Hell Follows After (Monster of the Apocalypse Saga)

by C. Henry Martens

  Over the course of the remaining school year, the young men formed a secret society. They became dedicated to the idea that solutions to overpopulation existed. Discussing each, they hashed out scenarios and planned for contingencies. In the early stages the idea was more for supporting each other through their mutual interests and fears, but as time passed they sold themselves on the fact that what they were discussing was actually possible. They were self-entitled and rich. They could not only do what was necessary, they felt they were obliged to be those to inherit the earth. To hell with the meek.

  A large part of the discussions became the inconsistencies in how the world worked. They spoke of conversations they overheard between their parents, sometimes with mutual business acquaintances, and how it seemed ordinary to orchestrate and manipulate the money of the masses into the pockets of the few. It never occurred to them that this was anything to be questioned either ethically or morally. They saw the lower classes as lazy rather than lacking opportunity. Those masses were especially problematic and especially expendable. Those masses of unwashed and unproductive people were the problem. If not for the vast numbers of people consuming, there would be no significant problems. There would be no shortages, no diminishing resources.

  Over time the maturity of those involved and the conversations they had changed. Originally they called themselves KB, short for Kill Breeders. As the organization and discussion evolved, a name remained fluid as well. Within days the name changed to KtB, Kill the Breeders. Then K@B for Kill All the Breeders. One of the discussions was about how to put an “S” in front so that the name would read Skab. After all, the population was a scab on the earth to be peeled away as the earth healed. The group laughed about that, but one was uneasy, strangely considering what was being spoken of and concerned they be more politically correct.

  The school year was coming to a close, and the final designation was eventually realized as C@P. The @ symbol appealed to the group universally as indicative of pregnancy, and the word read as Cap…as in cap the population. They could say that they were involved in limiting the population, a politically correct statement of intent, a statement which masked the true intent of decimating the human population of the world, leaving only the chosen few to survive. C@P, behind the politically correct façade, was Cut All Populations. A statement with more sinister intent and consequences than was assumed by those outside the inner circle. The “Great Idea” was easily hidden because it was difficult to believe that anyone would be seriously considering… what they were considering.

  As C@P became splintered when the members each finished college, they might have allowed the idea to fade, but one member of the group met a woman working for the CDC. She had a true fascination for disease. Much like fire fighters sometimes unintentionally hide pyromaniacs within their organizations, this woman was hiding behind a façade of concern within the CDC. She was a slightly older woman, attractive in appearance and manner, and fascinating in her experience to the young man. After some chance discussion following an amazingly aggressive sexual encounter, the woman grilled her young paramour lightly and carefully in his unguarded state. She learned much, and over time cultivated the rich kid with the interesting ideas and the funds to carry them out. Eventually she asked to meet his friends.

  The spark provided by the well-educated and interesting woman ignited the dying embers of the secret society. She provided not only the flame, but suddenly there was an organizing influence from someone with real world experience. Carefully, very carefully, the CDC employee stoked the fire, and the organization started to have some functional results.

  Now members were speaking in terms like minimized empathy, delivery system, and resistance mechanisms. Interest in the several deadly dangerous bacteria known by the term ESKAPE became fodder for discussion. The “K” became particularly interesting. The klebsiella pneumoniae bacteria was especially fascinating in many of its properties.

  Recognizing that merely getting rid of people would leave the upper echelon of the earth with a sudden void of labor, another priority was identified. Although a sudden drop in the working class would leave incredible amounts of resources, there would be many reasons that a labor force should be retained. Assumed to be other human beings that would be in targeted areas insulated from the carnage, plans to vaccinate large populations became part of the plan.

  Work progressed on a disease that could be spread by an initial infection that masked itself as little more than a cold, a disease that stayed contagious over an extended period of time until it suddenly killed the host quickly. A vaccine was also being developed for use by those chosen as worthy in the extreme wealth community. This vaccine was also intended to salvage the major populations in areas judged to be industrially or agriculturally necessary.

  Another chance encounter within the first years of the organization becoming viable changed the path of intent. A demonstration of the emerging artificial intelligence industry and the robotics evolving in conjunction with it impressed one of the originating members of C@P. He brought a new idea to a meeting he called at one of his island estates.

  As a back-up plan, the populations surrounding the I-80 corridor and several arteries north and south through the United States would be preserved. But the idea had now evolved to replace human labor with artificially intelligent mechanicals. Robots never wanted a raise, time off, or health care.

  Within a short time the top robotics engineers and scientists of artificial intelligence were hired away from their less well-funded facilities. Just as the biotech companies had been raided in the previous years, scientists were isolated in well-funded, clandestine laboratories and design studios.

  The expense was tremendous. Even by the standards of the past, these facilities were expensive. One reason was the quality of those working on the compartmentalized projects as well as the top-of-the-line equipment and materials. But the other expense, and perhaps even greater, was the necessity and nature of secrecy involved. Sometimes security involved extreme measures.

