The Extinction Trials(39)

“Why would they do that?” Owen asked.

“The pages missing,” Alister said, “could have been gone before the person started writing in the book.”

Maya thought that an odd response.

“Keep going,” Cara said. “Maybe it explains.”

With that, Maya continued reading aloud as the boat motored across the sea, the breeze tugging at her hair, the sun high in the sky.





I’m not sure what day it is anymore. I stopped counting a while back. What I can tell you is what happened since my last entry: we were rescued. Or so they would have us believe.

We awoke to figures in suits surrounding us. They offered us pre-packaged food, and we ate it greedily.

With our bellies full, we were quite receptive to their next offer: to go back to their camp.

And quite a camp it is. They call it The Colony. It’s rumored to be the last city in the world. They have everything here: farms, schools, and importantly, defenses against everything we encountered out there.

The Colony has a single goal: to reunite the human race. I have to say, it’s the most meaningful work I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve signed on to be one of the scouts. The job is simple: I go out and I find people. It’s the same job the people who saved me were doing.

My first assignment is on a boat crew. The Colony has been surveying the islands nearby, and some have yielded good results (and some trouble). I won’t be chronicling my travels (for obvious reasons), but I do want to leave one last piece of information: the location of The Colony. If you’re reading this and you need help, you can go there. There are good people there, waiting for you, ready to help.





“That’s it,” Maya said. “It ends with a set of coordinates.”

“Do they match the Escape Hatch coordinates?” Owen asked.

“No. It’s a different location.”





Chapter Thirty-Two





Owen paced the deck, thinking, trying to wrap his head around the information from the journal. Frankly, it raised more questions than it had answered. That was nothing new.

One thought in the back of his mind loomed over all others: his mother. Was she still out there? She likely couldn’t have survived that collapsing world. If The Extinction Trials had enrolled her and she had awoken in the world after, Owen didn’t think she could have survived there either. Her best chance of survival was if she was at The Colony. But how much time had passed? She could have lived and died generations ago, if the journal was any indication of how long it had been since The Change.

The reality was, there wasn’t much he could do about it now. Worrying wouldn’t help.

Alister rose from the white leather couch. “Well, I’ll just say what we’re all thinking: let’s change course and go to this Colony.”

“That’s not what I was thinking,” Maya said, staring at the journal.

Alister shrugged. “Why not? They’re what we’re looking for—a way to survive.” He held his arms out. “They even want to rebuild the human race—just like our beloved ARC Technologies and The Extinction Trials. And there’s the obvious: when those poor saps in the journal went to their station’s Escape Hatch, they got mugged. Food stolen. Killed. Shot with an arrow, for crying out loud. That is likely exactly what is waiting for us at our Escape Hatch location.”

“We don’t know that,” Will said.

“What we know,” Alister said, “is that we have two locations. The Escape Hatch, which we know nothing about. And The Colony, which is a paradise. Oh, and PS, the only Escape Hatch we have any data about was a trap. A deadly trap. And, for all we know, their Escape Hatch location was the same location as our Escape Hatch.” Alister eyed the group. “Is this not flashing any warning signs for any of you? Hello? Maybe The Extinction Trials intervention you all got left you people without good sense.”

“And perhaps,” Will said quietly, “it’s made you believe everything you read.”

Alister reeled back. “What does that mean?”

Will cocked his head to the side. “That we should consider the most obvious thing of all: that the journal could be fake. That it is itself a trap.”

Cara turned her head to gaze out at the ocean. “No. I think it’s true. Or at least, some of it. The voice. The way the person wrote it. It was too authentic. I don’t think it’s made up.”

“I meant the coordinates,” Will said. “Consider this: if you are a pirate in this ruined world, you have two options for raiding and looting. You can hunt. Or you can set traps. Hunting is inefficient. If the journal is to be believed, someone set a trap at that cohort’s Escape Hatch. They waited for people to show up and they robbed them. The coordinates could simply be the same thing. You set a trap, but you need people to show up. So, you leave these… sort of… messages in a bottle, send them out into the world and wait for people to find them—desperate people like us who come looking for salvation. For all we know, pirates found the ship and placed the journal there.”

Maya set the journal on the table. “Will has a point. A very good one. There’s also the fact that we don’t know when this was written. The Colony could be gone, for all we know. Or under new management that isn’t friendly to guests.”