The Vessel

9. Ambulate

With Sunn as his guide, Desanto walked along Deck Four, its soft-white halls designed to soothe patients and believers alike. And yet, to the opposite effect, there were artifacts hanging on the walls and propped up behind glass cases, objects detailing the long, often cruel histories of both psychology and faith. Pseudophones were on display next to leather-bound Bibles, Torahs and Qur'ans. Head calipers near ancient illustrations of Mayan sacrifice. Phrenology charts above a turquoise mask representing the sun god Tonatiuh. Impulse counters. Rosary beads. Olfactometers. Clerical collars. Pendulums. Canopic jars. Prehistoric skulls with unhealed trepanation showing evidence of crude lobotomies. Illusion boards. Circumstraints. Leech jars. Stigmata.

Desanto shivered beneath his gray uniform. The two fields made for unnerving bedfellows, to say the least.

Doctor Dubicki had cleared him on a temporary status, instructing him to follow Sunn to his living quarters and get settled in. Desanto was supposed to resume his life as best he could, whatever the hell that meant, so he'd asked Sunn to take the long way, a request which Sunn obliged. They bypassed the elevator for a set of stairs a few minutes away, and along the way Sunn told him the depressing story of what had become of Earth. It was an expanded version of what Doctor Dubicki had explained to him minutes earlier, a tragedy which Sunn illustrated in detail using holograms that hovered on the air, archival footage projected onto walls.

"By the start of the twenty-third century," Sunn said, "Earth was in critical condition. Unrestricted manufacturing processes and burning of fossil fuels had poisoned the oceans, as well as the air." They walked past a floating model of a dying Earth, its atmosphere gray and wilted. The oceans were populated by massive islands of garbage and plastic.

They turned left, a second hologram of Earth already waiting for them. "As Earth's temperature rose, so did the oceans. Through a combination of polar icecap melting, carbon emissions and ice-sheet collapses, increasing floods ravaged coastal communities." The second Earth's coastlines were unrecognizable now, the water creeping steadily inland. Sunn explained that, despite the efforts of the planet's best scientists, massive amounts of bacteria grew in the newly warm oceans. The global bloom had disastrous effects on marine ecosystems, killing sea animals and fish with their toxins, and depleting the oxygen. In short, the bacteria choked the fish and starved the animals. Entire species went extinct within months.

Then, he said, came the virus. They walked down a set of wide stairs as holograms dissolved behind them. "Titanaviridae. The Titan Virus, also referred to as Oceanus pestis, originated in the ocean and quickly spread through the human population, decimating millions of lives within several years." On the stairs, Sunn projected photographs and footage of people riddled with the disease. Skin lesions. Hair loss. Bloodshot eyes. Women. Men. Children. The virus knew no age limit, cared nothing for race or religion. "Between the pandemic and the shrinking food supply, Earth grew increasingly uninhabitable." At the bottom of the stairs, Sunn turned to Desanto and added, "Mankind began to falter."

Deck Five of the Ark held one of two main living areas, which on first impression had a jarringly different feel than Deck Four. It had an extra-wide passage some thirty feet across, closer to a shared front lawn than an apartment hallway, where people gathered to engage in pleasantries. There were plants in front of each door, as well as scatterings of chairs and toys that had been left behind by kids and adults alike. Mothers and fathers chatted as they watered their flowers and collected their children from the returning school group. A sweet-looking woman smiled at Desanto and said, "Welcome back, Erick," as they passed. The man with her gave a friendly nod.

"How many people are on board," Erick asked, amazed to find so many more people than what he'd already seen.

"Currently there are ten thousand, one hundred and two passengers aboard Ark One," Sunn replied matter-of-factly.