Escape from Amasia 02

      "Adam, wake up."
       Sophie was shaking Adam awake, with not an overly reasonable success. He wondered how long it had been going on. He assumed it probably had been for some time, judging based on the pain he was in.
       ...Or wait, no... that was just because he was already in intense pain.
      "I… where am I? What's going o…"
       She jabbed a needle into his arm.
      "Ow! What are you doi…"
      "You need to wake up. I know you've probably not slept in some time. But this will keep you awake for awhile."
      "Why am I freezing? Where am I?"
      "The power's completely out all over the city. There's no heaters, except tiny useless personal ones, so you better get used to it."
       He slowly came to remember what was going on, and after doing so promptly jumped awake. Partially through the aid of whatever was in the shot, most likely, or maybe a placebo effect of hoping it was going to kick in soon. He had a slight headache, and felt drowsy still, but under the circumstances, he was sure he would be able to go on awhile longer.
      "Where are we going?"
      "To find a shuttle-bus, if there's any left."
      "Where?"
      "At the airports, presumably."
      He wasn't really sure where the airports were, but as long as Sophie knew, there was little reason for him to feel the need to continue pressing. Wilhelmina was with them, too, wearing a thick heated coat, and a mask. Sophie was also wearing a similar outfit. She handed Adam a thicker jacket, presumably since even his regular mercenary coat was no longer going to be much help for them in what was soon going to be subzero temperatures.
       He wondered how long the heat from the heaters would residually apply to the ground. It was freezing already, and was only going to get worse as time went on, but it was still bearable enough that you most likely only had a slight imminent death feel. She handed him an air mask too, to protect from the now unfiltered Amasian night air. (He had lost the one Louis had given him, when escaping from the collapsing building.)
       He looked into the sky. The air was beginning to turn a dull green and brown, and it felt like there was almost tiny pieces of glass floating through it cutting at you. He wondered whether this was the virus, or some other as of yet unspoken effect. Perhaps something coming from the blown up power plant. He supposed what it was really mattered little by this point.
       They began the long trek to the airports. Most of the panic in the city was slowly hitting it's peak now, and almost starting to wind down. The people around you you could see had mostly long since given up trying to achieve a rational form of escape, and were now simply taking out their frustration in any way they could try to. Random buildings you would walk by were on fire, lit by people who simply wanted to go out with a bang, rather than a whimper. Half of the bodies were not clothed, as many people were going to if nothing else, at least go out in mindless ecstasy. Adam wondered whether the bodies had been violated while still alive or not. Many of them looked like they had seen violent ends. Sophie turned Wilhelmina's head, so as not to see them.
        They reached the airports, but realized long before finishing looking through them, that it was clearly worthless. There was nothing like a working plane anywhere in sight. The best there was was fires roaring on crashed ones likely taken off from panicked people trying to flee the city, who had no experience piloting one. They looked around to make absolutely sure there was none, then after the long hours of search gave up, and realized escape was no longer an option. Maybe there was a hidden government bunker somewhere, but would those really have not been raided already? And even so, would they know where to look? It was already getting cold enough that they knew they couldn't stay outside much longer. Their only hope for survival would be to find somewhere indoors that could last out the storm, and...
        ...and what? The storm was neverending.
         Adam turned to Sophie.
        "W.What about your broken ship that you have back at the apartments? Can you possibly fix that in a reasonable time?"
        "..."
        "They... someone already took it. It must have been someone who lived there."
        "...Pity."
        "..."
        "What can we do now?"
        "I don't know. What could still be a possibility?"
        "We'll need power. Not a small crappy generator, but something actually sustainable."
        "We could try one of the old power plants. If there's one place that the few remaining sane government workers still trying to turn things around would be, it would be there."
         "They might not let us in. There might be a lot of people trying to get in there. We'd have to prove we could be useful to them."
         "I know some engineering?"
         "I know some chemistry. A bit of advanced chemistry."
         "..."
         "It's worth a shot."
          Adam slipped on the frosty ground, and landed on his face. He slowly pushed himself back up.
         "Can we... can we take a break?"
         "If we stop out here in the freezing cold, we could die."
         "Just two minutes. To catch my breath."
         "..."
         "F... Fine."
          They lumbered out of the airport, and stopped at a nearby food court with outdoor seats. Adam collapsed onto one of them, wincing in pain. Sophie took another needle, and jabbed it into his leg. She explained that the adrenaline shots were also painkillers, since they were designed exactly for the situation of people who need to be able to go on for awhile longer painlessly.
           "These adrenaline shots are also painkillers, since they were designed exactly for the situation of people who need to be able to go on for awhile longer painlessly."
           "I heard you the first time."
           "That was the first time."
           "What?"
           "This is the second time."
           "Sorry. I think I was hallucinating."
            Wilhelmina turned to them, and said the first thing Adam had heard her say since he was back.
           "Someone's coming."
            They both turned to look at the low lumbering figure which ambled to where they were sitting, and slowly sat down next to them. It took out and lit a cigar; a rather curious thing to do under the circumstances, but since it was a person who knew they were no doubt about to die anyways, why not do it smoking in a snowstorm.
