by A. R. Wise
“No kidding,” said Billy. “Didn’t expect that one.”
They were quiet for a minute as they ruminated on what had been said.
“You know what? I kind of did expect that,” said Hero. “Reagan’s been acting tough ever since we met him. He lost his wife and kid, man. That’s got to just tear a guy apart. I think that breakdown was way overdue.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Billy as he sat on the seat where Reagan had been and looked out at the building through the binoculars. “Hey, hey, hey. I think I see something moving down there.”
“For real?” asked Hero as he took the binoculars from Billy.
“Yeah, look down near the right side of the rubble. Is that a person in there?”
Hero saw a hand pushing through the debris. “It sure the fuck is. Game on, brother!”
* * *
August 24th, 20 years after the apocalypse
Hero is confronting Beatrice in the cabin above the transfer facility.
“Hopefully we’re building a world that doesn’t need Gods,” said Beatrice.
“Well, they sure the fuck don’t need people like you,” said Hero.
Beatrice crossed her legs and set her hands in her lap. “I understand your anger, Levon. I truly do. However, I’d ask that you put aside the self-righteous fury, just for a moment, and put yourself in our shoes.”
“I’ve got pretty big kicks.” Hero lifted his boot and wiggled it.
Beatrice cleared her throat, not amused. “Mankind’s desire to murder has always been the bane of culture. The unquenchable blood thirst inherent in man has stymied society since the day our ancestors built the first farm. Even in the most peaceful modern societies, this blood thirst reappeared, whether it was the invasion of countries that bore no threat to anyone but themselves, or…” Bea smiled and held up her finger to help exclaim her point. “How that same blood thirst got twisted into greed. Capitalism feeds on that greed, and businesses feed on the weak. It’s still the same blood lust, but the new blood is green.”
Hero shook his head. “Lady, you’re all over the damn map here. What’s your point?”
“My point is that we were doomed, and it was our very nature that doomed us. There was no hope of sitting down and talking things through, we were far past the point of no return. Every religion that ever sprang up across the globe was based on controlling the populace, taming them and twisting them to the will of the people in charge. Unfortunately, the same blood thirst I was talking about before reared its ugly head in our religions as well. The most bitter hatred the world ever saw was based on the fantasy of religion. Read the words of Jesus and you’ll have a hard time finding a reason for wanton murder, but you’d damn well better believe mankind found a reason, time and time again.”
“So you folks thought you’d make better Gods?”
“No,” said Bea. “Of course not.” She put her hand over her eyes, massaging them as she sighed. “I’ve digressed too much. All I was trying to explain was that war is in our nature, and it shows up on the battlefield, in the boardroom, and even in our churches. So, when scientists created the nuclear bomb, they started the inevitable countdown to extinction.”
Hero nodded and muttered, “Fucking Megadeth.”
“What’s that?” asked Bea.
“Nothing, sorry. Just a band my brother used to like. One of your scientists here was talking about the same thing; about how Einstein used to talk about how we were all doomed once the atom bomb was created.”
“Exactly,” said Bea. “And he’s right. That’s when our organization was born, with some of the greatest minds in the world coming to the same conclusion: That we needed a backup plan. The first members of The Electorate strived to avoid catastrophe, but things got out of control faster than we ever fathomed. When the bomb was unleashed, half of The Electorate insisted that the world would be aghast at the destruction it caused, and that mankind’s lust for war would end.” She shook her head and laughed. “It seems so jejune now, doesn’t it? They actually thought the development of the strongest weapon in history would give man pause. It didn’t take long for them to be proven wrong.”
Bea reached into her pocket and Hero stiffened his aim at her. She paused and held out her left hand as she kept her right in her pocket. “I just wanted a cigarette, if that’s okay with you.”
Hero nodded.
She took out the pack and offered him one. He shook his head. “Not a smoker.”
Bea took out a long, thin cigarette and put it in her mouth. “Good for you. The world’s already doing a good job trying to kill you, no reason to give it a head start.” The cigarette twitched between her lips as she spoke.
“Was The Electorate the same people that developed the bomb?” asked Hero.
Bea lit her cigarette and nodded as she took a drag. “Some of them were,” she said as smoke drifted out of her mouth. “Like I said, The Electorate was started by some of the smartest people on the planet. They hoped that the first time the world witnessed the horror of the nuclear age that war would end forever. That’s when the absolute worst possible thing happened.”
“What’s that?”
She pointed at Hero with her index and middle fingers, the cigarette pinched between. “Your president, Truman, dropped the first bomb and killed more than a hundred thousand people in an instant. An unheard of massacre, innocent babies evaporated from existence, the most horrific event in recorded history. And then do you know what he did, just three days later?” She grimaced while smirking, a devilish expression. “He did it again. If ever there was proof of mankind’s lust for death and destruction, surely that’s it. He didn’t even give Japan a chance to surrender before dropping another bomb, killing more babies for no damn reason at all. Not to mention that conventional thought at the time was the Japan was about to surrender anyhow, even before the first bomb dropped. When that second bomb exploded, we knew mankind was doomed. It was like the children in charge were handed a toy they couldn’t help but play with.”
