An explosion of thoughts hit Mykl all at once. What if? How fast? How long? How many?
He had a solution. Now it was a matter of logistics. The virus just needed to be modified further, and he required a distribution method.
Mykl frowned at the tedious task of searching through massive City databases. As much as he hated to do it, he activated the computer voice recognition system.
“Computer voice activation on,” he said, hoping the system would be that user-friendly.
“Good evening, Mykl,” said a disembodied voice.
Mykl cringed, while Noah cocked his head and scanned for the visitor.
“Computer, how many modifications to the Europa virus are there?”
“You may call me Vale.”
“Vale?” Mykl said, not at all happy that this had suddenly turned into a conversation.
“Voice Activation Language Emulator.”
“Very well… Vale. Answer the previous question… please?”
“That information is restricted.”
Mykl stared in disbelief. Restricted? I’m supposed to have unrestricted access, except for a few things Jack wants to keep secret. So—this was one of Jack’s secrets.
“Vale, what types of drones does the City have at their disposal?”
Vale rattled off an impressive list, but none fit the need Mykl had in mind. And when he inquired about such a drone, Vale once again pleaded “restricted access.”
Anger, mixed with betrayal, grew inside him.
“Vale, can you track all City technology that utilizes gravity manipulation?”
“Yes, Mykl.”
“Display the location of such devices on my wall map.”
The asteroid impact site remained centered in his satellite’s field of view. A large plume of steam and smoke had now climbed high into the atmosphere, obscuring the boiling crater. Wind currents pulled the plume in an easterly direction.
Mykl placed his hands far apart on the wall and quickly brought them together. The image zoomed out rapidly. Floating dots blanketed every population center on the planet, as he’d expected.
“Vale, same request, but show me the distribution two weeks ago,” Mykl ordered.
Only a tiny fraction of the lights remained.
“Back to current time,” he demanded.
He selected a dot and zoomed in on it. The City satellite at his command transmitted impeccable resolution. He zoomed closer and closer until the drone loomed larger than life. Color-morphing made it almost undetectable. Mykl identified it as a fat disk with protrusions along its perimeter.
“Vale, what is this drone’s function?” Mykl asked, knowing exactly the response Vale would give him.
“That information is restricted,” Vale answered.
“Computer! Voice interaction off!”
Out of habit, Mykl grabbed Stinker in his rush out of the room.
***
Mykl slid to a stop at the Operations Center. The people monitoring post-impact effects noticed him this time. So did Jack. The man’s lean body sagged in a chair, and his face seemed to have aged decades since the last time Mykl saw him.
“I need to speak with you… alone,” Mykl said in a fair imitation of Jack’s command voice.
Eyebrows raised behind every work station. Jack politely gestured to his private office connected to the main room. Mykl remained standing as Jack closed the door and sat. He looked at Mykl expectantly.
“I found a solution to your problem,” Mykl said. “But you already knew it.”
Sadness haunted Jack’s eyes as he nodded confirmation.
Mykl pressed on, ready for a fight. “You used me.”
“Mykl…”
“What?” he demanded, not happy about having his prepared spiel interrupted.
“Delilah’s dead.”
Stinker fell to the floor.
Jack shared his pain, and his love, in a communicative stare.
“Lahlah?” Mykl whispered softly.
Jack closed his eyes in silent affirmation.
Mykl dropped to his knees and buried his face in Stinker’s fuzzy belly. “HuNyOOOOOOOO!” he wailed into the bear.
Jack moved to sit by his grandson. He pulled Mykl and Stinker into his lap. Stinker heroically attempted to absorb their grief, but there was only so much one teddy bear could do. They would need each other for the rest.
After Mykl’s sobs subsided, he leaned back to look into Jack’s eyes. “How?” he asked.
Jack paused. “She was on her way to return Lawrence’s jacket… when a drunk driver hit her head-on at high speed. She didn’t feel anything. The impact was too great.”
A few of the bear’s stiches popped under the tension of Mykl’s grip. His jaw muscles quivered as he stared into the realm of things that cannot be undone. His irrational thoughts weren’t ready to be let go.
“You could have implemented the solution fifty years ago,” he said. “None of this would have happened! My mom, Lahlah, the asteroids, none of it!”
“You might not exist now if I had done that.”
“I DON’T CARE!” Mykl threw Stinker across the room.
Jack spoke calmly, though his face reflected Mykl’s grief. “The number of innocent people has always been far larger than the number of those who would do evil. I had to give them a chance. Generation after generation came and went, until we finally reached the tipping point to self-destruction. It’s not their fault. Humanity’s foundation was broken from the start. Scattered. They developed strengths that, in cooperation, would take them to the stars. But they held on to their petty differences to the detriment of the species.
