Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds Read online

  With a deep breath, she rested her forehead against his chest. “He was giving the finger.”

  “To anyone?”

  “A picture,” L said. “Of his mom.”

  M studied the name L had written on the wall when they’d first entered. “Nisha Mukhopadhyay? Not sure how to pronounce that.”

  She laughed against him. “Yes, Devid whatever, that’s me.”

  “Anything else?” M pulled her closer, holding her tight.

  “A uniform, she’s wearing a uniform. MRMC is the government,” L said. “Devid hates her.”

  L and M didn’t remember the end of the world.

  The world ended, they understood that much, at least. They knew only two people survived.

  L.

  M.

  They’d found the letters on old papers and other items in the only rooms that looked lived in and assumed they’d discovered their own names. They remembered that.

  Other things? Not memories, more like campfire stories they’d once been told. The computer had taught them about campfires. And stories. Teaching them about recycling, how to use every fiber, every discarded or broken piece of their habitat. Because, when—not if—it failed, they’d die.

  And humanity would end.

  The computer chimed.

  “Satellites at 83.256% efficiency,” it said. “We’ve lost weather tracking coverage on portions of the southern hemisphere.”

  M laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” L asked

  “I think the computer made a joke. Had to be a joke.”

  He walked to a refrigerated drawer and removed a plastic pouch filled with clear liquid.

  “You’ve already eaten.”

  “I’m still hungry.”

  “We’re always hungry, don’t waste it.”

  M plugged the pouch into the port on his arm, sitting against the wall with a sigh. “I’m not wasting it, I’m eating.”

  “Did I miss the joke?”

  “Seriously? We can’t go outside without a suit, what the hell do we need to know the weather for?”

  “Storms might cause irreparable damage to the habitat,” the computer said. “Electrical discharges or hail, for example. Protective measures are available upon predictions of inclement weather. In addition, in order to determine if atmospheric conditions outside the habitat continue to be hazardous, operating sensor functionality is required.”

  “See, that’s a joke.”

  “Shut up and eat.”

  “I can eat and talk.” He lifted his arm, showing the steady drip, drip, drip of fluid into the port.

  “Is that supposed to make me hungry?”

  “No,” M said, letting his arm fall. “Everything makes us hungry.”

  “And sleepy.”

  “That’s because of Devid.”

  “I know.”

  “My turn, next.” M turned off the drip, pulled the needle out of his port and returned the half-empty pouch to the drawer. “Look.” His fingers trembled where they rested on the handle, grasping hard enough to turn them white.

  “It’s only been a couple days.”

  “How long has it been?” L asked the computer

  “M woke thirty-four hours, twenty-eight minutes ago,” it said.

  “Didn’t it use to be longer?”

  “Maybe, does it matter?” M said.

  “We’ll run out.”

  “Don’t ever say that.”

  L turned, studying the dirty floor with its streaks of oil from where one of the refrigerated drawers had leaked, taking an entire month’s worth of food with it when it failed. Like blood, the oil refused to wash out of the metal.

  “Any signs of life?”

  “You always ask that,” M said.

  “Negative. No radio or wireless signals indicative of human habitation. Sensors detect no biosignatures above the microbial level. Satellite efficiency has dropped to 83.248%.”

  “Wasn’t that number higher a few minutes ago?” L asked.

  “Yes, efficiency has lessened 0.008% in the last fourteen minutes, fifty-three seconds. Diagnostics limited due to insufficiencies in the satellite connection. Auto-repair programs initiated to increase and/or stabilize sensor efficacy.”

  “Why is the connection poor?” M stood, reaching a hand out for L.

  “That information is not located in any accessible databases.”

  “You don’t know a lot.”

  They left the dining room, the computer’s voice following on their walk toward the residences. L stopped in front of Amy’s door.

  “The satellite antenna array is located outside the habitat; cloud cover or inclement weather might be causing interference or have caused damage to either the equipment or the cabling. Would you like a listing of all potential complications with the satellite connection?”

  “No.” L entered the room, flipping on the light.

  “You should go nap.”

  “Amy was there.”

  “No,” M said. “Amy was on the other end of the phone call. You were Devid, remember?”

  “Yes, I remember. Well, I remember that, at least. But Amy said something.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I got distracted.”

  “By?”

  “Her laugh.” L walked around the room, reading the biographical information on the top of the wall. ‘Amy F.’ in bold black letters since they’d yet to figure out her last name. Hundreds of pieces of paper stapled up, most of them talking about the dolls and puppets and marionettes she collected. Where Devid had computer equipment scattered everywhere, Amy’s room resembled the inside of a toy factory. Always constructing, designing robots for fighting competitions and, once, for a school project that ended with her getting suspended when the robot exploded in the middle of class.

  The principal called her parents. And the police.

  Homeland Security investigated, adding her to a ‘list’ somewhere that caused far too many difficulties when her parents wanted to vacation in Aruba the next year.

