Enter the Rebirth (Enter the... Book 3)

by Thomas Gondolfi

"Strike!" the umpire called.

  Melissa glanced up at the score clock, which blinked, almost imperceptibly. It's time. Melissa sighed, closed her eyes, and—

  —sat down. Right there at third base. I feel like an idiot, she thought.

  In the press box, Izzy clenched her hands so tightly she felt her fingernails pressing into her palms. She watched the news feeds coming in from the various venues. There.

  A rugby game between New Zealand and the United States ground to a halt as two Team USA players flopped down on the field and just lay there. In the Germany-Britain soccer game, the British centre half scooped up the ball and tossed it, rugby style, to a teammate. At the midway point of the women's 5,000 metre race, a Canadian and a South African athlete stopped and stood, arms crossed, while their competitors continued running. A sturdily-built Russian shot putter set down the round sphere he'd been about to throw and walked away from the ring. And there were others. Lots and lots of others.

  * * *

  "No, no, no, no, no!" Rob Farmingham yelled at the screen as he watched Melissa sink down to seat herself at third base. "Please, no." He swapped the broadcast feed to a different camera angle, a close-up of Coach Gordon. This was only marginally better, given the stormy expression on Coach's face.

  Throughout the control room, similar sounds of dismay arose from the workstations.

  Rob closed his eyes, dreading what would come next.

  Overwhelmed, the Simultron struggled mightily to maintain its illusions.

  It failed.

  It had to let go of something, so it let go of those athletes who were truly imaginary.

  And viewers using TV screens, tablets, and mobile devices around the world watched in disbelief as whole teams, whole nations of athletes, blinked off the screen. The New Zealand rugby team vanished. A quarter of the runners in the 5,000 metre field flipped out of sight. The field of shot put competitors dropped by a third.

  It was as if those other athletes had never been there.

  Because, of course, they hadn't.

  * * *

  "It wasn't the massive panic they predicted." Izzy put her hand on Melissa's shoulder, trying to comfort her friend as they walked through the neighbourhood a week later. "And now, at least, there is honesty. People needed to know."

  "It feels like a step backward," Melissa protested. "So many of us assumed we were on the road to recovery."

  "We are, now," Izzy said. "Like pulling off a Band-Aid. It had to be done."

  Melissa sighed.

  "What?" Izzy asked.

  "All those years of practicing, to make the Olympics." Melissa reached out her open right hand and curled her fingers inward slowly. "And it slipped away. No, I threw it away."

  "You heard, didn't you, that they're just postponing the Olympics for a year?"

  Melissa turned slowly to face her friend. "As if I have a prayer of being on the roster."

  Izzy shook her head. "The Canadian Olympic Association was clear about that, just like all the other member countries' associations," she said. "No reprisal will be permitted against any athlete who took part in the protest." She paused and grinned. "Of course, the fact that the participants included some of the biggest names in track and field and swimming may have helped them arrive at that decision."

  Melissa smiled, then frowned again.

  "Now what?" Izzy's voice held a tinge of exasperation.

  "I'm just thinking," Melissa said, the words coming slowly. "Maybe, if we're lucky, by the time the Olympics roll around the Aussies will be back."

  "I hope so," Izzy answered, putting her hand on Melissa's shoulder. "I really hope so."

  From Farm to Table

  Tori Stubbs

  Editor: Children often give us the most untainted view of our world.

  Alice Junia-Quint

  7th Grade

  October 22, 2476

  A long time ago, humans walked freely in cities and towns. They had houses and cars and my sources say they even shopped in grocery stores, just like we do today! Of course, they didn’t eat the same things we eat (obviously); their diet consisted mostly of plants, and meats from birds, fish or other animals. Most of these plants and animals were grown and raised by the humans themselves on farms. Can you imagine that? Humans ran their own farms up until 2020! But I’m sure you know their farms weren’t as advanced as ours are today. That was before we won the War of Independence in 2021 (That’s why we celebrate Independence Day on January 7th!).

