End Times, Inc. (A Great & Continuous Malignity)

by David S. Wellhauser

  “You are certain of this?” Bart asked. There’d been debate.

  “Not 100% but the preponderance of evidence would suggest some form of serfdom is inevitable.”

  “And what of Thin Man?” Shasta seemed encouraged by the discussion.

  “His experiments have to be brought to an end. That thing in Milwaukee...” Matt trailed off. Bart leaned back with this and they travelled in silence.

  ***

  “How many does that make?” Bart asked from the back seat, looking across the road.

  “People or groups?” Shasta enquired from beside Feargal.

  “There’s been a lot—I think that’s the sixth column since we left Portland, and maybe the longest.”

  “Maybe,” Shasta segued, “we should talk with the others about our next step?”

  “Uh, why?” But Matt had his suspicions.

  “Look at them. We may be in trouble if they come on us in the evening.”

  “Okay. I’ll pull over. Bart you better get out the ARs.” He was already after them.

  As Matt leaned on the hood, watching the new train of DPs edge along—eyeing the weapons uneasily—Kathy pulled up and parked just beyond the group. Following the first group they climbed out—armed. But Stephen remained in the SUV. “What’s up?” Kathy had a personality which made it difficult to remember her. This wasn’t annoying or abrasive, but it possessed an absence which ended up startling Feargal, as now, when she insisted upon a presence. He’s spoken with Shasta about this and it was much the same with other Metas. The general feeling was this was part of her less noted skills. Many people, however, even after becoming aware—or suspecting—the ability, quickly forgot this and had to be reminded. Was this part of her skill? It didn’t work all the time and seemed to be more effective with the weak minded.

  Kathy, physically, was what might be called mousey—if you ignore the four arms, with dun hair and eyes, a pleasant nose, rather large ears—which she disguised with her shoulder length hair, and a tight, almost harsh, mouth. She tended toward corpulence but this hadn’t yet run to fat. Feargal suspected she was about 30-ish but wasn’t certain. So much of the woman was about uncertainty. Niran, privately, referred to her as the uncertainty principle, but Matt thought he was attracted to her. As with so much about K. this didn’t quite register, or convince.

  “We were just discussing if it a good idea to find some place for lunch and decide whether or not we should push on to Seattle or spend the night somewhere more—secure?” Shasta answered. Was this going well or poorly? Matt, as always in the presence of Kathy, was a knot of ambivalence. Maybe Niran got it right?

  “The DPs?” She asked, and Shasta nodded. “Might be an idea. There’s a town up ahead—Castle Rock.” She was then on her phone checking out restaurants and motels. The others waited, watching this anxiously; the column never took its eyes from the armed group either. Sooner, rather than later, this level of displacement was going to get ugly. What ugly meant was academically clear, but what it would be like to live through this would be another matter. That was if he lived through it. Then there would be the coming conflict with the Metahumans. This was all but a foregone conclusion. What would that be like and what would the consequences of it be?

  “There are several choices, but Su Good Chinese looks good and Castle Rock Inn & Suites seems defensible—though the turquoise roof sucks ass.” Matt chuckled at Su Good and wondered if no one, or group, might not think that racist? Didn’t really matter, it was food, and he was hungry.

  “Sounds good to me.” Matt stared up I5 as he spoke. “How far?”

  “Another three miles or so.” Kathy said in her tittuping voice.

  Back in the truck—though Shasta took offence at the designation of the SUV as a truck—they were on the road again and on the final three miles they saw ragged clusters of people heading south. On the outskirts they ran into a roadblock, but as they could prove their solvency the citizens allowed them through. They were police or Guard, just one more of the burgeoning local militias they’d been running into. Then they ate Su Good on Huntington—it was a typical American faux Chinese restaurant but the menu looked good and the food wasn’t bad. As they burrowed through the meal—the pork with black mushroom was particularly good—they knocked around the idea of whether to wait for the morning. Matt, after the roadblock, was of the opinion coming in to Seattle after dawn might be the better tactic, which fed into the paranoia of the team. Something about coming in at twilight didn’t set well with them. Then there was the debate about what they might yet find on the road.

