Countdown to Extinction

by Louise Moss

  He felt for the ring he always wore around his neck. Margaret’s image had been gradually fading from his mind since his relationship with Emma had begun, and now it did not appear at all. The ring was just a stone, probably without value in this new world he was in, or the Bluecoats would have snatched in from him. Marriage, family life…the same values didn’t apply here. He felt the loss of his old life deeply, a grief that would always be with him but perhaps would lessen in time. For the sake of Emma, he must try to throw out old thoughts, old behaviour patterns, and adapt to this new life. There was no other way ahead.

  “You’re right,” he said. “The old life has gone. You are my life now.” He felt the familiar rush of desire and, despite his tiredness, pulled her close to him.

  As he bent his mouth to hers, she stiffened.

  “What is it?”

  “I heard something. There’s someone outside the door.”

  Spurred on by his vision of the future where he was praised for his experiments and recognised as a scientific genius, Hagan pushed the door open. The smell was worse here and snuffling noises came from the bed. This was crazy. It would have been so much easier to speak to the man from the safety of his own office. But the strange feeling had persisted that he must meet the Primitive in person.

  When they come for me, they will erase everything and I will remember nothing. For the sake of The Plan, for humanity, for the planet, he must continue. He was the only one who could do it. It was his destiny.

  Focussing his mind, he put out a tentative feeler to the man sleeping in the bed. As he locked into the other’s mind, terrible images overwhelmed him. Sorrow and fear rose up from the Primitive’s subconscious and rolled towards him in an enormous wave, threatening to drown him and destroy his mind. He quickly closed the connection.

  The Primitive stirred and Hagan fleetingly thought of sending out anti-fear messages to the man, but did not want to risk contact with his mind again.

  Gerald sat up. “Who’s there?” he cried.

  Hagan’s voice trembled slightly. “It is I, Hagan. We met on your first day.”

  “I remember. What are you the man doing here? “

  “I must talk to you.”

  “Talk to me?”

  Hagan sighed at how slow these Primitives were, so reluctant to follow orders. “Please come, it is urgent.”

  Gerald got up slowly. “It’s a trick,” Emma said.

  “Perhaps, but we need answers. This might be the only chance to find out what’s going on here.”

  “What’s he doing up here?”

  Hagan felt Gerald’s mind slowly trying to connect to his, but the woman was pleading with him not to leave her. Time was short, they would be here soon. The balcony was a place the Primitive craved. It should be safe for him too. Nobody would expect to find him there.

  “Meet me at the balcony,” he said. As he entered the corridor, he said, “There is not much time. They will be here for me soon.”

  It was a gamble, but Gerald had left the room and had nearly caught him up

  “Who will be here soon?” he called out/

  They were at the balcony. Hagan stood at the railings, his face in darkness. “There is something I must understand about your world. I have seen it on your faces. Something I cannot understand. A look between the man and the woman. The way you….” He hesitated. “Like one person. You do things together, you decide things together. I cannot explain what I mean.”

  He felt blind. Keeping the mind connection firmly closed kept him safe, but it meant that he could not know the other man’s thoughts.

  “It’s okay, I know what you mean. You’re talking about love.”

  Hagan scanned his vocabulary. “Love? That is not a word I know.”

  “It’s like you said. Wanting to be with someone, being on the same side, doing things together, facing the world as a team of two. Aren’t things like that here?”

  Hagan considered the new concept. “The Leaders decide and we obey. We have companions. I have Zorina.” He wouldn’t have her after this, but he didn’t have time to consider how his life was about to change. “She is a good companion, but I do not think it is…love.” The strange word rolled around his tongue.

  “A world without love,” Gerald said. He seemed to shake himself then quietly pulled himself up to full height, just over a foot higher than Hagan and said, “There were other things he wanted to know. “Tell me. What year is it?”

  Hagan hesitated. The Leaders had ordered that no information be given to the Primitives, but he needed this man to trust him, if his plan to save the world was to be accomplished.

  “I need to know,” Gerald urged.

  “It is 4489”.

  “More than two thousand years since - How stupid I’ve been. Emma was right. This is a different world.”

  “You cannot live freely in our world,” Hagan said. “You would die. That is why you must stay here. I want you to understand that.”

  “Yes, I can see that now.

  “You would not survive.”

  “This has got to be a dream. It’s not real, is it. It’s like the furniture, there but not there.”

  “I am real,” Hagan said. “I wish to – “ He halted. What he had been about to say sounded so bizarre. It could only be the drug talking.

  “What is it?”

  “I want….” Something clamoured at his mind. He had to go on. “I want - touch. I have never – “

  “You’ve never touched another person? What sort of world is this?

  “No.” He could not explain his world to this Primitive. It would take too long and there was very little time.

  Gerald walked forward, arms outstretched. Hagan flinched at the first touch of firm hands on his flesh, but it was not unpleasant. It had the odd effect of making his skin tingle.

  “This touching…it is strange,” he said. It was like the touching of minds, only more solid. It was a strange sensation to feel another’s warmth, their strength against the flesh, to have another’s eyes looking at you from so near, to smell their breath and the odour of their body.

