The Highfield contingent left the building with the meeting room’s hermit caretaker and wandered over broken paths to their cabins. Once rented out to prosperous tourists as “rustic” retreats, the buildings were still comfortable enough, even without air conditioning and indoor plumbing. They were truly rustic now—their jacuzzis and gas fireplaces inert, the acrylic lacquer on the hardwood floors long since digested to water by the P davisii. Yet the bare rough wood was still solid, and metal screens on the windows offered cool comfort on this warm fall afternoon.
Birdwell stalked them until the three split up, then followed Gabe to his solo cabin. Birdwell watched Gabe go inside. He heard Esther and Lou step into their dwelling, concealed behind a copse of hardwoods and brush, and shut the door. Birdwell stepped to Gabe’s door, opened the screen door, and slipped a flexible blade into the flimsy door lock. Gabe turned, his hand on the gun at his waist, but paused when he saw Birdwell’s empty palms above his shoulders.
“Who the Hell are you?”
“A friend. My name’s Birdwell. I used to work for the Federal Government, but I left. I heard what they tried to do to your press.”
Gabe’s eyes narrowed skeptically. The stranger was taller and a great deal fitter, even if he had a decade or more on the pressman. “What do you want?”
Birdwell kept his hands up. “I want to help if I can. Lou’s got more balls than any man I’ve met in a long time.” He sighed. “Is it alright if I sit down?”
Gabe considered. “Step out on the porch.”
Birdwell did, willingly turning his back to the other man, who followed him out.
“Now take off your pack and drop it over the rail.”
Birdwell did as he asked, lowering the leather rucksack slowly, almost touching the ground before he released it. Gabe watched him the whole time, noting his sidearm.
“I’m unslinging my rifle, too.”
Gabe nodded agreement and watched him slowly remove the heavy armament on its strap and lean it against the porch rail.
“Have a seat, Mr. Birdwell.”
The older man obeyed, sinking into an Adirondack chair.
Gabe looked down at him, considered their relative positions, and took his hand off his gun.
“Talk.”
“Alright. Good man! Caution’s important. I wouldn’t have expected Lou to pick anything less in a man he trusts.”
“Enough bullshit. If you like Lou so much, why’d you come to me instead of him?”
“I’m one scruffy guy, alone. There are ten thousand like me in these hills, and enough of them are bandits that I figured if I approached two of you together, I was twice as likely to end up a dead man. I’ve been watching the three of you, and I thought you were the steadiest one.”
“Looks like you won your gamble. Drink?”
“I’m thirsty. Yes, please. Nothing stronger than water until our business is done, if you don’t mind.”
Gabe went inside, pouring himself a glass of clean water from a skin hung on a hook by the door. He brought Birdwell one.
“So, you want me to introduce you to the boss?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Why should I?”
“Look: I was the Army Corp of Engineers’ head ecologist. The night I first saw the biobatteries spread out on a hillside like Christmas lights, I understood that nothing would ever be the same again. The world is just never again going to be controlled from the top down. The machine sickness was just the beginning. This transformation’s been brewing a while, and the bacterium was just the spark that set it off. It’s going to be utterly unlike anything that’s ever happened before, at least since the discovery of fire.”
Gabe smiled. He chugged his water. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He enjoyed knowing something the other man didn’t for a second.
“Have you seen the trilobites?”
Birdwell nodded.
Gabe backed up to the chair across from Birdwell and sat down, stunned.
“Young man,” Birdwell began, “you have no idea…”
V.
It Ain’t the Meat, It’s the Motion
D.D. nudged Alfred, who’d been looking at her with an alert and cogent expression for at least three minutes. He nudged her back with the easy smile of established rapport.
“It’s not that I don’t think in words sometimes, it’s just that I find words almost useless for most of what I think about,” Alfred said, as though merely continuing a conversation.