  Even this had stuttered Matt’s laissez-faire attitude to the DPs and the world which was emerging in the spaces between towns. Increasingly everyone was becoming aware the cohesion which held the particulars of civilisation together was slowly becoming plastic. The give to be found in this plasticity was for some unnerving; for others, such as Lien, it was terrifying. It took the friends—this was how Matt was coming to consider the team, though the process slow and uncertain—little time to decide to spend the night at the Castle Rock Inn & suites. Kathy was still uncertain of the paint job, but that they had a pool and high-speed internet and wifi was enough to push her beyond decor.

  As the meal ended and they were enjoying either coffee or a cocktail—Matt settling back with a dirty martini—the conversation turned toward a peripheral discussion as to why the infection by the Cinn micro-organisms is not a disease. This was something that could not be surrendered by the Metas, and was compelling, if terrifying, for the Archaics. Yet, instead of directly debating the vectors they turned to the transformations. For many, such as Bart, Shasta, and Kathy the transformation had enhanced their lives and the quality of these. Yet, there was Matt’s encounter in Milwaukee and the rumours leaking out of the National Parks, such as Yellowstone that countered these. More and more, as far as the team could tell, the transformations were fracturing into two camps—the typical and atypical. The latter were still rare, but becoming less so—and they were, on occasion, terrifying.

  “It’s the atypical transformations,” Matt groused between sips on the martini, “that are troubling people—besides the other obvious elements.”

  “What elements?” Shasta seemed to detect a slight in the comment, but was uncertain just what it might be.

  “What precisely it is that Botrous intends to do with the Metas. Obviously he has plans to eventually turn them into the Cinn’s bitches, but what else is going on with them. Say, for example, we manage the impossible and stop the Cinn, what then?” The idea that Feargal was less than certain of the outcome of the struggle unnerved the table, but he ignored the glances. “What will the Metahumans be like—what kind of behaviour might be expected of them? What will their attitudes, which are many and varied, be to our economic, political, social, and religious systems?”

  “I do not believe they will be all that different.” Bart answered lowly; a little harshly.

  “You shouldn’t be so quick to assume.” Sitting his martini down Matt leaned forward on his elbows. “Think of what we’re seeing—even the low-grade mutations such as here. But what of dragons, cockroaches, canis lupus, Thin Man, those such as Kathy here, and so on—what do we do with them in a post-industrial world? What do we do about the simple social divisions that have already emerged and continue to widen?”

  “We adapt.” Bart was becoming openly hostile—Matt understood he’d have to be politick here.

  “Of course we adapt. But how long will that take and what will the cost be in dislocation and treasure? Still, the only solution is yours.”

  “What would you suggest?” Lien asked.

  “I’ve no answers. Perhaps, people like Salt will have them, but I’m not hopeful.”

  “The transformations are beginning to worry me.” Stephen had been quiet the entire meal, still hurting from his injury. Before any of the Metas could interrupt he continued quickly. “Not your transformations, seems there would be no difficulty with those such
as yourselves and most others. But the cockroaches in Milwaukee and the rumours coming from Yellowstone, those worry me. How do we incorporate those into any kind of society?”

  “It is probable,” Shasta spoke cautiously and with a tremor in her voice, “that we will not be able to—which means we’re going to end up with radically different social organisms and goals.”

  “This’ll mean—in one manner or another—war.” Matt hadn’t meant to say this. He’d hoped to step outside the argument; let the others have their say. Then it came out. The table turned to him. “Look, I’ve been dealing with this for five years—by myself, with Halton Edwards, Jonah Salt, Roberto Neruda, friends, and enemies—the one thing I can tell you: differences create tension; tension leads to anxiety, which leads to hostility; this leads to conflict. War is just an über-conflict.

  “That,” Niran observed, “is, at best, cynical.”

  “Why,” Matt sniped, “is realism generally seen as cynicism?”

