"Walk right up to that X and keep your feet planted the whole time. No pacing around," said a tall woman in a red blazer. She was clearly tuned into her earpiece but seemed an expert at having two conversations at once, three if you count the babbling girl near her knee.
I strolled quickly onto the stage and to my spot. I was horribly conscious of my gait and posture, probably looking fine to the crowd, but I still felt a fool. The bright lights were blinding, not unlike The Flash 15 years ago. But this time, they stayed on and were hot. I guess people really needed to see the proof, because the crowd was silent, and I mean silent.
"Hello to all of you in the building tonight, and to those tuning in from around the world. My name is Indy Memoxia. I started my career as an intern in a NASA propulsion lab in Alabama. I can remember literally peeing my pants when I got into the program." Nobody laughed, not even a quick exhale to acknowledge the line.
"Like many of you, I grew up with big dreams. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered the same as everybody else: An astronaut! After the internship I was offered a full-time job in Washington D.C to work as a lab assistant. Our team worked on the development of International Space Station resupply ships. After seven years, I was leading a team of my own. I got that promotion just one day after The Flash, before the world realized what it had caused. I was living my dream, maybe the same way that many of you were living yours. Or, if you didn't realize it at the time, you certainly realized it after The Flash, when there would be no going back. I am sure we all have stories about how we survived those first few years. Me, I had access to NASA's government grade bunkers in D.C." I paused, and finally, there was something besides deafening silence from the crowd. I could hear the shifting of seats, and I could hear thousands of stories in that restlessness.
"When the bombs dropped two years later, 15 months after the last baby was born, I rode out the war a mile underground. I was glad to have a purpose. Our team worked day and night to supply the 12 stranded astronauts on the I.S.S. I am sure the infertility caused many of you to stop looking at the skies. Afterall, why explore the universe if there would be no humans left to carry on after we are gone. We all know that's what our world leaders thought, having temper tantrums in front of big red buttons, operating under the assumption that there would be no history books to chastise their actions.
"We all have different explanations for what caused The Flash, some look to the Church, and others to solar activity, but none of us thought that it was contained to the boundaries of our planet. Surely, the Space Station, hovering 261 miles above us, was affected in the same way that we were.
"Before we lost communication with the 12 on board the I.S.S, they gave accounts of the flash that sounded just like ours. These folks deserved to live out their lives. My team could not bear the thought of them starving to death. This went on for 15 years. A dozen resupply ships each year launched from my tiny team of 14, locked away in a D.C Bunker. Every time, these ships went up full of food and came back empty. No food, but no people either. Why weren't they coming home, and why not leave a message to us?
"After the wars stopped, and humanity began to accept that the end was near, we continued to work. It was a distraction. While the global prevailing attitude was complete hopelessness, my team hung onto our tiny project. Eventually, we decided it was time to try and get some face-to-face time with the 12 stranded astronauts. We just could not figure out why they were not coming back down to Earth. Without the constant bombings, we went out to search for others willing to help.
"Without procreation, most people's instinct was to decrease the value of those living now. But I thought the opposite, that those alive now deserve to live out the last conscious existence of a race that left its tiny mark on the universe, and I wasn't the only one. To make physical contact with the 12 on board the I.S.S., we needed help. Building a manned spaceship large enough to transport all 12 from the I.S.S and back to Earth was going to require more than our small team of 14." I pressed the button on the clicker, and the screen above me showed a picture of those behind the construction of the Sperans. They were huddled into the makeshift mission control, gazing into the screen in front of them, which showed hundreds of angles of the ship, with at least half of the screens showing my terrified face seen clearly through the transparent glass of my astronaut helmet.
"Our coalition spanning 21 countries built the Sperans, and I would be the sole astronaut on board. The fear I felt during the mission was beyond anything I had ever experienced. The ride 261 miles straight up went smoothly, technically speaking, but the rattle of the scrapped together ship convinced me it was the last thing I would ever hear.
"I heard the clamp, and the hiss of the pressure seal on the I.S.S, and went in. I floated through the corridors and saw remnants of activity. It was a mess. I won't go into the details, but microgravity changes decomposition, and there was plenty of it on board. It took nearly 10 minutes to find the subject of my speech today. There were no other survivors."
I turned, knelt, looked next to the woman in the red blazer, and made eye contact with the star of the show, who was sitting in her tiny wheelchair by the woman's knee. I smiled wide and waved the little lady on stage. The crowd erupted, and I could have sworn surged forward, like a mosh pit from the days before. The girl worked hard to move her tiny wheelchair towards me. The Zero-G had made her bones weak, but she wore a surprisingly human expression of awe. It took minutes to get the crowd to quiet down.
I let the silence linger after the crowd exerted itself and said, "I introduce you all to the youngest person on the planet. We are still teaching her how to speak, but one day she will be able to tell us what really happened up there."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pulsing blue orb and a small dog collar. The orb emitted intense light, but no heat, and was a 100-faced polyhedron. An impossibility, the scientists have said, but so is the little girl sitting next to me. I held both out for the crowd to see. "I did however recover these two items from the sole survivor on the I.S.S."
I held up the blue orb. "We are still trying to figure out how it functions, but I want to believe it could save our species." I placed the orb back in my pocket and pulled out the dog collar. The camera zoomed in on the tiny leather strap with the dog tag dangling from it.
"This little girl next to me was wearing this when I found her." Attached to the collar was a small white heart with the words: 'My Name Is' and scribbled in marker on the line underneath was the word HOPE.