DECEMBER TWENTY-TWO
ZACHARIAS MATTEO
PLANET EARTH
YEAR 2116
Zach stepped out through the open doors.
Bright lights met him, forced him to squint his eyes at them.
Hundreds of people. All looking at him. Filming him, taking endless amounts of pictures. There was no end to it.
He pulled at the fabric of his suit, looked up at them all.
Zach no longer wore his old smile. And Annie had stopped imitating Roger’s.
“Mr Matteo,” a man’s voice rose from the crowd. “Mr Matteo, I have a question.”
Zach winced at his father’s name, but looked at the direction the voice came from.
“Mr Matteo, what does the March civilization look like?”
Zach tensed.
Kiki touched his arm.
“I don’t know.” Zach voice had changed over the year that had passed. From the confident deep tone he was used to to nothing but shaky whispers. “Everything that would’ve told us what it looked like was destroyed. Most likely - there’s nothing. I have reasons to believe that the rocket is still in space.”
“Mr Matteo!” someone cried for his attention. “How will you get the 100 Richest back to earth?”
“I won’t,” he swallowed. “There’s no possible way to find out where they are. Or if they’re even alive.”
“Will you just leave them to die, Mr Matteo?”
“There’s nothing we can do for them.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. Could feel them sting. Kiki saw it.
“Official business over!” she yelled. “Go home!”
Someone began speaking, but she cut him off.
“I said go home!”
He walked back in. Kiki followed him.
Into the headquarter. Into the prettiest part. Into their home protected by the governments assuring safety.