D.D. nodded. “Yes, yes, I agree. And yet, I need to ask you something about computational analysis. I’ve been musing about this since we lost plastics and there were no more computer chips. The glass and metal microtransistors the boys are cobbling together seem to work fine—if you don’t mind that the stuff they build looks like a throwback to the 80s…”
“—which I don’t,” interjected Alfred, “because I not only remember the 80s, I remember when that caveman tech they make fun of was dazzlingly state-of-the-art!”
“Yeah, me too. But this shit works a lot better. They’ve learned more about how to hard-code since then, so they get more out of the clunky devices.”
“You weren’t here when they were first figuring it out from scratch! They had no idea how much the layers of bloatware was weighing down the basic systems until they had to do more with less.”
D.D. smiled. “I can imagine. I also expect it took them a while to figure out they didn’t need to prioritize for security at this point. But I’m getting off task. What I wanted to say was that I was thinking about how DNA analysis relied on computers, and how at sea I was without them at first. But then I was thinking about what you said about the 4-dimensional spherical nature of spacetime.”
“Hee hee. You were listening! Although ‘4-dimensional sphere’ isn’t exactly right. It’s just that the relation of time to space is like the relationship of a sphere to a disc-shaped map of the sphere…”
“—Right, right!” D.D. interrupted, carrying on with her own train of thought before Alfred led her around the conceptual maypole again. “But it made me think about how time and space can invert. If a computer can be used to analyze bacterial DNA…in the same way, couldn’t bacterial DNA function as a computer?”
“Hmm. Well, I guess you could say DNA’s a simple Turing machine. That’s what the ctenophores are using, switching from DNA to electrical encoding over a million times a second.”
“No! No, don’t you see? It’s more than that!” D.D. jumped up and began pacing, talking with her hands. “You were talking about the way the 4-dimensionality of space allows quantum equations which don’t even use the expression of time.”
“Yes. Want some beesknees?” He filled his own cup with the distilled mead.
“No, thanks. Trying to cut back. But listen…doesn’t that mean that the only thing coding information in quantum theory is spin?”
“Well, no, not really, but close enough.”
“And wouldn’t the spin of electrons allow quantum coding of information?”
“Only in a very dry, cold, pure environment…”
“That’s where you’re wrong!” D.D. was shouting now, and Alfred barely saved his bottle of beesknees from the sweep of her arm as she gestured. “What element has the stability to transmit electrons in a wet environment?”
Alfred stared, this time in perplexity.
“Oh, come on! I’ll give you a hint: when electrons are transported, what happens to protons?”
Alfred shook his head slightly.
“Give up? Okay: it’s phosphate!”
Alfred took a sip of his drink. “Isn’t the backbone of DNA made of phosphate molecules?”
“Exactly! Are you familiar with pi stacking?”
He set his cup down. “Vaguely…oh. Oh! The DNA molecule could be a spiral of potentially-entangled quantum fields.”
“A spiral. A screw. A spring. The mathematics of the enantiomers must be manipulable.”
“Hmm. The Planck constan
t, the charge on the electron, and the speed of light can be reduced to 1/137, and you do wind up with a unitless measurement. I don’t think I can work the applications of those equations in this context, though.”
“Me, neither. But someone can. And in the meantime, we can be working on miniaturizing the electronics by using bacterial DNA as simple Turing machines to automate the operating systems.”
“I like it!”
“Here, Kittykitty!”
The dog jumped up from where it lay in the corner and came running. D.D. grabbed a leash and Kittykitty went berserk with joy, thrashing D.D. and Alfred’s knees mercilessly with his tail.
“I’m going for a walk with the dog. Want to come?”
“No, that’s okay. I want to cogitate about these quantum DNA gates some more.”
“Be my guest. But by the time you’ve figured them out, the ctenophores might have mutated into something else entirely!”
VI.
