The Last Man on Earth Club
Paul R. Hardy
Six people are gathered for a therapy group deep in the countryside. Six people who share a unique and terrible trauma: each one is the last survivor of an apocalypse.
Each of them was rescued from a parallel universe where humanity was wiped out. They’ve survived nuclear war, machine uprisings, mass suicide, the reanimated dead, and more. They’ve been given sanctuary on the homeworld of the Interversal Union and placed with Dr. Asha Singh, a therapist who works with survivors of doomed worlds.
To help them, she’ll have to figure out what they’ve been through, what they’ve suffered, and the secrets they’re hiding. She can’t cure them of being the last man or woman on Earth. But she can help them learn to live with the horrors they survived.
‘This one won’t leave you with the warm and fuzzies, but it will leave you thinking, and for me that’s the mark of great science fiction.’
— Sift Book Reviews
170,000 words
THE LAST MAN ON EARTH CLUB
Therapy for Apocalypse Survivors
By Paul R. Hardy
PART ONE — GROUP THERAPY
1. Group
The forest along the valley had been safe for thousands of years. No deadly animals hid among the leaves to poison and devour the unwary. Floods never swept away soil and trees. Fire never consumed the branches. Volcanic ash never choked the landscape to make a desert of barren cinders. The sun never blighted the land with ultraviolet radiation that could kill everything down to the last microbe.
Nor had the forest ever been stripped of leaves and branches by rain so acidic it could mark steel. It had not known the blast, the light, the heat, or the radiation from a nuclear fireball. Survivors of a terrible war had never fled through the trees, pursued by robotic hunters. Gene-mutated horrors had never oozed across the leaf litter, digesting all the biomass they could absorb. Invaders from a distant universe had never swept down from the skies, darting tentacles among the branches to drag the last remaining people to slavery on another world.
Convincing my patients of this was sometimes difficult. Many had lived through similar horrors before they were evacuated to the safety and security of Hub. Even though they knew they were on another world, it still took time for them to accept that they’d escaped their apocalypse; but the peaceful setting eventually proved beneficial to even the most traumatised survivors.
I was based at one of the smaller therapy centres on Hub, designed as a secluded retreat for groups of up to fifty refugees from dying worlds. There were no roads through the forest and no public transport; the only way in was by air. As you flew up the valley, you saw the ground level out for a few hundred metres, and before it climbed again, you came upon the meadow by the banks where the river parted the forest, giving us the clearing where we’d built the centre.
The main building was deliberately designed not to look too advanced, so as to provide a point of comfort for refugees from worlds not used to the soaring architecture of Hub Metro. The façade looked exactly like weathered stone, though there was not a single quarry on the planet. Something that resembled the grain of polished wood framed the doorways and windows, though we never used timber for construction. It even had rivulets of ivy flowing up the wall — ivy that wasn’t even remotely real, and could be adjusted from the master controls for the building. A few smaller structures stood nearby, providing shelter for vehicles and a workspace for the groundskeeper. Further up the valley, a microwave collector gathered power from satellites while a retransmitter kept us in touch with the dataflow coming from the planet’s capital, fifty kilometres away.
The last patients had left a month before, to be replaced now by a special group of only six people. Each of them had suffered in a way that was unique, even for those I work with, so we had reserved the entire building and shuttered anything we did not need. We only required two therapists — myself and my assistant — but even so, the rest of the staff outnumbered the patients by eight to one. We had a full infirmary staffed with four nurses and a physical therapist; two doctors permanently on call; kitchen and housekeeping staff who mainly served the others who lived and worked there; a few administrators who kept the place running; and a security team big enough to guard a group three times the size. In such an isolated location, we had little fear of attack from outside. The main danger was the patients themselves.
After they’d had a night to settle in, we brought them together in the central lounge, which also functioned as a small kitchen and dining room they would be able to use later on. Each took their place in a circle of chairs, along with myself and my assistant. My first task would be to introduce them to each other, an important first step towards bringing them together as a group.
Olivia objected before I could open my mouth.
“I don’t see why I should be here,” she said. “It’s only more talking. What good’s that going to do?” She was older than the rest, with a deep-lined face, hard-worn calloused hands and sun-beaten skin. She’d left her hair ragged and unwashed, and I knew from her file that she was still cutting it herself. There was a finger missing on her left hand, and scars on her arms that looked like bite marks. Her clothes were copies of the styles she’d worn on her own world, practical and hard-wearing: coarse woollen shirts and slacks, along with boots that could cope with rough terrain. The only thing that looked like it came from Hub were her glasses, which she needed both for astigmatism and translation.
“Well, Olivia,” I said, “your previous therapists say you’ve often pointed out how different your experiences are. I don’t think you’ll find that’s a problem with this group. Everyone here is just like you.”
“Huh,” she snorted, and looked suspiciously at the other five, whose own attitudes ranges from nervousness to reticence, as is normal in a first group session.
