- Spring 2038 Fall 2038

“Look at these papers Mira!” Kai exclaimed.

Mira did not look up from her book called Anthem. She was enthralled.

“Hmm.” She said.

“Mira, I know that book is probably interesting but look. These papers were written a long time ago. Like, right at the beginning of the winter. But this person calls it the event.”

“Oh, that does sound interesting.” Mira says carefully setting down the book to hold the page.

 “I don’t know what this word is though, can you help me figure it out?”

“Ad – uh, Admi – oh I think I got it, Administration.”

“Thanks Mira. What do you think this means, Trenholm administration? I have never heard of the word Trenholm.”

“I – I don’t know.”

“Well anyway, these papers don’t seem to have any order to them, but it seems like the person who wrote them was very interested in what happened before the winter. It says here something about artificial, uh in—int, I mean oh, artificial intelligence. I don’t know why my mom hasn’t taught us all these words yet in our lessons. Do you know what artificial intelligence is?”

“Hmm, I haven’t heard anyone talk about artificial intelligence Kai. It does sound interesting though.”

“Hey Mira, do you want to help me read through these papers and see if we can find out anything else interesting?”

“Sure.” Mira replied, grabbing a few papers from Kai.

Kai returned to the bookshelf and grabbed some more of the loose papers from behind the books. The children took their papers and laid them out along a makeshift table. They scanned the documents for any details they could find about the winter.

Kai was clearly more excited about scanning the documents, mostly because Mira’s mind continued to drift back to Anthem. Mira pressed on anyway, because this was the most excited she had seen Kai ever. Even more than the day he found out the two of them would be allowed to explore the outside world.

“I kind of think this person was very mad about the Trenholm administration.” Kai observed.

“Yes, they do always seem to say not nice things about it.” Mira agreed.

“Oh, wait, um, I think there was a second person too. Look at this, the writing looks much neater on this paper.”

“Let me see Kai. Yeah you are right. Are we like detectives now? Like Encyclopedia Brown?”

“Yeah, just like Encyclopedia Brown!”

Mira began to dig in more deeply. She did love all of the detectives from her books at home. Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, the kid detectives from A to Z mysteries, these were all people she would very much like to emulate.

“Yes, and I think some of these papers are definitely older than others. This one looks a bit more faded than the one you have Kai.”

“You are right!”

“Look what the one with neat writing says. Something about making the trip out west to look for help. But I don’t know why they were going for help. It looks like the page just ends here.” Mira states.

“Oh, maybe we should try and figure it out. Let’s sort through these papers and see if we can get them in the correct order, with the correct writer.”

“Good idea!”

Mira and Kai set to work, trying to figure out the chronological order of the papers. This was no easy task, as there were no identifiers whatsoever to the papers. It was like trying to fit together a puzzle, but without knowing what the end picture looked like.

“Well, I think this one probably came before this one.” Kai said, looking at the contents of each for any clues.

The two children sat engrossed in their chosen activity, rapidly shuffling through papers.

“Maybe this one com—” Mira started.

“KIDS, Kids, where are you?”.

The children heard the call from one of their parents, but it was muffled enough that they couldn’t tell who. It seemed like a fatherly voice though.

“We are down in another shelter!” Kai shouted up.

“Well come on home for dinner.”

“We will be up soon, I promise.”

“I think you should co—”

The phrase was cut off by a loud bang, something Kai and Mira had never heard before. They looked at each other in puzzlement, but then they heard what sounded like a muffled scream of agony.

Another bang, and another scream.

Kai and Mira dropped their papers and rushed up out of their newfound shelter, forgetting the papers they had just been so mesmerized by. Kai made it up first, with Mira closely following behind. But as he jumped up, he could see faintly in the distance his father, Joel Mercer, lying on the ground, writhing in pain. A man Kai had never seen before stood over him, holding something in his hand, pointed at his father.

Kai’s natural instincts kicked and as he began his dash towards the two men. He didn’t even hear Mira yelling at him to stop. As he drew nearer to the pair, the unfamiliar man pointed the object toward him.

“Stop there boy, or I’ll shoot you.”

“Please, he, he has never seen a gun.” Joel cries out.