  Money had been a minor concern early on, but as the group expected, they aged and inherited control of their family fortunes. Money was passed down just as opportunity and education was passed. And because they represented the cream of their advantaged society, they were the logical inheritors.

  Realistically, what did any expense matter? Those involved in the inner circle knew there would be side effects, and one was that money was going to become obsolete. Robotic labor would see to that.

  Work progressed. There were three functionally different areas being worked on. Occasionally the contagion science surged ahead of the robotics. Then the AI would make a leap ahead and seem close until a glitch made it fall back. Each of the three stages, contagion, robotics, and AI vied for the lead even though those doing the work knew nothing about each other.

  When a huge leap in the AI capabilities facilitated a sudden advance including an unexpected ability for the AI brain being developed to participate in its own design, the robotics and AI teams were introduced to each other. There were some frictions between the human components, especially as the robotics team seemed threatened by the capabilities of what the AI team was working on. But they became fascinated and mollified when the AI brain was introduced. It was difficult to be anything but fully on board as they realized that this brain could help design out the flaws in the body of the robot that would carry it. Where the robotics team would have come to blows with the AI team over ego, they accepted the AI brain as a workable and interesting partner in overcoming problems.

  Finally the day came. The vaccine, the infection, and the AI-controlled robot all came to fruition within months of each other. The disease was extremely contagious within a long-surviving host which changed reliably into a close to one hundred percent lethal killer, but well-controlled if one knew the key to the vaccine. The robot was fully capable of learning any operation that a man was capable of performing, as well as having communication within the hive
of units so that any function performed by one was immediately transmitted as ability to all the others. Human labor was obsolete. Man was suddenly entirely expendable.

  As with most things controlled by the human race, Murphy’s Law came into play immediately on implementation.

  The delivery system worked perfectly. The contagion performed flawlessly. The mechanical labor force was instructed to function as a salvage operation to save threatened animals until and during the demise of humanity. The robots did their job as instructed, better than expected.

  But the operation as planned collapsed. It imploded due to the capriciousness of human ego. There was a fly in the ointment.

  One of the original members of C@P was a Sheik of the United Arab Emirates. He executed a clandestine plan to save only his own family, using the resources of the group to design his own infection, one modified to leave an abnormal percentage of women outside the family as survivors. Because he was part of the original group, he had vaccine from both the original contagion as well as his own which were distributed throughout his own huge family. The family was not informed. The risk of exposing the whole plan was too great. The Sheik was confident they would thank him later.

  What the Sheik did not expect was that there was another organization that was prepared. The LDS Church had a clandestine arm of enforcers of its own. The Mormon Mafia, while unofficial in all its activities and known within the ranks as The Danites, was not only prepared to take steps to protect their own but had the means. Through information gathering of their own, they identified the sources of the plagues, and noting the second as a betrayal with possible religious implications, they targeted the Arab Royal Family almost immediately. A disease that had been sitting inside a granite vault for decades, awaiting just such a use, modified Ebola virus was loosed on the world along with the two other engineered diseases.

  But there was one more machination with no reasonable expectation of being foreseen. Because of this, no one came away unscathed. An American President, who had grown up as a youth oppressed by Mormons in Salt Lake City, took the threat of a surviving LDS Church seriously. He made sure that the protection of the judiciously-used virus came to nothing when he decided that a surviving theocracy could not be allowed to control the world. The nuclear option on his own citizenry laid waste to the last remnant of organized society, as well as what could have been the last remaining organized religion.

  The twelve billion people of earth, all busy in the daily grind of fighting, fucking, and fantasizing in what the future held for them, within six months dwindled to less than a tenth of one percent of the original population. Those who survived had a tremendous rate of attrition immediately after the plagues. Many could not handle survival guilt or the sudden emptiness of the world. After all was over and done with, there were so few people surviving, it was sometimes difficult to find others.

  A failsafe within the brains of the AI robots, laid down and integrated by the Arab Sheik, came into play. The Sheik was a careful, suspicious, and Machiavellian man. He inserted a time-delayed program in the labor force just in case his plan failed. He did not live to reset the trigger, so the robots fulfilled their present activities, planning for and caring that the future was harmed as little as possible. Once they did what was required in the winding down, the millions that had accumulated over the several years of their existence gathered on the beaches of the oceans on all continents and marched into the sea.

  §

  Looking down into the water at the still submerged object, Gen knew immediately it was worth taking back to shore. Although encrusted with sea life, the banging against the hull of his little boat had knocked off some of the clinging detritus to expose gleaming metal underneath as well as a slowly pulsing light from what appeared to be the eye of a metal man.

  Gen barely felt the hand of his brother on his shoulder as Jif peered over him into the dark water. The stench of Wooly, so close to him as he also leaned down to look, finally shook him from his fascination.

  “Quick, grab the hook. We don’t want to lose this one.” Nudging both men back with his elbows, he enforced his command. “We have to tie it off. It’s too big and heavy to get aboard. We’ll tow it alongside.”