  It could only be the drug which had activated some primitive part of him. From this source rose up a need that could not be ignored. As if his arms did not belong to him, they reached out towards the man, wrapping himself in the warmth of his body. Overwhelmed with shame but unable to stop himself, his outstretched fingers came into contact with bare flesh. He was expecting something momentous to happen, but it was no different from touching something in a Mirage.

  He wondered fleetingly if he would be allowed to explain this to the Leaders, explain that the plan had been in danger because the Primitives had become uncooperative and unstable and he was attempting to find a solution; but he knew it was a foolish dream. He had taken the drug without permission and the Leaders would not allow him to keep his knowledge.

  A kind of understanding was beginning to flow between them. Perhaps there was a way of bridging the gap between the two worlds.

  Suddenly Hagan drew away. He had smelled the worker before he saw him, standing in the doorway, one side of his face in shadow and the other lit by moonlight, with its vivid blue eye looking at the couple with a mocking, challenging stare.

  “Go quickly,” Gerald said.

  “Security will destroy - you must know everything.” Before it was too late, he had to take the chance. He had been taught the technique as a student but nobody had ever done it with a Primitive before. It could burn out the mind and destroy his own. Total Mind Transference, transferring the entire contents of the mind, or part of it, to another person. It was dangerous, and he didn’t fully understand the different brain structures.

  Hagan took a deep breath, and focussed his mind on the disintegration of the solid matter surrounding him—the hard balcony, the other man’s body—until he was floating in a timeless world, one in which his own body no longer existed. In this state, TMT could begin.

  He sent out thoughts but they went no fur
ther than the thick, unresponsive layers of matter of the Primitive’s brain, creating a positive charge that caused a subcortical lesion in his own brain. It bounced him out of the hypergiatic state he was in, into the present. With blurred vision, he struggled to recall what had just happened.

  “What are you doing?” Gerald said.

  There was no time for an explanation. Hagan reached out again, this time more slowly, breaking down the outer layer of the man’s mind little by little, moving forward gently until it met no more resistance. Now to match his own brain waves to the Primitive’s, but at 38 hz per second, Gerald’s brain was too slow. Hagan felt dizzy: he had already slowed his own neuron activity to what was safe for the Primitive, but it was close to a dangerous level for his own advanced brain.

  He didn’t know how long he could maintain a slow brain speed without passing out. Just before he thought he would have to stop, his mind was filled with the sound of the ocean washing over pebbles, gradually grinding them into sand. He had reached the point of reciprocation, but now Gerald was clutching his head and groaning. He had to transfer the information now, before the Primitives’ prefrontal cortex shut down.

  8

  Gerald stirred. He was lying on something hard, staring up at a roof. The tiniest movement caused his head to throb, but he managed, very slowly, to roll onto his side. He was facing a door with a corridor beyond. His body felt as if he had been hit by a lorry. He moved his limbs slowly. Nothing appeared broken. He levered himself up on his knees, but could go no further.

  “What’s happened?” A disembodied voice, a woman’s, then his head shifted a gear, bringing everything into focus.

  “Emma? Is it you?”

  “Can you get up?”

  The gears shifted again as he focused on persuading the muscles in his legs to raise him up to stand but it was impossible. Giving up the struggle, he sank onto the floor and crawled along beside her.

  ‘Across the chasm of the years

  With bloodshot eyes he peers…

  The soldiers dressed in carapace

  With cudgels, sticks and mace’

  “What are you talking about?” Emma asked. “Is that one of them poems you’re always spouting? And what’s a cara – whatever you said?”

  He had reached his cave. He crawled in heard the door shut behind him. The soldiers were coming nearer, he could hear them rampaging through the corridors.

  “You’re burning up. I’m going to get Adrian.”

  Silence, then a man’s voice, cutting through the blood soaked scenes.

  “Did you hear that noise in the night? We think they were looking for one of the doctors. There’s a rumour he jumped from the balcony.”

  “But why would a doctor come up here? We’ve only ever seen the Bluecoats.”

  “I know, but apparently he was up here all the same.”

  “And he fell from the balcony? Do you think this has anything to do with – He’s not going to die, is he?”

  “Talk to the others, see if you can find out anything. The women will talk to you more than me.”

  “I don’t want to leave him.”

  When she returned, his mind had cleared. He understood her clearly now.

  “Something’s changed. People were talking to each other but the Bluecoats didn’t care. They made no move to stop them. I think they’ve been drugged.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Their eyes were glazed.”

  “What else did you find out?”

  “There’s this rumour that someone fell from the balcony, but nobody heard anything.

  “How is that possible?”

  Gerald stirred. It was the doctor, he wanted to say but the words refused to come out of his mouth.

  “He’s still burning up,” Adrian said. “Get cold water. We must bring his temperature down.”

  “I must go and see how Merle is,” Adrian said. “Will you be all right?”

  “Yes, you go. I’ll come and get you if anything changes.”

  Gerald lay in a still pool, the cool waterfall extinguishing the inner fire. Suddenly, he remembered what he had to do. He pushed the cover roughly off of him.

  “You must rest,” Emma said, moving to his side and trying to ease him back onto the bed.