“I gave them those fifty years to create a new foundation. They failed. It can’t be forced upon them, or simply handed over. Another fifty years won’t make any difference. If I hadn’t neutralized the virus on those asteroids, all intelligent life would be extinguished in a year, in the most horrible apocalyptic conditions imaginable. My solution saves them from that, as well as from a destruction of their own making… And it allows for a new start.”
Mykl had been rubbing at his eyes the entire time Jack spoke. He was surprised at how quickly he could recover his composure, but then again, he had always possessed that ability. Perhaps it was a manifestation of his alien DNA. A new survival trait: the ability to not dwell on the past.
“You can’t save everyone,” Mykl said.
“No. I can’t,” Jack said. “Nor can I make everyone happy. No one can.”
“Why did you ask me to come up with a solution when you already had one?”
“It took decades to develop mine,” Jack said. “You discovered it in what, five days? Not a day goes by that I don’t feel like some kind of monster. You came to this of your own reasoning. When a five-year-old boy—a brilliant, innocent boy at that—reaches the same conclusion, it takes some weight off my old heart.”
Mykl didn’t feel all that innocent. Solution. Such a nice, unthreatening word for what Jack planned to do. It had a more appropriate and accurate name. “When are you going to implement this…?” Mykl couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
“Now,” Jack said.
“How?”
Jack carried Mykl with him as he went to sit at his desk. Then he entered the most complex series of taps and swipes Mykl had witnessed so far. A slowly flashing red circle, the size of an apple, appeared on the desk. “All I have to do is place my palm on that circle, and the sequence will initiate.”
Mykl’s anger softened. This mortal man had carried the weight of the world on his shoulders for too long. Would Jack’s adaptation also protect his human conscience after committing speciocide?
Mykl lunged forward and slapped his hand on the circle before Jack could react. He then fell into Jack’s lap and pressed his head into the older man’s chest. Jack’s heart still beat strongly.
With Jack squeezing him tight, Mykl said, “You’re not a monster.”
They remained in each other’s arms until th
eir tears dried, not saying a word. Each was lost in his own thoughts… as the race of humans on the planet began to die.
CHAPTER 86
Three Weeks Post-Impact
“Did he have anything to say?” President Feng asked of his military’s highest-ranking officer, then coughed. This cold had latched on a week ago, and he couldn’t shake it. Everyone around him seemed to have it too.
“The space administration director maintained his innocence up until the rifles fired at his execution,” the general answered.
“And his family?”
“Nothing. They have been relocated to a labor camp.”
“What of the reactions to the asteroids? Has anyone placed the blame on us?”
“No one. If anything, the other governments pity us for our losses.”
Pity, Feng thought, and he coughed in disgust. He had defanged his country by his own actions. The catastrophic EMP created by the asteroids passing through atmosphere had ruined everything in orbit. With luck, they might be able to launch a simple communications satellite in the coming week. Their military would likely require decades to rebuild.
But one thing was for certain: someone knew of China’s role in bringing the asteroids to Earth. For the impact to have occurred at the precise location where their fleet had been directed… that was no coincidence.
Feng coughed and pounded a fist on his desk in anger.
***
“What happens now?” Mykl asked.
They had said teary goodbyes to his mom and Delilah at their memorial service the day before. He now sat with his father in Dr. Lee’s homey office.
“Now it’s our turn to go into hibernation,” Kyle said.
“Is it going to hurt? Will there be needles involved?”
“I think Dr. Lee can put you to sleep before she uses any needles. After that, you won’t dream or feel a thing until you wake again.”
“And that will be…?” Mykl asked.
His father knelt next to him. “When the world is ready for us, Mykl.”
CHAPTER 87
Three Months Post-Impact
In the CEO’s office of a major manufacturer of pregnancy tests, a heated discussion takes place.
“Have you gotten my messages? We’ve been bombarded by numerous complaints from all over the country,” the CEO says.
The flustered quality control manager replies, “There’s nothing wrong with our product! I’ve personally run tests on thousands of random samples. New and old. The detection rate is greater than 99%.”
“Then why are none of our customers seeing positive readings on their tests? Answer me that! Are all the women in the world suddenly unable to get pregnant? This is ridiculous. Recheck, recalibrate and do whatever is necessary to resolve this problem. Or I will find someone who can…”
In a fertility clinic, a lab technician attempted for the ninth time to artificially fertilize another egg. Everything goes smoothly. Rubbing the fatigue from her eyes, she places her work in the incubator. But when she returns to work the next day, the microscope reveals zero cell division among all attempts. These failures have been going on for at least a week…
***
The president doodles leisurely at his desk in the Oval Office. He won reelection in a landslide. Now his science advisor is prattling on about a disturbing drop in conception rates across the nation. He has four more years to enjoy his presidency. A few less babies being born doesn’t concern him in the slightest…
***
Six Months Post-Impact
Panic has spread across the world. No new documented cases of conception have occurred since two weeks after the asteroid strike. Microbiologists traced the culprit to a heretofore-unknown virus, likely introduced into the atmosphere by the asteroids themselves. Initial infection is believed to be related to the post-impact common cold pandemic. No one died from the infection, but it left the entire population of the planet sterile. No one was immune.
