BEYOND EXTINCTION

by John Keeble

  "Twinkle!"

  "Really dreadful!"

  "Twinkle," snaps Alice. "I need to speak to Dalen urgently. Now."

  "You never care about me," sniffles Twinkle. "This is the worst moment of my life and you don't care."

  "Twinkle! We can talk later. Now get Dalen for me."

  "Whatever you need from Dalen, it can't be as terrible as what has happened to me!"

  "Twinkle!"

  "You shut me in the freezer with Spartacus," says Twinkle as she launches into a pitiful sob story. Jack, for the first time in days, is amused. His snigger grows into laughter.

  "It's not funny," shouts Twinkle. "Spartacus said he loved me. I believed him. He used his vibrator on me and I let him because he said we would always love each other."

  Jack stifles his laughter as Alice gives him a mock glare. He resists pulling Spartacus from his pocket to witness Twinkle's embarrassing outburst. Instead, he listens while keeping an eye on Galen, who has swiveled his chair to watch and listen.

  "Twinkle," says Alice. "Get Dalen now and—."

  "Then I found that he had been saying the same things to Doris!"

  "Doris? Who the hell is Doris?" asks Jack.

  "She was that fat CP61 telecom device in the Center's drone control unit," answers Twinkle and adds indignantly, "I called him to make sure he was safe. He was horrible. He said he didn't have time for me because he was upset. The mobs had got in and killed CP61. That's when I knew—."

  "Twinkle! Enough!" shouts Alice. "Get me Dalen. Now!"

  "I can't," says Twinkle petulantly. "We're out of range."

  Jack grins as Alice stuffs Twinkle back into her pocket. Here they are, desperately trying to escape to safety, and they are caught in a lovers' tiff between their phones. "So Spartacus is a love rat," he tells Alice. "What do you think, Max?"

  "I'm more worried about being out of range," Alice replies.

  Jack is worried too. He had not realized how much he was counting on his clever Alice to use her phone to find a safe haven for them. And his impotence begins to fill him with a dark anger.

  *

  White Death is in the Center's domes looking for anything he can salvage to help rebuild his communities, but the fighters, high on victory and hatred, have looted anything they could carry and smashed everything else.

  In one dome, the bodies are piled deeply. This is where they killed the unarmed people working here. Is this what we have become – murderers?

  White Death fiddles with his communicator but it is silent, dead like Troy and the rest of the fallen heroes. He gives up, weary and depressed. In the distance, he can hear smart bullet explosions from renewed fighting but it is quickly over. It sounds like it is coming from the pmeat store. Can my fighters hold off a combined attack from the other mobs? Will the mobs trust me not to plunder the store for my people?

  He strides towards the pmeat store, but when it comes into view, he stops in his tracks. Fighters are hacking and bashing, mob color against mob color, for possession of cartons of pmeat. His heart sinks. None of the fighters are wearing his white flashes. Did they run away? Or will I find them dead?

  A knot of red mob fighters breaks away with their loot, each fighter staggering under the weight of his load. They are following a leader encumbered by no more than a pmeat chunk that he is eating.

  "Red Death!" he calls. The leader slows and, with his fighters, turns his head. He is ten years younger than White Death, blood and manic ecstasy on his face.

  "Keep your distance," Red Death shouts. "We have killed your fighters. Stay out of our way!"

  White Death walks to the store's fence. His fighters are dead, slaughtered, debris on the ground. A few red fighters are bent into death's grim shapes but not many – not as many as he would expect after a fight with his veterans.

  He turns back and heads towards the water processing plant. If I can save that, I can unify communities across the area. He ignores a steady stream of fighters running to the pmeat – that battle is lost.

  "Ambi, ambi. Wait!" He jerks around instantly. A fighter, one of his own, is running after him. A good man, a reliable man in a fight.

  "What happened to our fighters? What did you see?" he demands as the fighter almost skids to a halt beside him.

  "Red Death betrayed us. He said he would help and then, when we put down our weapons, his mob attacked us."