  “Let’s not go there,” Shasta blurted out, “this isn’t freshman philosophy—we’re talking about our lives and civilisation!”

  “Then,” Matt smiled harshly, “what do we do?”

  “The best,” she answered, “we can. Take one crisis at a time and adapt to these and defend ourselves against any that would destroy our way of life.”

  “Well, I suppose,” Bart emerged from a sullen silence, “we could see how that works out.” Feargal knew exactly how that would work out, but remained silent. Though he did exchange the brutal smile for an inclusive grin.

  “The cures,” Shasta continued, “haven’t all been of the Edwards variety.”

  “Those quack cures online?” Lien asked. Shasta nodded. “A big part of the problem is Archaics want to kill us—that’s what a lot of them have been.”

  “That,” Kathy spoke from her lacuna, which startled the table, “is too extreme. Most of the cures have been attempts to deal with the problem, as Archaics see it, and it has been used by Archaics whom wish to remain as they are—or fear the consequences of transformation, especially atypical transformation.”

  The table grew quiet over this observation.

  In the silence there appeared to Matt the sense that this was the heart of Archaic fears. And, he was certain, it did not matter whether or not they were Archaic or Metahuman, all maintained an evolutionary bias against that which is other. This, Matt was persuaded, would not change and the consequence of the stasis would be a bloody war—one which would eclipse all others in ferocity and level of destruction. His solution—silence. There’d be no stopping it, and that was if they could halt the Cinn. If this could not be accomplished? Both sides would suffer mightily. Humans would experience an extinction level event—no environmental braggadocio here. The Metahumans, as a consequence, would be serfs bound to a particular class of Cinn and required to serve them.

  The years since his first exposure to the Cinn, Feargal—along with Edwards, Neruda, Salt, and others—had managed to acquire a level of, admittedly spotty, Intelligence on the end goals of the Cinn. None of this inspired confidence about what would happen if the Cinn managed to break through into this dimension. If the Cinn failed, both species—Archaic and Metahuman—would survive, even if this would be followed by a ferocious conflict. If the Cinn succeeded there’d be no hope for either species. It was an unattractive choice. For the Archaics it was a very clear option between survival and extinction. For the Metahumans, however, the choice was deeply problematic. Accept enslavement by the Cinn and rule what little would remain of the Humans, until these were finally absorbed as Metahumans or destroyed for the inability of their junk DNA to be transformed. This was why the Metahumans were fracturing into so many groups—Transhumanists, H+, Separatists, and what Matt was thinking of as Integrationists. No good answers anywhere.

  From the silence, they finally decided it was time to leave Su Good and check into Castle Rock Inn & Suites.

  ***

  “That’s got to be it.” Shasta pointed across the road to a Spanish affair with hideous turquoise roof tiles which surrounded the sides of a flat roof. The walls were a light-tan stucco and these produced a series of uninspired faux-Alhambra arches. What remained of the two storey motel was typical North American pastiche. Feargal would not have wanted to run a black light over the bedding, but he’d stayed in much worse over the past four years.

  “Fuck.” Niran groaned, leaning forward between Matt and Shasta. “Really?”

  “Seems so.” Matt answered, turning into the drive.

  Stepping out of the vehicle Matt stretched. There was no ripple of cracks running up his spine, but he’d not been driving long enough. Still, the martini had put him in the mood for a nap; that or he needed a long swim, but there didn’t appear to be a pool. Nap then, but he’d need his own room. With Shasta it had become tiresome fending off her less than subtle attempts at seduction. He remained uncertain about this, but the constant attempts were feeding his paranoia—not consistently, but the level of alert was being raised by his internal threat mechanisms. In the past these had never served him well, so Matt was learning to be less trusting of them.

