The Awakening Read online

  Chapter One

  It was another dream, another in the endless succession of dreams, of nightmare fantasy and reality, of happiness and pleasure—another of the dreams. He had long since become aware of them, viewing them from the peculiar position of observer yet at once participant. He had even learned to control them. When a scene in the dream would be violent, when he was against insurmountable odds, he would stop the dream, go back several scenes and provide an additional weapon for himself, extra explosives, some added means of escape. He tried that when he came upon an electrified fence—like the one that had sur­rounded the Womb—and for some reason despite his precautions, the electrified fence was sending a charge through his body. The funny thing of it was that the charge was not killing him—but did one ever die in dreams, he wondered? In fact, the charge was almost pleasant. He felt the tingling sensation in his body—as if it were somehow animating him rather than destroying him. He considered this, in the surreal way in which dreamers can consider anything—why was it pleasant?

  Enough of this dream.

  He opened his eyes.

  John Rourke opened his eyes.

  He could breathe.

  He closed his eyes—but he realized at one level of consciousness that it was not a dream now. He was at last awake.

  John Rourke realized he was alive.

  To sit up was impossible yet—he felt only the tickle of the electrical charge, the sensation of light touching his eyes, his eyes unused for five centuries. The sensation of the rising and falling of his chest.

  There was no danger of falling asleep.

  But with his eyes dosed, he felt his body awakening, never more aware of his body in so physical a way—it was like orgasm, only with the entire body as its focal point.

  Alive…

  Rourke sat up, the lid of the cryogenic chamber rising in rhythm with his body. He turned his head—he had been practicing that. The monitoring lights still glowed on the five other cryogenic chambers, still sealed. They too were alive—Sarah, Michael, Annie, Paul—and his eyes rested on Natalia. He closed his eyes. She was beautiful even in her sleep as the swirling clouds of the bluish gas drifted across her face. But he missed the surreal blue of her eyes. John Rourke looked to his right.

  His Rolex Submariner—he picked it up and as he did the sweep second hand started to move again. He would have to ascertain the correct time, the correct date. Slowly—not moving well yet—he placed the watch on his wrist and closed the flip-lock clasp in place to secure it there. Beside the watch—the twin stainless Detonics .45s.

  He remembered now.

  There had been the fight with the last Soviet helicopter. He had killed Rozhdestvenskiy and Rozhdestvenskiy’s submachine gun—it was an Uzi, Rourke recalled for some strange reason—had fired into the chopper. The chopper had exploded and Rourke had dived for the escape tunnel. He remembered a wound to his left forearm, a rock chip. He had cleaned the wound, dressed it while he had gone about the rest of his business in preparing the Retreat. The world had been dying outside.

  He had removed the bandage just before entering his chamber, just before injecting himself with the cryogenic serum.

  The hypodermic needle—it lay on the floor beside the chamber now as he looked down. And he looked at his arm. The wound was healed and there was no scar. His pistols. Rourke had cleaned them, leaving them unloaded. He picked up one of the pistols— the lubrication was still in evidence. He was naked from the waist up, and bootless and sockless.

  Slowly, he began to move his legs…

  Rourke’s feet were over the side now, the pair of rubber thongs beside the chamber, the thongs that he had worn while cleaning the guns, securing the Retreat. He remembered that. He placed his feet in them and tried to stand—slowly.

  He could stand, but he leaned against the cryogenic chamber for support. He started to walk, the twin Detonics’ Combat Masters in the hip pockets of his beltless Levi’s— his pants felt a little large on him at the waist. Weight loss, he supposed, the body burning energy however minutely for higher brain func­tions and the like.

  There was a mirror in the bathroom—he started toward it, not having to urinate yet, but knowing that he should try to get his body working again. Water. He was suddenly cot ton-mouthed, thirsty. He continued toward the bathroom, up the three low steps, the steps hard going, hard to balance on, but he reached the bathroom.

  Rourke activated the electrical pump for the water system, hearing it come on, turning on the cold water—air sputtered through the pipe, mak­ing loud noises, then a trickle of water from the tap, a murky yellow color, more air, a bubble of gas, then water, clean looking.

