Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds Read online

  “You are not due for another three weeks and two days.”

  “Now.”

  “Running complete medical diagnostic now.”

  “Slow down the images when you get to the hippocampus.”

  L kept her eyes on the rapidly flickering charts until her brain appeared. Different from M since she was alive. Far more colorful.

  The brain sliced itself into sections, each piece revolving before moving to the next.

  Hiccup.

  “There, stop.”

  Her own brain, out of focus just like M’s.

  “Can you adjust the focus?”

  “The picture is in focus.”

  “I’m looking at it. It’s not in focus.”

  “The picture is in focus.”

  L glanced at M, the machinery keeping him alive. Took a deep breath, looked at her brain.

  “Can I see M’s scan on the same screen?”

  His fuzzy picture filled half the monitor, her own on the rest. The out-of-focus pictures identical save for the colors of living brain activity on hers.

  “Are there other angles of this area?” she asked, resting her fingers in the middle of the distortion.

  The monitor split into dozens of windows, each with the same out of focus image from slightly different viewpoints.

  “Combine and animate, please.”

  Images scrolled by too quickly to follow, finally stabilizing into a slowly rotating single image. Blurry and fuzzy and unfocused, her own hippocampus floated in a steady revolution and in the center, darker than the surrounding tissue, a small, perfectly square shape.

  “Increase magnification, here,” L said, resting a finger in the middle of the square.

  The blurry shape zoomed closer, growing larger and blurrier. Just a blob in the middle of their brains.

  “Reboot procedure has reached the one-hour emergency limit,” the computer said. “Recommend initiating stasis storage for preservation of tissue.”

  L’s breath caught. She turned to M, wiping tears away.

  “Stasis?”

  “Triage protocols prescribe stasis in cases of extreme medical crisis. The patient is rendered comatose via low-level barbiturate therapy—.”

  “Enough. Stop,” L said. “How is he?”

  “All systems operating within recommended reboot parameters.”

  Reaching into the medpod, she ran her fingers through the stubble on his head; the gentle spikes a soft pressure on her skin. She kissed him. Another, before letting go.

  “Initiate.”

  “Stasis initiation requires the access port to be empty.”

  She pulled the used vial out, injector and all.

  The medpod tilted, cover locking into place. Through a small glass plate, she studied his face until the view disappeared behind fog filling the pod.

  “How is he?”

  “All systems operating within recommended stasis parameters.”

  She stood there, more alone than she’d felt just a few minutes before. So long as she’d believed he’d wake any minute she’d never felt alone. Now, she felt alone.

  There was no one but her. Not in the habitat. Not outside. Nowhere. The last of humanity. The last human.

  Alone.

  Completely, absolutely alone.

  Devid had sent the parts in individual packages to all of them, with detailed instructions for constructing the two computers. One computer for general use and one with no possible way to connect to any online resources. Both password protected.

  Levi typed in his password on the air-gapped computer.

  M watched.

  A few clicks and a blank page opened on the monitor and key-by-key Levi tapped in one word.

  ARMAGEDDON

  He tried different fonts, different colors, different sizes until he’d found one he liked.

  M didn’t like the lettering. Too dark, heavy and thick.

  Levi ran his fingers over the letters before walking to a bookshelf filled with so many books they were stacked on top of each other. Each one bristled with post-it-notes and bookmarks, the spines cracked from being read so often.

  M studied the titles, the intensity from Levi burning them into his memory.

  Utopia by Thomas More.

  On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau.

  The Philosophy of Civilization by Albert Schweitzer.

  Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick.

  The Law of Peoples by John Rawls.

  Utopia or Oblivion by R. Buckminster Fuller.

  There were dozens more hidden behind dozens of other books and Levi moved a handful out of the way before pulling out On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. Thousands of small neon post-it-notes flagged different pages and M gave up memorizing the underlined and highlighted passages when he realized it was all underlined. It was all highlighted.

  “‘The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it,’” Levi said under his breath, carrying the book to bed with him.

  M read along with Levi until long after midnight, each new memory replacing something else equally important.

  L dropped to the floor, curling into a fetal ball at the base of M’s medpod, but tears refused to fall. So many questions and fears and worries swirled behind her closed eyes. The pain of being more alone than anyone in human history weighed on her, pushing her into the tiles like gravity increasing.

  She sat up, gritting her teeth and dragging the notebook closer.

  “What is the reboot procedure?” she asked.

  “Accessing secure databases.” On the wall next to the door, a panel she’d never realized was there slid open. “DNA authorization required.”

  “Secure databases?”

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

  L used the medpod to help stand, crossing the room to hold her hand to the panel.

  “Access denied.”

  She tried again.

  “Access denied.”

  L pulled at the wires leading to M’s medpod until she found the one still trailing his last vial, held the injector needle that had been in his vein to the panel.

  “Access denied.”

  She took a deep breath. Another. Anything to calm her racing heart, the beat out of control. Something loud pressed against her eardrums, an irritating whine she figured was probably just stress. The more she tried to ignore it, the louder it grew.

