The Quiet at the End of the World

by Lauren James

  I can’t – won’t – think about anything but him – about pressing him up against the dashboard and touching his cheek, his lip, the curve of his eyebrow.

  He holds me tight by the hip and mouth, and keeps attempting to talk into the kiss, mumbling half-words about the helicopter and the flight, but I feel desperate and tender all over, and I don’t pull away. Eventually his words dissolve into nothing but noise, his mouth sliding over mine, soft then hard and so much more instinctual than I’d imagined it would be.

  Fireworks skitter through my stomach, and I let my fingers drift into his hair, smoothing through the short strands at the back of his head. He twists his fingers in the grey patch at my temple, bracing my face between his hands.

  He bites my lip, and my hand jerks in surprise, accidentally tugging at his hair. He gives a full body shiver, right there in my arms. I can feel my mind going deliciously blank, every memory of where we are or what’s just happened disappearing in the face of adrenalin and Shen.

  I have an urgent need to rub the dirt away from his forearms until I can see the blue veins under his skin, the ones I’ve always wanted to run my tongue along. He shivers again when my fingers graze the knuckles of his hand, touching the raw pink scrape of skin he always chews on when he’s nervous.

  “Come here,” he says in a low voice I’ve never heard before, and kisses me again. This time it’s less desperate and more intent, with all of Shen’s focus directed on just me.

  I make a keening noise I didn’t know I could make and tip against him until we slip down on to the seats. I lie half in his lap, half braced on the headrest.

  He makes a gratifying noise and touches my stomach gently, murmuring, “Wo xiang yong yuan zhe.”

  A flush runs over me. I don’t need to know what he’s saying. I can tell from the way he says it.

  After a while he speaks again, this time in English. “Helicopter,” he says, sounding drunk. “Home.”

  “OK,” I agree. However much we both want to carry on kissing, we have to go home. Now isn’t the time for this, not when Mitch gave his life to make sure we got the processors out.

  I carefully remove myself from his lap, not quite sure how I ended up there and press the controls to turn on the engines. Shen’s hand remains on my collarbone, touching it lightly with the tips of his fingers. His eyes are fixed on it like he’s trying to memorize the feel of the dip and swell.

  I clear my throat, watching a pink blush spread down his neck and ears with interest. Somehow my hand has found its way to his chest and is rubbing across the lines of muscle over his ribs.

  By the time the helicopter takes off, his fingers are tangled in my hair again, and we hold each other tight, curled together against the pain of losing Mitch, until we land in the hospital car park with a jolt.

  MyWaves05

  Today a new boy joined Darcy’s class at school, and he’s biological. We hadn’t really explained to Darcy what that means, and what she is – so when this boy asked Darcy if she was “real” like him, it resulted in some very interesting questions after school.

  Posted on 22 Mar 2039

  Blueburnedskies on 22 Mar 2039

  Replying to @MyWaves05

  Oh jeez, I remember that. When we told Hailey, she asked when she was going to turn into a human like us. Nearly broke me.

  MyWaves05 on 22 Mar 2039

  Replying to @Blueburnedskies

  Darcy was very quiet at first, but she’s been asking questions about it all night, so we can tell she’s processing it. I made sure I told her how much we love her, and that the whole reason she exists is that we wanted a baby so much we had to make her from scratch. Hopefully that will be enough to stop her getting too upset.

  Silentstar on 22 Mar 2039

  Replying to @MyWaves05 and @Blueburnedskies

  Jason had nightmares for a while when he found out. He kept waking, thinking that wires were spilling out of his mouth while he slept. I wish we’d never kept it a secret – that we’d just talked about it openly ever since he learned to speak. It’s too much of a shock to find out something like that, even if we think it’s more than a baby can understand.

  MyWaves05

  The biological boy in Darcy’s class has been getting bullied. They’re best friends, and it’s really tough seeing how quiet he’s become. He was such a character when he was younger. But clearly he’s finding it hard to be among only Babygrow classmates. Does anyone have any tips for how to deal with the bullying? Darcy keeps asking me what she should do to stop the others from going after him, but I don’t really have any suggestions.

