down in the west, about to kiss the horizon and spread its final waves of light through the darkening sky.

The chains of the swing creaked against the metal frame. Jonah swung higher and higher, kicking his legs to gain momentum until it felt like he could launch himself off and reach the Sphere itself.

His youngest sister was running across the back porch, a long leaved limb of a peanut plant in her hand, and striking their mother’s wind chimes, causing a cacophony of soothing sounds.

Despite the warmth of the sun’s rays, a chill suddenly swept over his skin. He stopped kicking his legs and reduced his swing to almost a stop. Beside him, Amy had done the same and was looking at him with a perplexed expression.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her. Her lips were turned down in a deliberate expression of sadness. She looked like she was

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about to cry. Jonah hoped she didn’t. His parents would only blame him, and he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Amy suddenly leapt up off the swing and began tugging at the frame of the swing set in an effort to move it across the garden.

‘Amy, what’s the matter?’ Jonah jumped off his own swing. He stood back to watch in bewilderment.

‘I don’t like it here!’ she cried, tugging at the frame of the swing set.

‘Where do you want it, then?’ Jonah frowned, humouring her.

‘There’ she said firmly, pointing next to the shed at the back of the garden. It wouldn’t be too far to move it, not really, from the middle of the garden to Amy’s new location.

‘Mummy, mummy!’ Maisy went running through the back door into the kitchen. ‘Amy’s gone loopy’.

Jonah smirked before dashing after her.‘What’s she rabbiting about?’ Rosa asked in a childish voice

as she pulled faces at Maisy.‘Amy wants to move the swing set. She’s is going a bit

crazy’ Jonah smiled vaguely before leading Rosa and Jay out into the back garden.

‘Please daddy, please!’ Amy pleaded. Jay chuckled but conceded to his daughter’s request almost instantly. With Jonah and Amy’s help, Jay lifted the swing set and moved it from the centre of the garden to the back corner. It looked strange. The swing set had always been in the same place.

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‘Well I suppose it makes the garden look bigger’ Jay remarked to Rosa as he stepped back up onto the back porch.

‘Perhaps we’ll find something to put in its place’ Rosa pondered pensively as she strolled back into the kitchen to finish cooking dinner. ‘A flowerbed, perhaps?’

Jay grunted his mild approval and followed her inside.

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Three Days…

Market day was very much a family affair. Every Friday, without fail, Jay and Rosa roused their family in the early hours to prepare for the day ahead. Each Friday it seemed that the whole city came out in their thousands to attend the market, to do their weekly shop and hunt for a bargain with their tightly held coins.

As Rosa got the kids ready inside, Jay hurled the huge sacks of peanuts into the back of the truck. Peanuts were his family’s primary source of income, but they also grew a field of corn and had fifty-or-so pecan trees nestled on the far-reaches of their land, almost at the edge of the Sphere. They sold the vast majority of the peanuts as they were, bagged up and ready for a quick sale. The same for the corn and the pecans.

But Rosa also took a large amount of the peanuts they made and turned them into peanut oil. By a simple process, she increased the value of their peanuts tremendously. She also ground them into sellable portions of flower, and roasted them for sale as an instant market snack. It made their market stall varied and very popular.

With the kids ready and nestled on the back of the truck amongst the sacks of produce, Jay made sure that their rain gathering machine was switched on and ready. The Oklahoma City council had forecast rain today. It would hammer down on the Sphere overhead, which would capture the water in thousands of tiny channels. The rain would then be filtered to

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make it free from impurities and safe to drink, before being distributed through the Sphere’s artificial rain distributors. Which were really nothing more than glorified sprinklers.

As they drove through the suburbs of the city, Jay saw that everyone else had done the same. Water collectors – anything from the size of a dustbin to a shipping container – were opened up and waiting for the deluge that was to come.

Fortunately the rain would not affect the market. As Jay and his family neared the city centre, the streets became congested with people and vehicles. If it weren’t for the road and traffic system, it’d be total chaos. It took them another forty minutes or so to reach the marketplace – the former car park of a long-since disused shopping mall, just north of the city centre.

The market was already brimming with people and they rushed to set up their stall. Time was money.

Jonah and Amy set up a makeshift barbeque which their mother would roast peanuts on when it was hot enough. People were already swarming around them, hands outstretched with fistfuls of money; mouths wide with eager demands, all trying to be heard over one another.

Jonah and his sister paused for a moment to admire their parents at work. They were so in unison, exchanging cash to give change, taking orders, preparing produce and handing it over. All with a smile and cheerful countenance. They didn’t falter once.

‘Hey, you two’ their mother barked at them. Her voice was stern but her expression was warm. ‘Get back to it. I need that up and running!’

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Jonah took charge of setting up the barbeque whilst Amy when to check on their youngest sibling. She was little less than five metres away, in the back of the truck playing with an assortment of toys.

‘Big loud!’ she exclaimed upon seeing Amy, who nodded in agreement.

‘It’s very noisy here today isn’t it?’ Amy replied sympathetically, briefly playing with Maisy and her dolls between glances back at Jonah to see how he was getting on. Seeing as he was doing fine by himself, Amy decided to stay with her sister.

Despite the copious hard work, time was flying by. It seemed like only minutes ago that Jonah had finished putting up the barbeque, but it had been roaring hotly for at least an hour now, and his mother had already gone through a sack of peanuts.