  At her touch, Gerald paused, as if some past memory had returned, before swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Wait, It’s not safe. Tell me what happened.”

  “No time.”

  She followed him down the corridor to the double doors. “I’ll go and find Adrian,” she said.

  He had struggled for so long for the key to opening the doors, but strangely, he now knew what to do. He had to focus his mind on the doors, think of them opening and he would be free. It was easy. He imagined about the doors opening. Nothing. He tried again. Eliminate all other thoughts except the doors opening. Nothing. He imagined he held a crowbar with which he prised the doors open. Silently, the doors drew back.

  He stepped through and they slid shut behind him. He was free – but where was the lift? It had disappeared and in its place was a solid wall. No visible means of escape. He was shut inside a solid box; even the doors he had just stepped through were gone.

  If the lift was an illusion, how had they all got up here? He spoke aloud. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  Hagan’s voice was in his ear. Still your mind and you will know.

  It sounded like the tarot reader he had gone to see when Margaret had died. You have all the answers inside you, he had said. It was just a question of finding them.

  He leaned against the wall and let his thoughts slip one by one down a tunnel until his mind was empty. A slight shimmering appeared on the opposite wall, like a heat haze, and gradually formed itself into the shape of a door. You may pass through, Hagan’s voice told him, but when he tried, he banged his head against the solid wall.

  He slumped to the floor, holding his pounding head.

  Know that you can pass through and the door will appear.

  Gradually it came to him. Lucid dreams. Aristotle had been the first person to record them: dreams where the sleeper took control and manipulated the experiences. That’s it. This is a dream. All I have to do is walk.

  The fuzzy outline appeared once more. He stepped forward and he was through. On the other side, was only emptiness. He fell rapidly, his flailing arms searching for something to hold on to.

  Resigning himself to the crash, he curled his body into a ball. Beneath him, something had appeared, solid but ethereal, dense but transparent and shimmering. His feet touched the surface and held him. Other steps appeared, a floating staircase. He descended twelve steps. He had reached the ninth floor.

  He continued the descent. At the fifth floor, a sudden, hideous shriek from below broke the silence. Someone was coming up, he needed to hide. He passed through a door and found himself in the Primitives’ quarters.

  The corridors were empty and led to a Long Room and wash room. As above, so below. Further along, he came to the balcony.

  A commotion of angry, threatening voices came from outside in the courtyard. He peered over the edge. The courtyard was full of people, some Bluecoats and others dressed in rags. Afraid they might look up and see him, he pushed himself into a slight recess and watched as more and more people poured into the space, some of them armed with sticks and knives.

  They pointed menacingly up towards where he stood and began chanting, “Kill them,” “Kill them.” Afterwards he hated himself for remaining transfixed against the wall, thinking of his own safety, instead of going to warn the others. Like a tidal wave, the mob started to move and were soon coming up the stairs and pouring into the corridors.

  He squeezed more tightly into the recess, frozen like a rabbit in headlights, knowing that the crash was coming but unable to move. Feet stampeded down corridors and kicked open flimsy doors. Then came the sound of furniture smashing followed by screams that c
urdled his mind. As they rushed past just a few feet from him, he dared not reach up to cover his ears in case they saw the movement. For a second he caught a brief glimpse of an individual in the crowd. Recoiling in horror, he wondered whether his fear was affecting his mind. Had he really seen a grossly disfigured face, eyes set deep in a swollen face, skin covered with lesions and ugly black, weeping sores? Had he really seen green mucus running from the nose and purple lips swollen to twice the usual size? Could this thing even be called a human?

  His muscles ached as they worked keep him upright and pulled back against the wall. Gritting his teeth and clenching his fists, he fought the urge to sink onto the balcony floor. It was not until he heard their victorious cries fading and saw them streaming back through the courtyard with shouts of glee that he finally allowed himself to slump onto the hard floor. Long after the last creature had disappeared, he stayed there, watching the light leaving the sky.

  It was almost dark when he stepped out of his hiding place, the only sound a slight rustling as he crept along the corridor in the dark.

  There was something on the floor. Crouching down, he made out a body, crumpled, distorted. His fingers touched something wet. The corridor was filled with a horrific scream. He wanted to get away but the corridor was full of bodies, skulls smashed in, neck cut from ear to ear. He ran, stepping on the bodies and all the time the screaming continued. Lurching through the smashed double doors at the end of the corridor, he realised that the ghoulish screaming came from him.

  The lift was gone. So was the shimmering staircase. In its place were concrete steps. He descended, stopping briefly at the fourth floor. It was the same, all killed.

  The layout on the third floor was different. He had reached the corridors where the bluecoats roamed. Through the doors was the nursery. Fifty babies were laying their cots. There was no sign of the destruction he had seen elsewhere and for a fleeting moment, he thought that they had been spared, but it was too quiet. Babies did not lay that still.

  Their faces were peaceful, and there was no sign of injury but there was no doubt that they were all dead. Standing with a baby in his arms, his body began shutting down. His throat closed, he couldn’t breathe and he could no longer feel his arms or legs. When the numbness reached his brain, he would be dead too. In a brief moment of clarity before he passed out, he realised that they had gassed the babies.