Hero was about to say something, but Beatrice spoke first. “It gets worse from there, if you can believe it. The Electorate was comprised of realists, and they recognized the enormity of what had been unleashed. Any optimists among them had their hopes dashed in the following decades. Instead of retreating from war once the atom bomb was let loose, our leaders rushed full throttle into the nuclear age. The arms race was on, and the world’s governments rushed to manufacture as many nuclear bombs as possible. In fact, the bombs built after Hiroshima were almost ten times as strong. I don’t remember the exact number, but I think at one point there were more than twenty five thousand nuclear bombs ready to be fired off. The United States alone had enough nuclear bombs to destroy the entire world dozens of times over. Now what possible sense does that make? Absolute lunacy, my dear boy.” She grimaced and seemed to hiss as she said, “Blood thirst at its very worst.”
“How the hell is what you did any better?” asked Hero. “You act like Truman was a villain, but he killed a couple hundred thousand people; you killed six and a half billion.”
Beatrice took a long drag and nodded. “I agree, Levon. I’ve never thought of myself as the good guy here. The Electorate came to a terrible realization. We had to wipe out mankind to rebuild it, there was no other way. We chose to commit the worst atrocity in history so that our children could thrive in a world without war, without illness, without fear. You see, there’s more to the story than just the atomic bomb. We had more reasons to be concerned about our future than just that. We had the ability to save the world from illness, but we had to destroy it first.”
“You’re talking about ending disease, right?” asked Levon. “Reagan told us about that. He said you guys had figured out a way to end illness, but were worried it would lead to over-population.”
“Right. There are three factors here. The first is war and the start of the nuclear age, which we’ve discussed. The second is over-population, like Reagan told you, which wa
s nearly as much of a concern as the bomb. Believe it or not, before we released the virus the world was very close to running out of fresh water. There were nearly more people alive on Earth than there was water to support them, let alone to water plants, which is why so many of your corporations rushed to start producing bottled water.”
“What?” asked Hero with an unbelieving chuckle. “Most of the world is water.”
“Salt water, yes,” said Bea. “Not drinkable water – big difference. There were even oil companies that looked at water as the next most valuable resource to start charging for. Then, to make matters even worse, we discovered how to eradicate disease.”
“How is that worse?” asked Hero.
“Because we already had an over-population problem, Levon. Now try to imagine if no one died of disease anymore! You’ve just compounded the problem tenfold. Those of us in The Electorate are not evil people.”
“That’s debatable,” said Hero.
Beatrice ignored him and continued, “We wanted nothing more than to create a world where humans could live disease free, unafraid of war, and at one with nature. That was our goal, but we couldn’t achieve it without doing what we did. The Dawn program allowed us to eradicate genetic disease, and by only allowing the Dawns to breed we could ensure that future generations would be free of those diseases as well. Then, the anti-viral discoveries would allow us to destroy contagious diseases. Finally, the proper flourishing of beneficial bacteria would help us stymie bacterial infections. Our new society would be all but free of disease and illness.”
“And what about your third point?” asked Hero.
“Climate change,” said Bea. “We’ve known about man’s effect on the global climate since the late 1800’s, but it wasn’t until the sixties that climatologists first started warning of the impending catastrophe. Of course, the hope was that the warnings would give us pause, but just like with the atomic bomb, man’s bloodlust just got worse. This time, instead of blood, corporations were hungry for money, and they pushed to sell as much oil as possible, turning it into the most valuable commodity on the planet, despite the warnings about climate change. It was almost like mankind wouldn’t be happy until we destroyed the planet in one way or another. That was when we knew there was no turning back. To save the human race, we had to purge it.”
Hero sneered at her in disgust. “Do you even recognize the hypocrisy in all of that nonsense?”
“We saved the world, Levon. Like it or not, that’s the truth. Without The Electorate, the human race was doomed.”
“You talk about how humans have this bloodlust, and that that’s why you had to kill everyone. You said they created the atomic bomb, and then just kept making more of them. Do you even realize that you did the same thing?”
“What do you mean?” asked Bea.
“You created a weapon to kill six and a half billion people so that no one would ever need a weapon like that again.” He pointed his pistol at the floor, to the facility located below. “And then immediately set about creating a virus even stronger than the first one.”
Bea looked like she was ready to reply, but then stopped and relaxed in her seat as she smoked. She nodded, and savored the taste of the cigarette. “That’s an interesting perspective.”
“Then help me stop it,” said Hero. “Tell me where the rest of the facilities with this virus are located, and let’s do the right thing.”
She shook her head. “Levon, there’s no stopping it now. The Noah Initiative isn’t a local thing, it’s worldwide. With the original virus, we hit the reset button on the human race without thinking about the ramifications of leaving the rest of the planet’s creatures untouched. It’s not that we’re worried about other animals evolving to be competitive with humans, but rather that the diseases within them could do it. To ensure the world doesn’t become replete with new strains of viruses that we can’t cure, we have to wipe out the majority of mammals on the planet. That’s the only solution.”
