Chapter Text
Stratt leaned back in her lawn chair and closed her eyes. The golden rays of sunlight were beginning to warm the ground as the first spring in almost three decades finally melted the last of the ice and snow around her. The temperature was only slightly above freezing, but it allowed the frozen ground to thaw and breathe again. It was still too cold to be outside for a prolonged period of time but Stratt enjoyed sitting outside and watching the world come back to life.
The planet was healing, Stratt was relatively free, and Grace was somewhere in the universe with his best friend. At least she hoped Grace was out there somewhere. Stratt ran a thumb over the xenonite figurine of Grace in her hand. Whatever his fate ended up being, at least he had made the decision for himself.
A soft ping of a notification came from her phone. Stratt sighed and pulled the phone from her pocket. It was an Instagram notification.
Dr. Ryland Grace sent a video message.
Stratt furrowed her brows. She tapped the notification and a video started playing. The camera panned across a beach lined with small pebbles and the slow crashing of waves. Small rainbows appeared to be reflecting in odd angles in the sky. A rocky land structure going out into the water had unnatural streaks of color. The caption in the video read: I’d spend the last of my Astrophage to return to you.
Stratt closed the app and slid her phone back into her pocket. Strange. Why would someone hack into Grace’s Instagram account to send her an AI generated video with a caption like that? Oh well, Stratt felt the lingering cold reach her bones and decided to head back inside. She needed a nice warm cup of coffee or two.
Five days later and she was basking in the sunlight again when her phone pinged. Another video from the same account. Stratt clicked on the account’s profile and scrolled through the followers list. As a major part of the Hail Mary’s mission, Grace had been instructed to create an account for publicity’s sake and had followed other members of the team. Stratt saw her own name among his following list. When she was told about the necessity of creating an account, she had instructed someone to open one for her and follow all the necessary people. Something about marketing or whatever. She had put it out of her mind immediately. But this was Ryland Grace’s official account sending her messages.
Stratt clicked the message. Another video started playing. This one was of strange metallic flower-looking objects that lined a rocky overhang that dropped off into the sea. The same reflecting rainbow sky and strange mist hung in the air. The caption this time read: all this beauty doesn’t compare to you.
Stratt put her phone down and leaned back in her chair. Another strange video. She closed her eyes and basked in the warmth of the sun.
Two weeks passed before she received another notification from the account. The sun was steadily getting warmer, if the first green shoots of grass were an indication. Stratt sipped her coffee and reached for her phone. She clicked on the video and almost dropped her cup when Rocky scurried up to the camera and waved two limbs. Loud musical notes played as the alien swayed and clicked his fingers together. The caption read: Rocky wanted to say hi.
Stratt shoved her phone back into her pocket. There was a reasonable explanation for that, there had to be. The video logs that Grace had sent back containing evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life had been kept a secret only known to a few high-ranking people worldwide. The videos must have been leaked online. A hacker had found the logs and was creating AI generated videos to send messages to her through Grace’s account. For what purpose? Did they think she would spill some international secret to this account thinking she was communicating with Grace? How annoying to be toyed like this. She considered blocking the account and deleting the app from her phone. She never used the app anyway, it would not be a loss. She would wait a few more days, then delete the account.
Three days passed and Stratt was in a giant facility overseeing the transportation of several species of rodents to be released back into the wild. After the launch of the Hail Mary, Stratt could not sit around and wait for the results that would take decades to bear fruit. She set her mind to a new goal: preserve however much she could of life itself. Large facilities had been built on several continents and small bases in the major countries of the world. Thousands of employees oversaw the health and preservation of animals and plants native to the country to be kept safe and used to repopulate the world when the Ice Age passed.
The Ark Project had begun just before she had been arrested and her faithful employees had kept the mission a secret for as long as possible, working under the guise of conservation effort groups. Even now they pretended like the Ark Project was an independent collaboration of various organizations. Governments pretended not to know that Stratt was behind it, not wanting to acknowledge the fact that she was single-handedly preserving the food chain of the entire planet.
Stratt glanced at the rows of cages on the table in front of her. A small sample of the available mouse species of North America squealed in their cages. A male and female sat in each cage for her approval. Stratt leaned down and peered at the deer mouse in the cage. Peromyscus maniculatus read the small label attached to the cage.
“Both are in perfect genetic condition?” She glanced up at the zoologist across from her.