  The men worked quickly, and the metal man was soon well secured. They had to lower it slightly so that any surface would not rub and hole the boat. Fortunately they found places to tie off with sculpted, rounded edges in graceful curves, so they had little worry over the rope rubbing through. Still, Gen stopped and dove down to check things often in the many miles to port.

  Business came first. They unloaded the catch and sold it to a local man who owned one of the three fish houses in San Francisco bay. He would distribute the catch within the next few hours to the growing community.

  Hiring one of the cranes, the union price outrageous, Gen made arrangements for the unusual find to be pulled from the water. A small wagon pulled by a single, boney horse was hired and would not cost much of his profit.

  The load, tied so long on the side of the vessel, rose from the sea with a small crowd looking on. One of the spectators ran away quickly, seeming to have a sudden errand.

  There were cavities that held water as it elevated above the dock, and they drained across the old wooden planks and onto the wagon, sea water pooling beneath it.

  By the time the load was coming to rest, the man running away had returned with another man in expensive business clothes.

  Not much more was exposed than had been originally seen. The back of a metal hand peeked through the crusted barnacles, the bottom of the feet, one up to the ankle, and the outside of a thigh. Otherwise only half of the head was exposed with the eye still blinking dimly from the depths behind it.

  The well-dressed man perused the find as it came to rest on its side in the back of the wagon. When he reached out to touch it, Gen blocked his hand and challenged him.

  “Best keep your hands off, friend. Unless you can pay the fare.”

  The well-dressed man smiled. He was unfazed by the abrupt gesture and requested a consultation with Gen in private. They stepped away from the crowd and bent their heads together as though they were conspirators.

  Soon Gen called out to his brother and Wooly, indicating that they were leaving. Jif questioned what was going on, and Gen pushed a small bag of silver into his hand. It was much more than any split of the catch would account for. Wooly received a clinking bag as well. The two crewmen both grinned, and then all three joined with arms across each other’s shoulders as they sang their way to the nearest tavern.

  The man who had run to fetch the dandy approached the hired freighter. He consulted quietly with him and another bag of coin was exchanged. The freighter walked away without a second look at his horse and wagon.

  Sauntering out of the shadows, a large man with a crushed cheekbone and a broken nose threw a dark blanket over the metal man and then mounted the rear of the wagon, sitting on the back tailgate with his feet almost touching the ground.

  The dandy spoke some quiet words to the few men gathered and spread more coins among them. He and the man who had purchased the wagon soon occupied each side of the wagon seat, and the boney horse was urged ahead and into a darkening evening.

  Chapter 9

  Wendover lay ahead, and the new animals were gaining weight. Even though they were given their fair share in the yoke, they had each gained over a hundred pounds and would continue to put on weight as long as they could find something to eat. With the bone structure they had, Edge expected to see another three or four hundred pounds on each. But that would have to wait. Past Wendover there was nothing to eat or drink for a hundred miles.

  Beyond the remains of the small town lay the Salt Flats. A death zone because of high temperatures and the absence of drinkable water, light there bent in shimmers as heat radiated off the white surface.

  Fortunately, valuable answers followed questions asked in Elko. Expecting to find water in Wendover, the miners informed them the
re was none to be had. The Traders filled their barrels as suggested in a nearly dry creek that ran under the highway. They did not even know there had been a town at one time until someone looked at the map. Deeth had disappeared.

  This was the most dangerous part of the journey and all due to lack of hydration. The train would take fewer chances by traveling in the cool of night, and the barrels would still become dry. They would run out of water for the animals well before they got across the Flats.

  Deciding to investigate for water, regardless of the miner’s information, Cy and Cable went ahead. They toured the remains of the little gambling town and found nothing. The spring that had provided a small stream to nineteenth-century pioneers was dry.

  Meeting with the entire train, Master Till emphasized the risk they took. The barrels were going to empty, and they had a forced march ahead. Normally travelling ten or twelve miles a day, sometimes fifteen in an effort to get to good graze or water, these next days would see double or more than that. There would be no stopping. Three days of continuous use would see animals die, but the Wagon Master told his Company there was no choice. Going back was not an option.

  Right away brittle, white bones littered the path. They seemed oddly evenly spaced, and a place with a deteriorating, strange sculpture to the east of the roadbed had several skulls mounted upright on sticks.

  What water could be spared for the teams was used on those put to the yoke as they were hitched. Still, they were the ones that dropped. By the time they reached water in Tooele, sixteen fresh carcasses baked under the summer sun. Their bones joined others that had failed to make the journey. Only one horse had succumbed. The rest were oxen.

  Edge had done what he could for his beasts. He had filled a barrel with algae at the last wet spot, advised to do so by Jody, and fed it to his charges as he felt they needed it. The wet vegetation seemed to go further and nourish better than water alone. Even the recently acquired additions made it through.