I turned to them. “Each one of you is the last survivor of your species. Each one of you is from a different universe where something terrible happened, and each one of you is the only survivor of that event. It’s been very difficult to help people like you because there are so few who share your experience. But we’ve found more of you in the last couple of years than we usually do, so we’ve been able to set up this group. I hope you’ll find it helpful to be among others who’ve shared your unique loss.
“My name is Doctor Asha Singh. I’m the group leader, and your therapist for individual sessions. This is Veofol, my assistant.” I indicated him, sitting next to me and smiling a greeting, wearing the ordinary clothes of a Hub resident: a neutral, sober mix of styles influenced by the fashions of a hundred worlds. “He’ll be available to talk to if I’m not around, and one of us will be on call twenty four hours a day.”
“Hello,” said Veofol with a voice as friendly as his smile.
“What are you, an elf?” asked Olivia. Veofol’s physique was a little outside human normal, with the slender build and long limbs of a species used to the light touch of microgravity.
“No, no,” he said. “I’m a bit tall and thin, that’s all. Same as everyone else from my universe, and that’s just because we live in orbit. We’re not elves. Just another kind of human.”
“Is that what you call it…” muttered Olivia, shaking her head.
I ignored her and went on. “To begin with, there are some ground rules you all need to agree to. Firstly: you must have respect for one another. Each of you has a right to speak and be heard, but not to prevent anyone else from speaking. You may feel very strongly about what you have to say, but please remember that others do too.
“Secondly: You all have a right to privacy. While these sessions are recorded to help me run the group, they a
re confidential, and only I and Veofol have access. Each of you should respect this and not repeat anything you hear in the group.
“Thirdly: You need to be here on time. If you have trouble remembering when sessions are scheduled, there’ll be chimes throughout the centre ten minutes before each one.
“And finally, if you no longer wish to participate, please do everyone the courtesy of attending a final session to say goodbye. Now, how does that sound?”
“I don’t want to participate. This is my last meeting. Goodbye,” said Olivia, folding her arms. She was determined to be the problem patient, much as I’d expected after reading the reports from her previous therapists.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Olivia. It seems a shame, since we haven’t really started. Can you tell us why you don’t want to be here?”
“You damn well know why I don’t want to be here! It’s a waste of time. I’m not going to get better and neither’s anyone else. I’ve had six of you poking at me while I’ve been here, and none of you could do a damned thing. It’s useless and I don’t want any more of it.”
As much as she was trying to disrupt the session, she’d given me an excellent way to involve the others. “Does anyone else feel that therapy is useless?” I asked.
Kwame raised a trembling finger. He wore a business suit from his world, as though ready to go before a press conference: a cream linen jacket with sharply creased trousers, and a zigzag pinstripe shirt buttoned to the collar. I nodded and he spoke in a slow, solemn manner, concentrating to overcome his aphasia. “I think… that perhaps Olivia has forgotten how much we have gained from our stay on Hub. We may not receive all we would wish for, but I can assure those who are new to this world that they are very kind to us here.”
“Hasn’t stopped you being a crackpot, has it?” said Olivia. They’d both been on Hub for a while, and had met before at the Psychiatric Centre. By all reports they hadn’t been friends.
“I have not changed my goal. I am as determined as the last time we met.”
“And that’s why they sent you here, wasn’t it? Am I right? They’re fed up with you, so they packed you off here with everyone else they can’t cure of being the last man on earth. They don’t want you to get better, they want you to shut up!”
“I admit… the thought had crossed my mind—”
“So you agree with me?”
“That is not what I—”
“You’re embarrassing to them, that’s what it is, because they don’t want to lift a finger to stop it happening again. We’re all embarrassing.”
A new voice spoke up. “Can I say a word?”
“Iokan. Yes, please, go ahead.” Iokan’s chair had been floated in from the infirmary, and he still wore a hospital gown and cotton trousers. He was emaciated, jaundiced, only just back from the edge of death, but with a light in his eyes that simply ignored his physical state. He spoke his own language, and the rest of us read the translation as it sprang up on our various systems.
“What do you mean, ‘reason’? What reason?” asked Olivia, straight in with her usual bile once her glasses translated his words.
“Olivia. Iokan wants to speak,” I said.
“He’s talking rubbish!”
“He has as much of a right to speak as you do, and you’ve already told us what you think. Iokan’s only just been rescued, remember, and he’s still unwell. If you carry on like this, it’s not going to help.”
Olivia grudgingly surveyed his wasted form. “Fine,” she said, and looked elsewhere.
Iokan continued: “As I was saying, I think we’re all here for a reason, or perhaps many reasons. I don’t know what those reasons might be. But I’d like to find out.”
“Thank you, Iokan,” I said. “Although I think Olivia raised a very valid point.” She looked round, surprised. Kwame looked up too, just as shocked that I was agreeing with Olivia. “She said we can’t cure you of being the last man — or woman — on earth, and she’s right. Nothing can change that. What we can do is help you learn to live with it. Now, that won’t be easy, and you’re all going to have to do a lot of work in the group and in individual therapy. But I believe it’s possible, if you’re willing to try. So, does anyone else have any opinions about the rules?”
