“I need to deliver this to Dr. Enoch,” she said.
The eye refocused to examine the box. For a second it stared then jumped back. From a plastic tube in the arm came a clear bubble that hovered motionless in the air. The fingers of the arm snatched the gift from Kizzy’s hand and placed it into the floating bubble. A red light began to blink from inside the box. The blinking grew faster and faster. Suddenly there was a bright flash and a massive silent explosion. Kizzy jumped to the floor with her hands over her head. She peaked through her fingers. The explosion was completely contained within the bubble. The flames roared and spun like a washing machine from hell. Soon the fire dissipated and the bubble was filled with a thick black cloud. It was sucked back into the tube and the arm was pulled back up into the ceiling.
Kizzy was alone in silence once again. Numb. Confused. Unsure of what to do next.
Tiny holes appeared in the white plastic floor. Kizzy glanced down to see that they surrounded her. White gas sprayed up into the air. Kizzy could remember the smell of the powder inside the Enoch pill she had given it to her cat all those years ago. Only this gas was a stronger, more concentrated version of that. It burned her lungs. She coughed deeply and could taste the blood in her throat. Her head began to spin, but she remained standing.
The arm popped back down from the ceiling. It saw Kizzy standing there and froze, twisting it’s head in disbelief. It stayed in the room as more gas was sprayed up from the floor. The gas burned Kizzy’s eyes this time. She coughed into her arm and leaving a little blotch of blood on her sleeve. The camera zoomed in on her as she remained standing. The arm then slowly backed up into the ceiling.
Kizzy was left alone again.
“Hello?” she said. “I’m here to speak with Dr. Enoch.... I’m sorry about the bomb, I didn’t know it was in there... Is there anyone here?”
To her left another door appeared. Dim light spilled into the room. Outside a metal staircase led up towards the light. Kizzy slowly walked out and up the stairs and entered into a gigantic underground automated factory space. It was so large Kizzy couldn’t even see where it ended.
The machinery all spun in a symphony of movement and sound. Down below, a small pile of Enoch beans sat in a receptacle as automated scooping carts collected and carried them to conveyor belts. When the carts returned to the space only to find it empty they paused awkwardly, before their lights finally turned off and they went into hibernation mode. The conveyor belts now loaded with the Enoch beans poured into massive glass vats of boiling liquid. Powders were added that caused huge clouds of steam to waft up to the ceiling, only to be slashed to nothing by the blades of exhaust fans. Kizzy walked on the steel catwalk high above all the organized chaos and through the heady gases that rose. The bean mixture inside the glass vats soon became a mushy chalk- like material. Small machines armed with mechanical spoons scooped up the substance and brought it to glowing ovens. When no new beans were added to the glass vats and their lights flashed and beeped. Eventually they turned off and the vats went to sleep.
When the chalk-like material came out from the other side of the ovens it was rigid and white. The material was broken up by small crablike machines and brought to another conveyor belt through hundreds of crushing pistons pulverizing the chalk into a powder. The powder was then vacuumed from the compartment and pumped into empty pill casings. In the distance the finished pills were sucked up through a glass tube into the ceiling. The lights were turning off in every corner of the factory. Had Kizzy seen the last of the Enoch pills leave?
From a shoot in the ceiling in the far side of the factory came a small bunch of beans. The machines stirred to life as they were once again needed, but then sank into inactivity when the beans ran out once more.
The catwalk led to a white sphere that was suspended above the center of the factory space, overlooking the entire operation. A door in the sphere opened and slowly Kizzy walked across the expanse and entered.
Kizzy found herself in a small apartment. It was half living space, half laboratory. Liquids bubbled in glass vials. Computer displays ran chemical diagnostics, simulating diagrams of molecules that changed every few seconds. A small monitor on a nearby desk was broadcasting police reports over the radio. And to the left a large square window overlooked the factory floor.
The far wall was just a large black velvet curtain and a woman stepped out from behind it. She was about Kizzy’s mother’s age. She was tall with long black hair, glasses and a knitted sweater. Her features were exotic and she was beautiful in a strange way. Her skin was very pale.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Kizzy. Who are you?”
“I’m Josephine Yanloo. I’ve been working here, hoping that someday, someone like you would come walking through that door. Did Father Morrigan send you?”
“Yes...”
“You’re lucky to be alive then,” said Josephine. “He’s been trying to get to me since the beginning. And he knew you would be the perfect bait.”
“Why?” Kizzy asked.
“Do you know that you’re immune to the Enoch compound?”
“Yes,” Kizzy said. “That’s why I’m here. I’ve come so far, and people have died... My best friend, my mother...” Tears began to swell in her eyes. “Please tell me he’s here.”
“Who’s here?” Josephine asked, her brow furrowing.
“Dr. Enoch.”
“I don’t know why you think you’ll find him here.”
