Two months prior/Day of impact

Jin and Freya stumbled from the craft. The air was thick with dust. He put his arm over his nose and mouth so the sleeve of his uniform would act like a mask, and tried to see where they were. Everything was too much a blur around them to get a clear view.

In the distance he could hear screaming.

"We have to help them," Freya said, right into his ear.

He nodded.

As they moved toward the sound another craft came through the portal above, going way too fast. It didn't slow down as it flew, in the opposite direction from them, and crumpled into the ground with a roar of crunching metal. Even from this far the noise was enough to leave his ears ringing. The world became heat. Nobody could survive that crash.

Jin swivelled around to look for Freya. She'd turned back to their craft and was helping one of the officers out. Good. She should do that.

He tried to shout to her but she couldn't hear him. He couldn't hear himself. Everything was still blaring white noise.

Freya pulled and the officer finally stumbled out of the craft, onto the ground. Jin tapped her on the shoulder. He tried to remember the sign language they'd spent hours making up in their bunks at night, but all he could remember was the fish shapes he'd made, reflected in the light of that lava lamp. Instead he pointed in the direction he'd heard the screaming from, then himself, followed by a thumbs up. She pointed at herself and the ground, then nodded.

She really was the coolest girl he'd ever met.

He ran toward where the sound had been and everything was even more of a mess. Jin couldn't guess how many people had landed. Some had obviously landed under their own power, but some of the vessels were shattered messes, only saved from catching fire by their de-oxygenation barriers. One of them filled up with black smoke that pushed at the edges of its barrier, threatening to burst out at any time.

A skinny guy with too much hair and a guy in the uniform of one of those stupid multi-country pseudo-militaries were trying to open the back doors of one downed vessel. Jin assessed the situation. Through the windows he couldn't see as much as he'd like – the lights were definitely down – but he couldn't see smoke or anything sparking. Great, decision made. He shoved in front of the skinny guy and ripped open the back doors of the vessel. One of the doors came off in his hands. He hated when that happened.

Sound started to filter back in. There was a lot of shouting and a loud beeping noise, like an alarm. Maybe they'd landed in some kind of military facility. Why everyone was there, he didn't know. He couldn't take time to figure out what had caused the problem until he'd put out some of the immediate fires. At least, that's what the Major was always yelling at him.

"Ten minutes until emergency barrier. Please exit your crafts in an orderly manner."

Who was making that announcement?

People started to stream past him as he pushed into the vessel. Some ugly girl cried and pulled at the belt locking her in her seat. He tore it off and moved on.

He looked through the window from the inside to see the chaos outside. A small vehicle he assumed was from one of the larger military craft drove across the space, so at least someone had taken charge of the evacuation of the area.

The craft he was in rocked under his feet and he grabbed at the wall. The cargo-hold must have opened. Luggage discharged itself everywhere onto the bitumen.

He turned around to check the rest of the craft. There was an unconscious girl with unnaturally blonde hair slumped in her seat. Probably a head injury. He carefully unhooked her, and she slumped forward against him.

"Five minutes until emergency barrier."

Where was that coming from? He wanted to find whoever was making these announcements and smash their stupid face in.

The skinny guy kept trying to get into the back of the craft but the angle was wrong. The craft rocked again and the girl's head slumped even further against Jin's shoulder. He picked her up and handed her to the skinny guy.

"If you need something to do, protect this," Jin said.

"What?"

"Thirty seconds," announced from above.

People scattered in different directions.

Jin jumped out of the craft and ran toward a building, turning only for the last few seconds of the announcement. A barrier went up, almost clear and shimmering. No, two. The area was neatly bisected into two areas, the barriers sitting over them like dome-shaped lids. He could see Freya waving from far away. He was stuck in one area and she in the other.

It was fine. The barriers would disappear once the disaster was over and they'd be reunited.

Some idiot tried to run at the barrier and his body lit up with electricity, and fell. Idiot.

At least the fire was dying out in the space between the two barriers. Jin couldn't feel the heat or see the flames in the distance.

Now what was he supposed to do? There was nobody left to rescue. At least, nobody left he could rescue. Only one small craft was on his side of the barrier and it seemed to be empty of people and strangely intact. A bunch of people rushed past him to what looked like some kind of small, crappy hospital building, but it wasn't like he could help with that.

