by Mark Harritt
A few of the people, like Ben, Latricia, and Mitchem, had been administrators, and really didn’t have a skill or job to do. So, the more enterprising ones were learning new skills. Latricia volunteered to learn weapons maintenance. Tom had been teaching her gunsmith techniques.
“Uh huh. Are you sure that’s the only thing you’re going to show her?” Everett asked.
Tom’s expression grew guarded, “I’m not sure what you mean. I’m teaching her about gun smithing.”
Mike turned to Everett, a grin on his face, “I don’t think Tom’s teaching Latricia anything. I think she’s teaching him.”
Months had passed, and everybody understood that there was no going back to their old reality. It hadn’t been an easy decision for Tom, but while he still mourned Barbara and his children, he’d moved on.
Tom glanced over at Mike and Everett, “Why are you interested in Latricia?”
Mike grinned at him, “Because I’m nosy.”
Everett nodded, “Yup, what he said.”
Tom smiled. Getting information out of the taciturn southerner wasn’t ever easy. They already had the inside scoop, though. Their source had all the juicy intel. Everett’s wife, Joan Nosstrand had gotten the details from Latricia. Everett had, of course, passed the information on to the team.
Mike thought about it. Looking at Tom, and looking at Latricia, the fit wasn’t evident from the outside. It wasn’t that Tom was so white he looked like fresh morning snow and Latricia was an ebony beauty. No, the difference was that Tom was as country as anyone could be, raised in rural Tennessee. When Mike thought about a good ole boy, Tom was the poster boy. Latricia was from Cleveland, Ohio. She liked hip-hop and rap. Culturally, the two were pretty far apart. Here though, the two were hot and heavy, cultural differences be damned.
The old issues were dead. Liberal, conservative, libertarian, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, it didn’t matter. The loneliness of their current situation and horror of what had happened to their families brought people together. There were only fifty-one of them left. Hook ups were a thing of the past. With reality shifting so quickly, people wanted substance, an anchor to cushion them from the new reality. They wanted a reliable partner. There had been a few problems at the beginning, but most of that had been resolved. There was a problem since there were fewer women than men, and a few guys were a little upset that they had been passed over. Still, there hadn’t been a problem lately.
Tom looked over at Mike, “So, when are you and Jen going to hook up?”
Now Mike’s expression grew guarded, “What do you mean.”
Jennifer was Mike’s closest female friend on new Earth. Deep down, he knew she was in love with him. She was a ton of bad ass warrior in a five foot frame. Two tons of amazing packed into a ninety-five pound body. She was Hmong, and one of the most bad ass Air Force officers to walk the earth, despite her size. She’d taken on giant terror birds, bear packs, and medusa dragons, putting most of the men in their group to shame. Plus, she was sexy as hell.
Mike was still in love with Jo. He knew he was in love with Jennifer as well, though. Conflicted was his constant mental state. He knew that there was no way that he would ever see Jo again. She had been pregnant with their first child, and it had hit him hard, not knowing what had happened to her and the baby. Even if she had survived the nuclear war, she was long dead.
What had happened a billion years ago was recent history to Mike, though. That was part of the reason that he fled to mathematics and research into the nature of time. His turmoil subsided as he tried to find a path back to Jo. Still, the more he studied, the more he knew it unlikely it was that he would ever find his way back to her.
Everett put his hand on the back of Mike’s neck, and gave him a little shake, “Man, you can’t be that much of a dumbass. That girl has you in her sights.”
Mike didn’t say anything.
“Mike, she’s not going to wait forever. Other guys are sniffing around. She keeps putting them off, for now,” Everett said, emphasis on the ‘for now’.
Mike looked over at Everett and shrugged. He knew that they were telling him the truth. Jennifer was one hell of a woman.
Tom changed the subject back to Latricia, letting Mike off the hook, “I’m pretty sure you two know all the particulars anyway. Latricia is one, ah, sociable young woman.”
Everett nodded, “That she is.”
Tom looked at Mike, “That woman won’t give up until she gets what she wants. I’m just lucky that she wanted me.”
Mike nodded. He got the message.
The two of them took pity on Mike. Everett pointed toward the stairs, “Well, Mike, I guess we can’t put it off, we need to get to the meeting,” The three turned and started up the stairs to the tunnel.
Everett sighed, “Man, you’d think, now that we’re a billion years in the future, that meetings would have died with the bureaucracy that created them.”
Mike grinned, “Yeah, if it was just us military types, maybe. Not with the academics though. They love meetings.”
They took the first tunnel. They took turns stepping through the rebar cage. The front of the tunnel sloped up as they walked in, to keep water from flooding into the living and work areas. The tunnel was narrow, only wide enough to allow one person through at a time. The tunnel widened out about ten feet past the entrance and opened up into a bigger area, the armory. The room was a hundred feet square.
Weapons and tech were kept in this room. Tom had a work area over to the right. Joe Oaks, Rick Stein, and Latricia were there stripping weapons for maintenance. Along the left side of the room, there was a big screen TV set up, with a video feed from the drone giving them situational awareness of anything approaching the compound wall. There were also feeds from two cameras that were mounted high up on the cliff walls. They’d been put in place when inclement weather almost brought the drone down.