  *

  Chapter 22

  There is a slight bump as the research drone touches down. Jack wakes immediately. His movement rouses Alice, and Max is already up and alert.

  "What is it?" he asks Galen, suspecting trickery, checking the external view screens.

  "We have arrived," Galen says.

  "Arrived where?"

  "This is a World Council refuge for commanders and above. It was built when a machiniac attack was assessed as likely."

  "Machiniac?" asks Jack warily. "Don't move, Galen! Keep your hands where I can see them."

  "The great Jack Janus missed the machiniac years?" mocks Galen.

  I am being led away from what is happening now. "Where are we?" demands Jack. "Geographically."

  "FedAntarctica."

  Jack can see that Galen intends to shock. But is he telling the truth? Antarctica? A barren land devoid of the ice sheets of a few decades ago. A population of a few hundred desperate numans. Even the scientists observing the ice melts of the early twenty-first century have no counterparts today in this dead land of no interest beyond mineral extraction.

  "We were flying north from FedUK," says Jack, obliquely probing, his desire to do physical harm to Galen bubbling under his calm appearance.

  "Yes."

  Jack begins to rise but Alice lays a restraining hand on his arm. "We do not need Galen to tell us," she says. "The drone system will show our route."

  "You might work out where we have landed but only I know how to access the facility here," says Galen.

  "What do you want, Galen?" Jack asks.

  "You, all of you, have no chance of survival without my access to numan facilities and my knowledge of local numan resources."

  "What do you want ?"

  "I want to survive, like you and Balen. Sorry, like you and Alice. We should cooperate. I will help you instead of being your prisoner. There is no other way."

  "There's always another way," Jack tells him, but he feels Alice squeeze his arm to get attention. "I'll talk it over with Alice and then we'll decide."

  Galen is blankly immobile but Jack – surprised at his own perception – can read his body language: the outcome of the exchange is profoundly satisfying to Galen.

  *

  Mark had expected to sleep in the room he shared with Patti but Aini dumped him on a human-looking bruiser in a stinking, crowded dormitory fifteen minutes from NewLife City.

  Now he is eating a breakfast of cheap, fatty pmeat like the worst he had eaten in FedUK. At least it is made from vegetables.

  The feeding area is huge and crowded with human men. Two hundred and fifty, maybe more, it is hard to know as they mill about and wander into an open enclosure. All look the same in old pastel clothes, like a shabby uniform; they are all aged about forty to seventy years; and they all seem lost in an animal hopelessness. The air is thick with a barnyard stench of unwashed bodies and human waste.

  "What is this place?" he asks a man sitting near him as they eat from crude, unwashed bowls using their fingers. The man lifts his bowl, as though he is drinking, and shovels the pmeat and maize into his mouth.

  "They never give you enough for breakfast," grumbles the man. "Then later they make you eat and eat. If you don't do it, they put a pipe down your throat and fill you up. Sometimes they do that anyway. They did it to me once. I screamed and screamed with the pain but they just carried on. I've been here two weeks and I'll be glad to get out and go to Dream City."

  "Where are we?" Mark tries again.

  "NewLife Hotel," says the man. "They process us here, then we get homes in Dream City.
That's where our new lives begin. You'll see. Your turn will come. Every day, they take about a hundred of us to Dream City. It must be good: no one ever comes back."

  Pain shoots through Mark's ear as he is pulled to his feet, his feed spilling on the floor and half a dozen men dropping to their knees to eat it. A fight breaks out between three of the men as Mark is tugged away.

  He tries to fight back but he is weak and off-balance. The bruiser, a crude monster as big as Aini, is dragging him by his ear. He gets his balance and lashes out, his fist connecting with something. The punishment is immediate and agonizing. An explosion of pain ignites every nerve in his body. He collapses onto the filthy floor and the brute drags him by his ankle to the other end of the room. A violent twist of his leg has him on all fours and he is too shocked and hurt to move.

  "My dear chap, what have you done to yourself?" The voice is familiar but the trauma and pain fill Mark's mind. Rough hands catch at his ear and shoulder, jerking him onto a crude wooden bench. "I'm sorry this has happened to you, Mark. This is a very numane stable if you behave correctly." Aini. It's Aini.

