The Quiet at the End of the World

by Lauren James

  We toe off our wellies and peel off our damp wetsuits in the mudroom. Then Shen drops his metal detector into the umbrella stand by the door. It’s an ancient porcelain vase which is probably too precious for such treatment.

  The dogs race up to greet us, yipping madly. Victoria licks at the blood on my wetsuit. Trying to distract her from it, I reach into my utility belt for a dog biscuit and my fingers scrape over the old purse from the Tube. In all the drama I’d almost forgotten about it. Victoria crunches the biscuit down in seconds, and then sniffs at my pockets for more as Shen crouches to rub Albert’s ears.

  “Feng and Jia are in the library,” Mum tells me distractedly as she unties the silk scarf from her hair and throws it over a statue – a stern rendering of my great-great-great-grandfather. Wisps of blonde hair float across her face, and she blows them away from the corner of her mouth. She still looks pale.

  Over the top of my swimming costume, I pull on a mustard-yellow knitted jumper that is hanging on a nearby coat hook. I think it’s Shen’s – but jumpers are in such high demand here that if you see one, it’s fair game. The manor is so big and the heating system is so ancient that it’s always freezing cold. Everything has been converted to run off solar power, but the pipes and radiators are the same old ones which have been used since the nineteenth century.

  I follow Shen and Mum to the library, slipping along the parquet floor in a pair of warm socks, fresh off the radiator. Mitch comes after us, looking around with interest. I wonder if he has ever been inside a house before, or if he’s spent the entirety of the last eighty years patrolling the river. Whatever his reason for deciding to hang on to us, I’m glad. It’s reassuring having him here, even if he is leaving a trail of moulted mulch in his wake.

  “Shen! Lowrie!” Shen’s mama, Jia, says as we come into the library. She stands to hug us, before pulling us over to a chaise longue, next to the heat of the fire.

  “You’re both OK?” Feng asks, in a rough, worried voice. Feng always dresses smartly, in a bow tie and waistcoat, even in summer, but today his waistcoat is unbuttoned and his bow tie looks askew, like he was in a rush to get here. Jia looks dishevelled too. Her face is drawn and worried, like Mum’s.

  Jia sits between us, pulling us close, and I can’t help but lean into her side. She’s always so easy to touch – tugging Shen and me into her arms without hesitating. Mum doesn’t hug me nearly as often.

  “We’ve been watching what happened on the news,” she says. “If you’d only been a few metres closer… I can’t bear to imagine what might have happened.”

  “We’re fine, really,” I tell her. There’s an annoying quaver to my voice. “Mitch saved us.” I nod at the robot who is wobbling along the edge of the room, tilting up on his heels to stare at the golden ceiling.

  “You did a good job of keeping them safe,” Feng tells him approvingly.

  Mitch’s head lifts a little, like he is preening.

  Neither Feng nor Jia asks us why the robot has come back with us. They’re used to us bringing home all manner of strange things.

  “Has there been any news about Alexei yet?” Shen asks, nodding towards the newsfeed playing on the wall.

  I don’t usually watch the news – everyone takes it in turns to host, and I’ve heard all their anecdotes and stories and jokes a million times before. The last time I watched it must have been when Shen gave a guest lecture on alien conspiracy theories, which is his favourite topic of conversation, bar none. He was very good, but he didn’t get the viewership he really deserved.

  Hilary Barnett is hosting today. She looks a little overwhelmed by the action – usually she just discusses gardening techniques. “The … er … fire has already been put out,” she says.

  I tap the floor with my foot, urging her to hurry up and tell us what’s going on.

  An image pops up on the screen of the once delicate carved brickwork of Westminster Palace. The whole building is a charred, destroyed mess. Water is gushing into it from the Thames, and the helicopter is already nearly submerged.

  I must have let out some sort of noise, because Mitch comes over and presses against my legs. I pat his shoulder, distracted.

  “Doctor Ahmed is treating Alexei at, at – the, sorry.” Hilary stops talking and dabs her eyes with a flowered handkerchief. “This is such a difficult time. At the h–hospital as we speak. We’re not sure of his condition just yet.” She draws in a breath. “Poor Alexei.”

  I shudder. I really hope he doesn’t die. We’ve lost enough people. Just last month one of the ladies in our choir died. I never get used to seeing everyone gathered at the funerals. It makes me realise how old and small the community is now. Every single person who dies brings Shen and me even closer to being totally alone. “Hilary is doing a stand-up job of dealing with the emergency broadcast,” I say, trying to smile.

  Jia nods in agreement as she gives Shen’s hand a squeeze when he starts anxiously tapping out Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on the arm of the sofa.

  “Good for her,” Feng says, as a bot brings in a plate of tea and scones, fresh and hot from the oven. After everything that’s happened, the warm, comforting smell makes me feel a bit sick.

  In the old days, our manor needed a household of fifty servants to keep it going, but these days it’s run by only around a hundred bots. We might live in a world that’s breaking down, but, thanks to the planning that went into our future after the virus, we live just like everyone did when London was filled with millions of people. It wasn’t as hard to plan as you might think. Even before the sterility crisis, most repetitive jobs had been taken over by automated bots. Banking, deliveries, factories, farms, water-treatment plants and retail have all been computerized for decades, while humans were hired for jobs that required personal interaction, like nursing and teaching. Now, there are even maintenance bots to fix any broken bots, so it’s a self-contained system.

  Society could probably keep running indefinitely without any human interference at all. All our energy comes from solar panels, and our cars run on electricity, so there’s no waste or environmental damage. Our world is perfectly organised. It’s just … empty. There’s barely anyone left to use the tech and resources.

  “Henry was in the Underground at the time?” Jia asks Mum, who rolls her eyes.

