Countdown to Extinction

by Louise Moss

  “I’m coming with her,” he said, earning himself a sudden punch. Adrian shoved the man back, but he was surprisingly tough. After he had steadied himself, he came at Adrian a second time.

  Merle pleaded with him. “Don’t, Adrian, please; we don’t know what they’ll do. I couldn’t bear it if they separated us.” Her words caused Adrian to pause long enough for the Bluecoat to grab Merle and shove her out the door.

  Unknown to both Bertrand and his “patient,” the birth of Merle’s baby was an historical occasion, the first birth for a hundred years. Hagan, Tostig, Malchus and the Leaders awaited the event in the safety of their offices around the world. Hagan had watched the reproduction ritual at Proteus, but he had never seen an actual birth.

  He fixed a tiny sensor, smaller than a fingertip, to his chest, and the Mind Filter to his forehead. The monitor would keep his bodily processes normal, and if his reactions were too severe, fade the picture away altogether.

  That morning, in the thirty-ninth week of pregnancy, Merle had been taken down in the lifts, believing that she was going to a routine appointment. In the previous two sessions, she had been injected with water so that she would accept, without question, the same procedure, not realizing that the liquid had been changed to oxytocin to start the process of labour.

  Bertrand hovered over the woman, his voice low and quiet, urging her to push. The woman’s eyes were closed, her cheeks red, hair matted, her mouth open in a silent scream, showing perfectly formed teeth. Her forehead was creased and wet with droplets of water. “Sweat,” Tostig murmured. Never before seen in Hagan’s lifetime.

  He moved closer to get a better view. Her breath came in gasps and the top of the baby’s head could be seen. “One more push and the baby will he here,” Bertrand said and the faces throughout the world moved closer to their screens.

  As the final contraction came, Merle gave a piercing scream and Bertrand prepared to assist the baby into the world. As its head emerged, Hagan gripped the edge of the desk, noticing, with detached interest, that his nails dug into his hands and his knuckles had turned white.

  The image in front of him flickered as the filters released chemicals into his brain to keep his functions normal, and a few seconds later he let go of the desk, uncurled his fists and took a deep breath. The baby, a female, was born.

  Looking back later, Hagan blamed himself for what happened next, but if Malchus had not found the information in his research, how could he, Hagan, have known? As had been decreed by the Leaders, Bertrand was allowed to attend to the baby, to ensure it was breathing, intact and normal. The Worker Xela, recommended by Controller One as the most loyal and trusted, was waiting outside. When Bertrand cut the cord, it was the signal for Xela to enter the room. In the few moments it took her to cross to the bed, Bertrand had passed the baby to the mother. How could they have foreseen that? Or that when Xela held out her arms to take the child, the woman shrank away, holding the baby tightly to her chest?

  Xela had a job to do. She pushed Bertrand fiercely in the stomach, forced the woman’s arms apart, and took the infant. The woman leapt up, with a scream that the filters reduced to a whimper, and launched herself on Xela. Xela was strong. She kicked the woman away easily and left quickly, shutting the door behind her. Hagan could still hear the woman screaming as if from a great distance. Bertrand was trying to follow Xela, pulling impotently at the locked door before sinking to his knees, his head in his hands. The Leaders had fallen silent. No woman of their time had ever tried to hold onto her baby.

  Gerald was returning from the Long Room, unsure which meal he had just eaten - they were all pretty much the same – when he heard the familiar swish he associated with the doors opening and shutting. The problem of how to open them was constantly on his mind, but all avenues of thought had been dead ends. Hesitant footsteps approached, accompanied by heavy sobbing, deep sighs, and desperate cries that filled him with dread. He had heard that sound before when he’d stayed on a farm and a calf had been taken away from its mother shortly after it was born. The cow had kept up a terrible lowing all night.

  Turning the corner, he saw the figure of a woman on the floor of the corridor, crumpled like a rag doll. A man came out of one of the rooms, looked around wildly, found the corridor empty and hurried towards the woman. With Gerald’s help, he raised her to a sitting position.

  “Merle, what’s happened?”

  “They took her away,” she whispered, shaking her head violently from side to side. “They took our baby away.”

  “Took her away? Where to? Was there something wrong with her?”

  “She was perfect, perfect.”

  “Where did they take her? Will they bring her back here? Can we go to her?”

  She banged her head on the wall. Adrian held her and rocked her gently while Gerald stroked her hand. He could think of nothing else to do to help the woman. Emma’s predictions were coming true. She had warned the women would not be allowed to keep the babies, but he had dismissed her words as mere foolishness.

  In his laboratory, Hagan noted that the Woman’s energy field was a uniform black, He watched as the two men supported the limp body and slowly carried her back to her room, murmuring something incomprehensible. As her companion stroked her hair, small splashes of dark green entered the energy field.

  He wondered whether the woman’s actions were a result of the oxytocin they had given her. Had he got the dose wrong and caused a chemical imbalance in her brain? Unlikely. The man was displaying the same symptoms.

  The woman spoke. “They wouldn’t even let me touch her. They said we’d never see her again, never.”

  Adrian clenched his fists. “They can’t treat us like this. I won’t let them.”