Scientists working on a vaccine or treatment are baffled by the virus’s gene structure and resiliency. It affects not only humans but also the greater apes. Hopes for success are slim. Still they try.
Religious zealots worldwide have finally found their calling. Their signs stating the world is coming to an end no longer receive looks of ridicule and disbelief. The messages are now viewed as fact and certainty…
***
Ten Months Post-Impact
The last baby is born. Her mother names her Hope. World population numbers dominate nightly newscasts as a countdown to extinction. Even countries with terrible histories of exploiting children now treat them as national treasures.
Orphanages throughout the world empty like the shelves of a looted store. The curator of the Las Vegas Foundling Asylum sees her last charge adopted by a worthy family.
Scientists develop a promising vaccine. With no suitable animals to use, and in desperation, they risk testing it on the last born child.
Hope dies…
***
Five Years Post-Impact
Elementary schools close their doors due to declining need. Manufacturing of children’s products comes to a halt. Many companies go out of business. World population has dropped by ten percent. Previously adversarial nations now work together to find a solution to prevent extinction. The world is at peace…
***
Twenty Years Post-Impact
The sound of children laughing exists only on recordings. Playgrounds and schools have been repurposed. World population has dropped by thirty percent. Inhabitants of the planet find that food, water, and energy are plentiful. The last members of the global workforce begin taking jobs. Resignation sets in that there will be no miracle, no cure, and no more children…
***
Fifty Years Post-Impact
No schools of any kind remain. People have accepted that they already know all that is needed to take them to the end. The workforce ages, and production drops. Yet all live in comfort. The remaining population naturally begins to migrate to better climates for convenience and social needs. Individuals from enemy nations become friends. It’s better than being alone. Abandoned cities become weed-ridden wildlife sanctuaries…
***
Ninety Years Post-Impact
A group of old men gather solemnly at a sheltered table by the sea. A massive pod of whales blows misty plumes into the air as if in salute to the ceremony. The men have just consigned one of their own to an ocean teeming with life. Their brittle bodies no longer have the strength to dig graves. Their softening minds no longer have the will. As far as they know, they are the last living people in the world.
One of the men attempts to break the somber mood. He claims he saw a submarine fly out of the water and disappear beyond the horizon. The other men look at each other in heavy-hearted silence. Hallucinations are a sign of advanced dementia. They know their friend will not be with them much longer.
Against the backdrop of a red rising sun, they return to lonely homes to tend to their gardens…
CHAPTER 88
Ninety-Seven Years Post-Impact
Earth’s last survivor of the impact generation has been trapped for three hundred days. A fall injured his knee, and he no longer possesses the ability to navigate the steep steps leading out of his beautiful cove by the sea. A freshwater stream has met all his needs for thirst, but without the ability to reach his garden, he has thought, for three hundred days now, that he would soon starve. However, every morning when he awakes, fresh food awaits. He saw the flying submarine years ago, and he wonders if his mind decided to follow.
A deep fatigue in his bones and a shallow flutter in his chest tell him that the setting sun measures his remaining moments. Sadness envelops him. He feels certain that he is the last. He ponders the possibility that he has already died and lives now in the afterlife. If that is the case, besides the loneliness, it isn’t so bad. And perhaps this next death will reunite him with his friends.
With one last look at th
e sunset, he lies in the sand and closes his eyes. The ocean breeze caresses his deeply lined face. Sea birds call to the sky. He releases his physical body from further need.
I am ready to go…
A small warmth fills his palm. Not furry, like a creature, but smooth, like soft skin. He opens his eyes again. A small boy kneels beside him, with chocolate brown hair and copper-colored eyes.
The boy holds his hand and speaks to him. He can’t understand the language, but he knows in his failing heart that the words are kind.
The sun is setting too fast… or does his heart beat too slowly? No matter. He smiles at the boy and closes his eyes for the last time. Happiness graces his last thoughts.
I’m not the last, after all. Where one child lives, there are bound to be more…
CHAPTER 89
“That was very nice of you, Mykl,” his father said after he recounted his visit to say goodbye to the last man.
Mykl and his dad were enjoying a picnic in a cool breeze on a sun-warmed beach. The large city behind them changed hourly as matter-manipulation bots recycled it. Lawrence and Rose frolicked with Tina in the surf. Her shrieks of laughter mingled with the sounds of hundreds of other children playing in the sand.
Mykl shrugged and stared at the teddy bear in his lap. Stinker was a proper bear with two good eyes now—though Mykl had asked Dr. Lee to leave the tear under his arm, in case Noah ever had need of it again. Noah, however, seemed quite happy to entertain the children from the comfort of his new outdoor habitat.
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