  “We’re the only humans on the planet,” she said through clenched teeth, trying to fight the anger and panic and losing. “What is the reboot procedure?”

  “Accessing secure databases. DNA authorization required.”

  “Just tell me!”

  “Accessing secure databases. DNA authorization required.”

  L punched the panel, cracking the glass.

  “Access denied.”

  Now that he’d learned what happened when Levi fell asleep, M managed to stay fairly calm and relatively sane for the dark, empty hours. The loneliness and blackness overwhelmed but M knew he only had to survive until morning.

  Unless Levi died in his sleep.

  No, don’t go there. Panic arrived at random intervals, but it’d be morning soon. How many hours left? Had to be almost morning, right?

  Hour after hour, he stared into the abyss.

  In the morning, M laughed when Levi first opened his eyes, relishing the view of the dirty cluttered room. Didn’t stop laughing until realizing he was still Levi. That the possibility existed he’d never stop being Levi.

  Levi used the bathroom. Levi ate breakfast. Levi attended school. And M went everywhere Levi went.

  Hour after hour.

  Day after day.

  Week after week.

  Month after month.

  M felt every punch, every torment of every bully. The teasing and the kicks, the taunts and the constant worrying about what happens next, knowing there would always be a next time.

  And there was nothin
g M could do.

  L ate because she had to. Slept because she needed to, on the floor of the infirmary, near M’s silent medpod. She crammed one of the refrigerated compartments with food pouches so there’d be no need to keep returning to the dining area.

  Her finger twitched.

  Climbing in the other medpod, she placed the sensor array on her skin, and then, again, committed suicide.

  “I told you to clean the kitchen,” someone said. “Stupid bitch.”

  It took a moment to focus, a second or two for L to recognize Stephanie’s house. Long enough to want to really be dead, anywhere but here.

  L tried not to see; she always tried not to. Seeing hurt. Probably hurt worse than the pain, which she got to feel, too.

  The slap landed on the back of her head, pushing her into a pile of discarded pizza boxes.

  Stephanie didn’t look up, she never looked up. She’d learned not to, it was safer that way. Staring at the floor, at the mess, at the dead cockroach hiding underneath the cabinet, envying its death. A headache pulsed behind her eyes, the thud of the slap sending her brain bouncing against her own skull.

  Mild concussion. It’d pass. Couple of hours, maybe a handful of Tylenol. Wouldn’t be the first.

  “Clean the kitchen.”

  L shivered, flinching from the expectation of another slap.

  “Yes, Daddy,” Stephanie said, before beginning to clean.

  The plan had four thousand, three hundred and seventeen steps.

  ARMAGEDDON

  M read the word at the top of the spreadsheet. It glowed, those letters. Darkness made the screen brighter, the text burning into memory.

  Levi liked it dark, hiding in his room, safe inside these four walls. He’d hacked the school servers; let them think he never missed a day. Instead, he stayed home working on the plan. His school had over three thousand students; someday the phone might ring, asking his parents where he was. Maybe the guidance office would send someone to his house. Probably not. Why waste time on someone with perfect attendance? Perfect grades?

  Cathy visited almost daily, requiring homework, reports or another project. Occasionally for no reason at all.

  Easier to just hack her grades the way he’d hacked his own, but it wasn’t worth the risk. She’d want more. Easier to give her what little she asked for; send her on her way with his blushing and stammering her only memories of him.

  He’d typed her name into Step Seventy-Four, making sure to spell her last name correctly. Column B of that row read ‘Levi,’ so he’d be able to sort by who held responsibility for each Step and only send them their own.

  That was Step One.

  M had read the Steps so many times he recalled them perfectly. He’d memorized each one, ready to add the information to the other scraps on the walls of their seven research rooms. All the answers, everything they’d tried to understand, right in front of him.

  Step by Step, Levi added to his spreadsheet.

  M had finally learned the origin of the end of the world, but there was no one to tell.

  Stephanie ate one slice of cold pizza for dinner, found in a box she cleaned off the floor. Likely not more than a day old. Daddy snored in his chair, a warm beer caught between his thigh and the armrest. She’d stubbed out his cigarette, cleaned the ashtray, and tiptoed to her room with the half-eaten slice in her hands.

  L remembered pizza. There’d been a party for Yasmeen, long ago when Yasmeen had two parents and friends. Fourteenth birthday, maybe. Thirteen? The pizza frozen from the corner store but delicious, with melting cheese and a crust too tough to chew. L had remembered every detail, telling M while they both inserted chilled food pouches into their ports.

  Stephanie chewed on the left side of her mouth. The right still hurt from the night Daddy drank a little too much and she’d not cleaned his bathroom properly. Going to the dentist was far too expensive; the tooth would either heal or fall out on its own. On the left side, the cold hurt too, where she needed a cavity filled. They sold ointment at the store that numbed the pain. She’d been meaning to buy one when she’d saved some money.

  Never much to eat anyway and she’d little need for teeth. Not in the long run.