  Hagan observed the scene: the two men looking at each other, the woman slumped on the couch. He increased the magnitude until he could see a vein that pulsed on Adrian’s forehead, and every line in Gerald’s turned down lips.

  5

  Gerald returned to his room and lay on the bed. He had not slept well that night, but he would not sleep now, not after witnessing such brutal treatment. Who were these barbaric creatures and what did they want with his people?

  Emma lay down beside him, wrapping her bare legs around him and reaching beneath his tunic. “It will be okay,” she whispered seductively, her breasts, naked beneath the tunic, pressing into his back.

  He pushed her away. The whole idea was wrong; she was young enough to be his daughter – no, his granddaughter.

  She slipped off her tunic. “You look all stressed,” she said, reaching up to massage his shoulders.

  He shook himself free and looked into her flushed face and watched the hope in her eyes change to puzzlement, then fear.

  “They’ll kill me,” she said.

  He turned away. “Get dressed.”

  He had been faithful to Margaret all their married life. When she was ill, well-meaning friends had dropped a few hints, suggesting he would find it easier to look after her if “his own needs” were fulfilled. He had felt disgusted with them – but after she had gone, his grief had led him to seek the comfort of other women. He wouldn’t defile himself like that again.

  Emma’s quiet sobs tore at his heart strings and he was tempted to comfort her. But no…even though Margaret was dead, and he was only half alive, he would not be unfaithful to the woman he loved.

  He wondered if it was possible to change rooms; but even if it were, he would be put in with someone else who expected more of him than he could give. It would have been better if he had never been frozen.

  He left the room and went to the balcony, the one place he could feel peaceful. The sun beat down as if it was mid-day, although it was dark in the corridors behind him and. Below him, the sunflowers had opened up fully, a connection with the world of his past and the garden he and Margaret had created together. They gave him hope.

  The bluecoats were moving about on the lower floors. Although they were only a hundred feet from
where he stood, it felt as if they were light years away. There could be no contact, no understanding between them. The figures reminded him of the time his father had taken him to the Royal Opera House when he was a child. They had sat at in The Gods, the highest gallery, and he had felt a strange detachment from the distant performers below, moving about like puppets.

  He made a calculation. If there were, say, between a hundred and fifty and two hundred people on each floor, and if only some floors were occupied…there could be over two thousand people housed here.

  If he could cut through the general apathy and silence, get through to even a fraction of the others, they could join forces and maybe achieve something. If enough people got together, the doctors and the Bluecoats would have to listen. The first problem was to overcome the general dreariness of life here, which led to sullenness and lack of interest. The others had simply given up.

  Given what had just happened, he could think of only one thing, that Emma was right: they were here to breed. He had not believed her, certain she was simply reliving the time when they had taken her baby away. After what had happened to Merle, it seemed that they were not going to be allowed to bring up their own children.

  An image came into his head of the battery chicken farms that were prevalent back in his time, which had the sole purpose of producing as many eggs as possible, without regard for the chickens. Along with the image came the thought – surely it couldn’t be true – that the babies were being produced as food. Perhaps in the intervening years, man had developed a taste for cannibalism, or perhaps so many plants and animals had become extinct, eating human flesh was the only option. He gripped the rail, for fear he would throw himself over. Perhaps it would be better if he did. He was of no use to Emma. She was right, she must have children if she was to survive, but he certainly never wanted to father a child for these ruthless killers.

  People in his day had clubbed seals to death, shot deer for sport, chased of foxes around the countryside until they were torn by dogs and committed many more atrocities. If the same thing was now happening to them – some would call it Karma.

  The Bluecoats were cruel, but were they really any worse than people in his time? Some terrible things had happened back then. The human was inherently evil, and was only held back by social conventions. Once they had gone, once there were no restrictions, man’s true nature came out.

  Death would be preferable to a world where children were wrenched from their mothers to be brought up in a world with no values, or worse. He leaned far out over the balcony. It would be so easy to throw himself over.

  “Are you all right?” Adrian stood silhouetted in the doorframe.

  Gerald pulled himself back. “Just thinking.”

  “I won’t allow them to do this to us.”

  “You mean, take the babies away? What can we do?”

  “I can’t do anything on my own. We must talk to the others. We’ve got to fight.”

  Gerald suddenly longed for sleep. “I think they’ve drugged Merle,” Adrian went on. “Before she fell asleep, her speech was slurred and her breathing laboured. I’ll have to get back, make sure she’s all right. We’ll get together tomorrow.”

  Gerald followed him along the corridor. Tired as he was, he knew sleep would be impossible. He had to solve the problem of the doors, or they would always be prisoners. That was the key. Passing the doors on the way back, he gave them a kick. It made him feel a little better.

  As if from nowhere, a Bluecoat came limping quickly down the corridor. Gerald turned, trying to get to his own room before the Bluecoat reached him, but the man was gaining on him, despite his short, crooked legs. When he was nearly on him, Gerald moved quickly to the side, but unexpectedly, the man squatted down and pulled his legs from under him. Gerald landed heavily, folding his arms around his head to protect it from the punches. Gasping, tongue lolling like a dog’s, he tried to catch his breath. Peering from his bloodshot eyes, the man’s face loomed above him, glowing like a boxer who’d won the round before turning and limping back down the corridor, rubbing his hands together in an age-old gesture of delight.