  On Monday this week our class went on a field trip to visit a human farm. Our tour guide was a friendly woman named Sherri. We began by visiting the nursery, where the offspring and mothers stayed until the babies were old enough to walk and eat solid foods. “Some offspring take up to two years to fully mature!” Sherri told us while we watched a mother with long dark hair feed her child.

  Then we moved to the main or “grazing” area. This is where the humans spend most of their life before their brains and other organs are harvested. The room was large, and we walked through a glass tube, “Just in case they get rowdy,” Sherri told us. One wall was entirely books, which some of the younger humans were reading. “Reading helps their brains grow. The more information they obtain, the more savory the brain!” she also said. There were also feeding troughs, which were usually filled with carrots, apples, and other fruits and vegetables grown behind the farm.

  Sherri then showed us the entertainment room, which looked a lot like an old-fashioned movie theater! “We show old videos that they created while they roamed free,” Sherri told us. They even used to make movies about us! Or at least, what they believed we would be. Sherri said that they don’t show any of those types of movies though, because it causes the humans to act dangerously and become hard to manage. When this happens they have to sedate them and that causes the brains to become tougher. Most of those films showed us as unthinking monsters. My dad says that is why they were so easy to overtake, they were expecting us to be slow and incapable of complex thoughts. My grandmother said there were a few movies where zombies and humans fell in love! I thought of that as we walked through the slaughter house, and laughed to myself. They were way off.

  The last stop on our tour was the packaging room, where workers wearing aprons packed the brains and other organs into the containers we see at the grocery store every day. Sherri led us to a corner of the room, where body parts in a large tub were being sorted. She held up a human head, one with brown hair and freckled skin. “Who knows what we remove first?” she asked our class. Almost everyone raised their hands and I couldn’t believe she called on me! I answered correctly (the eyeballs, duh) and Sherri told me to come up and remove one! It wasn’t hard to take out, and once I did get it out the class cheered and Sherri said I could eat it! The other kids got to try some of the meat before it was packaged too, but I was the only one who got to try an eyeball! The process our food goes through is fascinating and I think everyone should visit a human farm!

  Big Wheels: The Art of the Deal

  Timothy J. Turnipseed

  Editor: Believing your laws are universal truth is the downfall of many in any catastrophe.

  A good, all-American apple pie can save your life.

  Towering pines shaded her as she walked through the cool mountain wood in the earthy aromas of early spring. She carried a warm, freshly made pie in her old-school wicker picnic basket. The pie was homemade with all-natural ingredients: apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, lemon juice. Oh, and the most important ingredient of all, a mother’s love. Now she won’t be left to die as a weak, useless old woman who couldn’t contribute to what was left of society.

  With grim determination, the proud, aged lady strode toward the hospital, a large, long white tent decorated with a huge red cross and nestled under the blocky Treehouse near the center of Tent Town. Suddenly, she stumbled over nothing; the very earth beneath her feet had . . . moved.

  Incredibly, the ground—good ole terra firma—rocked under her l
ike a ship tossed on an angry sea. Everyone takes the ground for granted, until it starts to move. Indeed, the whole world roared with a low, guttural, angry crescendo. The very trees slewed drunkenly, some leaning to the left, others to the right. Some, spinning, crashed thunderously to the ground. The old woman gasped in horror, for she and her pie barely escaped when a huge tree trunk slammed the earth right in front of her.

  Determined, the old woman clambered over the new log in her way. But as the earthquake rumbled on, the shivering hospital tent, broadcasting the desperate screams of those trapped within, imploded, tent fabric and supports collapsing into a dark hole opening precipitously beneath it. The impossibly black hole grew larger, radiating out, swallowing trees and leaves and underbrush, spreading inexorably toward her like a spilling ink stain. In terror she turned to get away from the blooming hole, to run, to flee, to escape. But as the world thundered and the ground shook, her feet finally found nothing but air, and she fell, limbs flailing, howling helplessly as she fell down into the endless black, the circle of light above her shrinking to a star as she fell down . . . down . . . down . . .