He strolled around and waited for a sign.

*

People started whining about not being able to contact the outside world on the first morning after the impact. Well, obviously. They were behind some kind of electronic barrier. You could never get communications through those. He only felt bored waiting for it to come down. He strolled along the edge, waiting to see if Freya was as bored as he was.

He saw her in the afternoon. She walked as close to the edge of her own barrier as was possible and waved. He waved back. She smiled a small smile and then mimed being zapped by the barrier. He nodded and threw his hands up. Barriers, what could you do? They played a really bad game of charades at a distance until the light started to go down.

He pointed at the buildings beside him. She nodded and pointed to the world behind her. Then they waved again, and he blew her a kiss before they parted. None of the higher ups were there to see them. They could do what they wanted.

He strolled around the area to figure out where they were. There was a shed with a kitchen. There were a bunch of ugly buildings with bedding – dormitories, small shacks, and a random one-bed hut. An abandoned attempt at a company town? A mining camp site that never came to be? A rustic holiday site in the off season? He had no clue.

Outside the hospital doors, the pseudo-military guy yelled at the skinny guy, all, "We have to get out of here, Tsuyoshi!"

Yeah, good luck with that. They were getting out when everyone else did.

Jin turned around to find a bed to rest in, in one of the dormitories, so he wouldn't go out of his brain with boredom.

*

On the second day he started to wonder why the barriers weren't going down. The fire was out, right? It had to be safe to leave. And even if that area wasn't safe, cover that with a barrier, and let everyone leave in another direction. He strolled the perimeter of the barrier and it formed a tight circle, clamping down on the settlement starting to form underneath it.

He clenched his fist and kept moving, backing away from the electronic edges of the world he was locked in.

Skinny guy stood outside the hospital again, looking angry about something. Already Jin didn't like him.

He got close enough to let the guy see him coming and said, "Tsuyoshi, right?"

"You know, you could help," the probably Tsuyoshi skinny guy said.

"I don't want to," Jin said.

That annoying guy swore and stomped back into the hospital building.

Jin was too annoyed to look for Freya through the barrier, so he went back to find where he'd left his pack and ate some of his disgusting rations.

*

On the third day, he realised they weren't getting out.

He rolled out of the bed he'd claimed early in the morning and walked to the shed with the kitchen facilities and long tables. He looked around in the dark. Nobody seemed to be around at that time of the day and his world was quiet. There were weird metallic mannequins behind a serving bench – not the semi-realistic kind, the kind that looked like stick figures with long, oval-shaped heads. There was a complicated behind-the-counter set-up he didn't pretend to have enough culinary knowledge to understand. Lots of ugly grey stools along the tables.

Someone had created this to be used. But nobody was there but crash escapees.

He turned in a corner to look around himself, and breathed in the silence, the solitude. Everything was grey and dull. He knew he should leave to explore more.

The lights in the shed flicked on with a loud hum. The metal mannequins started to move.

He ran.

*

He knew it was time to look for someone else to talk about the situation with. As far as he was aware, none of his people were behind his barrier. He was stuck with having to make friends with people from inferior civilisations. Yuck.

He needed someone who looked like they could take charge in a difficult situation. Found some guy in the full dress uniform of one of those boring European countries he knew nothing about and that looked like he was over thirty and, eh, close enough, right?

"Hey! You've noticed this place is alive, right?" Jin said.

The man turned to look at him with an obviously fake smile. Tall, short dark hair, ashy-toned under his tan. "Hmm, it does seem to be. And I believe all your compatriots are in the other encampment."

"Yes. More important: the mannequins in the kitchen are robots and that barrier is never going down, so we're all going to die here."

"That's not a very positive attitude."

"Why are people always saying things like that? Do you know what I think is a positive idea? Someone taking charge of figuring out what we need to make sure we don't all starve to death while we're vacuum sealed in here. Some community organising. Organising people to figure out what we have so we can know what we'll have to do without. Someone has to be in charge of that." He waited until military guy nodded before adding, "But not me. I don't want to be the one doing those things."

"Sensible. What's your name, young man?"

"Jin."

"You can call me Colonel Huppert."

"If I have to." Jin crossed his arms tight in front of himself, wanting to scowl and look away, but nodded to seal the deal.