He was just dragging another huge bag from beside the truck to her side when one of the other market traders came running up to her and pulled her aside. The man was talking in hushed, hurried whispers but as Jonah drew closer he came within earshot of the two of them.

‘How do you know that?’ his mother demanded of the other trader. Jonah recognised him as the bald, middle-aged man who sold fabric a few stalls down. He always came to his parent’s stand for his lunch on market days and his family knew him well. His name was Michael.

‘June just came from over that way’ Michael told Jonah’s mother impatiently. June was his on-off girlfriend who liked to

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make cushions. Jonah didn’t like her cushions, they were thin and itchy. Needless to say her market trading days were short and unprosperous.

Jonah could see that his mother was being hesitant about something. Michael could read it too because he began pushing for an answer.

‘Look, June and I are getting out of here’ he said. ‘Stay at your own risk’. He turned and left without another word, leaving Jonah’s mother looking even more puzzled. She turned, her eyes almost glazed, to see Jonah staring at her.

‘Did you hear what he said?’ she demanded. This time she was stern with no warm expression. Jonah shook his head rigorously, intimidated by his mother’s sudden flare in temper.

‘Good’ she sighed in relief. ‘Stay here, keep these roasting’ she said, handing him the wooden tool she was using to jostle the peanuts over the fire to make sure they didn’t burn.

‘I’ll give you two for ten’ Jay said adamantly, making it clear that this was his final offer. The woman opposite him pursed her lips pensively, looking at the two bottles of almond oil.

‘Alright then’ she conceded. She dug into the large cotton bag at her side and pulled out her purse. Jay exchanged the goods for money and no sooner had the transaction been completed, the next person was ready with their requests.

‘Jay’. Rosa’s voice was stiff and stern. Her tone told him to stop

what he was doing immediately.

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‘Give me a minute, folks’ Jay pleaded to his customers. They all took a willing step back. He’d served them for such a long time that they all respected him without question. ‘What’s wrong?’ he whispered as he pulled Rosa to the back of the stall.

Rosa looked around sharply with narrowed eyes. ‘There was an assassination attempt on the Mayor. Two blocks away, ten minutes ago’.

Jay felt the colour drain from his face. He could live with violence and civil unrest over on the north-east side of Oklahoma City; far from his home and still a relatively safe distance from his place of work. But two blocks away was too close for comfort. He looked around, only half-seeing what was around him. His eyes locked onto Jonah, and then Amy and Maisy in the back of the truck.

‘Get the kids in the truck. Pack up, we leave as soon as possible’ he told his wife in urgent whispers. As he turned back to his crowd, he put on his market trader façade and addressed them with the familiar smile they were all used to.

‘Ah, I’m real sorry folks but my family and I are going to have to call it a day’ Jay told them to a chorus of disappointed groans. No one was more disappointed than Jay himself, but his family had to come first, and it was no longer safe to stay at the market. His eyes scanned across the crowd for any sign of trouble, or any suspicious looking characters. ‘I promise y’all we’ll be back soon, nothing is more important to use than your business. Now if y’all wouldn’t mind scattering a little to let us pack up…’

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Just as the crowd began to disperse there was a sudden scream from a dozen stalls down the market. But before anyone could investigate the sound, there was an almighty explosion.

The air around them seemed to drag towards the source of the sound, before flooding back outwards. The shockwave overturned market stalls and threw people high into the air. A surge of heat rolled down the street as flames spiraled upwards amidst thick black plumes of smoke.

Jay had grabbed Rosa and Jonah and pulled them to the ground. The girls had been sheltered in the back of the truck but now Amy was looking up; eyes wide in horror. Maisy was crying.

No sooner had the deep rumble of the explosion ended, the chatter of old, brutal machine guns sounded out. Their cruel metal bullets spat around the market, tearing into material and flesh alike, with no distinction or mercy.

‘Get in the truck!’ Jay bellowed in a voice deeper and more intimidating that he had ever thought he was capable of. Rosa dashed to her feet – keeping low to avoid the bullets – whilst dragging Jonah alongside her.

Jay picked Amy and Maisy up in one quick scoop, just as a spattering of shots decorated the back of the truck with fresh bullet holes. He tossed them into the rear of the cabin and hurled himself into the driving seat.

‘Go Jay, go!’ Rosa shouted frantically, ducking as the rear windscreen was smashed by machine gun fire. The engine roared into life, though smothered by the shooting, and Jay slammed the truck into gear and accelerated forwards.

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All around them people ran and screamed and fell like toy soldiers in the hand of a maniacal child. Jay did his best to navigate the truck around the fallen men, women and children. Those that were still alive attempted to throw themselves into the back of Jay’s truck.

‘Lie down!’ Rosa screamed at them, praying that the edges of the truck’s load bed would shelter them. The last thing she wanted was to deal with fatalities when they were safely back at home. Their children had already endured enough traumas.

Eventually the sound of gunfire faded away, as if the volume was being slowly muted until there was nothing to be heard. The silence left in the wake of such noise was almost painful. With nothing else to distract, it was almost impossible not to think of the carnage they had just left behind.

When they made it back to their home, Jay made sure to usher the children inside and to their rooms as quickly as possible. He didn’t want them to see whatever unpleasantries lay in the back of his truck.

He took five or ten minutes to settle them. They were all silent in shock and it took him a long time to coax any kind of reaction out of them. Eventually Jonah spoke.

