Amanda Simpson: The Storm

The Storm

Amanda Simpson

Talia awoke again to an empty bed.

She sleepily stumbled into the main room of the apartment she shared with her husband of 12 years, Michael. She found him hunched over a laptop, engineering schematics strewn all over the table.

‘Still at it?’ she asked, a note of irritation in her voice.

‘Gotta get this done before the storm.’ he mumbled.

She glanced at their kitchenette and saw the dishes piled up and repressed a sigh. Talia knew she would have to take care of them later.

Already she was tired.

‘Last minute adjustments?’ she asked.

He grunted softly, not raising his head.

‘Are you going into work today?’ he asked her.

‘No, but I want to go outside to the Cove,’ Talia replied, moving towards the large, curved window of their apartment, staring out at the rolling waves. They were higher than normal. Her eyes narrowed.

‘I want to look at the weather instruments to double check the readings … some of the numbers are … concerning.’ she said, turning to Michael.

He nodded, peering over his schematics. He looked up briefly.

‘You thought that last year too. Weren’t they normal in the end?’

‘They’ve been off for the past three years’ she thought bitterly.

‘There were some … abnormalities.’ she replied magnanimously.

Michael nodded. Talia stared at the back of his head, waiting for more, her heart sinking.

‘Do you want me to go to the shops after work?’ she stammered, desperate for a wisp of conversation.

‘No. I can do it.’ Michael replied, brusquely.

‘Ok.’ Talia felt awkward talking to him.

It was like they were just passing in the street.

‘I better get ready then. I’ll talk to you later?’

‘Sure.’

She padded to the bathroom, and silently cried in the shower.

Later, Talia stepped into the turbo lift that delivered her to the ground floor of her apartment complex. The ground level of the biodome where Talia lived was filled with cafes,

clothing, and grocery stores. Today, there was a buzz among the morning crowds as people made last minute arrangements for the storm that was coming in tomorrow. People excitedly compared their plans for the six-week sheltering while grabbing last-minute provisions. Talia’s job for the past decade had been tracking the storms that hit the City, and along with her department, had been able to pinpoint the exact timing of storm season. A grateful City government acted on their warnings: only the bare minimum movement within individual City domes and none outside.

The data Talia and her team produced saved millions of lives across the six biodomes, and with gratitude, Talia and her colleagues were treated with reverence by the City. They were rewarded with the best apartments with ocean views, high up-away from storm surgeson the top floors in the biodomes. Reduced rent, extended electricity ration, and beef … delicious beef. Talia and Michael always got an extra portion during the storm, and Michael made a warming, slow-cooked stew. It had become something of a sheltering ritual.

As Talia moved towards the City exit (after bidding her husband goodbye with an awkward peck, the chaste kiss further tightening the anxious knot in her stomach) she reflected on how she normally looked forward to sheltering.

But not today. Today, there was a heavy dread.

Something dark was approaching.

Something terrifying was approaching.

Outside, it was humid, but not oppressively hot, so Talia decided to walk to the Cove, rather than take the auto taxi. As she walked, she saw ground crews preparing to send curated trees that lined the small streets to the underground, readying for the cyclone. A gust of wind blew, whipping up Talia’s brown curly hair. She held her thick mane as she walked.

The winds would only get stronger in the next hours.

She arrived at the top of the Cove, looking out to the sea. Blue green waves were already breaking against the shore, confirming what she suspected.

They were rising early. And if that were the case, it would mean the storm would arrive early, when people were not fully prepared.

She rifled through her bag that carried her weather drone and found a pair of binoculars and trained her gaze on the horizon for a better look at the slow-moving storm in the far distance. Squinting, she could see the mammoth dark grey wall of the cyclone.

And … something else.

Talia adjusted the focus on the binoculars.

There were … Talia couldn’t almost bring herself to think it … shadows in the cyclone.

Humanoid shapes, with glowing green eyes.

Talia took a sharp intake of breath.

She looked again.

Black humanoid shapes, with glowing green eyes, jumping from the wall of the storm into the cresting waves.