“You know you’re sitting there right now telling me that you’re willing to kill everyone I love to make your future better. How can you possibly think that’s going to make me see your point of view?”
“Levon,” she leaned forward and stamped her cigarette out on the wooden armrest of the couch. “I told you that I could take you with me. I can bring you and your friends and your family to paradise. I’m offering you salvation from this.”
“No thanks,” said Hero. “I’d rather be dragged kicking and screaming into hell than sit comfortably at the Devil’s side.”
Chapter Nine – A Hard Man To Like
Seven months after the apocalypse
Reagan, Hero, and Clyde head down to confront the people climbing out of the underground facility in Estes Park.
“Stop right there!” Hero advanced across the street between the apartment complex that he’d been hiding in and the military building that they’d been watching. There were three people trying to escape that they’d watched emerge from the debris. Billy was still in the apartment while Reagan, Clyde, and Hero had gone down to confront the three people when they tried to run.
“Leave us alone,” said a woman, one of the three that had emerged from the hole that had been blown in the building. She was dressed in the same blue uniform that the guards wore, and was carrying an assault rifle.
“We don’t want to have to kill you,” said Reagan from far off to Hero’s right. “Stop where you are.”
“Fuck you!” The woman’s southern accent was unmistakable as she ran through the parking lot outside of the building. “I’ll die before I go back in there.” She took a shot at Hero and he fell to the ground.
He aimed and took a shot, but she managed to duck behind the guard shack on the other side of the fence. The other two with her scattered and Hero saw Clyde run off to the left to try and flank them. Hero was stuck in the middle of the road, an easy target for the soldiers.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he whispered as he tried to crawl backward. He saw the female soldier look around the corner, her scope aimed at him, and he fired to keep her at bay. “Cover me!” He knew he had to either retreat or run forward, to the cover of the bushes beside the fence.
Reagan let loose a staggered burst of fire as Hero ran forward. He slid across the pavement and into the ditch on the other side of the street, falling hard into the muck.
“Run!” The woman was screaming to the other two. “Just get outta here, ya’ll! I’ll catch up with. Just go.”
“Wait,” said Clyde, but Hero assumed he was trying to pacify the situation. Clyde didn’t enjoy violence, always trying to find a peaceful solution whenever possible. Hero tended to get fired up by the adrenaline rush that came in moments like these, and while he preferred killing undead, he had no reservation about taking out a few of the soldiers that were behind the apocalypse.
“You’re going to die, bitch,” said Hero. “Hope you know that.”
“Come get me, tough guy,” said the stranger. “I’m ready for ya.”
Hero aimed up the hill, toward the fence, the lower half of his legs deep in the sludge of the ditch. Reagan was far to the right, beside the fence, and whistled to Hero while pointing at their vantage point where Billy was still hiding. Hero understood that he just had to get the woman to step out of cover so Billy could get a shot.
“I’m right here,” said Hero. Then he took a shot that struck the side of the guard shack and pretended to be out of bullets. He jiggled the rifle, making it sound like he was trying to reload.
“We’re not soldiers,” said Clyde.
“What?” asked the woman, but she was already moving around the corner to shoot at Hero when Billy took his shot.
“Stop shooting!” yelled Clyde.
Billy’s bullet struck the guard shack and the woman fell backward. Hero bounded from the sludge, which was thicker than he thought, and crawled up the short ditch while screaming orders. “Get down. Get your dumb ass on the ground!”
She screamed back. “Fuck you, asshole!” She pointed her military grade rifle at him. It was hard to see her features in the dark, but he thought she had dark skin.
“Everyone stop shooting!” Clyde was desperate to calm everyone.
“I’ll kill you,” said Hero. “Don’t be fucking stupid.”
“I’ll kill you first!” She was on her rear, the gun aimed through the fence at Hero’s head.
“We’re not soldiers!” Clyde walked into the lot from Hero’s left side, his hands in the air.
Hero heard Reagan mutter, “What the fuck are you doing, Clyde?”
“Neither are we,” said the woman.
“You’re wearing the wrong damn clothes and walking out of the wrong place then,” said Hero.
“And you’re wearing the same damn clothes, asshole,” she said.
Hero and the others had stolen military uniforms from a supply depot a week earlier. “Yeah, but I know I’m not a solider.”
“And I know I’m not one neither, fucker,” she said.
“Hero, put your gun down,” said Clyde.
“Hell no,” said Hero. “I say we just kill this bitch.”
Clyde moved to stand in front of the stranger. “No.”
“God damn it, Clyde,” said Hero.
Clyde turned to the woman, whose gun was pointed at his chest, his hands still in the air. “You said you’d die before you went back in there, right?”
“I’d rather kill the lot of you instead of dying, but I’ll die before I go back in that place,” she said, her southern twang as thick as any Hero had heard back in Georgia before the apocalypse.
“That’s how I knew you weren’t a soldier,” said Clyde. “Guys, these three aren’t with the military.”
Hero looked to Reagan, who glowered at Clyde, but then shrugged as he moved through the hole in the fence that they’d cut earlier. Hero climbed the rest of the way out of the ditch and then scaled the fence, easily clearing its six foot height in a couple of moves.