Tabula Rasa

This carefully orchestrated routine had been occurring every day for the last 3591 nights. The pilots inside their spartan cabins made a note of altitude and flipped to a new day. They would pass by the plane again in exactly 24 hours. Two planes, carefully controlled to exactly circumnavigate the globe every 24 hours. It had been years since the crews had touched the ground. They no longer knew what silence sounded like. True silence, without the roar of the planes engines reverberating through their being. In the weeks following The Incident, when it became clear the situation was only getting worse, the decision was made to launch these two planes. One heading East. One heading West. Each contained a crew of 20 able-bodied members of the Air Force, 10 male and 10 female, and rations to last 10 years. Solar powered, the planes were able to fly night and day without stopping. It was proposed that the planes should cross paths each midnight as a failsafe in case ground communications were lost. They would at least be able to visually confirm the fate of the other plane. Ground communications had been lost for 841 nights. For years they had watched as the world below them changed. In the weeks and months after they took off they saw the virus spread quickly, from Europe across to Asia, eventually making it's way to America. They could tell when it hit a city, the chaos following a predictable pattern. Lines of cars attempting to flee, plumes of smoke rising as the infected overran, flashes of explosions seen at night as the army attempted to take back control. In the beginning they were just one of many planes in the sky, now they were the only ones, forever looping the globe. They watched tankers and cargo ships drift aimlessly on the currents of the oceans. Each night there were fewer lights as the power stations began to shut down with no-one to operate them. They were nearing the end of their 10 years and rations were getting low. The hastily assembled plan had not been clear on what to do if the situation was not resolved after the 10 years. There were vague ideas suggested that the crews could repopulate Earth, hence the makeup of the crew, but everyone at the time had considered this an unlikely scenario. It was currently unclear who else might be left outside these aluminium tubes. They had made plans of course. They would land at the airbase they took off from, rendezvous with other survivors. None of them really thought there would be other survivors. Whispered conversations talked of crashing the plane into the Atlantic. They hurtled towards their passing point for the 3592nd time. At their speeds they had 34 seconds to communicate with the other plane. At 23:59:43 the radio crackled. "Provisions low. Touch down tomorrow. Godspeed. Over and out."