  Posted on 20 Jan 2040

  MyWaves05

  Today I was getting my car MOTed, and was chatting to the mechanic about nothing much when I realised he was a BG! I hadn’t even noticed! I’d never been served by a BG before. I knew that some of them were eighteen now and starting to get jobs, but actually meeting that young kid working at my local garage brought it home. This is our world now. Babygrows are becoming adults. Wow.

  Posted on 19 Sep 2045

  MyWaves05

  This is complete prejudice. It should not be acceptable for news sites to publish and promote this kind of vitriol in the year 2046.

  Posted on 16 Aug 2046

  THENEWWORLDPOST.COM

  INTERSPECIES DATING: SHOULD BABYGROWS BE ALLOWED TO DATE BIOLOGICAL HUMANS?

  Our opinions editor says NO.

  Babygrows are robots. End of discussion. Would you date a bot? No. You’d be outcast from society as a pervert. The Babygrows might mimic humans, but that’s all they are – a copy.

  It’s creepy for so-called “parents” to pretend that they’re the real thing, and even more so for partners of the bots to do so. It’s like having your own personal sex doll that someone raised as a child – gross! Count me out.

  Humans should date other humans, and robots should not be programmed to experience romantic attraction at all. Nothing else is acceptable in a modern society. I’m sorry, but it’s true.

  CHAPTER 32

  We’re running inside the hospital before the helicopter’s rotors have even stopped spinning, sprinting straight to the ward where our parents are, with the rucksacks full of computer chips. Everyone is still laid out where we left them. We don’t have long before their memories are wiped for ever. We’re going to have to move fast.

  “Let’s try it on Baba first,” Shen says. “If it works, he can help us fix the others before we run out of time.”

  I nod, slightly breathless with nerves. What if I mess this up, like I did with opening the door to the vaults? What if I kill Feng? If this doesn’t work, Shen and I are really going to be alone for the rest of our lives. Somehow, the thought doesn’t feel as terrifying as it did at first. I think we could handle it. I think we could survive. It wouldn’t be good, but I would learn to live with it.

  I lay out the new processor and my toolkit. I run through the process in my mind twice before I touch anything, then double check a few things online. Finally, I explain to Shen exactly what I’m going to be doing, more to hear it out loud than so he knows what’s happening. “I think I’m ready,” I say finally. My palms are sweating, but I feel confident.

  I was rushing when I tried to get into the vaults. I was fuelled by adrenalin, and not thinking straight. This time I’m more prepared, more cautious, more determined to do this right.

  I remember every lesson Feng and Dad and Mum and Jia have ever taught me. I take a deep breath. And I pick up my screwdriver.

  It takes five hours to fix Feng. When he opens his eyes and smiles at me, I have to turn away and bite back tears of relief. “Hi,” I choke out. “How are you doing, Feng?”

  “You did it,” he gasps, as Shen hugs him, holding him tight. “How did you —?”

  “We got some spare parts,” Shen mumbles, pulling back. His face has gone pink. “Are you OK? Does it hurt?”

  “I can’t feel a thing.” He cups Shen’s cheek and leans over to squeeze my
shoulder. “You did an excellent job.”

  “We learned from you,” I say, trying not to cry. I still can’t believe that I managed it, even though he’s awake, talking to us, touching us. We fixed him.

  “What time is it?” he asks.

  I check the time. I’m completely disorientated myself. I feel like I’ve been awake for weeks. “It’s seven a.m. You had a seizure at my house, at eleven yesterday morning. Do you remember?”

  He frowns. “Not really. I remember helping Margaret at the hospital.”

  “We have to wake up Mama now,” Shen says, before we can carry on talking.

  Feng rubs his eyes, visibly gathering himself. He stands up. “All right. Let’s get everyone else fixed up, shall we?”