  M was there, that day. Remembered most of it because Amy’s emotions ran so hot. That always helped imprint the memory. Adrenaline or some such. Boring visits quickly forgotten. But arrested for terrorism?

  He’d talked about that memory for days, remembering the smallest details even hours later. Including the phone call from someone Amy thought sounded far too young to really work for the military; asking what she’d powered her robot with, if she’d acquired the power source online or made it herself. If she wanted a job someday. If she’d any plans to build more. But M was reborn in the middle of the call and he never found out how it ended.

  Later, on a visit to Amy, L found herself at the end of that phone call. She’d been Amy countless times at all sorts of ages, so at first, she failed to understand the significance of the call.

  Amy hung up and then started trying to figure out who had contacted her.

  Finding the number blocked, she hacked her own phone provider to track the call. Hacking wasn’t her greatest strength, but she managed to follow the breadcrumbs step by step until, hours later, the trail ended with a name that meant absolutely nothing to Amy and everything to L.

  Devid Mukhopadhyay.

  A few months later, during summer vacation before entering fifth grade, Amy and Devid finally met.

  “You always hated her laugh,” M said.

  L rested her forehead against the metal wall. “She asked him a question.”

  M walked behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders.

  With a sigh, she twisted around, resting her head on his chest. “I need that nap now.”

  He bent far enough to lift her, swinging her around and cradling her in his arms. She kissed his cheek on the walk to their room.

  “Sweet dreams.” He squeezed in beside her.

  Sometime later, she opened her eyes. “‘Can you get it?’” she asked, but M had already fallen asleep and L followed far too quickly.

  M woke in
the middle of the night, screaming.

  The shakes were always bad, but nightmares and twitching combined proved too much.

  “It’s okay,” L said, trying to help but stopped by M’s thrashing around in the bed, sheets twisted around them both.

  One more scream, then silence. The shaking continued. Random tics of movement, a finger, an arm, legs kicking out violent enough to bruise if she got too close. Sometimes, when her own withdrawal grew too harsh and he tried to hold her, she’d scratch him badly enough to need sutures.

  “Not okay,” M said, sitting up despite the twitches. “Time to go.”

  “Hasn’t even been two days yet,” L said. “You promised; two days, at least.”

  He turned the light on, and she raised an arm to block the sudden illumination. “I know. Going anyway. Maybe I’ll learn something new.”

  “That’s not why you’re going.”

  “Know that, too. But, it’ll do. I need it. Look.”

  She kept her arm covering her eyes though she felt him holding his shaky hands in the air. “I see.”

  M laughed. “Sure.” He stood on twitching legs and limped out the door.

  L moved her arm, blinking against the light. “Least let me get dressed.” But she was speaking to an empty room.

  After throwing on last night’s clothes, she rushed into the hallway, only to find him leaning against the wall a few feet from their room. She draped his arm over her shoulder for support and, together, they continued on.

  “Not that far,” she said.

  “Ladder.”

  “Still, not that far.”

  His teeth clacked together, head listing to the side, drool falling to land on her hand where she supported him. Sweat dripped, soaking her shirt, his skin hot to the touch. He hobbled along the wall, trying to shuffle his feet forward.

  “How many hours?” L asked.

  “Forty-one hours, fourteen minutes,” the computer answered.

  “Shorter every time.”

  M nodded, or tried to.

  “Almost there.”

  His legs gave out toward the end of their descent and he fell on top of her, sending them both to the ground.

  “I can’t do this myself,” she said.

  “Waited too long.” M grunted, kicking out with his bare feet to push himself around the corner. Kicked again. L tried to pull before giving up and shoving him the final few feet into the infirmary.

  Leaving him lying on the floor, she opened the drawer and pulled out a vial of yellow liquid.

  The computer chimed.

  “M is not online with the system.”

  “I know that.” She pulled M a few more feet into the room but he was unresponsive. Inch by inch, she maneuvered him to the chair, lowering it as far as possible.

  One wrist at a time, she buckled him in, using the chair’s hydraulics to help lift him the rest of the way after placing the sensor array on his skin. Pads covered with thousands of little needles pricked into his skin.

  The monitors around the room flickered to life.

  M shivered, violently enough to risk toppling the chair despite the bolts attaching it to the floor.

  She inserted the needle into the port and pressed the injector.

  M died.

  L collapsed against the wall, sliding to the floor with a thud. M’s chest ceased its steady rising and falling. Eight minutes to wait until he returned to life. Less than two days or so until they’d need to go through this whole thing again. About time to start sleeping in the chairs; it’d make it easier if the withdrawal kept getting worse.

  How many deaths now?

  She could ask. She could always ask, but some answers she didn’t really want to know. It had taken them a while to figure out what was happening, to begin taking notes, researching, trying to remember. At first, the joy at those brief glimpses of the past, of people, humanity, sunlight, the moon, overwhelmed and obliterated all thought. They’d never quite gotten used to it.

  Hard to believe a world so green and alive had ever existed, knowing what it looked like now.

