Eupocalypse Box Set

by Peri Dwyer Worrell

  Just as Isaac bumped onto the gravel track, he realized what the basket must hold: Jessica’s baby. He ducked his head and glimpsed the child’s drowsy face, still smiling trustingly, in the sick instant before the basket hit the ground with a thump.

  He listened for the baby's cry as he pulled away, but heard nothing. He hoped the reason he couldn’t hear it was because of the sound of the Vespa's little motor.

  LXII.

  Loose but Lucid

  The two trikes rolled into town on market day, in a cloud composed of dust and the steam from their ethanol-powered engines. Shoppers and traders, men and women in a variegation of pre-Sickness T-shirts and jeans and homespun hemp, cotton, and hand-tanned leather, clustered around stalls of merchandise and a few savory-smelling food booths. The inhabitants drifted out in twos and threes to eye the new arrivals. Jeremy operated the drone; it lifted from the back of his trike, swept a few lazy circles overhead, and landed lightly on the raised wooden platform that served as a community stage.

  DD mounted the weathered wood steps easily. It didn’t take long for a crowd to assemble in the crossroads in front of the trading post. She swept her eyes over the faces, looking for Gabriela or Ed, Marthita or the other kids. She saw a few familiar faces, but her Ozark family wasn’t there. She was pleased that she didn’t see Juan either.

  “It’s good to see familiar faces,” she began timidly. Then she grinned; Jeremy’d gotten off his trike and quickly dropped his pants; he pulled up his shirttails and flashed his underwear.

  “This winter, my friends, is going to be hard!” She started over more emphatically. Murmurs and nods of agreement.

  “Back when we switched to PVC irrigation pipes, and started using herbicide on GMO seeds it seemed like mere details. Farming was the thing and we were still farming. It was just details. It was!

  “The devil is in the details!” The people were starting to glance back and forth at each other, wondering where she was going with this, and who this crazy woman was; if it weren’t for the drone at her feet, she might have lost their attention.

  “The devil is not in you or me,” she finished.

  “Filthy heretic!” shouted a woman whose long hair and skirts marked her as Pentecostal.

  “We’re all filthy!” countered DD. She raised her arm, as though to gesture, then sniffed her armpit and made a face as though at the smell; the crowd tittered at the crude humor and the religious woman frowned and huffed.

  “People, we are all: you, me, even her—” she pointed at the holy roller— “covered with filthy germs all the time! The filthy germs everywhere make friends with our guts and make us healthy. The filthy germs that clean up oil spills have now eaten our oil and our plastic. But just as our hearts beat stronger when we have healthy germs in our guts, the heart of the earth continues to beat. Every blood cell circulates everything we need to every cell, tissue, and organ. We don’t know why it happens, but we don’t have to think about it. It’s the exact same way with the world around us!”

  “You!” she pointed at a tall man, an alpha, the sheriff who’d been drilling the men in self-defense last Winter, a leader.

  “You are a blood cell! I,” she thumped just below her collarbones with her fists in a way that vaguely suggested an ape, “am a blood cell! This,” she pointed at the drone and Jeremy (pants discreetly back up) took his cue, using the remote to lift the drone off the platform, and turning on its flashing lights, “is oxygen. It’s life, and breath. And you can have one yourself.”

  Even though maybe one in ten got the gist of her raving, the crowd were interested now. Their body language signaled it as they leaned forward, chatter dying as they eyed the drone and DD hungrily.

  “There are those who have said that people are a cancer on the earth. Scientists have said that cancer is caused by infections. The infection is cancer and cancer is the infection. But here’s the thing:

  “The light comes from the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. John, chapter 1, verse 5.” She paused, making eye contact with the Pentecostalist woman, who’d been joined by her bearded husband and their seven children, stairstepping in age a year or two apart from toddler to teenager. The patriarch nodded unconsciously, mama relaxed almost imperceptibly, and DD went on.

  “The key to fighting off the infection and to outliving the cancer is change, change, change. We, as humans can remake, remodel, and regenerate. This world can only improve by changing. This technology represents change.