  He let it run for a time, looking up to see himself in the mirror. His hair was a little longer than he remembered it. He could cut it himself. He had taught himself to do that. He had a beard that looked the equivalent of two weeks or so of growth—he’d grown beards before, sometimes involuntarily in the field. His eyes were clear. Wrinkles that had been at their corners were now gone.

  The scar on the base of his left ear lobe where a bullet had nicked him—the scar was gone.

  He had suspected the cryogenic process might serve to restore and rejuvenate the body, from the data he had seen. He felt, somehow, younger. Rourke sat down on the toilet, the lid down, to rest while the water ran… He had drunk watei after first testing it for purity—it was as pure as it had been. The underground stream had not failed him. He had cooked a meal of cream of wheat and lightly toasted whole wheat bread. He had one cup of black coffee—he had barely made it to the bathroom in time, but the results had been normal, healthy.

  In the area beyond the confines of the living section of the Retreat he had constructed a ballistic test chamber. With boxes of ammunition selected at random and the twin Detonics pistols—he wore a shirt now and a belt, the belt notched in tight against his newer thinness—he went to this section of the Retreat. The primary generators hummed, working perfectly. He would detail-inspect them later.

  But defense—it might be important.

  Four boxes of Federal 185-grain JHP .45s. He selected one round from each box, having first more closely inspected his guns, removing excess lubrication. He fired the four rounds into the test chamber, the chronograph reading showing the proper muzzle velocity, the functioning of guns and ammunition combined as perfect as ever.

  He loaded the magazines for both pistols, reinserting them, working the slides, lowering the hammers over the live rounds, He loaded the half-dozen magazines from the black leather Milt Sparks Six Pack, the Six Pack already on his belt. Rourke inserted the Detonics pistols into the double Alessi shoulder rig, settling the holsters on his body—the familiarity of the weight. He returned to the main portion of the Retreat— his little A. G. Russell Sting IA black chrome—he positioned this inside his trouser band behind his left hip bone. And the bone was easier to find with the loss of weight. Socks and boots. There would be time for a shower later. He found boot socks, pulled them on, then a pair of combat boots. He pulled these on, lacing them up.

  His bomber jacket—before putting himself to sleep he had saddle soaped it. He pulled it on now, his gloves in the side pocket—they were still soft, supple. He pulled on the gloves.

  Not a cigar—not yet.

  His dark-lensed aviator-style sunglasses—he placed these in the inside pocket of his coat.

  He had no idea if it was day or night outside. He had been awake for nearly five hours.

  He checked the charge for the battery units for one of the Geiger counters.

  Adequate.

  John Rourke started for the escape tunnel.

  It had a double hermetic seal.

  It was the only way to know…

  His muscles were unused to working�
��and he was tired as he climbed the rungs of the tunnel from the interior door, a rechargeable flashlight in his jacket, the light swaying as he moved.

  The barred hermetically sealed door. He opened this—cold. The air seemed somehow thinner to him. But he could breathe it. He had tested the Geiger counter against the luminous face of the Rolex. But it read nothing now. He checked it against the watch face again—the radiation detector worked. But there was no high level of background radiation. Rourke climbed through the tunnel, securing the hermetically sealed door behind him. He kept climbing upward, toward the final door. Did a viable world lay above it?

  He worked away the bar. The rubber gasket still had its integrity but the rubber was a little dry—he made a mental note to lubricate it. He used the Geiger counter again with the door only open a small crack so he could close it quickly.

  No alarming level of background radiation.

  He opened the door, turning his face away, putting on the glasses. There was no way to test for ozone content. Skin cancer was a risk he would endure—but the signs of excessive incoming solar radiation would show up quickly. He moved through the last door into the blinding sunlight. Squinting against it, despite the dark-lensed glasses, he climbed out, exhausted from the climb, muscle weary, his breathing labored—the air was rarer than it had been but that was to be expected.

