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May. 19th, 2004 01:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsosSo, yeah. Here's yet another Day After Tomorrow fic challenge submission. Now that I've finished some fic, bedtime for me! (And if the canon's a wee bit off ... well, hell, if they'd release the TP New Series on DVD in the US, I wouldn't have that problem. Hint, hint.)
Buried in the Sand
How exactly do you call in sick for work because of the apocalypse?
He knew Megabyte wasn't saying it out loud for a reason, because if their families heard the A-word, with the sea crashing and storming above their heads and the up-to-the-minute reports from General Damon in the outside world looking more grim with every passing second, the fear currently stinking up the place would only get worse. But years of being reluctant vigilantes -- "hero" had been washed from his vocabulary after Adam's second semester of pre-law -- had given the five eldest of them a healthy gallows humor. Adam thought it might have been the same for Lisa, but not even the apocalypse had been able to drag her back to them, so the question of her fate remained regretfully unanswered, no matter how hard they'd tried to contact her.
I mean, Megabyte continued, wickedly grinning as he leaned back in his chair and cajoled another drink from the spaceship's dispenser, I work from home, so I wouldn't know --
Although home's destroyed, so there's always that, Jade piped up with a slightly wobbly smile. It was her home, too, after all, and they'd just finished getting the baby's bedroom ready with only a month and a half to spare before her due date.
-- and Ami owns her studio, so it's not exactly like she can lie to the boss --
"Well, I could, I suppose." Ami stroked her fingertips lovingly over one of her earlier canvases, one of the few she'd been able to save before the water had begun to rise in London. "But I doubt she'd believe me."
Off Ami's cue, Megabyte's next words were spoken aloud, somewhere between swigs of orange drink. "I mean, take Adam. What do you do, just call up the courthouse and say, 'Sorry, but I can't defend my client today, because Sydney Harbor just swallowed my house?'"
"Not much of a problem, considering it swallowed the courthouse while it was --"
"We should be out there."
Four pairs of eyes turned to Kevin, the youngest of them all, his baby fat long burned off in a way that made him casually handsome and at the same time highlighted the sometimes far-too-haunted look in his eyes. The empathic visions he had, while only occasional, had done a number on him over the years. While he wasn't as troubled as anyone else might have been -- after all, he'd always had the four of them to fall back on -- Kevin still carried ghosts of long-dead pain in his eyes, and sometimes just looking into his eyes made the others restrain a shudder.
"The others have it covered," Adam said, wishing he could agree with Kevin, and he did a quick mental head count of the younger Tomorow People currently assisting with the woldwide rescue efforts. There were only a few hundred -- break-outs had been slow but steady in the past decade -- but a few hundred teleporters scattered across the planet were more help than anyone could ask for. And in the middle of such all-encompassing chaos, maintaining their anonymity wasn't what they were worried about right now.
A weak smile crossed Adam's face as he shook his head. Somehow over the years, completely by accident, Adam Newman had turned into the de facto leader of an army of anonymous, peace-loving genetic offshoots. Funny, how he didn't remember saying this was what he'd wanted to be when he grew up.
"We can't just sit here and do nothing," Kevin said.
Megabyte laughed, a sharp bark that came out more anxious than derisive. "Says you. I think I like the thought of someone else taking over the world-saving for once." He cocked his head toward Jade, who gently smoothed her sweater over her swollen stomach. "And Jade's on maternity leave."
Across the room, Ami tucked her skirt around her legs as she glanced out into the larger open space in the ship where all of their families -- with the sole exception of General Damon, who was off assisting with the military rescue efforts -- chatted as casually as they could in the middle of the end-days. "Someone has to stay here with our families."
They all looked toward the ceiling at that, the spaceship not even shuddering a bit as another battle of waves and wind took place somewhere above them. The ship was holding up remarkably well, considering the fact that it was now buried under what was probably a half-mile deep of swirling, tormented ocean water. This was quite possibly the safest place on Earth that they could be, in a ship not of its making, hiding far beneath the storm tearing apart the rest of it. Somewhere in that was a sick sort of irony, but Adam was hard-pressed to go looking for it now.
"Would you rather all of them were here all alone?"
Adam blurted it out before he could stop himself, and he regretted saying it during the dreadful ensuing silence. Not because it wasn't true, because oh, God, was it ever true. It was all well and good for them to want to go out and save lives, for them to simply teleport away from the ship and go to New York or London or Sydney or whereever else they might be needed.
But it all came down to what would happen to the others -- not only to their families, but to those few hundred Tomorrow People currently racing from place to place to save as many as they could. After Jade had broken out, no one else had for another year. The five of them had age and experience over the others, and with it equal parts respect and dependence. And while the respect might be appreciated, the dependence had taken on the worrying tones of a crowd of small, adoring children.
As much as they might not want to think about what might happen to the other TPs if the five of them were to suddenly vanish, any of them going out in the storm that was tearing their world apart was not an option.
Kevin's eyes narrowed, the same way they'd all seen him look over a stubborn short story or a novel that just wouldn't work itself out. "So, what do we do now, then?" he asked, and a rumble of thunder or something kind of like it sounded above them like punctuation.
With a frown, Adam sat down on the floor with his back to the wall and closed his eyes.
"We wait," he said, and tried not to grind his teeth as he did another mental head count.
How exactly do you call in sick for work because of the apocalypse?
