by Jeff Somers
Zadravec Entry One: This morning something is different. I sat out in the garden and wished for coffee as the sun rose, but there was, of course, no coffee. Also no police, so I did not complain. I have distrusted this peace, this quiet. Ever since the Little Captain shot himself all those years ago and we were without an SSF Field Officer for the first time since my parents’ time, others have rejoiced, others have celebrated. When no more police came to take his place, people became incautious, believing everything changed. There has been excitement ever since the bombing, the night that was bright as day years ago.
For a while, it seemed to be true. We heard nothing from the police, nothing from the Joint Council, nothing from the army. Nothing. Some celebrated, but the silence was frightening to me.
I remembered when the Little Captain shot himself in the head. He made a strange speech about the future, about there being none. Then there was nothing for a few months. Then the army came. Then the police again, strutting around, an army, too. Then they left again. And nothing since. Except the sunrise at night.
Zadravec Entry Two: I wish I knew why Henri has left; without word, without me.
* * *
Zadravec Entry Three: Today the strangest thing has happened. A meeting had been called; Carl the provost proposed that we send emissaries to other settlements nearby and negotiate trade agreements, diplomatic exchanges. Cooperation and mutual defense. And also, though this was unspoken, to inquire about their children, if they had any, and if they did, to spy on them and speculate why we were, to a person, barren. Although I think Carl often thinks too much of himself and his title, bestowed upon him because he thought of it first, this was a sensible suggestion and I was willing to be patient.
In the middle of the meeting, the first meeting that has been of any value in months, old Victor shuffled into the square. This was surprising, as Victor does not often leave his house, even now that the Vid Screens no longer function. We all paused in surprise, but he said nothing, simply appeared, and then, suddenly, Marik and Antoine stood up, swaying drunkenly, and started walking. They also said nothing. The rest of us stared after them. I thought it was a prearranged meeting, although Victor did not often socialize or even speak to anyone, preferring to autoscan channels on his Vid rather than to speak to any of us. They walked past the old man, though, who continued to stare at us unblinkingly. I noticed he was not wearing shoes.
Then Victor also turned away, and left.
We attempted to continue the meeting, but nothing came of it. We had, of course, been in regular contact with the other villages before, but the networks were down and did not seem to be coming back up, although Zukov performed a scan every few weeks just in case. He sometimes finds transient, mobile networks within range, but so far they are all encrypted and not public. At any rate, we broke up and went home.
Zadravec Entry Four: Today we were assaulted by brigands, a hungry group of women armed with shredding rifles pilfered from somewhere. We offered no resistance. They strode into the square without fanfare and had a long list of demands, but we had very little to offer them. They beat Carl terribly and issued their demands again, threatening to kill many of us if we did not meet them. I did not think they would; if they had ammunition for their guns, which I was not sure they did, it would be too precious to waste on us. It did not matter; we had already given them what we had to give.
When they left us, taking a meager haul of food and other supplies—Zukov lost our last chargeable battery—I noted several people missing and went searching for them, but they were nowhere to be found. As I searched, I ran into Victor down near my house, walking stiffly. I tried to hail him, to stop him, but he ignored me and acted as if he could not see me at all. I attempted to take his arm and guide him back to his house, but he refused—without words, without gestures, simply by not moving when I urged him to. He stared past me down the street and I turned to follow his look.
Several of the younger men were walking toward us. At first I thought they were coming to aid me with Victor, that we might carry him bodily me. moved stiffly, and stared as Victor stared, and when they came near none of them responded to me, although I knew their families. They moved silently past and kept walking, no matter what I said. They ignored me, and in moments I was alone with Victor again, feeling discomfited.
Then Victor began shuffling away, still silent. I let him go. I went back to my house and felt very alone.
Zadravec Entry Five: I am frightened; this morning Zukov is missing. The whole village suddenly seems empty, and I wonder how many people have simply stood up and walked away, glassy-eyed and silent. Carl woke me from a deep slumber with the news. I had to invite him in for a glass of my precious whiskey to steady him and get the whole story, which wasn’t much to tell. Ever since the invasion, we’d set up some simple alarms consisting of trip wires and piled pots and pans in nettings, and everyone took turns standing guard at the main approach. It was Zukov’s turn this evening, and when the wire was tripped the noise brought Carl running, old hunting rifle in his hands. He found Zukov simply walking into the woods, silent and unresponsive. He became angry and attempted to stop Zukov, but he said that the man was insensible, not reacting to pain or any obstruction, just walking and walking, implacable, silent.
I asked Carl if Victor was anywhere nearby, but he said no. He’d seen no one else.
I insisted we search the village. We found Victor in moments, striding about naked, apparently unaffected by the chill. But as I’d expected, we didn’t find many others. I started running from door to door, banging and shouting. None of the chimes worked anymore, of course, just as none of the escalators functioned inside. I made as much noise as I could, and when everyone had assembled to discover what had driven me insane, it was a shockingly small number of people.
We were childless, all of us, and absences were simply not noticed right away. We had been a village of a hundred souls, and now barely thirty stood in front of me.
“Victor,” Carl said before I could intervene. “That old bastard is behind this.”