  The digital readout on the cryogenic chamber had shown 481 years to have passed. v He stood up—around him was desert, at the base of the mountain and beyond. Binoculars—he took the Bushnells from their case at his side. Shivering again against the cold, he estimated the ambient temperature in the fifties and it was midday.

  He focused the Bushnell eight-by-thirtys—in the far distance, there was green, patches of it, like sparse grass.

  John Rourke dropped to his knees—half from exhaustion and half from a more compelling necessity.

  He made the sign of the cross.

  Chapter Two

  Still using the escape tunnel and keeping the main entrance sealed, Rourke sortied into the world often throughout the next several days, testing the atmosphere against his own skin. After six days, he determined that although prolonged exposure to the sun would have its effects because of the thinness of the atmosphere, a sufficient amount of the ozone layer had survived and/or been restored so that with some care it would not be lethal to be out of doors. He determined this as best he could—only long-term time would truly tell, perhaps fatally.

  But life in itself was a gamble.

  Judging from the exact readout on the chamber in terms of years and decimal values thereof—and from readings on the position of the sun and some of the more regular constellations in the brilliant night sky (there was less distortion now because of the thinner atmosphere)—he calculated the date of his awakening as September twelfth, and the year as well.

  He was also able to set his watch precisely, as well as the electric clocks throughout the Retreat.

  Time was now a definitive commodity, measur­ing, rather than merely elapsed time, an orderly progression.

  One by one, he had checked the systems within the Retreat—a minor repair here, an alteration there.

  He experimented with the food. It had survived, the meal irradiated to kill bacteria before storage proving now exceedingly worthwhile. He was on solid foods, his appetite coming back to him, his bodily functions normal.

  A complete physical—as complete as a physi­cian can give himself. His heart rate was better than it had been since his early twenties. So was his pulse. His hearing was better, too.

  Smoking no longer a habit, he consumed three cigars a day or less. He calculated that, at that rate, he had enough for three years, perhaps a little longer. He had prepared. Tobacco could be grown.

  He had begun a program of rigoroYis physical activity, large muscle group function tostrengthen the heart and to tone the body and develop lung power. At midday on the sixth day he used a soil test kit to determine the viability of the land near the Retreat, for the first time using the main entrance. The soil was richer than it had ever been, despite the sandy appearance. It was bleached by the stronger sun. He was tanning rapidly and by the fifth day had begun to wear one of his broad-brimmed Stetsons against the sun. Beneath the topsoil, the ground was still dark and rich. Some nutrients were in bizarre combina­tions—but it would grow food.

  He had tested all of his weapons and ammuni­tion—all was in order.

  Gradually, he was recharging the battery for the Harley Low Rider.

  But he was alone.

  Chapter Three

  On the seventh day, September eighteenth, he did not rest. He was not God and so there was no special reason, for dramatic meaning or otherwise, to do so.

  His plan was one he had considered carefully, one in which he had no choice but to place his confidence. For the survival of them all, it was necessity. / He stood—one of his cigars, the first of the day, was clamped tightly in the left side of his mouth between his teeth, unlit. Rourke stared at the cryogenic chambers.

  His hair was cut. He could feel his muscle power returning more rapidly than he had anticipated. He was clean shaven and had a full stomach. Alive in all but the fullest sense of the word. He activated the controls of the cryogenic chambers, to awaken his son and his daughter.

  He sat down on the sofa which had been pushed aside to make room for the cryogenic chambers when they had first been brought to the Retreat, watching the slow awakening process begin—the gas began to swirl in different patterns, to slowly dissipate.

  He watched…

  John Rourke was fascinated—the process took hours. He felt overly clinical, but he made notes as he watched, smiling too as expression returned to the face of his young daughter, to the face of his young son. Annie’s hair had grown—perhaps two inches. Michael’s hair had grown as well—he could give Michael a haircut. The longer length hair looked pleasing on Annie. Rourke watched them turn their heads, evi­dently passing through the state where dreams and returning consciousness co-mingled, as he had—it fascinated him how long this process seemed to endure. And he wondered what children’s dreams were. His dreams in childhood had long since faded in his memory.

