Eupocalypse Box Set

by Peri Dwyer Worrell

  WH: Then what happened?

  SL: Well, we made it to Walter’s parents’ place in Merced. They were set up pretty well: had stuff stored up for emergencies, a freezer full of food, a windmill, a rifle and a couple shotguns for critters. We stayed with them that Winter. Their winter crops died in the fields, of course.

  WH: Why’s that?

  SL: Not a lot of people realize the Central Valley isn’t natural farmland. It was set up with aqueducts and drainage projects over a hundred years ago so it wouldn’t flood, and big pumping stations to keep the irrigation water flowing. Once the PVC pipes melted, and the pumping stations stopped working, the land dried up. Then in the Spring, the rains came and the snowmelt from the mountains flowed down. The whole valley flooded. My in-laws’ house was on a little hill, but it was an island in the middle of these swampy fields. Snakes and bugs and field mice came up in the house. It was horrible! But it subsided, and they put in what seed they could salvage.

  But then the Great Earthquake happened.

  WH: What was that like? Did you feel it even in the Valley?

  SL: We sure did! It’s quite a feeling when the ground starts rolling and bucking under your feet. Of course, I was used to quakes. I lived in San Francisco for years. But this was a big one, alright. Of course, soon we found out it wasn’t just a big one…it was the Big One that everybody here used to talk about. It took down whatever was still standing in San Francisco, San Jose, all the way down to Monterey. It gave them a good shaking even in LA, and I heard they felt it in San Diego.

  WH: Wow. No wonder San Francisco looks the way it does.

  SL: Yeah, it took out the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges. The city was still in bad shape from all the arson and looting. People poured out of San Francisco into the countryside. They piled into the Valley.

  WH: Did they come to Merced?

  SL: Yeah, they just kept coming and coming. They set up tents, or just piles of rags and sticks, really, in the fields where the seeds were just coming up. My father-in-law ran them off at first, but the next day, there’d be twice as many, then more and more, and then the rains stopped completely and there was no point.

  WH: But you made it through the Summer?

  SL: I did. Cody did.

  WH: And the rest? Your husband? Your children?

  SL: Do you know what happens when you’ve got fifteen million extra people piling into an area the size of Denmark?

  WH: What happens?

  SL: You get cholera, that’s what happens. I watched my father- and mother-in-law shit their lives away. Walter and the kids recovered the first time, but another epidemic came along in the Fall, and we were all sick as dogs. I don’t know how it didn’t kill me and Cody, but we lived.

  WH: Where’s Cody now?

  SL: He’s with Walter’s brother. His sister-in-law didn’t make it, but Brian and his son, Walter’s nephew, Grayson, had a place that stays high and dry year-round.

  WH: Why’d you leave them to go back to San Francisco?

  SL: I wanted to see if there was anything left of the house. Photos, keepsakes, heirlooms…stuff like that. I have so little to remember them by.

  WH: I can understand that.

  SL: I used to be a teacher in the public-school system, before the kids came along. I kept thinking about my students, wondering how they’d made it. Some of them were disadvantaged, and I worried.

  WH: Did you find any of them?

  SL: Yes. You met one of them.

  WH: Really?

  SL: Funesto.

  WH: Funesto? I never would have guessed! He looks so mature!

  SL: He’s lived a rough life. I mean, we’ve all lived rough lives since the machine sickness hit. But Funesto didn’t have a great start. Turns out, though, that it gave him just the skillset to survive and thrive when the gangs all merged in the urban ruins. He’s a tough guy. But he remembered me. Recognized me the minute I came across the bridge. He called me “Ms. Lavoie.”

  WH: I noticed he called you that. I thought it was odd. I only heard first names the whole time…

  SL: Yeah, well, that’s why. That’s why. He remembered me. I certainly remembered him! One of the smartest kids I ever taught. I’m not surprised he turned out to be a leader in his community.

  WH: What turned him from a community leader into a gangster?