He knew Megabyte wasn't saying it out loud for a reason, because if their families heard the A-word, with the sea crashing and storming above their heads and the up-to-the-minute reports from General Damon in the outside world looking more grim with every passing second, the fear currently stinking up the place would only get worse. But years of being reluctant vigilantes -- "hero" had been washed from his vocabulary after Adam's second semester of pre-law -- had given the five eldest of them a healthy gallows humor. Adam thought it might have been the same for Lisa, but not even the apocalypse had been able to drag her back to them, so the question of her fate remained regretfully unanswered, no matter how hard they'd tried to contact her.
I mean, Megabyte continued, wickedly grinning as he leaned back in his chair and cajoled another drink from the spaceship's dispenser, I work from home, so I wouldn't know --
Although home's destroyed, so there's always that, Jade piped up with a slightly wobbly smile. It was her home, too, after all, and they'd just finished getting the baby's bedroom ready with only a month and a half to spare before her due date.
-- and Ami owns her studio, so it's not exactly like she can lie to the boss --
"Well, I could, I suppose." Ami stroked her fingertips lovingly over one of her earlier canvases, one of the few she'd been able to save before the water had begun to rise in London. "But I doubt she'd believe me."
Off Ami's cue, Megabyte's next words were spoken aloud, somewhere between swigs of orange drink. "I mean, take Adam. What do you do, just call up the courthouse and say, 'Sorry, but I can't defend my client today, because Sydney Harbor just swallowed my house?'"
"Not much of a problem, considering it swallowed the courthouse while it was --"
"We should be out there."
Four pairs of eyes turned to Kevin, the youngest of them all, his baby fat long burned off in a way that made him casually handsome and at the same time highlighted the sometimes far-too-haunted look in his eyes. The empathic visions he had, while only occasional, had done a number on him over the years. While he wasn't as troubled as anyone else might have been -- after all, he'd always had the four of them to fall back on -- Kevin still carried ghosts of long-dead pain in his eyes, and sometimes just looking into his eyes made the others restrain a shudder.
"The others have it covered," Adam said, wishing he could agree with Kevin, and he did a quick mental head count of the younger Tomorow People currently assisting with the woldwide rescue efforts. There were only a few hundred -- break-outs had been slow but steady in the past decade -- but a few hundred teleporters scattered across the planet were more help than anyone could ask for. And in the middle of such all-encompassing chaos, maintaining their anonymity wasn't what they were worried about right now.
A weak smile crossed Adam's face as he shook his head. Somehow over the years, completely by accident, Adam Newman had turned into the de facto leader of an army of anonymous, peace-loving genetic offshoots. Funny, how he didn't remember saying this was what he'd wanted to be when he grew up.
"We can't just sit here and do nothing," Kevin said.
Megabyte laughed, a sharp bark that came out more anxious than derisive. "Says you. I think I like the thought of someone else taking over the world-saving for once." He cocked his head toward Jade, who gently smoothed her sweater over her swollen stomach. "And Jade's on maternity leave."
Across the room, Ami tucked her skirt around her legs as she glanced out into the larger open space in the ship where all of their families -- with the sole exception of General Damon, who was off assisting with the military rescue efforts -- chatted as casually as they could in the middle of the end-days. "Someone has to stay here with our families."
They all looked toward the ceiling at that, the spaceship not even shuddering a bit as another battle of waves and wind took place somewhere above them. The ship was holding up remarkably well, considering the fact that it was now buried under what was probably a half-mile deep of swirling, tormented ocean water. This was quite possibly the safest place on Earth that they could be, in a ship not of its making, hiding far beneath the storm tearing apart the rest of it. Somewhere in that was a sick sort of irony, but Adam was hard-pressed to go looking for it now.
"Would you rather all of them were here all alone?"
Adam blurted it out before he could stop himself, and he regretted saying it during the dreadful ensuing silence. Not because it wasn't true, because oh, God, was it ever true. It was all well and good for them to want to go out and save lives, for them to simply teleport away from the ship and go to New York or London or Sydney or whereever else they might be needed.
But it all came down to what would happen to the others -- not only to their families, but to those few hundred Tomorrow People currently racing from place to place to save as many as they could. After Jade had broken out, no one else had for another year. The five of them had age and experience over the others, and with it equal parts respect and dependence. And while the respect might be appreciated, the dependence had taken on the worrying tones of a crowd of small, adoring children.
As much as they might not want to think about what might happen to the other TPs if the five of them were to suddenly vanish, any of them going out in the storm that was tearing their world apart was not an option.
Kevin's eyes narrowed, the same way they'd all seen him look over a stubborn short story or a novel that just wouldn't work itself out. "So, what do we do now, then?" he asked, and a rumble of thunder or something kind of like it sounded above them like punctuation.
With a frown, Adam sat down on the floor with his back to the wall and closed his eyes.
"We wait," he said, and tried not to grind his teeth as he did another mental head count.
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-19 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-19 04:35 am (UTC)John was a real ass. I wanted to have Steven's children.
Um. I probably shouldn't have admitted that last part.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-04 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 11:49 am (UTC)Anyway, I really like your story. I am a (BIG HUGE AVID) fan of the series, and it's always nice to see people who remember the story writing fic for it!
Great work, kudos to you :)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-20 09:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-22 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-25 08:48 am (UTC)Interesting scenario, and love the emotion in this and the glimpse of them all that bit older. I'd love to see more, it feels like it could easily be a part of something bigger *Hint hint*