To the left, a tunnel led back to the sleep area. The lights in the tunnel were kept dim. This was done because of the thirty-three hour day. None of them had gotten used to the long day, and frequently, they had to make their way back to take a nap to cope with the time difference.
Tom peeled off, and headed towards the weapons bench, “ya’ll enjoy your meeting.”
Everett watched him go, “I think he should have gone with us.”
“You’re just saying that because misery loves company.”
Everett nodded, his expression wistful, “True.”
Mike and Everett walked through the opening at the back of the room. It was a smaller hallway. It led back to an area that had offices and rooms branching off. At the end of the hallway, there was a large room for meetings, twenty by thirty feet.
They were the last ones to arrive. Everett saw Joan, smiled, and walked over to sit down in a chair next to her. He leaned over and gave her a kiss. Mike looked around. He saw Jennifer, but she had Ken Jondreau seated on one side, and Hank Bethel seated on the other. His mind flashed back to Everett and Tom’s warning. He smiled at her and turned to find a chair. He ended up sitting next to Bob Leitz.
It was a diverse group. The three amigos, Bob Leitz, Ed Nachmann, and Mike Crandall were there for engineering. Joan, along with Joel Humphreys represented medical. John Smith was there for electrical engineering. He and Luis took turns for the meetings. Hank was here to represent the techs and fabrication.
Ken Jondreau was head of the security team again. Jennifer was there as back up to Ken. She was the one to suggest that Ken should be put back in charge of security. She had no problem stepping aside and letting him take over. She preferred to work in engineering anyway. She was a badass, but she was a damn smart badass. She was also there because everybody valued her judgement, even though she was the youngest one in this group.
Michelle Tomiko was there for the chemists. Mike didn’t envy the chemists at all. Not only did they have to work on creating the monomolecular graphene and spider silk fabrics to keep everybody clothed and the Mechs armored, but th
ey had been busy doing spectrometer readings on everything that was eaten. Thankfully for them, that had eased up with the development of palm sized spectrometers that used q-bits to test the food. Tough job, busy job, but they kept at it. They didn’t seem to have problems keeping up.
Dr. Nachmann had become the unspoken leader of the compound. Nobody would listen to Ditch ’em Mitchem, and Mike had deferred to him as he concentrated on his research. Ed started the meeting, “Thank you all for coming. I think medical is going to start.” He motioned towards Joan and Joel.
Joan nodded, a slight, melancholy smile on her face, “Well, we have bad news, and then we have more bad news, I’m afraid.”
“That’s what I like about you, Joan. You’re always cheerful, always looking on the bright side,” Hank quipped.
Chuckles filled the room as the mood lightened.
Joan’s smile broadened, though it was still wistful as she continued, “Joel and I,” she motioned towards Humphreys,” have concluded our mapping of Matki Awrani’s DNA.” She paused for a second, “and it seems that Matki and we share about sixty-seven percent of our DNA.”
She let that sink in. John spoke, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means that we fifty-one are the last breeding population of homo-sapiens. We are a dying species.”
The news was unexpected. Mike had no experience with genetics, but Matki seemed incredibly human to him. This had further implications, though. They’d survived the nuclear war on old Earth, but their children, if they had children in this new reality, were doomed to die alone. The mood shifted again. The group started talking among themselves.
Joel motioned for everyone to quiet, and started speaking, “Honestly, I’m amazed that we’re that closely related. Remember, we’re talking about a billion years of evolution separating us. That’s almost four times longer than mammals had been on earth in the twenty-first century.”
Ed asked, pinching his lower lip, “Isn’t there a term for that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, when animals develop similar traits.”
“Oh, yeah, I know what you’re talking about. It’s called convergent evolution. Different animals, occupying the same general ecological niche, develop similar traits.”
“So, you think . . .”
Joel answered, shaking his head, “Well, it’s certainly possible, but not in this instance.” He held up his hand to forestall further conjecture, “Or, I should say, we don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Well, there are genes that we’ve only found in humans. A lot of our DNA is similar to other primates, but there are markers, haploid groups that indict that Matki’s people are our descendants. DNA sequencing indicated many different genes that are unique to our species. Some of those genes are very specific to us. So, most likely, Matki is a descendant of ours. Especially since some of those genes are in the mitochondrial DNA. Plus, we’ve imaged his body, and, while there are differences, we’re structurally pretty much the same, which indicates that he’s a primate. That, and his brain looks remarkably similar to ours. We,” Joel motioned toward Joan, “feel that he’s probably a descendant of our species. At least, as far as we can tell,” he caveated.
Mike thought about it. It was good to think that his species lived on in Matki, and in Matki’s tribe. Mike felt like he had family, even though they were so far removed from the one he had on old Earth. The homo-sapiens in this room may be the last ones, but they would live on in Matki’s people.
Hank spoke, “but, we have, what, nineteen women that could have children. Can’t they have children that would survive?”
Joan nodded, “yes, they would survive, that’s not the problem. The problem is, with such a small population, you would get inbreeding very quickly. Inbreeding results in homozygosity, which can increase the chances of offspring being affected by recessive or deleterious traits. This leads to the decreased biological fitness and ability of a population to survive and reproduce. Genetic diseases would start popping up. Eventually our species would die out.”