  "He attacked me," says Mark.

  "Oh no, he wouldn't do that," says Aini, using his soothing voice, and Mark feels calmer. "He is not allowed to damage our stock. If you attack him, he must stop you behaving badly."

  "He did attack me! He pulled my ear and then he stuck something into me. I thought he was killing me."

  The familiar, friendly chuckle. "He was just trying to help you go in the right direction for me to see you," says Aini. "You attacked him and he touched you with his animal tickler. It was nothing. A little tingle to get you to do what is expected of you. The tickler is designed not to damage the animals."

  "I'm a man!" shouts Mark.

  "Of course you are," Aini says. "You are a male human animal and we have no plans at the moment to change your anatomy."

  Mark is recovering his strength. He is filthy and, now that his resistance is over, he knows he is beaten: not a creature of his own volitions, not a man as he was in FedUK. I'm a helpless animal to these people. I must escape. I will escape!

  "Let's get you cleaned up and then we can go on with our experiment," says Aini, not looking at Mark but scanning the screen woven into the arm of his gown.

  Aini flicks a command at a passing keeper, who drags Mark to his feet and roughly sets about grooming him and his clothes. Mark tries to escape and the keeper instantly throws a noose over his head and jerks him into obedience before sloshing water over his face and hands.

  "There's a good boy," says Aini encouragingly. "Stay calm. It's almost over. There! All done. Come with me."

  Mark obediently follows Aini into the clean, natural smell of open air. He loves the sweet outside smell but his stress rises at the thought of being separated from the men inside the hotel. He lets the driver push him into the back seat of the limousine. Aini gets in next to him.

  "Where are we going?" Mark asks, apprehensive now that he is alone with Aini and the driver.

  "Be a good boy, Mark, and hold your sensor – that's right, the device round your neck – against your chest." Aini waits until Mark's attention is on the sensor and says, "I think we will slaughter you now." Then he chuckles and adds, "Don't worry. We are not going to slaughter you now. I needed an emotional reaction to calibrate the sensor."

  Mark does not answer. His heart is pounding and pain is exploring his brain. He knows the limousine is moving but it does not have anything to do with him.

  "Aini, why're you eating humans?" Mark asks. "You could change your laws and get the priests to agree to you growing meat instead. No one would need to be killed. It would be easier and cheaper to get your food that way. More variety too."

  Aini, cruel Aini with his eye on his sleeve screen, tells him, "We are destroying human animals worldwide. Numanely but inevitably. Without the pollution that billions of stinking human animal bodies would create."

  He smiles with satisfaction at the data from Mark's reaction. "You are a good boy," he says, back to kind Aini. "I hope you enjoyed where you slept. That hotel is making great commercial strides with scrag – that's meat from older animals like you."

  But Aini has lost Mark to his memories. Scragend, like on the cruise?

  The limousine gently pulls to a halt. The driver leaps out and runs round to open Aini's door. Mark is close behind Aini as they get out. He glances apprehensively at the driver: he knows what he must do to avoid more painful ear twisting. He follows Aini like the well-trained animal he has become.

  They approach a big, single-story barn-like building with a tall security fence enclosing an area that Mark cannot see.

  "This is my favorite test ranch," says Aini and Mark registers enthusiasm. This is a different Aini and for a moment Mark emerges from his animal resignation and remembers the past two days: the urbane Aini at the admin center, the kind Aini giving him and Patti his luxurious chalet for the night, the caring Aini putting drops in his eyes to fight off an infection that he did not know he had, and then the cold Aini controlling him, the disciplinarian Aini forcing him to do things he hated, the uncaring Aini treating him as property, the dominating Aini... it all fits a pattern. I was lured like a wild animal into a trap and now I'm the property of Aini. My only hope is to get away – get to somewhere safe where he can't control me.

  "The animals here are so tempting, so alluring," says Aini. "They are very easily frightened, so do not make any sudden moves or speak to them."

  Aini leads Mark through the guarded front entrance. There is an intriguing smell in the air: it is like wildflowers after a storm. The rooms are big and clean.