‘This is insane.’ Talia thought.

Her phone buzzed in her gear bag, distracting her from the disturbing images.

‘Dr Britland.’ she answered.

‘Professor, it’s Maya.’ it was one of her PHD students, ‘the team ran your numbers, and there are … crazy readings!’ Talia looked at the distant storm, ‘we really need you to come in for a meeting and double check them.’ She could hear the concern in Maya’s voice. ‘I’ll be in shortly.’ Talia replied, packing up her gear, and grabbed an auto Taxi to the University dome.

‘There you are!’ a young Barista with long dark hair shouted excitedly from a coffee cart, that was on the University ground floor near the entrance as Talia entered through the large glass doors; she was beaming at Talia and holding a cup out for her, ‘I’ve got a long black with cold milk for you. It’s cow’s milk!’

Cows were an endangered species. They were grown in one of the other domes and the milk was considered one of the rarest foodstuffs in the City, and it was ridiculously hard to get.

She approached the counter, and gingerly took the cup, aware of the jealous glares from other customers.

‘Thank you, Sharm,’ Talia said warmly.

‘I knew you’d like it,’ Sharm grinned.

They had always traded a little flirty banter, a bit of fun.

Talia took a sip of the smooth, milky coffee, and felt a rush of relaxation. But then a flash of the figures in the storm appeared in her mind, and fear washed through her.

‘You … you don’t like it?’ Sharm asked tentatively.

‘No, it’s wonderful. I just have …’

How she wanted to blurt out her fears to Sharm. But Talia just shrugged and rolled her eyes.

‘The storm … y’know …’ she mumbled, wavering her hand to indicate the shelter-inplace commotion that everyone grumbled about every year.

Sharm nodded and laughed lightly.

Talia’s heart skipped a beat.

‘I-I have to go to a meeting now,’ she stammered, ‘but this coffee is amazing. Have a great sheltering, uh, see you at the celebrations after!’ Talia quickly made to leave, her awkwardness flushing her cheeks.

‘I can’t wait!’ Sharm replied, waving at Talia’s hurriedly retreating figure.

Talia's meteorology department was on the top floor of the campus. The windows of Talia’s office faced towards the desert, away from the coast. It had once been a forest, but due to a series of ferocious bushfires over 150 years ago--combined with the harvesting of the burnt landscape in its wake-it was now a brown, brackish desert. The biome in the centre of the University ground scraper part of the City was dedicated to flora and fauna from that time.

She placed her bag and coffee onto the table, and sat at her desk, and swivelled her chair towards the open window, feeling the cooling breeze coming from the storm wafting in. She checked her watch; she was running late. She was sure that some on the staff wouldn’t be happy with that, given how little she was in the office. Still, she remained in her chair.

How was she going to tell people what she saw?

Talia rubbed her eyes.

Her assistant, William, knocked on her open door.

‘Ready for the meeting?’ he asked curtly. She sighed.

Talia was almost positive that William was undermining her at every turn, but she just couldn’t prove it. His tone made her hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

‘I’ll be there in a minute.’ she replied, dismissively.

Damn it, she was going to make William wait.

Her mind turned back to the figures she saw this morning and wondered the best approach to share what she had experienced: Talia was a scientist, she had to report the facts as she saw them. But what she saw defied any scientific consensus.

If she announced this to her team, and she was wrong, they were going to crucify her. Her and Michael would lose all their privileges. No more spacious apartments, red wine stew or pure cow’s milk lattes served by pretty young Baristas.

But the worst thing would be that she would no longer be able to do her research. Over a decade of work - gone. She would be bereft.

Talia resolved herself. She had to lie.

There was too much at stake.

She was not going to be the laughing stock to the small group of people waiting impatiently outside her door.

She had worked hard: staying back long hours, ripping apart her marriage, her health, all the while they laughed and went out for drinks at fancy bars; using the privileges that her arduous work had won for them.

If what she had seen earlier today was true, she would handle it herself.

Talia stood up defiantly and left her office for the meeting.