  “You will tell your grandchildren about this day. You will remember this moment as the moment you learned that restoration is in your hands.”

  She saw chests heaving in deep sighs, chins lift, eyes soften. She had them! She went on.

  “The single moment when change takes place is an illusion. The process is going on continuously no matter how hard we try to cling to the way things are. It has changed even as we are perceiving it.” Confusion; better bring it back to something concrete.

  “I am going to give away five of these drones, along with instructions on how to make more.” The crowd began to jostle each other to get to the stage. “These drones are powered by a bacterium called shewanella that is easy to culture. It works just like sourdough starter.” A number of the women’s eyes lit up in familiarity. “I am going to leave instructions on how to keep it alive and how to build the power cells that use it. I only ask that those who take it promise to share the information freely.

  “Whoa, there, big fella!” She drew her revolver and trained it on the man who had his foot on the first step. She did her best Mae West impression, “I’m happy to see you, too, but we haven’t been properly introduced!” The crowd tittered. Jeremy, guarding the remote between his feet, had a machete in one hand and his carbine in the other and was sweeping a little clearing in the crowd around him, the drone hovering directly overhead.

  “Everyone can—and will—have a bioelectric cell and the means to make more within two weeks, IF you listen carefully and do as I say. The five drones are hidden by the roadside between here and Little Rock. If anything happens to the two of us, you will never know where they are.” The front row of people, big men all, who’d shoved their way up front, backed away half a step and calmed down to listen.

  “One of you will ride five miles south with us, and then we will tell that person where the drones and instructions are. You have the count of five hundred to pick that person. Pick someone you trust.

  “I’m walking to my trike now.”

  Shoulders square, she strutted down the steps and the crowd parted to let her through. She smiled a little smile to herself. I’ve gotten to the point where I positively enjoy this part.

  She stepped within Jeremy’s perimeter and the two of them straddled their trikes. “One hundred!” Jeremy shouted.

  They’d repeated this scene from Indiana to Arkansas in over a dozen small localities and they had the routine down pat. They read this crowd as being no threat (there’d been a couple of places they’d actually needed to fight their way out and leave the hidden drones to die undiscovered). The people focused on the stage where the old sheriff was calling for nominees. This crowd knew whom to trust, and Ed was pushed up front almost organically, like a cell performing exocytosis, and the sheriff just confirmed, “Ed? Is it Ed?” The crowd buzzed affirmation, and Ed walked over to the trikes. The count never reached two hundred. DD gave her old distilling mentor Ed a genuine hug, and the crowd applauded. She gestured him on behind her, and the two trikes rolled south.

  “No one is to follow us for ten minutes. Understand?” Jeremy shouted again, and again the crowd murmured yes. As they passed the turn-off to the barn, DD caught sight of Gabriela walking along the road with the kids. She felt a pang, wishing she could visit her friend and see her cozy barn home of last winter, but instead she contented herself with a wave to the woman and children, who swiveled in puzzlement to watch them go by.

  After they dropped Ed off with the list of hiding places, they c
ontinued towards the Texas border. They went far enough to outrun word of mouth and camped for the night near Texarkana. They went silently about the business of setting up camp, digging a latrine, and building a fire. The sun went down and the Fall cool settled over them; they made a simple dinner of smoked meat and fire-roasted potatoes, then sat by the fire quietly.

  I’ll be the first to bring it up. It’s probably not even on his mind.

  “That was the last of the cultures.”

  “Yes. Yes, it was.” Jeremy, laconic as always.

  “So, what now?”

  “Well,” Jeremy said, as if surprised it was a question, “aren’t we going back to Galveston?”

  DD paused. “No, I have nothing and no one in Galveston.”

  Jeremy considered this a moment. “I guess not.”

  I guessed right. No commitment. Never was. She searched herself for a sense of loss, of betrayal. None on my end either.

  “I thought I’d go look up some old friends in Tallahassee, see how they’re doing and if I can winter with one of them,” she said.

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Jeremy amiably.