  Between the three of us, Jia is awake within three hours. It’s quicker now I know what I’m doing, now that I trust myself to do this right. Finally, I wake Mum while Feng and Jia fix Dad.

  And then it’s done.

  Mum pulls me into her arms as soon as she opens her eyes. “Darling,” she says, smiling so widely her cheeks might crack. “You saved us?”

  I burst into tears. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

  Dad doesn’t let me go for a long time, pulling Mum close too and holding us both tight. “What happened to you?” Dad asks after a while, brushing a thumb down my cheek as he hooks an arm over my shoulder. “Why are you covered in scratches?”

  I choke on a laugh. “So much has happened – I’m not quite sure where to start! We got the processors to fix you from the Snowdon vaults. It took … a while.”

  Jia lets out a sigh. “I knew there would be some parts in there. We’ve never managed to get inside. I was going to try again, but I ran out of time. I never expected the virus to spread so quickly.”

  “The doors to the vaults needed human DNA to unlock,” I explain.

  She lets out a long exhale. “Of course. Why did we never think of that?”

  “You mean, it wasn’t that you didn’t trust us to open the entrance for you?” Shen asks. “We thought maybe you didn’t … you know … want to ask us to help you get inside.”

  “What? No!” Jia says at the same time as Dad asks, “Why would you think that?”

  “You didn’t tell us you were robots!” Shen says indignantly.

  There’s a long silence.

  “Shall we go and get a cup of tea?” Feng asks eventually. “You look as if you need one immediately.”

  Shen and I meet each other’s eyes. Shen’s head is resting against Jia’s chest as he’s cuddled ferociously. “I think we’ve waited for the truth long enough,” he says. “Here is fine.”

  Our parents exchange a glance, then Dad gives a curt nod. “Maybe we should have told you as soon as we started getting sick. But we … we…”

  “We wanted to protect you for as long as possible,” Mum says.

  “Protect us!” I almost shout. “By lying to us?”

  Jia flinches and Shen puts his hand over mine, in a calming gesture. I draw in a deep breath.

  “We’re the only ones left, aren’t we?” Shen asks.

  Jia nods. “The history you were taught is correct. Humans really did stop being able to conceive in 2024, and the only children born after that came from frozen eggs.”

  Mum picks up the story from Jia. “Before they all died, human scientists worked for decades to solve the infertility. But eventually they realised that they wouldn’t be able to fix the problem in their lifetime. They knew that an artificial intelligence would need to fix the infertility instead.”

  “They turned to the Babygrows, didn’t they?” I ask. “I read about them online. While the biologists were busy trying to bring back babies, everyone else in the world was programming robotic children of their own. They made a whole generation of babies completely from scratch, just so they had something to love.”

  Feng nods. “We are the Babygrow generation. Jia and I had already met and married when my human parents died. When Jia was asked to join the UK fertility research team, I emigrated here with her. We were assigned to the London branch, which is where we met your parents.”

  “We were later models,” Mum says. “I was created about forty years after Feng and Jia. My parents were some of the last to die.”

  I eye her, surprised, trying to see if she’s different from Feng and Jia in any way. Her body kit was exactly the same inside, when I was changing her processor. I suppose Feng and Jia must have had upgrades as the Babygrow system improved, like Darcy did.

  “Doctor Ahmed and I worked alongside the last biological scientists until they died,” Jia says. “There used to be more Babygrows, but a lot of them decided to turn themselves off after the last humans died. They didn’t want to stay around in a world without people. We’ve been using the parts from their dismantled body kits to get by, but the parts are nearly all gone by now.”

  “You decided not to shut yourselves down?” I ask, amazed at the idea of Mum and Dad trying to contemplate what seems to me to be suicide. They must not think about it that way, but to me, that’s exactly what it sounds like.

  Jia nods. “We decided to stay awake so we could try to fix the infertility. We couldn’t stop, not until we’d found a way to give our parents the grandchildren they wanted.”