“The boy ain’t ever seen a gun? Johnny grab him quick.”

Another man jumped out from behind the first and snatched the running Kai right off of his feet before he even knew what was happening.

“You telling me this here boy has no clue what a gun is?”

“That – That’s right. We didn’t have a need for a gun, they have never seen one or even read about one.” Joel says, between sighs of pain.

Kai looks down at his father, horrified. He can see Joel bleeding out of both legs.

“Put me down you big oaf!” Kai yells at his capture.

“Ha, well you have a feisty one here I see. He might make a good addition to the angels.”

“The angels? You behave like this and call yourself angels?” Joel sneers.

“You don’t know the half of it you half-wit. We are angels around these parts. If it weren’t for us half the population would starve. Ain’t you ever heard of Michael the Archangel? That’s us.”

Kai stopped struggling for a moment out of tiredness. The man holding him was clearly strong, and as hard as he tried, Kai was simply unable to escape. In this moment of calm he realized as he scanned the horizon, Mira was nowhere to be found. He thought about yelling out to her, but then he realized he better not. These were clearly bad men, and there was no reason to put her in danger.

“Now I know it don’t look good, what happened here, but you see I think we got a bit of a misunderstanding. You just happened to be out here walking around in a spot that we wasn’t expecting nobody. Well except for one guy. And you see that guy has caused us a lot of problems in the past. And you see we are the kind of people who shoot first ask questions later, you know what I mean?”

“Clearly.”

“Right. But now that I got a good look at you, you don’t seem to be from ‘round these parts. You have been eatin good. Where did you folks come from.”

“Oh, we were meandering our way from North Carolina.” Joel lied.

“But Dad –” Kai started.

“Yes North Carolina!” Joel said, speaking over Kai and shooting him a look.

Kai felt uncomfortable hearing his dad lie, something he had been taught essentially from birth you should not do. In this situation though Kai didn’t know what to do, so he figured he better follow his father’s lead.

“Let the boy speak. Is that true son, you from North Carolina?”

Kai shook his head in agreement, not saying another word.

“Well on yer travels did you happen to see a man that looks like this?”

The capture showed both of them a picture.

“No, can’t say that I have.” Joel responded. Kai also shook his head no.

“Alright, how about this woman?”

“No. We didn’t see anyone along the way.”

“Hmm. Not sure I believe ya.”

The man snatched the pack off of Kai’s back.

“Hey.”

“Hush boy.” He snarled.

The man, and another man in the gang started ruffling through Kai’s backpack. As Johnny kept a tight grip on Kai, and Joel lay on the ground, clearly not wanting to move his legs too much.

“Something real fishy about this ain’t there?” The leader said.

“Yup, real fishy boss.”

The leader looked up, first at Joel, then at Kai.

“I don’t appreciate being lied to.” He said, raising the gun toward Joel.

“Wha – What do you mean?”

“You think we are just a bunch of idiots out here? We have survived 10 years in this and you think we was born yesterday? That pack doesn’t have an ounce of food in it, but you both look better fed than the rest of us. You don’t have a pack either. You expect us to believe you came from North Carolina with just the boy’s backpack and nothing of use in it?”

“Look now.”

“No you look. If you are working with these two spit it out now. Where are they.”

“No I really don’t know who those two people are.”

“Boys, scan the area will you?” The leader said.

A group of about 20 men broke off and scattered around the area.

The leader took his gun and moved over next to Johnny and Kai, and pointed the gun to Kai’s head.

“Tell me where they are!”

“Look man, I don’t know who they are OK.”
“Stop lying!”

“I am not lying, I swear.”

“Then where the hell is your stuff. Where is the food and the other supplies?”

The leader started to pull the trigger.

“No PLEASE stop, I will tell you!” Joel cried out, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Out with it man!”

“OK. We didn’t come from North Carolina. We have a shelter over there about a mile or so. We have been in it the whole time. We just came up from it for the first time today.” Joel said through tears.

“Any more of ya?”

“Yes, there is another couple a—” Joel said, catching himself realizing that Mira was no where to be found.

“You heard him boys. Go rustle us up some food!”