Evolution's End

by Steven Spellman

  “Ah, the namesake of The Willoughby Building, Marcus Willoughby, everyone.” Professor Edelstein held a hand out towards Marcus.

  Marcus raised a hand and mouthed, “Thank you. Thank you” against the applause that erupted in the room.

  “This is really a pleasant surprise. We haven’t seen much of the esteemed Professor Willoughby since the deplorable attack on his building and we are overjoyed to have him here with us today.” Applause erupted and Marcus raised his hand and waved sheepishly to the many people in the room. He wanted to back out of the doorway and sprint back to his house to hide. He didn’t relish all this attention. He didn’t feel like he deserved it. But there was no running from it. The people that were crammed into the doorway behind him and the additional people outside were all clapping as loudly as the ones in the building. Marcus continued to wave and mouth “Thank you” until the applause died down. Then, Professor Edelstein’s voice exploded from the speakers that were mounted high on the walls, “Professor Willoughby, would you like to step up here and say a few words?”

  Marcus answered “No, thank you!” immediately but it was drowned out in applause. Marcus swallowed hard; he hadn’t come here to speak, just to lend moral support to Denna. Professor Edelstein raised his wooden pointer to quiet the crowd.

  “I’m sure we’ll all get to hear the esteemed professor speak when he’s teaching in his new building.” Professor Edelstein said as he began to pace the floor of the platform. Marcus frowned. Had they decided to replace the Willoughby Building already? Of course, they had; for all Professor Edelstein’s pretension, the work that had gone on inside of The Willoughby Building really was the way of the future. “ … and we will rebuild!” Professor Edelstein continued. “We will rebuild better than ever. We must! We are Science City’s only hope. We are mankind’s only hope.” A part of Marcus wished that Professor Edelstein was mistaken. That was rarely the case.

  CHAPTER 4

  The meat on the turkey sandwich was piled so high that it looked as if Marcus had ordered extra turkey. The lettuce was a bright shade of green and each lettuce leaf was nearly as thick as the slices of bread. The tomato slice was as dark as blood and as wide as the entire sandwich. The restaurants in Science City offer different variations of the turkey sandwich. They offered a sandwich with meat that had a yellowish tint and was thicker than Texas toast. They offered a sandwich with lettuce that was as thin as paper and nearly as white. The tomato slices on that sandwich looked more like hamburger patties. Marcus had ordered this particular version of the turkey sandwich because it resembled what he thought a turkey sandwich should look like. Food in the campuses could look like anything. There was no such thing as ‘all natural’ or ‘organic’ in the cursed Earth. The vegetables and fruits that existed here heavily modified. Meat was a memory of its former self; more chicken wings were produced in the campuses’ laboratories than were grown on chickens.

  It was the way of the world now. But Marcus had read many history books. He believed that his ancestors had it right on this front—hamburgers should come from cows, not petri dishes. But there were no vast grasslands where ranges of cattle could graze in the cursed Earth, just dirt zapped red with radiation. The radiation promised to persist for more years than any human being could hope to remain alive. In this new world, a hamburger came from a petri dish or it didn’t come at all. Marcus picked up the turkey sandwich and bit into it. It tasted like flavored plastic but that wasn’t unusual; it was easier to engineer food than to engineer taste. The tea that the waitress had brought with the sandwich was better. It had a distinctly bitter aftertaste but it was sweet going down and it tasted as if it contained real sugar. It wasn’t likely that it contained the kind of sugar that Marcus had read about in the history books but he enjoyed the fantasy. Marcus lifted the cup to his lips and glanced over the rim of the cup at Denna as she sat across from him.

  Denna had ordered a cobb salad. The salad was as colorful as a rainbow. The chef had even arranged the salad’s ingredients into neat lines so that it looked like a rainbow. Marcus knew that most of what was in that salad had been genetically altered to achieve just this effect. The eggs in the salad had never been laid, the avocado, the tomato, the onion, and the lettuce had never been grown. The chicken breast and bacon had never been a part of a living animal. Marcus had seen the laboratories from which most of Science City’s food supply had come. He had witnessed first-hand the reality that food was no longer grown or raised.