  The first death was the worst, after they’d discovered the vault filled with vials of yellow liquid. No labels, nothing in the computer, no records. Just yellow vials. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. They’d no way of knowing.

  The vials so similar to their food pouches, designed for the same ports implanted in their arms. They ate food through a tube. The vials, like medicine, through a needle. The preparation made perfect sense.

  “It’s food,” M said.

  “Medicine,” L said, “needs a needle, see?”

  “Computer?”

  “There is no information on this vault, it does not appear on any accessible schematics.”

  “See, food,” M said, filling an injector and inserting the needle into his port.

  “Don’t! You don’t know what it is.”

  He shrugged and put his finger on the plunger.

  “Injection requirements stipulate direct connection with the sensor array in the infirmary,” the computer said.

  L reached out and pulled M’s hand off the needle but spoke to the computer. “You said you had no information.”

  “There is no information on this vault, it does not appear on any accessible schematics.”

  “Do you have any information on the contents of this vault?” L asked.

  “Negative, the vault in question does not appear on any accessible schematics.”

  “Where am I?” M asked.

  “Earth, northern hemisphere. Do you require longitude and latitude coordinates?”

  “I meant, where in the habitat?”

  “Level B, Vault 1325.”

  “Is Level B, Vault 1325 on your schematics?”

  “Negative.”

  She moved closer to M, pushing slightly on the plunger.

  The computer chimed.

  “Injection requirements stipulate direct connection with the sensor array in the infirmary.”

  “How do you know that?” M asked.

  “Please repeat your request.”

  “How do you know what the injection requirements are?”

  “There is no information on injection requirements in accessible databases,” the computer said.

  “You just told us the injection requirements.”

  “Let’s go to the infirmary,” L said. “Now I’m curious.”

  M removed the needle for the elevator ride and waited for L to strap him into the medpod and connect the sensors before re-inserting it into the port. “Ready?”

  “Hell no. You?”

  “It’s food.”

  “And if it’s medicine?”

  “I’ll get better, I guess.”

  “You’re not sick.”

  “No, I’m hungry.” He pushed the plunger.

  He died.

  L screamed, the wail of the flatline alert filling the room, echoing off the metal walls, heart thumping into her ribs waiting for his chest to rise.

  Kept waiting.

  “Help him!” L felt for a pulse that wasn’t there.

  Minutes passed.

  Eight minutes, thirty-two seconds.

  “Clear,” the computer said.

  His body arched off the chair, slumped down.

  Then, his eyes opened.

  He smiled.

  That was long ago. Now, she counted to eight minutes, thirty-two seconds.

  “Clear.”

  He wasn’t smiling.

  She waited, not wanting to distract him from a memory.

  “Billy,” M said. “I was Billy and it sucked.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened, that’s what happened. He was taking a shower. And he shaved. Complete waste of a dose.”

  L tried not to laugh. Failed, miserably. Laughed hard enough to bruise her thighs where she smacked her fists into them. Laughed so hard, she cried. M ripped the sensors off before stomping out of the room, L’s laughte
r following him.

  After a minute or so, he returned. “You can stop now.”

  She wiped the tears, smiled. “Could have been worse.”

  “I suppose so,” he said. “That’s not a good thing.”

  “I know.” She stood, ran her fingers down his cheeks. “You need to shave.”

  Levi crawled beneath his desk, searching for one small silver screw lost amid the dust bunnies and tightly bound cables twisting every which way. He tilted his phone, the flashlight illuminating a handful of crumbs, a dead fly, and there, where the T5/DS-6 line branched out, the screw.

  Clicking the flashlight off, he sat up, knocking his head into the keyboard shelf. Small silver screws rained around him.

  L laughed, imprisoned behind his eyes. In her imagination, she pointed at each of the screws, where they’d come to rest on the floor. She tried helping, willing him to move his fingers a little to the left.

  It never worked. Nothing ever changed. Only the joy of visiting a living world made the frustration of feeling helpless worth the price of admission.

  Levi flipped the flashlight back on, picked up one screw after another. Finished, he carefully crawled backward far enough to avoid hitting his head, cradling the screws in his palm.

  Once situated at his desk, he fixed what he’d been working on before plugging in an array of laptops connected by more thick bundles of cables. Monitors flickered to life, displaying countless windows of data, tiny index card diagrams with a color picture above measurements, strengths and weaknesses, and utilizations of all the characters in the MMORPG he’d been considering.

  All of the massively multiplayer online role-playing games had their pros and cons, and he’d played enough of them to know how to spot the differences. Now, at eleven, the games held less interest for Levi than the challenge of exploring the world of the MMORPG without the artificial limits imposed by the software.

  L watched Levi plug in one of the dozens of external hard drives scattered around his desk, before searching the database within. Smiling, he opened one of the programs he’d been experimenting with. Originally nothing but darkweb freeware, he’d stripped it into individual lines of code before rebuilding the thing, creating something leaner, meaner, faster.