‘We’ll…we’ll be okay, Dad. Just go help Mum’ he whispered.Jay nodded silently.His truck was riddled with bullet holes. They’d all be lucky

that one hadn’t struck the fuel tank. Then none of them would have lived.

‘None of them were killed’ Rosa said as Jay appeared on the front terrace. Five people in total had managed to jump into

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Jay’s truck as it had passed by. He wished they could have saved more, but he’d had his kids to think about. Rosa had lined the wounded people up on the terrace against the house. Four men and just one woman.

‘This man here needs bandages. Can you get them from the kitchen?’ Rosa asked whilst she applied pressure to the man’s wound. He was young – in his mid-twenties – and his face was scrunched up in pain. The wound Rosa held was a gunshot hole just above his chest, near his shoulder. ‘Quickly’ she encouraged, snapping Jay out of his trance.

‘Sure’ he mumbled and bustled back into the house. Amy stood right before him. He nearly stumbled over her.

‘Here, Dad’ she held up a first aid kit. He stared at her, bewildered. Her radiantly young eyes stared back up at him. Helpful. Expectant. Afraid.

‘Go back upstairs’ he told her, gratefully taking the kit.‘No’ Jonah stepped into the light that was pouring into their

living room. ‘We want to help. Please, let us?’Suddenly Jay understood. Keeping busy was better than

enduring the silence that persisted all around them. Better than remembering the massacre at the market.

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Two Days…

‘Jay, you can’t’ Rosa gripped his arm tightly. It was more than just a firm hold. It’s like he could feel her energy – her worries and her desperation – channeling into his own body. It made his hairs stand on end like electricity.

‘I must’ he gently placed his hand over hers and prised her fingers away. ‘The Mayor’s purchase is our biggest money earner. He gives us more in one month than some families get in a year. It’s what keeps us going’.

Rosa’s concern switched quickly to a more defensive and aggravated expression. ‘Don’t you think I know that? But what if you don’t come back? Hell, what if you don’t even make it to the Mayor’s office’.

Jay hushed her and pulled her outside the kitchen into the back garden. The kids were playing in the living room. It would be all-too-easy for them to hear.

‘I’m going to be just fine, Rosa’. He put some emphasis on her name, for added seriousness. She raised her eyebrow sharply, clearly unimpressed. ‘The violence from yesterday has subsided and the Oklahoma City Guard drove them back to their district. It will be fine’.

He sounded resolute but Rosa hadn’t finished. She opened her mouth to reply when Jonah came dashing in through the back door.

‘Mum, Maisy is moaning about us moving the swing set. She can’t even use the swing set. Can you tell her?’

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Rosa sighed heavily. She looked back to Jay, to tell him she hadn’t finished with him, but he was already half way to the front door. He smiled and waved cheerily. Rosa wanted to be mad at him, but instead her gut churned instinctively. A warning. She smiled feebly and before she could wave, Jay had gone.

Jay had seen his share of quiet times in Oklahoma City. A few years back, he’d worked with farms in the north of the city and helped with their harvest. To get there on time, he’d left in the early hours when Oklahoma City had been a ghost town. There’d not been a soul in sight – everyone safely tucked up in bed and fast asleep.

Today was simply eerie. It was almost ten o’clock. The streets were empty. But it was not the comfort of beds that confined people to their houses. It was fear. Fear twitched the curtains. Fear peaked out of half-closed doors and he scattered out of sight with each turn in the road.

It made Jay feel uncomfortable. What if Rosa had been right? He could turn back. If he really wanted to. But his genetic stubborn streak wouldn’t allow it. Besides, the Mayor’s offices were only a few minutes away.

As he approached the imposing grandeur of the white Capitol building – similar in almost every aspect to the Capitol building that had existed in Washington – Jay noticed something descending from the sky directly above it. It was undoubtedly a Craft. Which meant either that someone was visiting from another Sphere, or the ISS.

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In all likelihood, it was from the ISS. Visits between Spheres were extremely limited and regulated. If they wanted to contact each other, they’d do it virtually via cameras and television screens. It was no surprise that most Sphere leaders had dodgy eyesight, what with all the time they spent in front of screens.

Jay drove around the edge of the vast green, just as the Craft touched down at the centre of the open space. As his truck trundled past, a small entourage of suits poured out and made their way towards the building.

Where they would use the front door, Jay found himself heading down into the basement car park where his truck would be unloaded. He pulled in just before two trucks that were loaded with some heavy-looking barrels. Whatever they were, his products would be easier and quicker to move. He’d have been left waiting for ages if he’d got stuck behind them. Rosa really would have had a fit then.

He left his truck with the attendant, who would check that everything was in order and begin unloading everything. It would take about fifteen minutes and in the meantime, he could go and collect his payment. He might even try and pay the Mayor himself, Casey Cornett Jnr, a visit. The two of them went way back and their fathers had been close friends.

The lobby of the Capitol building was like a palace. The ornate marble floor stretched wall-to-wall in every direction. High above his head, with the old Government seal beneath his feet, was the richly decorated interior of the dome. It was a blaze of gold and red and Jay imagined that when the sun lit it up, it would make the lobby look as if it was on fire.

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‘Mr. Jones!’ a voice called out, echoing off the polished surfaces all around. Casey Cornett Jnr came striding towards him with his hand stretched out. The two of them were of a similar age, though their appearances told a different story. Where Jay was greying and growing outward, Casey still retained an athletic figure and a full head of thick brown hair (dyed, of course). His bold green eyes radiated confidence and charisma. Hair dye and sparkle – everything you needed to be a successful politician.