  “So, Professor Willoughby, what are you a professor of?” Denna asked as she mixed the rainbow lines of her salad together into a colorful mess. Marcus glanced beyond the restaurant’s double window. The sunlight that flooded into the window was hot and bright. He looked at the place where his building had stood. There was nothing there now, not rubble, not a crater, no sign that an explosion had ever taken place. There was only neatly manicured lawn with genetically modified grass that was as green as polished emeralds. Every blade of grass was identical. The lawn sparkled in the hot bright sun like it was filled with diamonds. It was a dazzling sight to behold. It stood in stark contrast to the grass the surrounded it. The grass that surrounded it had once been The Willoughby’s Building lawn and it looked identical to most of the grass that grew in Science City—coarse, brown, and flaccid, as if every blade were struggling to remain upright.

  The small restaurant where Denna and Marcus ate sat directly across from where the Willoughby Building had stood. The restaurant’s double window commanded an impressive view of the main campus now that the building was no longer there. The Town Hall building that stood in the distance dominated that view. There were other buildings within the campuses that dwarfed the Town Hall building for size—the Willoughby Building had been nearly twice as tall—but none of the other buildings shared its shape. The Town Hall building had once been an astronomical observatory. The building’s massive dome had once housed a huge telescope but now it housed a sea of folding wooden chairs, a specially fabricated stage, and speakers that hung as high upon the walls as the projection screen. That telescope had been dismantled, recycled, and smelted down into raw material decades ago; there was no time for searching the stars for answers when the ground was giving way beneath you. How ironic that out amongst those stars a consciousness that was foreign to mankind was studying the cursed Earth.

  Marcus finished chewing the dense bite of turkey sandwich that was in his mouth and turned his head to glance toward the Town Hall building. He wished that there was still a telescope there. There might not be answers out there amongst the stars, but a telescope might remind Science City that the destruction that plagued the earth had not spread to the rest of the universe. There was hope. “I teach Robotics.” Marcus answered.

  “You’re a professor of Robotics?” Denna lifted a forkful of laboratory grown salad to her glistening lips.

  “That’s what my students tell me.” It was Marcus’ attempt at professional humor. He had never gotten a laugh out of the joke before, but Denna giggled, a light angelic titter like the gentle flapping of butterfly wings.

  “Robotics, huh?” Denna bit into another forkful of salad. The lettuce crackled like crisp fresh lettuce should. Except that the lettuce that Denna chewed wasn’t fresh. It was engineered; it would’ve crackled like that if it had been sitting out in the sun for days. Marcus sighed. He thought that he would’ve preferred lettuce that spoiled like food was supposed to do. Like the food in the history books. “What does that mean?” Denna asked.

  “Robotics?”

  “Uh-huh.” Denna wrapped her lips around another forkful of salad.

  “Well … “ Marcus glanced around the restaurant. No one seemed to be paying any attention to him or Denna.

  “Is it a secret?” Denna asked. “Like, if you tell me you’d have to kill me type of thing?”

  Marcus gasped and Denna giggled. “No, nothing like that.” Marcus answered quickly, then added “But unfortunately, it would seem there are people that are
willing to kill to stop the work we’re doing here.” Denna glanced toward the place where the Willoughby Building had stood. She turned back to her salad. She didn’t reach for another forkful of it.

  She and Marcus both stared down silently at their plates. “Why are these Freedom people so mad?” she asked.

  “I think they’re scared.”

  “Scared? Of what?”

  Marcus didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted his glass of water to his mouth. The water was clear, but noticeably dense. There was probably more filtration chemical in the glass than water. Marcus took a large swallow. “Did you see the breaking news last month that we’ve finally managed to outfit a quadruple amputee with four Titedelstein prostheses?”