  SL: The gang is his community. The only community that ever had his back. The only community that ever gave him a framework to advance his own self-interest. The only community that ever valued what he had to offer.

  WH: That’s an interesting way to think about it. So, what’s next for you?

  SL: Well, assuming I make it back to Merced in one piece, I’m going to give Cody, Brian, and Grayson big hugs. I think it will give us all closure, knowing now there’s literally nothing to go back to. There are some people trying to grow some different crops—like rice, kangkong, and fish and frog ponds—which can take the annual floods. We can trade those for seabutter, too. We’re just making our way in this new world.

  WH: Thanks for talking with me. I know revisiting these experiences must be painful.

  SL: Yeah, well, you get numb after a while. You can only grieve for so long.

  The remainder of our walking trip to Merced was uneventful. The Central Valley’s dead fields were reverting to prairie, and dead orchards made spooky scenery that stretched for miles in places. As in the rest of the country, the population clustered in small villages and moved about on horseback or on foot. We spent a night camping in the yard of Sarah’s brother-in-law, and left the four of them waving from the porch: the remains of three families banded together.

  XXXVII.

  One Day at a Time

  With the children’s help, Alfred, Gaby, and Jessica were getting dinner on the table. Jessica and Gaby trundled plates, flatware, and cups to the table. Alfred stood in the kitchen, where his height made it a cinch to reach all the high shelves. When they were done, homemade poblano pepper sauce and mayonnaise, sea salt, sliced goat cheese, and fruit sat in the center with a big pitcher of crimson hibiscus tea.

  “Bug juice,” Alfred said, “is what we used to call it at summer camp.”

  “What’s summer camp?” Martha asked.

  “It’s like hunting camp, silly!” said her older brother Pablo. “The whole family goes out in the woods and stays in tents, and you hunt animals and pick berries…”

  Alfred smiled. “Not exactly.”

  “Well, what does it mean? What does it mean, Mama?” Ozark turned his eyes to Jessica.

  “Camp,” Jessica straightened a place setting, “used to be where parents would send their children when school was out, so other people could take care of them for a while. The kids could have sleepovers and the parents could get a rest.”

  “What’s school?”

  “School’s where you sent children all day, so they could learn things.”

  “Why didn’t they learn things at home like we do?”

  “Well, it was easier for people to go to work when the kids were at school, I guess.”

  “But how did the kids learn to work if they were away from their parents all day?”

  “They didn’t start work until they were grownups. In fact, it was illegal for kids to work.”

  “Wow! That sounds great!”

  “It wasn’t, honey.” Jessica paused for a moment. “We used to hate school. We couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

  “Why? Didn’t you learn interesting things?”

  “No, not usually. Everyone had to learn the same thing at the same pace, so you were usually bored in the classes you were good at and confused in the ones you weren’t.”

  “That sucks.”

  Martha deftly scooped Deirdre up from where she was worrying at the lid to the flour bin. Deirdre squealed, her pudgy toddler legs kicking. “Oh, no you don’t, little Miss! We don’t want to spend the next week sweeping and wiping up flour!”

  The table set, Alfred lifted the lid to the
pot on the wood stove and smelled the stew with a hum of appreciation. He stirred it with a huge ladle just as the dogs outside began to bark.

  “Dogs!” shouted Deirdre, who’d just been set on the floor again. She trotted to the screen door. “Dogs!” Hoofbeats thudded on the hard-packed sand.

  Alfred’s skirts swirled as he poured golden honey liquor into the colorful ceramic wine cups lined up on the counter. There were four adults eating, but only three cups. Jessica’s eyes fixed on the alcohol, and her face flickered dismay and regret for the barest instant, but she and Alfred exchanged no words.

  Jessica slipped up to Gaby and gave a quick squeeze across her friend’s shoulders.

  “What was that for?” Gaby smiled.

  “I just appreciate you. That’s all. Thanks for taking care of my boy when I couldn’t.”

  “Anybody would have done it.” Gaby waved a hand. She stepped to the windows and watched Jeremy dismount the wagon. “Pablo, run down and help your stepdad unhitch the mules.”