‘Good to see you, Mr. Mayor’ Jay replied courteously. He’d have been less formal if Casey wasn’t followed by the entourage of men who’d come from the Craft.

‘After you’re finished, wait for me outside the board room. I’d like to catch up with you’ he smiled charmingly and Jay agreed that he would wait.

‘Gentlemen, this way’. The Mayor led them past Jay, who nodded politely at the mysterious suited men. He could tell from the wait they walked and the way they dressed that they were ISS men, and very important men at that. There was a man at the centre of the collection of suits that Jay recognised as President Cadmar Davies – the most important man across all of humanity. He should have been impressed. He should have been in awe. But Jay didn’t feel a thing.

Jay went to the finance office and collected his earnings. It was more than they would usually get but the woman who paid him made no comment about it. Jay imagined that the Mayor might have given him and his family a little extra bonus to see them through. With what he’d been given, he could probably find

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someone in the building that he could bribe to take one of his family members on the Shuttle in two days. But that was the problem – it would be just one person.

Jay shook the thought from his head and decided that they would stick to their original plan. They would try for the Shuttle, but if they failed then they had more than enough to keep them going in Oklahoma City.

From the finance office he went to the board room as Casey had instructed him. He was about to enter when he found the door slightly ajar. Voices floated out from within. The men inside were talking quietly but their voices were amplified by the marble interior of the building.

‘This city is a bloody liability’ one of the men was saying. Through the gap, Jay could see that he had slicked back blonde hair and piercing, cold blue eyes. ‘Riots in London, protests in Perth, rebellion in Wellington and now carnage here in Oklahoma!’

‘Those things were contained almost instantly’ the other man in the room replied. Jay couldn’t see him.

‘This is different’ the blonde man insisted. Jay imagined spittle flying from his lips as he ranted. ‘The Earth’s media have started to notice. This action is needed’.

‘I think there must be another way, Landon’ the other man responded tentatively. It sounded to Jay as if the first man, Landon, intimidated him. ‘Bloodshed only leads to more bloodshed’.

‘Precisely’ Landon answered smugly. ‘They started the violence which will bring this plague upon this city’.

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Jay recoiled. Plague? Surely that was some kind of metaphor for the violence in the northern districts of the city. But that didn’t make sense…

‘We will uphold our promise’ Landon continued. ‘In two days the Shuttle will come and take some them to the External Earth Facilities. Then Oklahoma City will be eradicated. We can’t make our actions obvious. Therefore a virus will suffice. We cannot set a precedent for rebellion, Mr. Lloyd’.

‘Langley Reid won’t stand for this. He’s the Board’s Earth representative for goodness sake!’

‘As in most decisions the Board of Official’s make, what Langley doesn’t know won’t hurt him. There’ll come a time when that seat of his will become permanently vacant’.

Jay stepped further back from the door. With each step, his legs weakened and his mind became a blur of thoughts caught in a hurricane of emotion. Virus…eradication…Oklahoma City.

‘Jay?’ Casey caught him as he tumbled.Jay looked up at him with wild, wide eyes. ‘Casey’ he

clasped the Mayor’s arm in desperation. ‘They’re going to –’The door before them opened and Landon stepped out into

the hallway.‘What’s the commotion?’‘They’re going to destroy the city’ Jay murmured.Mayor Cornett Jnr looked up, a mixture of horror and

confusion all over his face.‘I really wish you hadn’t said that’ Landon said, reaching into

his jacket. The deathly black metal of a gun glinted in his hand. It was of old-Earth style. Metal bullets. One hundred percent lethal.

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Down the hallway, the ornate marble floor of the lobby suddenly erupted. As if upheaved by a volcanic discharge, the floor splintered, cracked and burst upward. It was followed by a torrent of fire and thick black smoke which hurtled along the corridor towards them.

Landon fired but his shot went wide. Jay grabbed hold of Casey and pulled him to the ground, just as the ceiling above them split and collapsed. The two opposing parties became separated by tumbling rubble, fire and smoke.

Jay scrambled to his feet and tried to pull Casey with him, but the Mayor’s body was a dead weight. Jay looked down to find that he suffered a fatal blow to the head. He let go and stumbled away, horrified.

The building tremored increased intensity. Jay ran. Behind him the place was crumbling as explosions rocked from beneath the floor. From the underground car park. Jay remembered the trucks with the barrels. It suddenly struck him that he was caught up in an attack; an attack that had already killed the Mayor and possibly two members of the Board of Officials.

Rosa was going to kill him.He passed a room with an open door. He recognised it at

Casey’s office. Without a second thought he ran through it and on his way, picked up a chair and threw it at the window. The glass smashed and Jay jumped out of the window in its wake, as another explosion detonated from within the depths of the building. The force of it carried him through the air and dropped him on the lawn a few metres away.

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Breathless, he rolled onto his back and looked at the wreckage he’d escaped. Flames licked the walls, turning the immaculate white paint black. More explosions continued, throwing debris out like handfuls of deadly confetti. Jay clawed his way across the lawn backwards, but not fast enough.

An explosion on the second floor shook the building. It dislodged some fundamental part of the structure and the huge dome began to slip sideways. As if in slow motion, it collapsed in on itself.