  Denna looked on blankly.

  “We put two Titedelstein arms and legs on a person for the first time.”

  A light flashed in Denna’s eyes. “I remember that!” The light extinguished. “Who could forget it?” She pushed egg around in her salad. “A lot of people seemed like they were excited but that woman looked …” Denna grimaced “I don’t know, she looked wrong.” She glanced up at Marcus. “I’m sorry … did you do that?”

  Marcus chuckled. “Well, not by myself I didn’t. There were a lot of people involved, not the least of which was Professor Edelstein himself.” He chuckled. “But don’t worry. It’s no offense. A lot of people don’t understand the work that we were trying to do in The Willoughby Building. People think we’re doing something unholy. They think that we’re trying to rebuild people as robots, but that’s not entirely accurate. Professor Edelstein is a little more forceful than I am about the subject, but what he says is essentially correct. Our bodies simply cannot endure the abuse for much longer. We must use Titedelstein.” He pushed his plate aside. More than half of the sandwich remained. “Either that or we cease to exist as a race.” He sighed. “I can admit that I understand the initial revulsion that people feel. I can see how witnessing a human being with nearly as much metal as they have flesh attached to their bodies can be unnerving but from a technical standpoint it’s actually quite beautiful.”

  The look on Denna’s face didn’t suggest that she agreed. A small smile creased Marcus’ lips. He had seen that look many times before. “Listen, ninety-five percent of the food supply in Science City is genetically modified. Everyone knows that.”

  “Yeah.” Denna answered “I try not to think about it too much.”

  “Imagine. Every plant, every animal, every living thing has a genome. The genome is what makes a thing what it is. It’s what makes it do what it does. If we can manipulate the genome we can turn a thing into something else. We can make it do something else. We’ve almost achieved modern day alchemy.” Marcus took another long gulp of over processed water.

  Denna didn’t look impressed. She looked as if she didn’t understand why she should be impressed. Marcus picked up the partially eaten piece of bread from the top of his sandwich. He slowly tore the slice of bread down the middle. It made no sound and pulled apart like bread that was only freshly cooled from the oven. “The grain that was used to make this bread has probably never seen a plot of soil. It has been engineered and reengineered again over the years until we could produce a slice of bread that won’t go stale for years no matter how it’s stored.” He let the torn slice drop down upon the sandwich. “As far as we know, there’s no place left on the cursed earth where the grain that we need for bread can grow. Certainly no place where our rovers can reach. Without this genetically modified bread there would be no bread in Science City.” He turned the sandwich over and picked at the meat, “There would be no edible meat …” he picked at the tomato, “There would be no vegetables that weren’t saturated with radioactive fallout …” he shoved the plate aside. “There wouldn’t be anything for us to eat.”

  Denna glanced down at the slither of lettuce and slice of egg that remained upon her plate as Marcus continued, “If we can engineer food to last longer in this new world then maybe we can engineer the same for humans. But we need Titedelstein to do that, and that’s where the problem arises. There are people that say that we should we should leave things as they are and let nature take its course, but those same people rely on this genetically modified food to survive. But even this food will not last forever. We believe that Titedelstein is the best hope for man’s survival in 50 years.”

  “It certainly sounds important.” Denna sipped from her glass of ice tea.

  “And completely boring?”

  The image of that quadruple amputee walking on metal legs and reaching with metal arms flashed in Denna’s mind. “Boring isn’t exactly the word I would use.”

  “I must warn you, I could discuss the idiosyncrasies of robotics indefinitely, but somehow I don’t think I’ll have time.” Marcus turned towards the window. Denna followed his gaze and discovered that Professor Edelstein was walking in large strides towards the restaurant.

  “I wouldn’t mind hearing all about it. It’s better than sitting around the house all day, hearing about it from the neighbors. All this,” she gestured beyond the window “is the most excitement I’ve had in a very long time. It would be nice if it were the good kind of excitement, but like I said before, I think it’s time I got out and discovered what was going on in the world I live in.”