“We can’t breed with Matki’s tribe?” Ken asked.
Joan shook her head, “No, not at all. Let me put this in perspective. Our closest genetic cousin on earth was the chimpanzee, which shared about 99 percent of our DNA. There’s no way we could have interbred with them. So, sex possibly, but there will be no children from the union.”
“How can they be so similar to us, yet be so different genetically?” Michelle asked.
“That, would be the subject of a very interesting paper if we still published for academia,” Joan replied, “with research that would probably last a lifetime.”
Bob spoke, his hands waving around, putting emphasis on his words, “I know we’ve had problems like this before. I read something about the human race almost dying out around seventy thousand years ago,” Bob caught himself on the time reference, “I mean, seventy thousand years before the twenty-first century.”
Joel answered, “Yes, I know what you’re talking about. You’re talking about the Toba eruption, and the Toba catastrophe theory. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA suggests that our species almost died out then. The eruption led to global cooling that lasted for approximately one thousand years. That evidence led to the genetic bottleneck theory. But you have to realize, the estimate is that there were approximately one thousand to ten thousand breeding pairs. Even if every male had a child with every female here, that still wouldn’t offset the genetic inbreeding that would occur.”
Joan smiled, “Plus, I don’t think we women would want to have twenty plus children. Personally, I’d be exhausted.” This declaration brought smiles and a few chuckles.
She continued, “But, that won’t happen. The other bad news is this. We’re all dying.”
That last declaration stunned everybody.
Mike managed to blurt out, “What’s happening? Poison?”
Joan shook her head, “No, nothing as bad as that. Much more subtle, I’m afraid. Joel and I thought that we were coming to this point. We’ve run the blood tests, and done the analysis. We’re starving to death. We just aren’t getting the nutrients we need. Malnutrition is killing us.”
The group grew silent as they contemplated this information.
“We can bring in more food. We can hunt more if we need to,” Everett offered.
Joan patted him on the hand, “No, that won’t do us any good. We have enough protein. What we’re missing are essential vitamins that we need to live. We aren’t eating enough vegetables and fruits.”
Joel spoke, “I’m afraid the dragons are killing us after all. We’re trapped behind the wall. We need to forage for more food. That’s a problem with the dragons out there.”
Mike spoke up, “Speaking of the dragons, we may have more problems.”
Joel looked at him, “What do you mean?”
“Sorry Joel, I didn’t mean to steal your thunder.”
Joel smiled, “no problem, Mike.”
Mike looked at Everett. Everett nodded. Mike looked at Ed.
Ed spread his hands, “You sound like you have something you want to tell us. Go ahead.”
“Thanks Ed,” Mike continued, “Well, Matki just came back from a scout outside. He thinks this dragon, the Ancient, is different. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he doesn’t like it.” Questions were blurted out across the room. He held up his hands to slow down the verbal onslaught, “No, I have no idea what’s going to happen. But based on what Matki told us, I just have a bad feeling. No, I don’t know if the dragons are intelligent. I know they can be very cunning.”
“But, they can’t get past the wall, can they?” Ken asked.
He looked at Ken, and answered, “I don’t know if or how they can get past the wall.” He hesitated for a moment, “But I’m telling you, something’s up. We need to make sure that the mechs are prepped, and everybody needs to carry their weapons. I don’t want anyb
ody caught flat footed if there’s an attack.”
After the announcements about their species dying out, and the possible attack of dragons, the meeting was much more subdued. The meeting continued with situation reports from the different teams. The news was just as bad from everybody else. Hank told the group that supplies of materials for fabrication were running low. Michelle confirmed the problem with supplies when she told them that they were running out of precursor chemicals to make spider silk materials. The only good news was that they could always make the graphene monomolecular fibers. Carbon was everywhere. As long as they had electricity, which wasn’t a problem since they had the quantum battery, they would be able to make the carbon fibers.
The three amigos were finding other engineering projects that could be useful, but they were doing triage to decide which would be more beneficial and could use the materials at hand. Some things just couldn’t be made because they didn’t have the necessary materials or manufacturing capabilities.
Mike reflected on what he was hearing. They could get there, but it would take time. They needed to explore the larger world to find the elements needed. They needed a place for a larger fabrication facility. And they needed to be able to search for food, or, if possible, find a better location for agriculture. Primitive life really sucked. Back on old Earth, the more primitive life sounded good. Now reality proved that romantic view wasn’t as appealing when you had to give up air conditioning, refrigeration, medicine, and electronics.
The meeting finished and everybody broke up to go back to their individual projects. Mike stood up, stretched, and thought about the ancient dragon. He didn’t know what he’d seen in the dragon’s eye. He hoped he was wrong, but he had a bad feeling that he wasn’t.
----------------------------------------------------
Chapter Two
He woke when the light in the room switched on. Mike groaned. He’d only been asleep for a few hours. He put his arm over his face to block out the light. A shadow fell on him. The break this afforded him was momentary, though. His cot rattled as someone kicked it.