Debris, bricks, glass, rubble and dust rushed outwards with terrifying speed. The haze reached Jay first and blinded him before something struck him in the face and turned the world completely dark.

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One Day…

It started with a beep. Then another. Beep. And another. Beep. A sequence of beeps. Beep. Beep. Beep. The more aware he became of the beeping, the more frequent it became. Beep-beep-beep-beep.

‘Jay?’ a soft voice questioned. It was Rosa’s voice. He’d know it anywhere. He opened his eyes a fraction – enough to see her face – before shutting them again tightly. Her voice might have been soft, but her face was hardened with grief and anger.

‘I saw you open your eyes. Don’t you hide from me Jay Jones’.

Jay sighed and gave up the pretence.‘You’re angry with me?’‘Fifteen hours ago I was grieving’ Rosa said stiffly. ‘I heard

the explosion from the farm. I saw the wreckage of the Capitol building. I saw them drag the tangled remains of your truck out, mashed up and blended with bits of every other car in that car park.

‘Then they found you. Half-buried. Half-alive. You nearly died’ Rosa choked on that last sentence. It came out bitter and desperately sad. ‘How dare you do that to me. To us’.

She broke down into sobs and threw her arms around him. He found his body to be stiff with pain all over, but it was pain worth enduring to feel his wife again. He hadn’t realised it at the time, but upon waking, his last recollection had been staring up

27


at the falling building, thinking of his family and how he had let them down.

He was lucky to be alive.‘I’m sorry’ he whispered. Rosa buried her face into his chest

and Jay allowed himself to cry silently. He wouldn’t let her know he was crying. She had never seen him cry.

Hours passed by. Jonah, Amy and Maisy briefly visited but they were taken away again by their childminder. Rosa never left his side.

‘You were talking whilst you were unconscious’ Rosa said after a nurse had brought some food in for both of them. ‘You sounded distressed’.

‘What was I saying?’‘You were talking about London. I didn’t think you’d ever

been to London?’‘I haven’t’ Jay frowned, scooping up a spoonful of porridge.‘You seemed to think it was going to be destroyed’ Rosa

continued. ‘Did you talk to someone about London whilst you were at the Capitol building? Before the explosion’.

‘I don’t know…’ Jay scrunched up his face in thought. Trying to recall what had happened was just as painful as the way his body felt. He remembered briefly seeing Casey, before going to collect his earnings.

‘Casey is dead’. It hit him like a train. The spoon slipped from between his fingers and the porridge bowl went clattering to the floor. ‘Casey is dead!’

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‘Jay calm down, just calm down’ Rosa set her bowl down gently and was at his side instantly. He began thrashing about as a flood of memories came rushing back into his mind.

‘Casey is dead!’ he shouted again. A nurse burst into the room and saw the state Jay was in.

‘Help me’ Rosa pleaded. ‘I’ll be right back’. The nurse left as quickly as she’d come.‘Not London’ Jay said suddenly. ‘Not London. Here.

Oklahoma City. They’re going to destroy the city’.‘Jay what are you talking about?’ Rosa’s eyes were wide

with panic. ‘You’re scaring me’.‘A virus! A virus is going to kill everyone that is left’.‘Who, Jay? Who is going to do this?’Jay threw back the covers and swung his legs off the bed,

just as the nurse returned with another nurse and a doctor.‘Mr. Jones you need to get back into bed’ the doctor said

sternly.‘They’re going to kill everyone!’ Jay cried out frantically. ‘Nurse, let’s get him back into the bed and prepare for

sedation’.‘Don’t sedate him! He’s warning us!’ Rosa shouted.‘Mrs. Jones, I need you to wait outside’ the doctor said

calmly, despite the chaos that was unravelling around him.‘Rosa!’ Jay bellowed at the top of his lungs. The entire

hospital could probably hear him. ‘They’re going to kill everyone!’‘Who are?’ Rosa called back as one nurse tried to escort her

out of the room.‘The Board of Officials!’

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There was a momentary lapse where everyone in the room stopped. Even the nurses and the doctor paused in shock.

‘After the Shuttle has gone, everyone that is left behind will be killed’ Jay panted, as if he was now the calm at the centre of a hurricane. ‘You have to believe me’.

The doctor snapped out of whatever trance he was in. ‘Nurse, sedate the patient now please’.

‘No, you need to listen to me!’ Jay begged. The doctor held him down in the bed whilst the nurse injected fluid into his IV drip. Within seconds he had slipped into a more peaceful state.

Rosa had stopped still in the doorway. She glared at the doctor with such intensity that he was almost tempted to cower.

‘I apologise if we caused you distress, Mrs. Jones’ he apologised tentatively. ‘Mr. Jones was presenting a danger to himself and others, we had to sedate him’.

‘The only danger he posed was that he was telling us the truth’ Rosa snarled. She snatched her arm out of the nurse’s grip and stormed into the room to grab her small bag off the back of the chair. ‘You’d do well to listen to his warning. You and I know very well what the Board of Officials is like. Could you honestly say that killing everyone in this city is beyond them, after everything they have done to this planet?’

Rosa turned and left, leaving the question to linger in her wake.

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The Day of the Shuttle…

There was no beeping when he woke this time. He felt

worse than he had before, as the effects of the sedative lingered in his mind. He forced himself to sit up and he reached for the glass of water on his bedside. It was lukewarm and definitely not fresh, but it got rid of the dryness in his mouth.