           "How do you do?"
            Adam cringed.
           "Not so well, actually, now that you mention it."
           "Aah. Such a pity."
            He took out a bottle he had with him, and took a sip from it.
           "You may as well give up. There are no planes worth looking for anymore. Envy over those who will live on does not help the fallen."
           "Envy? It's more like trying to survive. It's not about whether there are also other people who do or not."
           "You say that now, but I bet you're secretly glad that there's a whole world going down with you. You feel like it's less that you got the short end of the stick no doubt."
            Adam was slightly annoyed at being judged by a stranger. Though under the circumstances, he assumed the stranger was trying to let out his own tension by dragging others down the same way. Becoming part of an infinite chain of people who feel good about themselves by judging others.
            "Actually, it's a bit more depressing to have to live through an apocalyptic nightmare. I'd..."
            "I'd know... it's... not my first time. But we really have to be goi..."
            "You know, jealousy is often a two-edged tool. It often takes away people's objectivity… makes them make wild accusations against those they're jealous of. But… sometimes it actually does the opposite. Sometimes people, knowing what they will never be able to have, are forced to come to terms with what they do. Not because they want to… but because they don't want to admit that they're jealous."
            "You can find billions of poor people (and some rich, to be fair) who will tell you that money can't buy you happiness. That they think most rich people probably live in misery, when they find that their intense incomes cannot actually buy them what they truly want. The poor people don't say these things because they're true… which they are… but they seek the truth as a justification for themselves not being rich. They hate their own positions."
            "The same can be true of most positions. People crave indulgence and irresponsibility. They come to accept and 'understand' responsibility when it becomes clear to them that they don't have the audacity to get away with the other option. It's why introverts are generally smarter than extroverts. They teach themselves to love being calm and the benefits of having few friends, since that's essentially their only option. They teach themselves why intelligence is 'better' than charisma."
             Adam stood up, since he really didn't have time for this.
            "But that's just it, isn't it. This situation is different."
             The man grinned.
            "Yes, it is. You no doubt have seen a lot of people damaging property out of pure frustration on your way here. Because they were bitter at the rich people who had their own transports they simply took and left with, when they realized what was going on. Money is still useful, miserable or not."
            "Do you really not know of any ways we could escape? Anywhere there would be likely to be more ships still?
            "No. By now, pretty much anything that's known would certainly have been taken. The transports are all gone. Airports would have been raided. You can spend your time looking, since there's little else to do, but… I wouldn't be too disappointed when you fail to turn up anything."
            "Is there any hope that we can fix the old power plants?"
            "Unlikely. You'd have to construct something which could take months to do, in mere days, or possibly even hours. Even if you do, the systems which protect the city have all been damaged, so the plant itself is the only thing which would have power. The mad scramble of survivors to it would likely destroy it all over again."
            "Why were they dismantled so badly? Who could have let this happen, knowing what would have happened if the main ones failed?"
            "That's authoritarianism for you. Maybe they were simply arrogant. Maybe they were too nearsighted, and silenced anyone who complained. Maybe this was all planned from the beginning by someone who wanted to mine earth's resources, and get rid of anyone who's in the way. Who knows?
            "Well… We have to take that chance. It could be our only one."
            "Hmhm. Too bad we're not mindless animals. Those have had mass extinctions hundreds of times. They never complained. They simply bowed down, and accepted their slaughter. They have things a lot simpler than we do."
            "Heh. As a side note, I actually prefer animal to humans. They rarely disappoint you."
             He took a sip of his drink.
           "Too bad it's rare to see many animals around here nowadays"
            He took another, longer sip of his drink, then looked down into it.
           "Then again, I suppose very soon, it's going to become rare to see humans around here, either."
            He finished his drink, and threw the cup across the street. Littering hardly mattered anymore, now that the world was ending. He stood up, and ambled off, without saying goodbye.
            Adam looked across the street, where one of the people breaking windows on the building had just collapsed onto the frosty ground. Maybe they were freezing to death, maybe they were infected. They were probably still alive, but it no longer mattered. They would die exactly where they fell.
           He got up to look around for Sophie and Wilhelmina, and was surprised to find that he was still in the airport which they had been searching through earlier, even though they had just walked out of it. He slowly picked himself up off the ground, and started shaking his head.
           "Adam."
            He looked around again, and shook his head. He had a severe headache now, so he wasn't sure which direction they were calling him from. His vision was going slightly black, and hoped he wasn't going to collapse. If he did, out here, they might not be able to do much more to save him.
           "Adam, stop talking to yourself."
            He jumped up.
           "What... where are we?"
           "We're outside the airport. Stop talking to yourself, we have to go."
           "I... sorry, I hit my head... when we got separated. I don't know... don't know what happened."
            "Well, here. This will fix it. Well... not your head, but we can keep you moving, at least."
            She jabbed a needle into his leg.
            "These adrenaline shots are also painkillers, since they were designed exactly for the situation of people who need to be able to go on for awhile longer painlessly."