  In her bedroom, Stephanie pushed the dresser far enough to the side to expose the opening she’d made in the wall. She’d returned the first two computers Devid sent her. Too big. Too noisy. She needed small. She needed quiet, easily hidden. He’d responded with two mini-laptops. Each monitor less than five inches and both ultra-quiet. Even when she left one performing long-term analyses of potential food supplies.

  The other, she rarely used lately. If she ignored it, she’d never see what she’d created on it. If she ignored her creation, she’d never need to think about it. Thinking hurt, sometimes.

  Better to worry about food.

  She’d found open-source meal replacement beverage recipes available online, sub-forums for preppers on various websites. Some liquid based, some powdered, which required a safe, stable source of water. She’d solved that part of the equation completely, that was her genius. Her specialty was chemistry. Well, one of her specialties. Better to concentrate on food.

  No need for a guaranteed supply of clean water if the food bypassed the digestive system completely.

  L read the monitor but none of it made sense. Soy protein isolate, algal oil, rice starch. The list of ingredients just kept going. Food energy ratios and comparisons, nutritional values, glycemic indexes. Gellan gum, soy lecithin, isomaltooligosaccharide. She couldn’t pronounce most of these words, never mind trying to remember them.

  Stephanie narrowed the choice to two final possibilities, eliminating unnecessary ingredients related to taste, texture, aroma; it was simply a matter of maxing out calories per day and keeping the cost within the budget Billy worked out for the money Levi hacked and Devid mined.

  The final analysis would take a little more time, but otherwise it was done. All that remained was to order the supplies once the computer finished. She reluctantly turned to the other laptop, having no choice now but to see the molecule spinning in slow motion 3-D on the monitor.

  She’d ignored it for weeks now. Since she completed fabricating it. Levi kept asking. Devid kept asking. Amy kept asking. Billy kept asking. Yasmeen kept asking.

  And Stephanie kept ignoring.

  It was just talk. Unless she answered their questions. Meaningless teenage angst and agitation and rebellion. Run-of-the-mill teenage bullshit.

  Unless she answered them.

  L studied the molecule, a little hook shaped blade at the end of it, smaller blades of vicious colors sticking out from various sections. It spun on the monitor, showing off all sides. Beautiful, vibrant. Otherworldly.

  She tried burning the words on the screen into her memory, helped by Stephanie’s intense reaction to her creation.

  Prokaryote. L studied the word. The initial hard ‘p’ sound. The odd ‘k’ in the middle. The ‘y’ gliding into the ending. She knew it was important. It felt important.

  Stephanie pulled the internet-connected computer onto her lap where she sat on the floor behind her dresser. No Wi-Fi but Devid had helped her hack into a neighbor’s account. Safer too, probably.

  She read all the email she’d been ignoring, and then typed her response.

  L memorized every word, forgetting everything else she’d ever seen, ever learned. She needed to remember this.

  >>The reconfigured prokaryote virus enhancement is stable. Effective incubation period reduced 94.02%

  “Clear.”

  Cathy wanted more.

  She seemed to purr, standing closer to him, too close. He’d run out of deodorant a few days ago, so he probably smelled. Each pimple burned like acid, boiling into him, reminding him of their presence. His teeth felt fuzzy, unclean, and he tried not to breathe.

  Step Seventy-Four. He repeated the words in his mind while waiting for her to make her request. No, not a request. She never requested from him. She demanded. And exp
ected to be obeyed.

  Step Seventy-Four.

  M tried not to see how Levi suffered when she ignored him from so close by. He’d been Levi for so long now, he sometimes forgot he wasn’t him. As though he’d dreamed the whole ‘end of the world’ thing so often he actually believed he’d lived through it. Had to be a dream.

  Just a dream.

  Trapped at the beginning of the end of the world with no way to stop it.

  The plan called for completion exactly three years from initiation and M feared Levi was about ready to initiate.

  Cathy bent forward, closer to him. Close enough for her hair to brush against his arms. “There’s a bio test on Friday.”

  He nodded, never able to talk much around her, especially now with his fuzzy teeth.

  “I need that test.”

  “Why? You’re not in bio.”

  Taller than him, her shoulder pressed into his ear, covering his face with her hair. “Because I need the money.”

  It’d be easy to hack more banks and get her all the money she wanted. Maybe then she’d be nice to him for real.

  But he wasn’t really all that interested in her. Not enough to risk the plan. No matter what she looked like. Or smelled like.

  She was a righteous bitch, but every so often she’d kept them from causing him too much damage. So, he put up with her insignificant demands for those occasional moments when she helped.

  Step Seventy-Four.

  It wasn’t, technically speaking, necessary. And it wasn’t so much revenge as it was a lesson. As for the real bullies, Step Seventy-Three bordered on vengeance, but too bad. This was his turn to be the bully.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, and she patted him on the shoulder, actually touching him.

  “Good boy.”

  M seethed, angry for Levi, angry for himself. Just angry.

  It was difficult to breathe, L’s heart beating so quickly, the transition from sitting on Stephanie’s floor to rebirth in the medpod more abrupt than usual. The room spun, tilting and falling out of focus.