The blinds of his private hospital room were open and it was a brilliantly blue day. You could almost forget that the Sphere existed, so crystal-clear were the skies above.

After being awake for a few minutes, Jay suddenly noticed that the hospital was silent. Eerily silent. There was not a single sound coming from anywhere in the building it seemed – not one voice, or machine. Even the machines that he was hooked up to were silent with blank, empty screens.

With a sense of concern quickly building, Jay detached himself from the vacant monitors and stood up. He was wearing nothing but a feeble hospital gown. Looking around, he found that someone – Rosa, no doubt – had left a change of his own clothes at the bottom of the bed. But where was she now?

Jay began roaming the hallways of the empty hospital in search of anyone. There was no one to be found. The entire floor was empty. He took the stairs – not daring to risk the elevator in case it became stuck – all the way to the bottom floor.

The lobby was void of human life. The huge double doors had been left open and the wind had blown dust and litter inside,

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making it look like a post-apocalyptic scene. Not that this world isn’t post-apocalyptic enough already, Jay thought to himself.

Outside was just as deserted. Ambulances were scattered around as if they’d been abandoned in a hurry. There was nothing but the wind in the streets outside the hospital. It seemed that everyone had gone.

The silence was suddenly shattered by the screeching of car tyres. Jay flinched and turned towards the sound, bracing himself. Then his red truck came blazing from around the corner, the back wheels skidding as it came. It flared straight towards him before the driver slammed the breaks and the vehicle rocked to a halt.

Rosa stepped out of the driver’s door.‘Jay!’ she gasped. ‘You’re awake’.‘Where is everyone?’ he asked. He jogged over to her and

held her tightly. ‘What’s going on?’‘After your rant about how the Board was going to destroy

the city, everyone abandoned the hospital’ Rosa explained as she ushered Jay into the passenger side of the truck. The kids were in the back and went crazy to see him. They all had a slightly terrified glint in their eyes and Jay got the impression that something was very wrong. As if the empty abandoned hospital had not been enough to tell him such.

‘That was like the first domino’ Rosa continued. ‘Once everyone saw that everyone in the hospital was up-and-running for the airfield, everyone followed. The whole city has turned out at Wiley Post Airport to try and get a space on the Shuttle’.

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‘Everyone?’ Jay’s mouth dropped open. ‘But that’s…that’s thousands of people! Hundreds of thousands’.

‘And only two thousand people will get a space’ Rosa replied dismally. ‘But the odds are stacked against everyone. So we still have as much of a chance as them. Right kids?’

‘Hell yeah!’ they chorused in what had clearly become a well-rehearsed routine.

‘Hell. Yeah’ Rosa muttered through gritted teeth as she slammed the truck into gear. ‘The congestion up by the airport is nothing like I’ve ever seen, and there’s a one kilometer radius road block’.

‘So why’re we even bothering?’ Jay asked. ‘Let’s just leave the city and go to Houston. They’ll take refugees, I’m sure’.

‘Maybe, but that’s not a chance I’m willing to take. Thousands have already left the city to do the same thing. We have as much chance with the Shuttle’.

‘You have a plan then, I presume?’ Jay asked. They were already on the I40 on their way west out of the city. They needed to be heading north-west to get to the airport.

‘I checked it out this morning, and the road block doesn’t extend very far to the west side of the airport – you’ve got the Stinchcomb Wildlife Refuge to thank for that. So we’re going to cut across it and sneak onto the west-side of the airport’.

Rosa slipped onto the interchange and they rolled onto the deserted, north-bound toll road. The road itself formed a partial loop around Oklahoma City. They would only need to use it for about four kilometers, and with the road being completely empty

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– and the toll no longer in use – Rosa could floor the accelerator without having to worry.

In no time they were on a bridge, passing over a thin, dirty river with the wildlife reserve to their right. As soon as the bridge had passed Rosa slowed the truck and turned sharply to the right, taking them off-road and through the heart of the wildlife reserve.

It was almost ironically named, given that no time, money or effort had been dedicating to maintaining the land here in the past three decades. The Oklahoma City council’s priorities had shifted from preserving habitats and wildlife to preserving the human race.

The truck followed the path of the river for a little while before diverging to the left. The terrain changed from rough, uneven ground dotted with shrubbery to smooth, loosely soiled fields that were no longer used for farming. Or anything, for that matter. The land opened up flatter and ahead of them, they got their first glimpse of the Shuttle.

Like some space-age lifeboat, it had descended from the sky with a sense of gentleness and grace that was almost impossible to attribute to something of that size. It looked like an oversized, white metallic blimp. The tip of one end was made from glass rather than metal, and if you stood close enough you could see the flight deck and the crew inside. The opposite end was taken up by huge, antimatter engines.

The SpaceShuttle rested on six, outstretched legs. If Jay was a giant and looked down upon the Shuttle, it’d look like a bug in need of squashing. But as it was, the last thing that Jay

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wanted to happen to this Shuttle was for it to be destroyed. To him – to all of them – it was more than an oversized, graceful space-age bug. It was life itself.

Rosa slammed on the breaks and Jay lurched forward in his seat, putting his hands on the dashboard to brace himself. In front of them, a few hundred cars had had the same idea as Rosa and were stacked head-to-taillight from where they were to the perimeter of the airport.