  "Aren't they wonderful?" says Aini, sweeping his hand in an arc to encompass a room full of naked human girls, the youngest looking about ten years old and the eldest sixteen. Mark steps back with surprise. It is true; they have a soft pink vulnerability, a fascinating sexual appeal as they move about with animal grace. No wonder Aini is tempted.

  "They are beautiful," he says to Aini.

  "Beautiful," responds Aini, more dreamily than Mark has ever heard a numan speak. "I control this ranch's budget, so they always oblige me with one or even two of the finest animals. Look at that one over there! The one with the red hair and delicious udders."

  "I didn't think numans found humans attractive."

  "Oh, yes," says Aini. "Especially female human animals of this age. We like them most between the ages of eleven and sixteen."

  "Where do you take them? Don't numan wives object?"

  Aini tears his eyes off the girl with red hair and turns to Mark. "Object? These females are sought after by numan wives. The very best skin creams are made from the skin of these young animals."

  "Their skin?"

  "These animals are incredibly valuable," says Aini, making a visible effort to keep his eyes off the girls and on the sensor display and Mark's face. "They are delicious thinly sliced and cooked in clay pots with herbs and kokkinosta – that's a kind of red wine. Frankly, there are so many uses that it is hard to list them all for you: different cuts of their bodies are used to make dozens of different meals and canapés, some sweet, some spicy; some that are especially to my taste are herby and made from just the side flesh of their udders. The most famous and popular – and expensive – dishes are made from the sexual organs of the youngest of these animals."

  Mark gapes at the girls as Aini says, "Good sensor readings. But why are you showing no anger?"

  "What are you doing to them here?" Mark asks with horror.

  "Slaughter processes," says Aini. "People like me, the numans, are not animals like you and the rest of the humans. You live your animal lives without responsibilities or pain. We look after you on our ranches. In the wild, you exist only to satisfy your instincts. We, as people, have to produce things. Here, we are trying to find processes that are more efficient and cost-effective. For example, is there any advantage in harvesting the udder cuts while the animal is alive? Some of our experts think tha
t slowly bleeding the animal to death will produce less waste than stunning first. Others want research quantities of blood from different age groups to develop new products – at the moment, about eleven percent of the blood is lost in processing, twenty-three percent is used for blood soup and the remaining sixty-six percent goes for blood sausage production."

  "Aini, do we have to stay here any longer?"

  "Of course," says Aini, the dominating Aini who thinks nothing of Mark's ear being twisted to enforce immediate obedience. "This is the best part of the tour. We will lunch well today. Maybe we will stay for dinner too. This environment is producing excellent emotion readings from you."

  There is a silence between them as the gentle herd sounds of the girls lap over them.

  Mark, even in the mire of his animal existence, can hear a wistfulness and frustration in Aini's voice as he says, "If only I could stay here, away from the numan2 crisis, away from FedOz Center's infighting, away from trapping and killing Galen... oh, Dick! Now I'm telling my troubles to an animal! This is all getting too much for me."

  "I don't want to eat any of these girls!" Mark explodes. Then, more quietly: "Aini, I want to go. Now."

  "There, there," Aini says, patting Mark's arm. "Good boy. Stay calm." Aini inspects Mark and then checks the sensor readings. Mark can see data scrolling across the screen on Aini's arm but it means nothing to him. There is only fear. "You will eat the meat here," says Aini. "If you disobey, I will have you slaughtered."

  Mark wants to refuse but he cannot. He feels broken and refusing anything is unthinkable.

  All he can do is cling to the thought: "I can escape. I can get out in the night and run. They will never catch me."

  *

  White Death is exhausted. His will to command, even his will to live, is being leached out of him by the sheer effort to keep going. His eyes are gritty, his eyelids painfully dragging themselves over his eyes. He has been awake for two days and there is no end in sight.

  He is back in his mother's home, once busy with his family and a constant stream of visitors. Now there is a forlorn emptiness about the place. His surviving children, mature and with families, are living in FedWales to work on tea drying and packaging.