It was terrible, and I could not stop it. Crazed with a sudden terror, they hunted poor old Victor and tore him from his house, where he was sleeping. He appeared normal, now; at first outraged that we would invade his house, then alarmed and peevish, and finally terrified as several men took hold of him and dragged him outside.
A drum trial began. We had much experience of these from the various army occupations that took place, all of our younger folk pressed into the army, the rest fleeing the Press Squads. I witnessed many instant trials, all performed with mock dignity and faked diligence, and ours was no different. They thought, perhaps by killing poor old Victor, everyone would return and all would be well again. He was convicted and sentenced, and everyone but me took up stones and surrounded the old man. It was clear that he did not understand what was happening. I wept as he stared around at us, at people he had lived his entire life with, blinking and twitching, demanding in a timorous screech that we explain ourselves.
And then they stoned him to death.
under it, wailing, and within seconds he was silent. I turned and ran, feeling helpless and angry, and shut myself in my home. Poor Victor. I did not like him. I had never liked him. But now I mourned him. For so long, with the Little Captain watching us, with the hovers at his command, we cursed the police and said to ourselves that if we were able to run our own affairs, things would be better. We are running our own affairs, and everything is much worse, and I wished a new Little Captain would arrive to issue commands and stop us from ourselves.
Outside, there was no noise. I wished for Henri, his voice, his disdainful manner. I wanted company in the house.
Zadravec Entry Six: Someone buried Victor. I don’t know who, but his frail, bruised body was gone the next day. I spoke to no one. Carl attempted conversation, but I ignored him, and no one else tried to speak to me, everyone going about with their eyes downcast. I would have left, but where is there for an
old woman like me to go? After getting water I stayed inside again. Some time in the evening someone rapped on my door, but I ignored them, and a few minutes later they abandoned the effort.
Zadravec Entry Seven: I ventured outside in need of food; my slim larder has shrunk, and my tin of N-tabs is almost empty. I think I will starve soon. There is no one left to worry about me, and since Victor, we are not a village anymore. We are a collection of combatants choosing our moment. I do not have any desire for death, but I do not wish the slow, inside-scraping fade of starvation. I will struggle until the end, but if the end comes I will slit my wrists and close my eyes, dream of Henri.
I saw Carl immediately. He was standing in his nightdress, staring at me. At first I paused, thinking he was surprised to see me, but slowly I realized he was vacant, still. He was our new Victor.
I approached him and made some effort to speak to him, but he was lost, as Victor had been. Alarmed, I wandered the village, but my worst fears were confirmed: I could find no one. Every house was empty, every path abandoned. I walked freely into every building, shouting, but no one answered.
When I found my way back to my own abode, Carl was gone as well. I stood shivering in the wind. I thought, Well, now there is food enough for a while, if I can raid everyone’s hidden stores for myself. The thought made me feel tired, and I did nothing about it, letting it sit there unopened, a rock in my mind. I decided I will wait. I decided I will see if anyone returns. Then I will decide what to do. When the world has returned.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As with all of these novels, a cast of thousands labors behind the scenes to make me look good, or at least marginally better than I actually am. To my team of Booze Acquisitionists, who managed to locate a bottle of Mackinlay’s from the North Pole Shackleton camp, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and for the last time, no, you cannot have any. To my team of makeup artists who transform me from Pudgy Middle-Aged Man to Man Who Is Definitely Not Drunk Right Now, Why Do You Ask? you perform miracles every day, and no, you do not get a raise. To my team of Fixers and Cleaners, who magically bodsform every public humiliation and potentially jailable offense into publicity triumphs, I can truthfully say that I don’t know how you do it. Because I never remember anything the next day.
To everyone at Orbit Books—Tim, Devi, Alex, Jennifer, Jack, and Lauren—I thank you for, well, everything, from expert editorial advice to amazing covers, enthusiastic promotion, and friendly, liquor-laden support. Plus, y’all paid me for my books, and thus you have purchased my heart as well.
The kids at Fine Print Literary Management have more hijinx in their little fingers than most people accumulate throughout an entire lifetime, and somehow use alchemy to transform said hijinx into sage career advice and royalty checks. My eternal thanks to Janet Reid, Agent to the Stars, and her cadre of minions.
My friends and family, although I don’t see any of them often enough anymore, remain inspirations and comforts: my wife, Danette, the Greatest Wife Ever in the History of Wivery; my brother Sean and my Sainted Mom, who still admit to being related to me for no known reason; Ken, Jeof, and Misty, who haven’t defriended me from Facebook despite plenty of reason to; Sean Ferrell, who drinks a lot, god bless him.
Finally, where would I be without Lili Saintcrow? Years ago she taught me to read and write while we were both in a mysterious prison in an unspecified location, beaten daily and forced to subsist on rats and runoff; needless to say these books would never have been written without her. Every year she mails me a small pebble; someday I know that pebble will be black, and then it all begins. Until then, I abide.
extras
meet the author
JEFF SOMERS was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. After graduating from college, he wandered aimlessly for a while, but the peculiar siren call of New Jersey brought him back to his homeland. In 1995, Jeff began publishing his own magazine, The Inner Swine (www.innerswine.com). Find out more about the author at www.jeffreysomers.com.
introducing
If you enjoyed THE FINAL EVOLUTION, look out for
EQUATIONS OF LIFE
by Simon Morden
Samuil Petrovitch is a survivor. He survived the nuclear fallout in St. Petersburg and hid in the London Metrozone—the last city in England. He’s lived this long because he’s a man of rules and logic.
