Apocalypse Machine

Apocalypse Machine Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: Apocalypse Machine Read Online Free PDF
Author: Jeremy Robinson
Tags: Science-Fiction
go on expeditions like this one, but I haven’t flown a plane since. Nor have I had any real desire to. I put on a good smile for the camera, but I hated every second of it, knowing that one wrong move could send us plummeting to our doom.
    Phillip scoffs. “ You? ”
    “Unless you have wings or a teleporter,” I say. Part of me screams at myself to shut-up, to withdraw my claim and tell Kiljan to keep driving. But I know where that path ends. We all do. Even Phillip, who crosses his arms, but swallows his complaints.
    Kiljan tosses the phone into my lap and puts both hands on the wheel. My head slams into the headrest, when he shoves his injured foot down on the gas pedal. The superjeep roars even faster, fueled by hope. Possibly false hope.
    I turn my eyes down, zoning out as I imagine a thousand different scenarios involving the plane and our deaths. A jarring bump rattles my thoughts, and I suddenly see the Sat phone resting on my lap. I lift it up and turn to Kiljan, “Do you mind?”
    He looks at me like I just passed gas with a volume and stench only attainable by a hippopotamus on a fiber-rich diet. I take that as a ‘yes,’ and dial home. There are several clicks as the signal shoots into space, bounces across a network of satellites and then zips down into the landlines leading to New York. Five shrill rings are followed by the sweet, still high-pitched voice of an eight year old boy. “Hello?”
    “Ike, buddy, is that you?”
    “Dad?”
    “It’s me.” There are too many things I want to say to him. About his birth. His life. My failings as a father. About his mother. And about the future. But there isn’t time for all that, so I just say, “I love you, Ike.”
    The boy laughs. I can picture him rolling his eyes. In public, he’s not affectionate. At home he’s all hugs. But even then, getting him to say those words every parent wants to hear, it’s like the rarest gift. So when he says them now, “Love you, Dad,” I start to cry.
    Working my damnedest to not become a blubbering fool, I say, “Can I talk to mom?”
    I hear a muffled, “Mommy!” on the other end, followed by, “Dad is on the phone!” Then his voice is clear and loud again. “She’s coming.”
    There’s a ruffle of movement and Mina’s voice threatens to make me weep again. She’s normally reserved and quiet, but not now. “Where are you? Tell me you’re not there.”
    The eruption must have made news already. Most of the world might not know about it yet, but Mina keeps track of where I am and what’s going on around me when I’m away.
    “We’re about to get on a plane,” I say, feeling guilty for glossing over the truth. I look in the side view mirror. The wall of smoke rolling closer calls me a liar. I keep my eyes on the view as I talk, watching the billowing formations, laced with lightning and lit by the sun. Seen through a television, it would be beautiful. “I was just calling to...” Shit. To what? Say goodbye? Just in case? There goes my ‘getting on a plane’ story. “...to tell you both that I love you.”
    “There is no plane, is there?”
    “There is,” I say. “I promise there is.”
    “But you’re not there yet.”
    “We’re on our way.” An aberration at the bottom of the churning cloud catches my attention. A line of undulating white separating the gray earth from the gray smoke streaks toward us, outpacing the cloud.
    “Can you give me to Sabella?” I ask. When she pauses, I add, “Hurry.”
    “Love you, too,” she says, and I hear knocking. The house is a duplex. On one side is my wife of twelve years. On the other is my, for lack of a better word, mistress of eight years. It’s a long, complicated story around two impossible pregnancies and what has become a polyamorous relationship. We’re not polygamists, or part of a religious cult. Far from it. But when a series of unintended circumstances resulted in both women carrying my children at the same time, I couldn’t abandon
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