Free Revelations by Paul Anthony Jones Page B

decks, their excited chatter elevating Emily’s own sense of excitement at finally discovering firsthand what had happened to the world.
    “Stay here,” Emily told Rhiannon and Thor, then slipped outside and followed the sailors.
    A metal ladder ran up through the hollow center of the sub’s conning tower from the main deck of the submarine. At the bottom of the ladder Emily and the rest of the crew gathered in the corridor, milling nervously as Captain Constantine and MacAlister climbed the metal rungs to the observation deck at the top.
    A few minutes passed and then Emily heard the sound of MacAlister’s standard issues against the metal rungs of the ladder as he descended.
    “What’s it look like, Sergeant?” asked a crewman, as MacAlister stepped off the ladder, eager for information. Emily could not read Mac’s face; it was blank, impassive.
    MacAlister ignored the sailor and spoke directly to Emily. “Come on up,” he said, offering his hand to her. “The rest of you stay here.”
    “Jesus, Sarge—”
    “No more lip out of you. You’ll get your turn,” MacAlister snapped. “Wait here until either the skipper or I call you up top.”
    The sailor looked displeased but fell silent under Mac’s stony stare.
    Emily caught the briny scent of the Pacific Ocean wafting down to her as she pulled herself rung-over-rung up the ladder then up onto the flat observation deck at the top of the conning tower. A lthough her view was still blocked by the security wall that spanned the circumference of the tower she could still hear the whoosh of waves breaking over the deck of the sub below, gently rocking the vessel as it pitched and rolled with each swell.
    They had surfaced a half mile offshore of Point Loma, California.
    “It’s a safe enough distance for us to make a quick exit if we need to,” Captain Constantine had told Emily minutes before the sub’s ballast tanks had been blown and the sub began its ascent to the surface. “And far enough away that we won’t appear to be a threat if there’s still anyone alive in the base. Don’t want to be sunk before we even get a chance to see what’s going on, now do we?”
    Emily’s eyes squinted painfully in the bright California sunshine. She couldn’t see a damn thing after spending so long in the artificial light of the submarine. She allowed her eyes a few moments to acclimate, filtering the light through the flat of her hands while she listened to the crashing of the waves and absorbed the warmth of the sun.
    “My God!” she exclaimed when her vision finally cleared enough that she could see past the scintillating crest of the breaking waves.
    She was staring out over a bluff, a clutch of buildings squeezed together, too distant to make out any real detail, but she could see radio masts and satellite dishes jutting out from some of the buildings’ roofs. To the right of the buildings, the land slipped gradually down to a harbor. Another submarine was moored to a quayside; it was canted away from her, its conning tower pointed inland and its curved underbelly exposed. A long jagged crack, about thirty feet in length, zigzagged along the exposed hull. She could see waves hitting the side and flowing into the interior.
    Everywhere was silent, deserted. Not even a gull riding the warm thermals rising over the land disturbed this still-life portrait of a place deserted, abandoned. Emily took it all in within the first few seconds, but beyond the waves, past the rock-strewn beach and buildings with abandoned vehicles still visible in the parking lot, lay another world: an alien world.
    A red world.
    “Here,” said MacAlister, “take these.” He handed her a large pair of binoculars. Through their powerful lenses the distant shore seemed just feet away, and with it came the realization of how profound a change had been wrought across the world.
    Where once there had been palm trees, neatly trimmed stretches of grass, roads, oak and California ash, now