I couldn’t help glancing at Olivia first, but she sank into her folded arms. The three who hadn’t yet spoken stayed quiet. “Does anyone else have anything to say?” I asked; but none of them volunteered. In group therapy, it’s vital for the members to be willing to at least talk to each other. Someone like Olivia can disrupt that, but the real danger was that they didn’t participate at all. So I fell back on an old tactic to get them started.
“Okay, then. What I’d like to do is get everyone to introduce themselves to the group. You’ve probably done this kind of thing before but today I’d like to do it differently. I’d like each of you to introduce someone else to the group.”
They perked up a bit, some looking worried. Olivia sneered as I went on. “So what you’ll have to do is talk to one of the others, find out their story, and then explain it to everyone else. Katie, is that all right with you?”
Katie turned her head a perfect forty degrees and locked her eyes on me, always a little unnerving because she never blinked and hardly seemed to breathe. She was tall and heavily built, with close-cropped hair that revealed a trio of metallic sockets on the back of her head. She wore a shapeless jumpsuit that was practical in all circumstances and spoke in fluent Interversal, which she’d learnt astonishingly quickly. “I will comply with all reasonable requests.”
“Do you think this request is reasonable?”
“I am not an effective communicator.”
“But you’ll try?”
She processed for a moment. “I will try.”
“Good. Pew?”
“Yes?” Pew looked back at me, distracted from staring at the holes in Katie’s head. He had the pudgy build of someone who’d spent too long sitting down, and wore clothes from his stay at Hub University: a black hooded top that helped him hide away; comfortable, scuffed training shoes; and the loose, pocketed trousers that had been in style a year before. His hesitancy had nothing to do with his skill in Interversal, which was normally fluent. “Uh. I’ll do it. I’m, I’m not sure I’ll be any good…”
“That’s okay. I’m sure you’ll be fine.” He smiled a little, but was still nervous. I turned to the last member of the group. “Liss?”
“Oh, is it me?” Liss stopped toying with her earrings and perked up as she read her own name in her contact lenses. “Yeah, sure! I’ll just go on and on, though,” she chattered back in her own language, “I’ll get carried away and start talking and I won’t get halfway there before the end. Hope you don’t mind!” Out of all the group, she’d made the most deliberate effort to look good, and had deliberately overdone it. She wore lipstick in a shade of pink I could hardly imagine on anyone over the age of twelve, a top that flounced in a darker shade of pink over a black vest, then a skirt in another pinkish hue and ankle boots that matched the lipstick perfectly.
“Do we have to listen to that?” asked Olivia.
I ignored her and smiled at Liss. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you know if you need to wrap it up. Okay, what I’ll ask you to do is write your names down on pieces of paper, then you all pick out someone’s name, and that’ll be whose story you tell. I’ll give you twenty minutes to introduce yourselves to each other, and then we’ll come back to the group and take it from there. Veofol?”
Veofol already had paper and pens ready, and distributed them among the group. Most of them were comfortable with the old technology, though Katie had to be shown how to use a pen. She rapidly gained an ability to write her name in a perfect sans serif font while Veofol collected the names in a bowl.
Olivia, however, was having none of it. She sat with her arms folded and would not touch the pen and paper placed before her. “You didn’t ask me for permission, did you?”
“I’m sorry
, Olivia, did you have an objection?” I asked.
“Well. I don’t want you to think I don’t respect you,” she sneered, “but I don’t want to know any of you, and I don’t bloody want to be here.”
“Can you at least be polite?” asked Kwame, irritated.
“Why should I? I didn’t ask to be here! Did you?”
“That is not the point—”
“Of course it’s the bloody point! I’ve been dragged here against my will and I don’t want any part of it!”
Liss was perplexed by the venom. “I don’t get it. What have you got against us?”
“And I definitely don’t want to know this tart,” said Olivia, disgusted by every inch of her. A moment later, Liss gasped at the translation.
“This is a waste of time,” said Kwame, looking at me. “Why was she included in this?”
“To punish me, that’s why—”
“Will you be quiet?” he snapped back at her.
“No I will not! I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to know any of you, and you don’t want to know me!” Kwame’s eyes flashed with anger and his mouth flapped at words, struggling to find a retort through the aphasia. I was about to intervene — but someone else got there first.
“I want to know you,” said Iokan, in that calm, gentle voice of his. Everyone looked to him, and the room fell silent. Olivia took off her glasses to check the translation system hadn’t been broken, then jammed them back on her face.
“Rubbish!”
“I want to know you.”
“Utter rubbish!”
“Not at all. I want to know how you came here, and all the things that happened to you.” He smiled with complete innocence, meaning every word he said. It gave even Olivia a moment of pause.
“You’re talking rot.”
“Are you worried I’ll find out too much?”
“You’re the one should be worried. You don’t know where I’ve been.”
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