Kizzy felt a sinking feeling in her gut. “Where can I find him then?”
“Sweetheart, Dr. Enoch isn’t a real person.”
“What?” Kizzy asked. It felt as if she had become weightless.
She looked down at the floor that swayed beneath her feet. It was all for nothing.
“You must’ve seen one of the old advertisements and thought he was a real. Dr. Enoch was only a marketing character.”
Kizzy shook her head, nothing was adding up. “Who invented the Enoch Pill then?”
“Well, I did, working along with an artificial intelligence.”
“But can you help me? Can you help my friend? My mother?”
“I believe I can help you,” Josephine said. A hint of anxiety cracked through her voice. She twitched a nervous smile, then tried to conceal it. “Do you have any idea how important you are Kizzy?”
Kizzy shook her head, and wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’m just a normal girl, that really needs your help.”
“No, you’re way more than that,” said Josephine. “You’re probably the single most important person to have ever been born.”
“Stop it,” said Kizzy. It made her uncomfortable to hear that. She wasn’t special at all.
“It’s true,” said Josephine. “You’ll save us all.”
“Why?” snapped Kizzy. All this glory was too much pressure.
“With you altered DNA, I might be able to work out a cure for the rest of us. Get things back to the way they were before the pill.”
“But why would you want that?” Kizzy asked.
“Wait a second – how old are you?”
“Eighteen,” said Kizzy.
“So you have no idea?”
“No idea about what?”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Josephine said to herself, slapping her forehead. “We’re like two different species, you and I. No wonder you don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand?”
“How should I explain this? Do you find it strange that humans in the country are so different from humans in the city?”
“No. Well, they’re mutants right?” said Kizzy.
“Not exactly. We are actually two halves of the same species. At least we used to be. And the Enoch Pill is why things changed. There was so much celebration when
we discovered it, it all seemed too good to be true. We tested for years, thousands of case studies, all of them came back with no side effects and perfect bills of health. The patients had become so healthy in fact that they would now live forever, as long as they kept taking the pill. So we and the AI decided that we make it available to everyone on earth. Every living person on the entire planet was prescribed our new wonder pill.
“It took a while to reach the farthest corners of the globe, the jungles of the Amazon and the remote regions of the Himalayas. But eventually, using advanced satellite technology and with the help of local governments we were able to do it. There wasn’t a person on earth who didn’t receive the benefits of our discovery. Everyone was about to live forever. But on the very day that we reached one hundred percent coverage, something went terribly wrong. The human race’s collective immune system went ballistic. Within the first 24 hours around 300 million people died. The next day another 300 million. It took us another two days to realize that it was... attempted human procreation that was killing everyone.”
“Human procreation?” Kizzy asked, the phrase was completely foreign to her.
“Well, it was sexual arousal to be exact,” Josephine said. She squinted at Kizzy and lowered her voice, “Where do you think you came from Kizzy?”
“My mother and my father.”
“But how, specifically?”
“They had their DNA sent to a lab and my mother received a pill to swallow.”
Josephine looked down and shook her head. “I’m shocked, but not surprised that they tell you that.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve been lying to you.”
“What?” Kizzy asked. Why would they lie about something so trivial?
“The truth is there was an act we would perform... physically that would result in the creation of more humans.”
“But why lie about that?” Kizzy asked. Her whole past now seemed covered in hazy fog.
“Well, it’s common for even primitive tribes to tell lies or legends to the younger generations as a way to protect them. And mankind has never faced anything as deadly as arousal proved to be, once we were on the pill.”
“But why would that kill us?”
“I’ve concluded we must have some sort of genetic safety mechanism, hard wired into our DNA, that none of us knew about. A safety that would prevent us from filling up the planet and consuming all the resources. You see, without death, there was no biological need to reproduce. But we had become so disconnected from our physiology that we didn’t feel a difference. You know, farmers used to remove the hunger mechanisms in their livestock in order to get them to eat more. In a way, that’s what happened to us. The Enoch pill changed our brain chemistry so drastically that sexual arousal would cause a lethal aneurysm.
“By the time we realized this, the death toll had reached 2 billion people. When the word spread, people stopped taking the pill, and that was our biggest mistake. The human genome had been so radically changed by the Enoch pill, that going off of it was deadly. Three days without the compound would kill a person. With the pill we had essentially invented the perfect way to exterminate the human species. And no one ever saw it coming. We were too excited playing God and getting results. In the end we can never really know how many people died. The only survivors clung around this factory and built the city. The sexes were quarantined from each other. The men walled themselves in and the women kept sending the resources into the city to keep things going, and obviously they raised all children to be oblivious to the one thing that would kill them. All in hopes that one day we would find a cure. Only that day never came. I guess we’re only around a couple hundred thousand people now. One hundred thousand in the country, one hundred thousand in the city. Do you know what it used to be Kizzy? Ten billion. That’s billion with a B. We’re almost all gone now.