  “So where did we come from?” I ask.

  “Eventually our research reached a point where we needed to test our theoretical progress on a living human, to see if we’d managed to fix the infertility. So we spent several decades developing the technology to grow a human clone in an artificial womb, using the DNA samples we had complete genetic profiles for. There weren’t many that were complete, but we had enough samples to clone two humans.”

  “That’s – that’s us?” Shen asked.

  Feng goes silent, and Dad replies, “No, son. That was in 2204. Three hundred years ago.”

  We both gasp, horrified.

  “But then —”

  “How can —”

  Dad holds up his hands. “I know this is a shock. You’re actually the fifth generation of test subjects. We’ve been working to bring back humans for the last three hundred years, ever since the last human died. It’s actually 2509, not 2109.”

  I blink, trying to take this in. Humanity has been extinct for three hundred years, and we had no idea? I can’t even process it. No wonder all the buildings and tower blocks are collapsing around us. They’re even older than we thought they were. It’s amazing that London is still running at all. “Why have you kept this a secret? Why not just tell us?”

  “There were lots of psychological issues with the first generation, who were aware of the circumstances of their birth,” Jia says. “They couldn’t handle the knowledge that they were the only members of their species. Since then, we’ve been very careful to raise the children in an environment as human as it is possible to create. That’s why we lied about the real date – so you wouldn’t work out you were the only biological humans.”

  Shen bites at his cracked knuckle and starts pacing up and down.

  I sit on one of the hospital beds, staring at a painted mural of a meadow full of bunny rabbits. Everything they’re saying makes sense somehow. What’s more upsetting is that they still think they’re going to be able to save humans. Even after hundreds of years of research, they can’t see how pointless it is.

  Humanity’s gone. We lost. The end. Even cloning more humans doesn’t seem to be an option, if they barely had enough complete DNA profiles to make me and Shen. If the technology for cloning had been perfected while humans were still alive, then maybe the population could have been kept steady that way, but it’s too late now.

  “I don’t understand why you’re still trying, to be honest,” I say, scrubbing my hands down my face and across my eyelids. Suddenly I’m completely, utterly, overwhelmingly exhausted. I want to fall asleep, right here in the ward. “From what you’re saying – it sounds like you’ve spent three hundred years wasting your time.”

  Mum rais
es her eyebrows, looking over at Jia.

  I ignore them, and carry on. “There’s no way you’re going to resurrect humanity now. You might as well give up and enjoy your lives. You can’t spend all of eternity raising and testing endless sets of humans. I mean, we appreciate the effort and everything. But it seems kind of … hopeless.”

  Dad is hiding a smile behind his hand, but the others look horrified.

  Shen squeezes his mama’s hand. “You shouldn’t think of it as a failure. You aren’t our servants who only exist to try and bring humanity back. Your parents raised you as their children. They’d want you to be happy.”

  I breathe out through my nose. “Let us go. We’re not that great anyway. Let us be the last.”

  MyWaves05

  Darcy starts university next month! She’s studying art and design at Nottingham. We’re so proud of her – she’s following in her father’s footsteps! Any tips on the best bedding/cutlery etc. for hall rooms? It’s been a long time since I went myself!

  Posted on 16 Aug 2051

  RomanceLass on 16 Aug 2051

  Replying to @MyWaves05

  Hi – university professor here! I’ve been getting questions like this a lot now that more and more BGs are heading off into the world. Make sure she signs up for the government student loans – they’ll help support her body kit maintenance, which can get a bit of wear and tear in Freshers’ year while she spreads her wings! I’d also recommend she gets a really good diary and to-do list app, to make sure she doesn’t get overwhelmed when she’s trying to juggle social, academic and family life.

  Also, I love that she’s studying a creative field. Not many BGs do, because scientific topics come a lot more easily to them. She must have creative parents who put a lot of time into developing her artistic skills – good job!

  MyWaves05 on 16 Aug 2051

  Replying to @RomanceLass