The Highfield Register, September 8, Year Three
Wendy Harkavy
South Tahoe, Nevada
After the slow trek across the Great Plains, with their endless regularity, and then the grueling ascent of tall slopes of parched dusty boulders, coming to the edge of the Tahoe basin felt like ascending to Heaven. Unfortunately, the ascent was ruined when we passed through a landscape shaped by shallow graves, corpses barely buried that have been dug up, bones strewn and chewed by the thousands by the sharp teeth of predators. A weathered metal sign told us that we were on Prey Meadow Road, but of course, the road itself was melted into a barely-visible gravel track.
We passed these graves with increasing trepidation. Several members of our party wanted to turn back, but the local guides who brought us reassured us that there was no danger, so we persevered. Certainly, with Fall closing in, we didn’t have the option of retracing our steps and trying to survive the harsh Plains winters with no food, shelter, or power.
We made our way along the coast of the beautiful lake until we were met by a welcoming delegation atop the “round mound” known as Round Hill, which once marked the dividing line between Nevada and California. Eleanor Jolie, the chairperson of the South Tahoe Town Collective Council, greeted us with several prominent local personages. She made a short welcoming speech, and the group rode with us on horse back to the town itself. A security detail armed with rifles brought up the rear. The most noticeable thing about the group, by today’s standards, was that only the security detail carried weapons; none of the council members or their associates did so. On the way, Jolie pointed out several points of interest, including the hulking, uninhabitable Harrah’s Casino building, and the remains of the quickie-wedding chapel where California residents used to get married on weekend getaways.
Once we arrived at the South Tahoe Town Council chambers, the security arranged themselves in pairs around the building’s six doors and we went inside. Alicia Kane was introduced as the Council Secretary, and she showed us The Chronicle of New South Tahoe, an invaluable historical document which she’s taken it on herself to maintain since the earliest days of the machine sickness. Most of the dates given in the following material are taken from that reference book, interspersed with quotes from interviews during our stay with Council Members, security staff, and local residents.
When the machine sickness struck, the region was between the Summer recreational tourist season and the winter skiing season; its population was at a low point. The area was already prepared for its isolation during that first winter, because it’s always had periodic snow-ins during the winter months. However, after the Spring thaws, surrounding regions became uninhabitable, resulting in migration. Lacy Calhoun, who ran a local vegan café and now sits on the town council, describes the results:
“Hordes of ragged people came over the ridges and passes around the lake. They would show up unexpectedly and aggressively demand food and lodging. Sometimes hundreds in one day! It was terrifying!”
After a series of break-ins and robberies, the Town Council met and organized self-defense groups. These armed citizens’ groups patrolled the outskirts of the towns. Brandon Lutz, a former ski instructor, explains, “A lot of us were opposed to carrying weapons. But after March 19th, we couldn’t see any other way.”
On March 19th of Year 1, a patrol composed of Brandon, Lacy, and seven other men and women was strung out along the ridge forming a nearby mountain pass. They encountered a crowd of people on foot. “They weren’t willing to listen to reason,” Lacy explains. “They insisted—well, the ones in front did—that they had a perfect right to enter the valley. We explained that this was our home and we barely had the resources to support ourselves, but they just kept coming!” Lacy’s voice cracks, and Brandon lays a hand on her shoulder.
“We lost five of the patrol at that point. They were just brutal!”
“Animals!” Lacy says.
###
A short trip down the mountains takes you to a ramshackle settlement called Picketts Junction. Many people were living in sod homes there, others in skin tents or primitive wooden houses. “We just wanted food for our children and ourselves,” laments Lamont Smith. “They treated us like we were less than human. My little girl…” His voice trails off. “Let’s just say they weren’t kind to us. We did what we had to do. But in the end, they made us retreat.”
“The Council decided as representatives of the collective will of the community, we couldn’t allow ourselves to be overrun, so we allowed some of the local agrarians to contribute their armaments,” Lacy says.
“The cowboys weren’t too popular here before that,” Brandon adds. “But afterwards we all enjoyed learning how to defend ourselves and our homes.” His face shows spontaneous enthusiasm.
“Enjoyed isn’t the right word,” says Lacy pointedly.
“Oh, yeah, I guess not,” says Brandon.