  The boy’s lean body slipped through the screen door, and his moccasins patted down the wooden stairs.

  “I’ve got to say, you look better than the last time I saw you, Jessica. Calmer somehow,” said Alfred.

  “Just living one day at a time. Well, and it’s pretty hard to feel bad in this household.”

  Jeremy and Pablo came in, and Jeremy swept his wife into his arms. He stroked her hair and looked into her eyes before giving her a firm kiss. He let her go, patted Ozark and Deirdre on the head, then swung his feet across the room with a child seated on the top of each boot, both children giggling wildly.

  “Jeremy, so good to see you!” Alfred shook the shorter man’s hand.

  “Likewise, bro,” said Jeremy. He glanced around. “I thought D.D. was coming?”

  Jessica looked at them sharply.

  “She was, but then she decided she wasn’t quite up to spending time with a lot of people. She’s been…going through a lot lately.”

  “Hmm.” Gaby gestured towards a chair with her free hand, a platter of potatoes in the other. “Let’s sit down to eat, and you can tell us all about it.”

  They sat, and Alfred told them about D.D. and her communication with the Africans, and her obsessive absorption in the new ctenophores.

  “They are pretty freaky,” Jeremy observed. “We’ve started to use them to communicate with the shipping crews over long distances, and sometimes they know what we’re going to say before we even say it. It’s amazing how fast the technology has gone from walkie-talkie, to basic cellphone, to smart-phone-with-translator, to handheld tablet computer. It took petroleum-based devices decades to develop so far!”

  “You don’t know the half of it!” said Alfred.

  “What about the VTOL drone bike? Has anyone made any more progress on it? I had an idea about the aerodynamic stability process based on the way the ten-legs swim in tide pools,” said Jessica.

  “Nobody’s touched it since you left.” Alfred rested his chin in his hands, regarding her.

  “That’s sad,” Gaby said, distracted by feeding Deirdre, who was learning about the aerodynamic properties of partially-chewed potatoes.

  “It is sad,” said Albert, “but when you left, your mother got kind of weird about anything that had to do with you. She didn’t exactly stand at the doorway refusing to let anyone in, but—”

  “—I know how Mom can be. Terrifies people by lifting an eyebrow.”

  “I wish she’d teach me that trick,” said Gaby, giving up on keeping potatoes in her giggling daughter’s mouth. She turned to her own dinner.

  Jeremy patted her back. “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

  She smiled, leaned in. “True. And I’m the one who wound up with you!”

  “Get a room, you two!” Alfred said.

  “I believe this room is ours.” Jeremy punctuated his point with a soft peck on Gaby’s lips.

  “Alright, alright,” said Jessica. “Ozark, do you need that rabbit cut up a bit more?”

  “Oh. This isn’t chicken?” Alfred said.

  “No, it’s rabbit. Pablo kills and skins them, and I help cut them up,” said Martha proudly.

  “Sorry,” said Gaby.

  “Oh, it’s fine. I just thought it was chicken. Hey, what do you call a chicken crossing the road? Give up? Poultry in motion!” The older kids giggled.

  “Seriously though, I noticed you weren’t eating,” said Gaby.

  “Sorry,” said Alfred. “I never have much of an appetite. D.D. reminds me to eat. I’ll forget for days.”

  “I’ve never forgotten to eat!” said Jessica. “Although at times, I’ve forgotten that I’ve already eaten!” She reached for the ladle to serve herself seconds.

  Alfred began to feed himself mechanically. The children finished their meals and asked to be excused to play outside in the fading afternoon light.

  When the meal was done, the four adults retired to the living room. They settled down with tea or mead, and Alfred became more relaxed.

  “Honestly, something happened with D.D. that I’m still processing,” he said.

  “Uh oh! What did she get mad at you about this time? Some minor insult?” Jessica asked.

  “No, no, nothing like that. D.D. and I have been best friends for two years now. We’re past that. It’s more than that.”