  At the Front Desk they learned there were plenty of rooms, which meant Matt got one to himself. He wasn’t certain, but suspected Shasta was disappointed. There were, however, problems with the internet. Apparently, the blame was falling on the trouble up north and Northern States to the East. Management hoped the trouble would be quickly resolved, but didn’t appear to be certain of this. Also, they only had a minimal staff, since many of their people had left to be with their families until the trouble blew over. The phantasist quality of the thought was not lost on Feargal, but fewer staff suited him—less people to worry about what their motley coterie were up to.

  “When you’ve all settled in let’s meet in my room—in about 20 minutes.” Matt said before they separated on the exposed west-wing of the motel, above the parking lot. Once the others had left him, he threw his backpack on the bed and sat the duffel, with his weapons, beside this. If he couldn’t have a swim, at least he could grab a cold shower. Luckily that’s all he wanted because the hot water was not working. He called Reception about this, but was told they’d been having trouble with if for the better part of the day—when they could get a repairman in they’d have it taken care of.

  Setting the phone back in its cradle he grabbed a shower. With feeling returning to his body and his pud considering it safe to peek from the mass of its bearded aureole, Matt slipped on his jeans and a tee-shirt. From his bag he pulled a bottle of water. Staring out the window, past the walkway, and over the parking lot toward the road he was, at the moment, thinking of nothing—then the door chime coughed out a forgotten nursery rhyme. Leaving Matt to wonder if there were anything worth the effort.

  “No hot water.” Kathy groused. She was the first. Leaving the door open for the rest he followed her in. She’d a can of beer. Flopping on the bed the woman stared up at the florescent light with dead flies trapped in the cover. “This place is more depressing than I thought it would be.”

  “We’re only here for a few hours.” Shasta from the door; she was wet, so as Feargal she had to have braved the shower. Over the next several minutes the rest of the group trailed in. With the last of them squeezed into the tiny room, Matt closed the door.

  “None of this,” Lien began, “looks good.”

  “In what way?” Stephen asked, sitting in a chair beside the small window.

  “None of what?” Niran followed, and Bart nodded.

  “Nothing is working, or just working.” Stephen answered wearily. Lien looked him over anxiously, and Matt sensed she wanted this over quickly so she could get him back to bed. But Stephen did look better—colour was returning to his face and he wasn’t sweating nearly so much.

  “That,” Shasta answered, “is to be expected. What with what is going on up North.”

  “What of the Eastern States?” Bart asked.

  “Yes, that is troublin
g.” Matt answered.

  “It will only get worse as this progresses.” Shasta responded but not to anyone in particular.

  “The conflict?” Feargal questioned and Shasta nodded.

  “There’s only so much the infrastructure—here and abroad—can withstand before it collapses.”

  “The last to go should be the Web.” Matt spoke up. “As long as there is power.”

  “But the rest of it is not looking good—if they can’t even keep hot water running.”

  “There are greater concerns,” Bart griped, leaning against the dresser, “such a food distribution—nothing more critical. I’ve been noticing over the last month or so produce is becoming less healthy and some of the luxury fruits are disappearing from the shelves.”

  There was silence following this. The group appeared to recognise how dangerous this could become. “We need,” Matt said staring at his water, “to get this wrapped up before the whole thing collapses”

  “What whole thing?” Lien asked.

  “The infrastructure.” Stephen answered wearily, and Lien brushed the man’s hair from his forehead.

  “But I can’t see either side wanting to destroy food sources.” Kathy spoke from the bed.

  “Neruda and Botrous both would.” Matt answered. “It would focus the attention of global governments on the problem; then there’d be a solution—one way or another.” Silence followed.

  ***

  The alarm on Matt’s phone went off at 5am; rolling over he flipped this off. Picking up the phone he unlocked it and looked for the wifi signal—there was none. At least, however, he had a data connection, though how much longer that would be the case he didn’t want to guess. Feargal was almost certain that he’d lose this as they moved north, at least north of Seattle once they’d finished at the herbal shop. They should also pick up some non-perishable food in case Bellingham had been cleaned out. Would that have happened? With the Militias busy with the Transhumanist incursion from Canada that would leave only local authorities to protect the food stores; almost certainly there’d have been, or will be, looting on a massive scale.