  * * *

  He awoke to a terrified shriek. He had learned to harden his heart to cries of pain and despair, but this cry came from a woman with whom he shared the large recreational vehicle.

  He threw off heavy layers of blankets, allowing the early morning chill to rush in like a plunge into a mountain stream. Rolling out of bed, he stepped to the bedroom in the back of the RV, flinging the door open. He shook a sleeper completely buried under a mound of quilts.

  “Wake up, Mom!” he demanded. “You’re freaking me out.”

  The face of a gray-haired old woman popped out at the front of the bed.

  “Oh, Phillip!” she wailed. “I had a dream. It was so real. I think it's another Vision!”

  “Mom . . .”

  “Is something wrong?”

  Phil realized she was looking at his right hand. He had a death-grip on the handle of the 9mm automatic pistol the Army had given him. He honestly didn’t remember retrieving it from under his pillow.

  “Everything’s fine, Mom,” sighed Phil, willing himself to relax. “It’s just—”

  Someone pounded on the front door as if they were trying to bash it in.

  “Hey, Doc! Doc!” cried the door-pounder. “Everything okay in there, Doc?”

  Phil recognized the voice, but out of habit he pulled the curtains back and looked out the window anyway. There stood his anxious neighbor from the next RV over, along with his equally nervous oldest son. The neighbor carried a dented aluminum baseball bat, and his son a meat cleaver. He could see their breath in the cold spring morning.

  “It’s okay, Joe,” Phil told them. “My mom’s just having a bad dream. And if anyone else is coming, please tell them we’re OK, would you?”

  “A dream?” asked Joe, his eyes wide. “Is it a Vision?”

  By now a woman from yet another RV had arrived, carrying a shotgun at the ready. Could she really have the shells for it?

  “It's okay, everybody. Go on back to bed.”

  “What for?” Joe’s son protested. “There’s only enough time to get comfortable before Reveille.”

  A few more pleasantries were exchanged, but they were brief; the neighbors were out in the cold in their nightclothes. Phil returned to find his mom sitting in bed with her nightshirt hiked up, looking at a bright red bruise on her inner thigh.

  “Ugh, Mom!” cried Phil, averting his eyes. “Really?”

  “A bee stung me,” she was saying. "How did it get in here and under all those covers? It must be a sign!"

  The old woman sighed, put her leg down, and then opened the door on an antique potbellied woodstove by her bed. A chimney of thin metal segments ran up from the stove through a ragged hole crudely cut in the RV roof. Old clothing was stuffed tightly into the gap between the edges of the hole and the chimney.

  “It’s so cold in here,” she complained. “Light a fire, will you, Phillip?”

  “Sure, Mom, but I thought you were the one who wanted to save money,” Phil replied, even as he wandered back to the living room to get his coat.

  “Yes, you're right, Philly, of course. How can wood be so expensive? There are trees everywhere. The mountain is covered with them!”

  “Spring is here, Mom, so we can afford to save on firewood. You still want me to fire up the stove?"

  “Phillip, sweetie, on second thought, don’t bother. You need to take me to Colonel Minor at once. He must hear of my latest Vision.”

  “Mom, we can’t just roll up on His Majesty Lieutenant Colonel Bee Minor unannounced.”

  Especially not to hear the ravings of some crazy old white woman, he thought, imagining himself in Minor’s place.

  “Why not, Phillip? You’re our leader. He works for you.”

  “Mom, I’m glad you’re proud of me, but please don’t fool yourself,” Phil explained. “It is we who work for the military, not the other way around. I know it sucks, but if I were the one wearing body armor and carrying a machine gun, I don’t know if I could resist the temptation to be a prick, either.”

  “Come now, honey, we all elected you president.”

  “I was elected chairman of the Civilian Affairs Board, Mom—I don’t know where everyone is getting this 'president' thing from. The military treats us all like crap, and I’m just the fly on top of the pile.”

  “Now don’t you be saying such nasty things about that nice Colonel Minor; he’s a hero. Big Wheels!”

  “Mom . . .!”