  “We need to spread out the stuff and divide it then,” DD said, beginning to unload the saddlebags on her trike. She spread out a blanket on the ground to put their belongings on. “If we hurry, we can finish before it gets dark.”

  “If we hurry.” Jeremy walked up behind her. He grabbed her by the hips and pulled her buttocks against his pelvis; his raging erection took her by surprise, but she ground against him. All at once, they were on the ground, struggling with breathtaking urgency to get their clothes off. To her surprise, she was lubricated and ready almost instantly and he found just the right place; a starburst fired inside her once, twice, and on the fifth stroke she was convulsed by a blinding climax which sent her out of her body for a moment, shooting towards the first evening star overhead, emerging from the dusky blue evening sky above her. She settled back into her body, opened her eyes, and watched Jeremy come, for the last time. She smiled.

  Most things work better when you just let go.

  LXIII.

  Constellation

  Isaac felt his pocket. The ampule was still there, unbroken. He swiped his forearm across his brow, removing the sweat and blood trickling into his eyes, despite the night’s chill. He’d only another half mile to go before reaching the Site R perimeter.

  “Halt and identify!”

  Isaac stopped, called out his name and ID number. The sentry lowered his weapon and escorted him to his CO. Standing by the CO’s shoulder was a man in a dark coat and stocking cap.

  “I brought this culture from an enemy encampment.” Isaac held the ampule out in the palm of his suddenly quivering hand. “It’s the secret to renewable power. No one must be allowed to get this except our scientists.”

  The man in black stepped forward. “We've been waiting for this,” he said, though Isaac, strangely, had told no one he was coming. The spook took the ampule and wrapped it in a cloth or tissue and put it in his coat pocket. He then stepped back and nodded meaningfully at the sentry. When the Commanding Officer saw the nod, he also stepped back.

  Isaac swallowed hard. The sentry raised his weapon. Isaac was paralyzed by confusion. He’d fought and killed for this nation, killed good people! Innocent people! The infant’s eyes flashed in his mind, trusting in its woven basket until the moment it hit the ground. Had it survived? It didn't matter. With a tiny shake of his head, he began to take a breath to speak, to explain.

  Which he did not. Ever again.

  The man in black pivoted, with a barely perceptible smile, to return to the secure site. As he turned, a light suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision. A sentry, out of position, no doubt! He turned to hail him and command him to identify himself, and another light appeared. The first was about twenty feet away, the second one, forty, and his vision suddenly resolved a row of pinpoint lights stretching away from him, down the rise he was standing on and ascending the next one. Then he realized the entire far ridge was a constellation of tiny lights.

  He furrowed his brow. He slowly approached the first light. He reached it and saw it was on the ground. He squatted and saw two small glass jars connected by a tube with something white and fibrous inside. The lids of the jars were also connected, by wires, and one of the lids was an LED panel, which was where the glow was coming from. He reached for it, hesitated, then decided to pick it up. He’d carry this inside and check it out more thoroughly later. Right now, the priority was getting the agent Isaac's delivery to Birdwell. A shame about Isaac, but someone who acted with that kind of impetuosity couldn't be relied upon for future actions. And there were no spare resources to support unreliable, possibly useless assets.

  He took the device with him and entered the compound. He walked past the torches mounted on the walls and the lanterns held by the patrols.

  Everyone recognized him and let him pass. He glided down the hallways, all the way to the main laboratory, which was one of the few places recently wired with their precious natural-fiber-insulated wires. Those wires only transmitted the electricity, generated by their dwindling supply of fiercely-guarded gasoline, for a few hours in the evening. He set the strange lighting device, if that's what it was, down. He turned to Lt. Colonel Birdwell, PhD, and handed him the ampule reverently, mindful of the lives that had been sacrificed to bring this invention to be the salvation of America and the Free World.

  “Here it is. It’s what you wanted. With this, the US can rise again to make a whole new world.”

  But Birdwell was staring instead at the glass gewgaw on the bench beside him, aghast.

  “What’s this?” Birdwell asked.

  “I don’t know. I found it in the woods,” he replied dismissively.

  “It looks like...” He bent down to look at the object more closely. “It looks like a biological-fuel-cell lantern?”