For example, getting involved = a idea. But when he stumbles into a kidnapping in progress, he acts without even thinking. Before he can stop himself, he’s saved the daughter of the most dangerous man in London.
And clearly saving the girl = getting involved. Now, the equation of Petrovitch’s life is looking increasingly complex.
Russian mobsters + Yakuza + something called the New Machine Jihad = one dead Petrovitch. But Petrovitch has a plan—he always has a plan—he’s just not sure it’s a good one.
I
Petrovitch woke up. The room was in the filtered yellow half light of rain-washed window and thin curtain. He lay perfectly still, listening to the sounds of the city.
For a moment, all he could hear was the all-pervading hum of machines: those that made power, those that used it, pushing, pulling, winding, spinning, sucking, blowing, filtering, pumping, heating, and cooling.
In the next moment, he did the city dweller’s trick of blanking that whole frequency out. In the gap it left, he could discern individual sources of noise: traffic on the street fluxing in phase with the cycle of red-amber-green, the rhythmic metallic grinding of a worn windmill bearing on the roof, helicopter blades cutting the gray dawn air. A door slamming, voices rising—a man’s low bellow and a woman’s shriek, going at it hard. Leaking in through the steel walls, the babel chatter of a hundred different channels all turned up too high.
Another morning in the London Metrozone, and Petrovitch had survived to see it: God, I love this place.
Closer, in the same room as him, was another sound, one that carried meaning and promise. He blinked his pale eyes, flicking his unfocused gaze to search his world, searching…
There. His hand snaked out, his fingers closed around thin wire, and he turned his head slightly to allow the approaching glasses to fit over his ears. There was a thumbprint dead center on his right lens. He looked around it as he sat up.
It was two steps from his bed to the chair where he’d thrown his clothes the night before. It was May, and it wasn’t cold, so he sat down naked, moving his belt buckle from under one ass cheek. He looked at the screen glued to the wall.
His reflection stared back, high-cheeked, white-skinned, pale-haired. Like an angel, or maybe a ghost: he could count the faint shadows cast by his ribs.
Back on the screen, an icon was flashing. Two telephone numbers had appeared in a self-opening box: one was his, albeit temporarily, to be discarded after a single use. In front of him on the desk were two fine black gloves and a small red switch. He slipped the gloves on, and pressed the switch.
“Yeah?” he said into the air.
A woman’s voe, breathless from effort. “I’m looking for Petrovitch.”
His index finger was poised to cut the connection. “You are who?”
“Triple A couriers. I’ve got a package for an S. Petrovitch.” She was panting less now, and her cut-glass accent started to reassert itself. “I’m at the drop-off: the café on the corner of South Side and Rookery Road. The proprietor says he doesn’t know you.”
“Yeah, and Wong’s a pizdobol,” he said. His finger drifted from the cutoff switch and dragged through the air, pulling a window open to display all his current transactions. “Give me the order number.”
“Fine,” sighed the courier woman. He could hear traffic noise over her headset, and the sound of clattering plates in the background. He would never have described Wong’s as a café, and resolved to tell him later. They’d both laugh. She read off a number, and it matched one of his purchases. It was here at last.
“I’ll be with you in five,” he said, and cut off her protests about a
nother job to go to with a slap of the red switch.
He peeled off the gloves. He pulled on yesterday’s clothes and scraped his fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp vigorously. He stepped into his boots and grabbed his own battered courier bag.
Urban camouflage. Just another immigrant, not worth shaking down. He pushed his glasses back up his nose and palmed the door open. When it closed behind him, it locked repeatedly, automatically.
The corridor echoed with noise, with voices, music, footsteps. Above all, the soft moan of poverty. People were everywhere, their shoulders against his, their feet under his, their faces—wet-mouthed, hollow-eyed, filthy skinned—close to his.
The floor, the walls, the ceiling were made from bare sheet metal that boomed. Doors punctured the way to the stairs, which had been dropped into deliberately left voids and welded into place. There was a lift, which sometimes even worked, but he wasn’t stupid. The stairs were safer because he was fitter than the addicts who’d try to roll him.
Fitness was relative, of course, but it was enough.
He clanked his way down to the ground floor, five stories away, ten landings, squeezing past the stair dwellers and avoiding spatters of noxious waste. At no point did he look up, in case he caught someone’s eye.
It wasn’t safe, calling a post-Armageddon container home, but neither was living in a smart, surveillance-rich neighborhood with no visible means of support—something that was going to attract police attention, which wasn’t what he wanted at all. As it stood, he was just another immigrant with a clean record renting an identikit two-by-four domik module in the middle of Clapham Common. He’d never given anyone an excuse to notice him, had no intention of ever doing so.