  “Now escort Mommy out to the little girl’s room,” said his mother, crawling out of bed.

  The latrines were rather far from the RVs in order to spare Tent Town's wealthier citizens the smell. Phil cringed at the thought of his old mother struggling all the way there.

  “I keep telling you, Mom, the old and sick are exempt from that law. Will you just do it in here? That's what the black bucket is for."

  “No, no,” his mother muttered, shaking her head, and began to chant:

  "Crap inside, brings the flies

  makes diarrhea, then you die.”

  It took some effort, but Phil finally convinced his mother to use the bucket set inside the tiny RV bathroom where the toilet used to be. A toilet seat jury-rigged to four metal chair legs was suspended over the bucket. The doctor removed the tight-fitting lid for his mother. The sharp smell of urine filled the RV as soon as the lid came off; Phil was no fan of trekking across a tent city in freezing darkness just to pee.

  While the old lady did her noisy business, Phil retrieved some firewood and fired up the stove. Normally he didn’t bother to heat water for daily hygiene, but if he was going to see the colonel, he wanted to be especially clean. By the time his mother finished, the teapot was wailing and he could add its boiling contents to the water already in the hygiene pot. Now he poured the warmed water from the hygiene pot through a funnel into the black camp shower bag.

  Most people—at least the people lucky enough to have them—hung their shower bags out in the sun all day so they could have hot showers after work without firewood, diesel, or any other kind of fuel. That plan didn’t work so well in the long mountain winter.

  Over his mother’s protests, he got out the good bar soap—not the homemade kind. For the special occasion, he also got the shampoo and deodorant. They took turns in the tiny RV shower wetting themselves with a brief sprinkle from the camp shower bag, cutting the bag off, lathering up, and then opening the bag again to wash off the residue. Today they used real toothpaste—not baking soda—to brush their teeth. His mother insisted on her best Sunday dress, complete with her dwindling supply of real makeup.

  While she was getting ready, Phil took the opportunity to carry the black bucket out of the RV neighborhood and through the tent city to the latrines. He glanced up to notice a haze of wood smoke hanging low over the tents in the chilly morning air, twisting like dirty ghosts through the lower boughs of tall ev
ergreens. Half the tents were long, multi-family olive green dwellings donated by the military. A colorful mélange of tents scrounged from big box discount stores and sporting supply outfits constituted the remaining. The tents were arranged in neat blocks with broad avenues running between.

  Reveille hadn't sounded, which meant most of the inhabitants still slept. Phil liked that, because it meant he could travel to the latrines and back without getting stopped a dozen times by people seeking free medical advice.

  A gulf some 20 meters wide, strictly enforced by military patrols, separated the row of latrines from the rest of Tent Town. The doctor knew there were sixty of them; one for every ten original inhabitants. Each former port-a-potty had been installed over a cement slab capping a hole some three meters deep by one and a half meters wide. Some of the holes inside had old commodes installed over them; that's where the toilet from his RV had gone. But most were just metal chairs with holes cut in the seat, and some didn't even have the chair; just a round hole in a concrete slab.

  At the rear of each port-a-potty was a vertical length of plastic PVC pipe capped with a piece of metal fly screen and stuck through its own hole in the slab. The pipe extended above the port-a-potty to vent the foul gasses to above head high. This arrangement helped control the odors. Better yet, it trapped most flies inside the pit to die!

  Phil dumped the bucket into one of the latrines. He used an old brush he kept stored under the RV to sweep it out. He opened the door on the port-a-potty to leave and nearly ran right into someone.

  "Hey, Doc!” cried the other man, bundled up in heavy winter clothing. “I was going to come over to visit you this morning, but here you are!"

  Two dogs sniffed and scurried about the man's feet. That he could keep two dogs alive, much less healthy, spoke volumes as most pets had been eaten by this time.

  "Hey, Frank," Phil replied. "You sick?"

  "Nah, I was just going to share some of my good fortune with you. I bagged me two raccoons last night, and one of 'em is fat as a hog!"