  “Well, what is it? Spit it out,” said Gaby.

  “I’m just trying to think of how to describe it. You know how the ctenophores sometimes know what you’re going to say before you say it?”

  “Yes, I assumed that the predictive software had been improved.”

  “I suppose that’s part of it. Although it’s not actually software. Nobody writes the code for these things. They literally evolve new code. But that’s something the AI people had been getting closer to over time anyway.

  “The thing is, because the ctenophores are organic, they evolve physically as well. Change in their hardware recombines with changes in their software. And it seems undeniable now, something we’d only speculated: the aromatic nucleotide pi stacking in their DNA’s a medium for quantum entanglement.”

  The other three sat impassive, staring blankly.

  “That means that electrons move along their DNA molecules until quantum teleportation takes place when they hit the right enantiomeric pairing, which breaks coherence...”

  He looked around. “—Crickets.”

  Ultimately, Jeremy spoke. “Speaking of coherence…”

  “Okay. Let’s try again. You know about Schrödinger’s cat?”

  “Okay, yeah—the cat’s in the box but you don’t know if it’s alive or dead, so it’s both, until you open the box.”

  “Right. Well, DNA has a way of moving electrons along its spiral that goes one of two ways, depending on the quantum spin of the electron. Quantum spins are similar to Schrödinger’s cat: you can’t know what they are until you measure them. And there’s another electron somewhere with the opposite spin. So if one DNA molecule stops the transmission at a certain point, and another DNA molecule on the other side of the world stops it at a certain point, there’s a bit…actually a qbit…of information that’s transmitted instantaneously to the other side of the world.”

  So, you’re saying the new ten-legged ctenophores talk to each other through their DNA?” Gaby asked. The children’s laughter pealed outside.

  “Maybe talking to each other isn’t the best way to think about it. It might be more accurate to say that, in limited and specific ways, they are each other.”

  Jessica jumped in. “You say this information is transmitted instantaneously? No time delay?”

  “That’s right.”

  She frowned. “So, how do they know which ctenophore the signal came from?”

  “Exactly! They don’t!”

  Jessica shook her head, hard. “Okay, so what keeps them from interacting with the DNA of other kinds of animals?”

  “Nothing, as far as we know. But remem
ber, most animals’—and plants’—DNA is physically pretty inaccessible. It’s locked up into cellular nuclei inside cytoplasm and cell walls and membranes and tissue matrix. It’s in mollusks that it’s most exposed—more than in baby animals, more than in any plants, more than in any other type of animal cell except for embryos. I didn’t know all this until I started to talk about it with your mother. I’m more of a physical-sciences kind of guy.”

  “Okay, so the ctenophores can talk to each other across the world. What does that mean for us?” Jeremy, down to earth and practical as ever.

  “Well, it means a lot of things.” Alfred held up a hand. “Hear me out; I’m not being evasive here.

  “It’s just that something happened the other night on the beach. Something with your mother,” he looked at Jessica. “Something which I thought was a dream or a hallucination at first.”

  “Were you eating mushrooms?” chided Jessica, with a glance out the window at the children, who were playing some sort of dancing-and-dice game on the broad screened porch.

  “No, no, nothing. I don’t care for hallucinogens at all. That’s what was strange. We both saw it. We both felt it.”

  “What, exactly, is this it?” Jessica asked. “Is my mom okay?”

  “Oh, yes, yes she’s okay. As she put it, she’s ‘better than she’s been in a long time.’ But there was someone in the water with the ctenophores. Someone larger than life. She was…a majestic presence.”

  “Is this more of your pagan goddess worship stuff?” Jeremy asked. “I know it’s your religious belief, and I respect that, but—"

  “No. I mean, yes, but no.”

  “Now you’re in Schrödinger’s box!” said Gaby.

  “What I mean is, yes, I understood the presence as the great mother goddess. But D.D.’s about as agnostic as they come, and she more than saw what I did. She…in a way, she merged with her.