  “Yes? So?”

  “This is a message from someone. A threat? The terrorists must be close to inventing what we are working on! We have to beat them to the punch, or the enemy will have the technology first and it will all be useless!”

  “Should I send someone to bring in the rest of them, then?”

  “The...rest...of them?” Birdwell said.

  “Yes. The whole hillside was covered with them. I thought they were just toys or something.”

  “Where?” Demanded Birdwell.

  Minutes later, he was in the darkened woods. The jars each held a liquid with a square of something black in it; one was clear and half-full, the other cloudy and full to the top. The lights, strung out in the darkness, looked like strings of Christmas lights, something Birdwell never thought he’d see again, in these apocalyptic times. The LEDs were suspended in clear glass, instead of plastic. Several soldiers followed behind him with hand carts, carefully loading the lights onto the wagons to be taken back to the lab. He walked from one to the next, to the next, until he reached to top of the hill. And stopped. Because a line of lights went on, for at least a mile that he could see. He turned to his aide and instructed him to send for more soldiers and more wagons.

  He stared at the lights for a few moments more. Then he turned to go back to the lab. He needed to think.

  A soldier walked up to him and proffered a box. “I think you might want to see this, Sir.”

  The box was made of plain unfinished wood, about the size of a breadbox, with a circular hole covered with a stretched piece of paper-thin leather. The speaker, for that's what it was, was playing music. Then, a person’s voice came from it. It had been so many months since Birdwell’d heard a voice over the airwaves he’d almost forgotten what it was like, but the voice, though distorted, spoke words that were as plain as day.

  Hello, and welcome to the future. This message is intended for anyone who finds it. This broadcast is powered by bacterial fuel cells. The bacteria which make up these fuel cells have been cultured and distributed free of charge. They live on sewage and rotti
ng vegetation. The fuel cell technology can be reproduced by anyone with only simple materials. I got the first culture from a field of lights just like this. The future of the world is dispersed energy production and decentralized control. Enjoy…and please pass this technology on to others, as I did.

  The music started to play again, the same soft rhythm and upbeat melody. It was a recorded message, repeated again and yet again. With only a moment’s thought, Birdwell knew what he’d find within the box: one of the biofuel cells, and a simple assembly of coiled wire wrapped in natural insulators, a simple hobbyist’s radio like those of the early 20th century, preset to one frequency, the frequency on which the message was being broadcast over, and over, and over. He would set his soldiers to finding the source of the broadcast, but he was willing to bet it would be unmanned.

  Early the next morning, groggy from sleep, POTUS was being briefed on the development. Birdwell saw the shadows beneath his eyes and the furrows etched in his forehead; the dry skin and the vacant gaze testified to the stress of the past year and a half. He’d gotten where he was by being bombastic and overbearing, achieving what he wanted through a vast organization. The only thing he was ill-prepared for was a situation like this one, where his control was so limited and his underlings were so few and ill-equipped.

  “But, this is just twentieth-century technology! Surely once we control the biobatteries, we can defeat wooden radios!”

  “Mr. President, it may be simple twentieth-century technology now. But people who’ve had smartphones and insulin pumps and social media and, and, drones and dance clubs and light shows, and everything else we all took for granted until very recently, aren’t going to take long to figure out how to scale this tech both up and down, and make it ubiquitous.” Birdwell paused, taking a deep breath to quell the unfamiliar sensation of panic twitching to life in his diaphragm. “We have no control of who uses this, or where they use it. There's no way to take control! The materials are cheap and easy to find anywhere. Even if there is some component which turns out to be more expensive or hard to find, let me remind you that we no longer have unlimited financial resources. We have no way to collect taxes: the people in the camps can’t pay them, and the people outside the camps won’t. This tech is not something fueled by substances dug out of the ground in far-away places, where we can control the flow of importation. Anywhere there are human beings, there is abundant fuel for this technology. The technology actually removes or minimizes the problem of waste disposal, instead of creating new wastes.” Birdwell paused, thinking about how an infantry battalion wouldn’t need generators...or latrines!