Where are the ranchers now?
“They keep to themselves for the most part,” says Lacy. “Them and their Stepford wives.” She shrugs.
The settlers at Pickett’s Junction tell the tale of the following year:
“We came from cities, mostly, and we had no idea how to purify water, build shelter, find food, hunt. There were a few doctors and nurses and they did the best they could, but face it, all their training revolved around products made of plastics and equipment that ran on electricity. They were making it up as they went along. My best friend died of an infected blister on his foot. Died!” Lamont shakes his head. “I didn’t even know that could happen!”
Barton Raizman is a medical doctor, a former pathologist, and he agrees. “I had no recent experience actually treating patients at all, but even the doctors who did had no idea how to work under those conditions. It’s a bit better now that the high and mighty on the mountaintop are letting some people in and out, but it was brutal with all the frostbite that winter. It was like Civil War stories—amputations without anesthesia, dysentery, people screaming and shivering everywhere you looked.”
###
Asked about the humanitarian conditions in Raizman, Lacy and Barton are unapologetic: “You have to understand who those people are,” Lacy begins. “The oppression they inflicted and the second-hand trauma they claimed despite their privilege was deeply offensive, and triggering to many of us.”
Barton finishes her thought. “Their level of consciousness was very low. Have you seen what they did to the landscape down there in Pickett’s? Imagine what they would have done to the beautiful, pristine lake!”
Indeed, Pickett’s Junction is a vast plain of devastated vegetation and packed mud. Some people have scratched out small gardens, but there are small, smoky fires burning everywhere, making the eyes burn. There’s a primitive water distribution system from a small creek nearby, using wooden troughs and manual pumps, but waste disposal is open trenches and middens. The smell is indescribable.
Later, Lacy explains, “They don’t understand the critical ecology of the Lake basin. I don’t know ho
w they can be so ignorant about basic measures of care for the environment. It would have been devastating to the natural balance if we had allowed people like that in here.”
Later, we are finally able to approach a ranch. Ezra Dorran was in town for supplies, and he agreed to be interviewed.
The next day, we cautiously ride two mules up to the solid gate that blocks access to the canyon leading to his acreage. Ezra and his son Daniel are standing on the steep hillside to each side, and we apparently pass inspection, because Daniel slings his rifle across his back and shambles down the rocky trail to let us in.
Lucille Dorran, Ezra’s wife and Daniel’s mother, serves us homemade acorn bread, butter, and preserves, but declines to be interviewed.
“We never had a lot to do with the town people, not the tourists, nor the people who moved up here to cater to ‘em. My great-great-great grandpa came here looking for gold and made a good life for us with dairy and small-scale farming. It’s good land. Good country.
“Nowadays we can make a little in trade for running off the human pests that try to invade the town. The town folk are like a buffer for us. We don’t bother them. They don’t bother us—unless they need us to run off some hoboes.”
The Chronicle explains that the following Spring was even worse; it describes hordes of people amassing to the west of the drought-stricken Carson City, crossing the desert, and attempting to overwhelm the valley’s defense forces from the east. A chapter entitled The Battle of Spooner Lake describes movements in a series of guerilla battles and lists South Tahoe’s fallen. We saw the fallen of the desert dwellers on our journey into the valley.
“You have to understand,” explains Eleanor, “those weren’t well-educated people. They were the type of people who created this sort of ecological disaster to begin with. We can’t tolerate that type of thinking in a crisis situation. We have to act in the best interests of the whole community, and of the Earth itself.”
Indeed, South Tahoe is beautiful. If you ignore the disabled vehicles and the rows of darkened windows in the ski resorts, you could believe that everything here is as Before. Shops which sold authentic beeswax candles and handmade soaps as luxury goods now sell them as utility items. Restaurants which served wild-foraged mushrooms and goat cheese as chic “locavore” options, now serve them because they are the only food available. This small village feels blessed, fortunate. Not so the shantytown below.
Eupocalypse Box Set Page 55