  Marcus stood to his feet. He held out his hand. “I’ll say this, if you don’t leave soon you’ll learn a lot more about the world than you may have intended … and you may not like what you learn.”

  Denna heard the restaurant’s front door open and then a moment later, “Professor Willoughby, I can’t tell you how delighted I am to see you!” Professor Edelstein’s voice sounded as if he were shouting through a bullhorn. The gruesome images from the projection screen flashed before Denna’s mind. She suddenly felt as if Marcus were right, it was time for her to leave. She turned, intending to slip out while the two professors greeted each other, but she turned directly into Professor Edelstein’s path. He stretched a hand forward. “Hello, Mrs. … ?”

  “Morgan, and I’m very sorry, I must be going. Enjoyed your … uh, talk.” She said as she fought back images of broken unbandaged limbs, and head wounds that were so deep they exposed brain matter, and blood soaked corpses that lay amongst the living, and … She tried to step aside but Professor Edelstein held her hand firm.

  “Mrs. Morgan?” Professor Edelstein said slowly. “Are you by any chance the wife of Stanley Morgan?”

  Denna looked down at the floor. “We were married for ten years before he died.”

  “Yes, your husband’s unfortunate death was a terrible loss to us here at the campuses. Yes, a terrible loss.” Denna removed her hand from his.

  “Thank you. Thank you.” She said quickly and stepped out of the door. She waved goodbye to Marcus from the other side of the window and walked away. Soon she was an indistinguishable dot in the distance.

  “Quite the beauty isn’t she?” Professor Edelstein said as he pulled out the chair that Denna had been sitting in and sat in it.

  “Yes …” Marcus answered stared out of the window, “quite the beauty.” He turned to Professor Edelstein. “You know that woman?” Science City was a small city by old world standards but there were just as many people within it. There wasn’t room for secrets. Everyone knew everyone. But Marcus had never seen Denna before and he had certainly never seen her with Professor Edelstein.

  “Never seen her before in my life.” Professor Edelstein answered, “I knew her husband. Morgan worked with one of the rover recovery teams. His team was the first to retrieve the ore that makes Titedelstein possible.

  “Really?” Marcus eyes widened. “You never told me that.”

  “You never asked.” One of those unnerving smiles spread across Professor Edelstein’s bony face. The thought crossed Marcus’ mind that the real reason Professor Edelstein had never mentioned Morgan was because it might’ve stolen from the professor’s prestige. The professor was not one to share his glory lightly. “I
never knew he had such a lovely wife, though. Quite stunning.”

  “Yes … stunning.” Marcus waved of his hand quickly. “But I doubt that you’re here to discuss beautiful young women.”

  “Always a perceptive study, you are, Willoughby. I’m actually here to discuss your return to work.”

  Marcus sighed. He had wanted desperately to get back to work, if for no other reason than to save himself from endlessly wandering the floor space of his own home. But after spending a few hours with Denna, he thought that he might enjoy discussing work with a ‘beautiful young woman’ more than working. After all, beautiful women weren’t a common component of Marcus’ normal routine. The Willoughby Building had been a common component of Marcus’ normal routine but the building didn’t exist anymore. Marcus wondered how he was supposed to return to work. “You know, Edelstein” he said “nearly all of my research material was in that building. A lot of that material and equipment was irreplaceable.” Marcus bowed his head. “You know that I know as well as anyone that the work must go on, but without that building …”

  “You have a building, professor. It should be up and running within the next few days.”

  Marcus raised his head. The lines around his eyes were tightly creased as he looked at Professor Edelstein. “How …?” he turned to the emerald green plot of grass and held out his hands “How …?”

  Professor Edelstein folded his thin hands together and set them upon the table. “Do you remember the old bomb shelter beneath your building?”