  Gerald curled up on the floor and waited for someone to come to his aid. Surely they must have heard the commotion, but the doors along the corridor remained resolutely closed. His legs had turned to jelly. Unable to raise himself from the floor, he crawled back to his room, leaving a trail of blood behind him. At the door to his own room, Emma stood over him, her eyes wide with fear.

  “What have you done?” she asked, helping him to the bed and holding a cup of water to his lips. It was painful to swallow, but it was better than having the metallic taste of his own blood in his mouth.

  Through swollen lips, he said, “You were right. I’m a stubborn old man. You were right about everything.”

  Back in Hagan’s laboratory, the system sounded an alert. It had picked up abnormal levels of corticotrophin, epinephrine, cortisol and glucose in Primitive Gerald. Hagan reacted straight away. It was imperative to restore normal functions before any lasting damage was done. He authorised the release of anandamide and diamorphine through the ventilation system into the room. Soon the system showed that the couple were in a deep sleep.

  The next morning, for a few seconds, Gerald felt as if he had had the best night’s sleep he’d ever had, then painful images from the night before flashed before him. At first, he thought he was remembering a dream, but the bruises on his body did not lie.

  There was a different feel to the Long Room this morning. Every morning since he had arrived, they had sat in silence ignoring each other, but today, people murmured to each other.

  Gerald sat down on in his usual place, trying to find a position that did not hurt. The women opposite nodded. “We heard what happened in the night,” she whispered. “We wanted to help, but we were afraid.”

  “There was nothing you could have done,” he said.

  The Bluecoats came in with thick, heavy sticks, banging the floor so hard, Gerald felt the vibration throughout his body. A memory flashed into his mind. 1968, East London, the gas explosion. He had been passing the flats at the time.

  The room was silent, but there was something different now. People glanced at each other from downcast eyes. The couple opposite were even holding hands.

  After breakfast, Gerald went straight to Adrian’s room. If they were going to fight these Bluecoats, the only way was to be like the French Resistance in World War II. They would have to look as if they were cooperating, pretend to go along with the Bluecoats, make it seem that they accepted the destiny that had been imposed on them, and then, when the time was right, strike back. They needed to formulate a solid plan and act once everything was in place. That’s what he intended telling Adrian.

  Merle was propped up in bed, red-eyed, skin blotchy and eyes dull.

  “How is she this morning?” he asked.

  Adrian shrugged. “Much the same. The drugs haven’t worn off yet. Is Emma coming?”

  “She’s too young.”

  “She needs to be here.”

  Emma was sitting by the window brushing her long hair, looking wistfully at some far distant place in her mind. The sun highlighted her blonde tresses and he was filled with a tenderness and a desire to protect her, as he would his own daughters. He knew so little about her, but one thing he did know: she was too young for this, and he was too old.

  She looked enquiringly at him. “Are you going to talk to Adrian?”

  “Yes, we’re just waiting for you.”

  When they got back, Adrian was stroking Merle’s hand. “You’ve got to stop them,” she said, her speech indistinct, blurred. Facing Emma, she said, “Emma, you must not get pregnant,” then slipped down in the bed and closed her eyes. Emma moved to the bed and rocked her like a baby.

  Emma put her hand on her heart. “You never forget. The pain never goes away.” She opened her locket and kissed at the photo of her baby. “We have to stop them.”

  Adrian sat on the be
d and stroked Merle’s hand. “We need to form a committee,” he said.

  A wry smile passed across Gerald’s face. As if a committee had ever decided anything!

  “I don’t see what’s so funny,” Adrian said, nostrils flaring.

  “I’m sorry, I was thinking of something else. You’re right, of course.”

  “We’ve got to find a way to hide it from The Bluecoats. We all know how vicious they are.” Gerald held out his arms. The bruises were rapidly turning yellow.

  “First, we need to draw up a plan of the building…how many people in it, get as much information as we can.”

  Emma snapped the locket shut. “Bertrand. He sees the pregnant women from the other floors as well.”

  “How do you know about this doctor?” Gerald asked.

  Emma gave him a quizzical look. “Women talk to each other. Oh yes, I know we keep our heads down when the Bluecoats are about. We pretend we don’t know each other, we never even glance at each other in the corridors. But when we’re alone, it’s a different matter.”

  So it had been throughout history. It had been women who had sorted out whatever had to be done, who contained emotional situations, restored peace, encouraged men to take whatever action was necessary. Emma wasn’t the inexperienced teenager he thought she was but a young woman who was wise beyond her years. She had the advantage of hope too. The young always saw possibilities the old didn’t. He had thought, foolishly, that being the older than she and with his background, he would be a natural leader, the one to get them all out of this mess. But now he saw he couldn’t do it alone. He needed Emma, who could communicate with the others in a way he could not..

  “I agree,” Adrian said. “We’ll pass messages via Bertrand to the people on the other floors.”