  Rourke watched. He noted things in the legal pad before him. He remembered things in his heart—he won­dered how it would be to watch his wife Sarah, Natalia, Paul. How would it be for them? To awaken.

  Annie began to sit up. Michael—always the harder of the two children to awaken—still moved, but in a supine position, tossing, turning. The lid of Annie’s chamber began to rise, coordinated with the rising of her seven-year-old body. That she had been born 488 years ago did not escape him—the irony of it.

  The cryogenic chamber’s lid was fully open.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” Rourke whispered—for the first time since his awakening having someone with whom to speak.

  “Da—“

  Her mouth wasn’t working properly yet and he ift laughed, standing up, walking over to stand beside the chamber, reaching out his right hand to hold her hands. “We’re all alive. We made it. You’ve been sleeping for four hundred and eighty-one years.”

  “How—how—“

  “How long is that? It’s a very long time, longer than any other human being has ever slept and then awakened. The people on the Eden Project— they’ve been sleeping a little longer, but they’re still asleep. They should be for another twenty-one years. Do you understand me?”

  Annie yawned, like only a little girl yawns, her body scrunching up, her mouth open, her arms outstretching.

  And she smiled—he had remembered how beautiful her smile was, at least he had thought he had. But seeing it now was even more than he had remembered. He noticed too that the small chicken pox scar that had been on her eyelid, and the mark on her hand from the removal of a wart— both scars were gone now. She hugged her arms—awkwardly—around his neck. He lifted her from the chamber, kissing her cheek.

  In the cryogenic chamber to the right, Rou
rke’s left, Michael was beginning to move with greater determination it seemed—and he was starting to rise, the lid of the chamber rising, the slightly sweet smell of the cryogenic gas again as it dissipated.

  Michael sat fully erect. f

  “Hi, son.”

  Michael looked at him oddly. And then it looked like Michael was starting to laugh.

  Chapter Four

  Oddly, the children had seemed tirecl after only a few hours of wakefulness—but a rapid yet com­plete examination had revealed no unexpected physical conditions, no illness. They were simply children—something which Rourke had con­sciously reminded himself to remember—and been exhausted by the excitement. After eight hours of sleep, a surprisingly large breakfast and endless questions about the cryo­genic process, Rourke stood with them before the open outer door of the Retreat. It was their first sight of the New World. “It looks like a desert,” Annie observed. “But it’s kinda pretty, isn’t it, Daddy?”

  “Yes—kind of pretty,” Rourke answered, smok­ing his first cigar of the day.

  “Kind of.”

  “Is everything dead out there?” Michael asked suddenly, his shoulders hunched in the too large blue denim jacket Rourke had loaned him. Rourke didn’t answer for a moment.

  Annie repeated Michael’s question. “Is it all dead out there?” “I thought that it would be—and in a way it is. But I was awake for a week before I awakened you, Annie, or you, Michael. And I did a lot of thinking.” He started through the outer doorway —the rocks were still in place as they should be, the rocks which he used as the counterbalances for opening the door of the Retreat. He perched on a rock near them, Annie squirming up onto his lap, Michael leaningon his shoulderat his left. Rourke carried his Detonics pistols only. “There might have been other nations which foresaw what could happen and prepared, maybe other groups. There wefe a lot of Survivalists in the days before the Night of The War. If an elaborate enough Retreat could have been built, one that was self-sustaining —well, maybe we aren’t alone.” And he smiled, hugging Annie tighter on his lap, holding Michael close, too. “But we’re alone here—as far as the eye can see, even with binoculars.” He pointed toward the top of the mountain. “From way up there, I can see vegetation—plants, you know. But no signs of fish in the streams, animal life—or people. No campf ires, no smokestacks, no vehicles —like the land around us was wiped clean like a chalkboard and no one has written on it yet. And that’s what I want to talk to you both about.” The air temperature was chill, but Rourke felt a warmth in him he rarely felt as he held his children. “The Eden Project—“ “The spaceships,” Annie supplied.