“So I have been here, for the past 18 years trying to figure out a way to fix this. The Enoch compound is a vitamin E variation, supercharged with nitrous oxide, stabilized with chloride. But the variations are nearly infinite and all my efforts have proved fruitless. But then today you walked into my lab. With a solution in your veins. It really is a miracle.”
“Look,” said Kizzy, her head spinning from all the information she tried to understand. “I’ll help out as much as I can, but I don’t have much time. I have to save my friend.”
“Oh, you’re not going anywhere.”
“What?” Kizzy said. The spinning in her head stopped and she was face to face with a woman that she wasn’t sure that she could trust.
“You’re far too important. If I can’t work out a cure, you’re the only woman on the planet who can have children. We can’t afford to lose you.”
The words didn’t make any sense to Kizzy, they were too shocking. Suddenly the room felt like a prison that was closing in on her. “You don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Josephine said. “Whatever problems you have, they are irrelevant now. We are on the brink of extinction and you’re our last hope.”
“Look, my friend is locked up in a torture device, I have to save him. My other friend...”
“Wait, wait, wait,” the woman interrupted. “Did you say him?”
“Yes, he’s a him. His name is Diego.”
“And you became friends with him?”
“He’s more important to me than you could ever know.”
“You’re in love with him aren’t you?” Josephine asked, her eyes seemed to sparkle.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Kizzy said.
“No, of course you wouldn’t,” Josephine said. She sat down at the table and rested her head on her fist. “That doesn’t exist anymore.”
Kizzy felt anxious, the time was running out. She approached Josephine with slow steps. “What if I was in love with him? Like you said. Would you let me go then?”
“I don’t think you can even understand what it means. You have nothing to compare it to.”
“If he dies then I’ll die,” Kizzy said.
“Yeah, that’s the way it usually works,” Josephine said, her voice sounding a little hopeful and a little depressed at the same time.
“Please let me go,” Kizzy begged.
“One person or everyone?” Josephine asked. “What is more important.”
“One person,” said Kizzy.
“No,” said Josephine. “You’re not going.”
One of the computers began to beep. Josephine ran to the display. She growled and pounded a fist on the table.
“What is it?” Kizzy asked.
“The crows,” she said. “They’re going after the bean warehouses. Somebody had been killing them, but there’s been no sign of that person for the past few days.”
“That person was me,” said Kizzy.
“Well, you chose a terrible time to take a vacation. This bean shortage is going to wipe us out. The stockpiles are dwindling.”
“It’s Father Morrigan that controls them,” said Kizzy.
“I know,” said Josephine. “He’s using a device we invented to pollinate the beans.”
“It’s in a cross around his neck. I’ve seen him use it.” Kizzy paused. “And I’ve seen how low the bean supply is. If you don’t let me go, we’ll all die. All your work here will have been for nothing. But I can stop him. I can get that cross from him.”
“Is your friend that important to you?”
“Yes, he is.”
Josephine Yanloo stared at Kizzy with an unfamiliar look. It was pride, but Kizzy had never seen it before. “How were you killing the crows?” she asked with a sigh.
“With EMP’s mostly,” Kizzy said, she stood up tall, now that they were talking about something she was familiar with.
“
Did anyone else ever do this?”
“No, not many people.” said Kizzy.
“You were the only one with nothing to lose, you had no fear.”
“No I had fear. And I didn’t always know I was immune.”
“But your body must have known it,” said Josephine. “Even if it was only on a subconscious level. Everyone used to have that drive before the pill came along. It’s what gave people anxiety whenever they were still. They had to accomplish something in the short time they had.”
“Well I’m the only one who has that now,” said Kizzy. “You’ve got to let me go. I can save us.”
Josephine glanced at the computer display. It was blinking red. The light reflected off of her pale face. She looked back at Kizzy. There was definite hesitation. “Let me take some of your blood,” she said finally. “That way I’ll still have something to work with if you never make it back.”
With a needle she drew some of Kizzy’s blood and inserted it into her hand-held scanner. “Wowza! You’ve got quite the mix of things going on inside you.”
“Like what?”
“Enoch compound, suicide pill compound - which means you should be dead. But there’s a bit of a mini-death compound that I designed a few years ago, combined with crow DNA. It’s a real disco inside your veins. I wish I could keep you here to study, but you have to bring me that cross. If you fail, we’ll all die.”
“I’ll try,” Kizzy said. She wondered how she could take it from Morrigan. It made her anxious to even consider it. Surely he was too smart to let her get close. And she couldn’t overpower him, not with the man in green around. “I just don’t know how I’m going to do it.”
“Have you ever used a weapon Kizzy?”
“Like a gun or something?” Kizzy asked.
“Well, I can’t make anything with moving parts,” said Josephine. “But like a sword or a pitchfork or something on the farm?”
The Enoch Pill Page 26