“Yes ma’am, both are unrelated and have no underlying genetic conditions that would pass to the offspring.”
“How many samples of this species do we have?”
“We have three hundred and fifty samples as of today.”
Stratt hummed and pushed the cage toward the man.
“They may breed.”
The man nodded and placed the cage onto a conveyor belt mechanism that would take the cage to the lab it came from.
She reached for the next cage. Peromyscus californicus.
“What is the population status of the mice used for feeding?”
“A little below what we would like, but stable. The snake population is thriving. The raptor birds in our facility is stable as well.”
Stratt sighed. “Let us hope the mice thrive in the wild.”
A passing science officer raised her thumb. “We’re getting updates from our facilities in China and France that the mice they released are resuming natural habitat behavior despite being born in a lab. It’s promising results.”
“I’m not surprised that France’s rodent population is thriving,” Stratt muttered. “What of the samples we released last month?”
“The warmer states are very favorable at the moment since they’re already growing grass and vegetation for the mice to eat. We are still waiting on the colder states to thaw a little before we release any rodents there.”
“Will the grain be enough until then?”
“We’ll find a way to make it work.”
The silos with feed for the animals were running dangerously low. Some of the smaller facilities had resorted to using the grain from silos meant for human use out of necessity. Stratt estimated that another year of the Ice Age would have been devastating for the Ark Project. They had already had to choose which animals were most necessary to preserve. It was an ambitious project and Stratt only agreed to cutting off a species when irrefutable evidence was presented that it would be better to focus conservation on a different species. A genetic sample would be collected of the discarded species and carefully sequenced into databases. A few perfect samples would be mummified or preserved in formaldehyde. Maybe one day in the future they would be able to bring the species back through genetic splicing and selective breeding.
Stratt’s phone pinged. She sighed and removed her gloves before reaching for the device in her pocket. Another message from Grace’s account. She glanced up at the people scurrying around the room.
“You all have five minutes.” She said.
When Stratt gave an order, you had no choice but to listen. They all rushed out. When she could only hear the squeaking of the mice, she pressed the message to pull up another video.
Grace’s face filled the screen. Stratt dropped her phone onto the table.
“What—“
“Hi Stratt,” the man in the video grinned and waved. “Life’s pretty good but it would be better if you were here.”
The video played on a loop a few times before Stratt swiped up and closed out of the app. She would delete it. Her finger hovered over the screen. She would delete her account now. Her finger clicked the off button on the phone. Tomorrow. She would delete it tomorrow.
She leaned back in her chair and took a few steadying breaths. Whoever the hacker was, they were good. The man really did look like Grace. He had a few extra gray hairs and his clothes looked more worn than when he had launched. Stratt wondered what command the hacker had input when generating the video. She cleared her throat and went back to analyzing the mouse samples on the table.
This time Stratt had to wait a month before another message came through. The first day after his last message bad been torturous for no discernible reason. Stratt found herself reaching for her phone and looking at the blank screen desperately waiting for a message that never came. She scoffed at her own behavior and tossed the phone onto her bed as she went about her regular routine. She would leave her phone at home today. Whoever needed to contact her could go through any one of the hundreds of people in Stratt’s Ark. She buttoned her coat and looked at the silent phone lying on her bed. She went to work and returned home late, immediately went to her phone. No new notifications. She switched the phone off and went to prepare dinner.
A week later and she still found herself reaching for her phone. She tapped her fingers against her desk and glanced at the stacks of papers that needed her signature. She sighed and reached for the first page.
Two weeks and Stratt reached for her phone less often now. She clicked on the Instagram logo and glanced at her inbox. No new messages. She closed the app. She really should delete it from her phone. Tomorrow.
By the third week she had put it all out of her mind. The hacker must have gotten bored and moved on.
At the end of the fourth week, as Stratt basked in the warmth of her yard and listened to the faint chirping of sparrows they had recently reintroduced into the wild, a message pinged again. Her phone was in her hand before she processed what she was doing. It was a text message this time, from that account.
Stratt I know you’re seeing these messages. Why aren’t you writing back?
She put the phone down. Stratt took a moment to think. This had taken up too much of her time already. Logically she knew it could not be from Grace, given their distance, the improbability of Grace’s survival and the absurdity of the entire situation. It was only a distraction from her important work. She had to focus on what mattered. Stratt deleted the application from her phone.