‘Looks like we’re on foot from here’ Rosa sighed heavily. She put the handbrake on and jumped out, scooping Maisy into her arms and ordering Jonah and Amy to follow. The occupants of the cars in front of them were spread out along the length of the wire fence.

‘They’re not letting any of us through’ a woman next to Rosa complained.

‘We did kind of cheat the system’ Jay remarked as he looked out across the airfield. They were already boarding the SpaceShuttle. There was a single-file line of slowly moving people shuffling into the back of the Shuttle.

‘No, by “us” I mean people like us. Look’ she handed Jay a pair of binoculars. He adjusted them to suit his vision and then took another look. The people that were boarding the shuttle were all dressed smartly in suits, with neat hair and crumpled, work-weary expressions. There were barely any children. These people were unmistakably Oklahoma City’s elite.

‘Unbelievable’ Jay huffed angrily. If Casey had still been alive, he’d never had stood for this. Jay hoped.

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‘And look over there’ the woman directed the binoculars to the far-right side of the airfield. Thousands of people were penned into behind a maze of wire fence, to keep them contained whilst the higher social classes boarded in peace.

‘This is an outrage. It was meant to be a fair system’ Jay could feel his blood boiling. Rosa placed a soothing hand on his arm but she sensed that his rage was too far gone for her to be able to contain. Jay was already wildly looking around, the thoughts in his brain whirring and whirling.

‘Get everyone into their cars’ Jay suddenly commanded.‘Jay, what are you doing?’ Rosa asked sternly. He ignored

her.‘Clear a path for my truck, the red one’ he pointed at his

vehicle a few rows back. ‘Come on, come on. Do you want a fair shot at getting on that Shuttle or what?’ he bellowed. At the sound of his voice everyone seemed to leap into action.

Jay led the way back to the truck and he and Rosa put the kids into the back.

‘Whatever you’re planning, Jay Jones, I hope you’ve thought it through’ Rosa said warningly. As she climbed into the passenger side of the truck, she caught his gaze and held it intently.

‘When have I ever let this family down?’ he asked, taking her face in his hands. ‘I love you’ he said and kissed her. ‘I love all of you. My family. And no matter what happens now, we stick together’.

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Rosa nodded, tears in her eyes. She felt a swelling of pride in her chest that only broke when she exhaled. ‘I love you, Jay Jones’.

He smiled, a wild, wacky smile, and shoved the truck into gear. The other cars had cleared a path right up to the fence. Jay floored the accelerator. The truck roared like a predatory lion and leapt forward. It smashed through the wire fence and tore a big stretch of it down.

Jay stopped the truck and jumped out quickly to address everyone still on the other side. ‘Get in your cars and follow me. What I’m about to do, they’ll come chasing after us. But their weapons are energy-based, not bullets, so they won’t penetrate your cars. Hold them off for me as long as you can. We have a duty to help those who need us, and we all have the right to live!’

The people on the other side of the fallen fence cheered, tooted their horns and revved their engines. Jay beamed gleefully and hopped back in behind the wheel.

‘I think you’re actually amazing’ Rosa smiled proudly and gave his arm a gentle squeeze. ‘Let’s do this’ she enthused.

The armada of cars, led by Jay’s red truck, made it half way across the airfield before the authorities noticed them. As predicted, they assembled in a defensive line, protecting the Shuttle, with their weapons drawn. But it was not the Shuttle that Jay was interested in. Not yet.

He swung the truck off-course and hurtled towards the hundreds of thousands of people that were trapped like caged animals. Jay knew if he did nothing for them now, then none of them stood a chance at getting on the Shuttle. He could see that

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there were easily over two thousand city workers, business men, rich socialites and sleazy politicians assembled in front of the Shuttle, slowly boarding it. It had never been the intention of those in charge to let normal civilians have the opportunity to live-on up in space.

The armed forces saw what Jay was doing and started to run in pursuit of his truck. But there was no way they would get between the people and Jay’s truck before he’d be able to help them.

Jay pulled right up to the wire fence, to the cries, screams and pleading of too many people.

‘Stand back!’ he yelled at them, but there were too many people for those at the front to move even a millimeter back. They were pressed against the fence; the wire digging into their flesh and leaving red-raw patterns across their skin. If he pulled the fence down, they would fall and be crushed by a stampede. It seemed he would not be able to help save everyone.

Jay took the truck’s tow line and looped it around the fence’s frame. Behind him, the other cars were driving haphazardly around the field, preventing the armed soldiers from getting anywhere near to Jay.

‘Brace yourselves’ he told the people at the front. ‘Hold yourself off the fence as best you can. When I flash my headlights, you’ll have three seconds before I pull it down’.

They nodded their understanding and spread Jay’s message along the front of the crowd as best they could. Jay was determined to waste no lives. If he could, he would save them all. But he was just man, capable only of pulling down a fence

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and giving them a chance. The Shuttle was probably already half full. Their odds had been slashed even further.

Jay ran back into the truck and reversed to pull the tow line tight between the truck and the fence.

‘When I pull this fence down, it’ll be a free-for-all’ Jay said to Rosa. ‘As soon as it’s down, we grab the kids, and we run like our lives depend on it’.

Rosa nodded sternly, a fierce intensity in her eyes. She reached around to pull Maisy onto her lap.

‘Right, well, you heard your father’ she told Jonah and Amy. ‘We have to run. You stay close to us, but you run. And if…’ her eyes suddenly flushed with tears. ‘If we fall behind, or you get the chance to move ahead, do it’. Rosa let a tear slide down her face.

She looked at Jay who was nodding slowly. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

Rosa nodded.Jay flashed his headlights.3…2…1…Jay sent the truck flying backwards. The force wrenched the

fence clean out of the ground and to Jay’s delight, hardly anyone fell. Instead they all charged like a hoard of angry pack animals; streaming towards the Shuttle.

Jay continued to reverse the truck, staying ahead of the surging crowd but quickly approaching the other cars and the armed forces. Bolts of blue energy whipped and fizzed past the car, ricocheting off the metal bodywork and zooming off in other directions.

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Jay glanced sideways and saw that Rosa was hunched over and scrawling something on a piece of paper. He didn’t have time to ask what, as the back of his truck collided with the front of one of the other cars. There was a loud, terrifying crunch and the truck spun out of control, skidding over the slippery grass.

‘Out, out, out!’ Jay commanded. He threw open his door and narrowly avoided being struck by a blue bolt of energy. Instead the door took the blow and deflected it back towards one of the people who were firing at them.

Jay opened the back door and wrenched Jonah out, flinging him onto the grass. He waited just a second for Rosa, Maisy and Amy to move around the car before the five of them began running together.

‘Take this’ Rosa panted, shoving a ball of paper into his hand. She kissed him heavily on the lips before running off towards the Shuttle.

Given their age and their level of fitness, Jay and Rosa managed to match the pace of Amy and Jonah with ease, even with Rosa carrying Maisy. Whether it was adrenaline powering them forward or Amy and Jonah going slightly slower in consideration of their parents, Jay didn’t know.

The angle that they were running at in order to get to the back of the Shuttle meant that in less than a minute, the crowd would catch up to them and they risked becoming ensnared in their midst. It would be dangerous and they were bound to become separated.

‘Faster!’ Jay insisted, pushing himself beyond the limits of his own body. He grabbed hold of Jonah’s hand but he needn’t

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have worried, as it was Jonah who was pulling him onwards. Rosa did her best to encourage Amy and the three of them fell slightly behind.

The crowd was closing in on them now, just seconds behind. The Shuttle was less than thirty seconds from them. They were so close, they could see the fear and panic beginning to show on the faces of those that were already boarding. They were exposed and unprotected – all the armed forces had been drawn away and distracted by the cars. The Shuttle was theirs for the taking.

Jay could feel his heart pounding all over his body. His chest felt like it might explode and his head was filled by the sound of his own pulse. His lungs were tight, his breaths growing short and wheezy.

‘MUM!’ Amy suddenly screamed out. Jay and Rosa skidded to a stop and looked behind them. Amy had fallen!

‘AMY!’ Rosa screamed. She twisted towards Jay, her eyes wide with panic. ‘I’ll get the girls, take Jonah. RUN!’

Jay knew better that to ignore Rosa if she shouted at him. He tugged Jonah’s arm and pulled him towards the shuttle. He was crying, calling for his mum and his sisters.

Jay daren’t look back. The crowd was on their heels, inches away. Rosa and the girls were now a part of the wailing, screaming mass of desperate people.

The two of them reached the ramp at the back of the Shuttle and ran up. At the last possible second Jay paused and turned around. He couldn’t see Rosa or the girls anywhere. There were too many people, all moving frantically and wildly.

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‘ROSA!’ he bellowed, his voice deep and resonating was lost in the cacophony of chaos before him. ‘ROSA!’

The crowd was on the ramp and Jay had no choice but to enter the Shuttle. Just him and Jonah.

* * *

Three minutes after they had made it onto the Shuttle, the crew had closed the ramp.

In just three minutes, the Shuttle had filled to capacity.Five minutes after that, the Shuttle had departed and Jay

and Jonah had left the Earth behind.Jay wanted to spend the duration of the flight looking for

Rosa, Amy and Maisy. But everyone that had boarded with them had been crammed into the same, vast cavernous room inside the belly of the Shuttle. All around him people were calling out the names of their loved ones, in the hopes of hearing a response. But as the flight went on, the shouting grew less and less and was instead replaced by the sound of crying.

He tried a few times to call out for Rosa, Amy and Maisy. But each time there was no response. The room was the size of two football pitches, but the acoustics were perfectly fine. It wasn’t that they couldn’t hear him. They simply weren’t there.

Jonah was a mess. Curled up in his lap, Jay hadn’t stopped running his fingers through Jonah’s short, dark hair. His sobbing had subsided and Jay suspected that he had cried himself to sleep.

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Slowly, so as not to disturb him, Jay reached into his pocket where he had stashed the piece of paper that Rosa had hurriedly handed to him before running back to help Amy and Maisy.

It was scrunched up into a little ball and Jay took his time to delicately unwrap the words she had placed onto it for him. It was written in scrawl, in pencil and barely legible. But he’d been with Rosa for over twenty years and could read her handwriting regardless.

My darling Jay,

I am so scared even though I know we have to be brave for our children. But the fact is I have never been so terrified in my life. Despite this I want you to know that no matter what happens right now - whether we live or die, together or apart, just know that it was all worth it.

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You, me, us. Our family. Truly truly wonderful. I might be scared but if I die, I will die knowing that we had the best times.

All my love, always. Rosie.

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Documents

The Prequel Chronicles: Jay & Jonah