  “He’s fine. Was oblivious to the crash. You know how he gets with lichen,” Mum says.

  I can tell she’s slightly mad at him for leaving us alone. “It’s not his fault,” I say hurriedly. “Dad didn’t know anything was going to happen.”

  Shen adds, “We’d have been perfectly safe, if – if Alexei hadn’t —” He dips his head and bites his lip.

  “The thing I don’t understand is how Alexei…” Feng starts. He breaks off when Jia throws him a look that I can’t interpret.

  “Alexei is in safe hands. Doctor Ahmed is one of the best,” Jia says to us, and she would know. She is a doctor at the hospital. She and Dr Ahmed are two of only a few human members of staff left. The rest are bots. There are hardly any patients these days, though, so there’s never any trouble about it – and Jia conducts the bots around like a symphony orchestra.

  I pull a tangle of seaweed off Mitch’s head, twisting it between my fingers until it’s tight enough to make the skin go white. I know Jia’s trying to make us feel better, but I can’t stop thinking about the crash: the heat of the flames, the searing metal, what would have happened to us if we’d been any closer. Poor Alexei.

  Mum butters a scone and applies a neat layer of Dad’s homemade blueberry jam and clotted cream, before passing it to me with a china teacup full of hot, sweet tea, and a slice of lemon on the saucer. “Eat that, love. You need the sugar – you’ve had a shock.”

  I’m not hungry, but I pick it up anyway and attempt to take a bite, while Mum butters another one for Shen. The heat of the insides catches my fingertips.

  While we’re eating, Jia kneels in front of us, shining a light in each of our eyes in turn. “Dilation
is normal,” she says. “No sign of concussion. Are you cold? Nauseous?”

  We shake our heads. I can’t believe she’s this worried about us when Alexei is injured. What does it matter if we feel a bit nauseous when he might die?

  “Now sing an octave,” Jia says.

  We give it our best attempt, but we’re out of tune – both with each other and what we’re supposed to be singing.

  “What does that even tell you?” I ask.

  “Nothing. I wanted to see if you had been doing your choir warm-ups.” Jia grins.

  “I’m not even one of the singers,” Shen says, miffed. The chandelier dangling from the ceiling casts pale light over him, making him look tired and thin.

  “Lucky for us all,” Feng says dryly.

  Despite my worry, I choke back a laugh.

  Shen gives a long sigh. He really is a terrible singer, though – and he hates it. He’s not good at dealing with failure.

  A satisfied line appears at the corner of Jia’s mouth. Clearly, she’s just got her answer to the real test. We can’t be too affected if we’re laughing and grumbling.

  “It looks like Lowrie’s leg is the only injury,” Jia says to Mum and Feng. “They may also experience some mild post-traumatic stress disorder, but we can treat that as and when it occurs.”

  “I’ll put away the blue lights, then,” Mum says, pretending to turn off a police car’s emergency siren. “Thanks, Jia.”

  Mitch is still pressed against my legs, smearing muck on my jumper. He holds still as I wipe the bird droppings off his chrome oval head with a rag from my utility belt. If he’s going to be around for a while, then I can at least make sure he doesn’t ruin any priceless antiques. “Can I go and shower?” I ask when I’ve finished. I need a bit of time to process everything somewhere our parents aren’t watching every reaction for a sign of shock.

  “Eat a crumpet,” Mum says, “and you can both go.”

  When the tea tray is full of nothing but crumbs, we stand up. Mum follows us out of the library, calling, “Lunchtime, darlings!” to the dogs. Mum never cooks, as the bots do all the cleaning and cooking and tidying, but she makes an exception for her dogs.

  I chase Shen and Mitch up the left side of the double spiral staircase towards the east wing, pausing to rub the petals of my favourite bronze rose on the bannister. I need the luck today.

  When we get to my room, Shen flops on my four-poster bed while I run the shower. He’s been quiet since we got back. Mitch is the only one who doesn’t seem worried. Instead, he’s busy exploring. The lights on his head flash purple when he pushes open the door of my walk-in closet to see what’s inside.

  Dad and I turned it into a workshop years ago. There’s a long workbench with a Belfast sink for washing dirty equipment, and the walls are covered in hooks for my tools to hang from. Their matching pale-oak handles hang on the white walls in an interlocking geometric pattern which is deeply satisfying. Under each hook, I’ve painted a light grey outline of the shape of the tool which goes there – so I know where everything belongs.

  It’s my favourite room in the manor. Dad calls it my “growlery”, because I always come in here when I need to sulk. Organising the tools and hanging them back over their outlines – clean and sharp and ready for the next adventure – is my favourite thing to do, bar none. There’s even a gold plaque on the door, with the rules of entry. Feng and I made it. (I was eight, so the rules aren’t particularly polite.)

  Mitch rises up on his long, retractable legs, peering at the tools with interest. I watch him for a moment, then stand in front of my bathroom mirror, frowning at my mud-caked hair. It’s usually a light blonde, but the mud is giving me a good sense of what I’d look like if I were brunette. I’m going to have to wash it at least twice.

  I poke at the neat little oval patch above my right temple that’s gone prematurely grey. It appeared abruptly last year and has been growing steadily larger ever since.

  Shen squints at me through the doorway. “Is that my jumper?”

  I shrug, defensively. “I was cold.” His jumpers are always so much better than mine and have enough spare material in the sleeves that I can wrap my palms in them. They always smell good too. “Aren’t those my slippers, anyway, Zhang?”

  He wriggles his toes in my lambskin slippers, looking more pleased than ashamed.

  We take turns to shower. There’s a lump of something disgusting tangled into a knot in my hair that even a double wash can’t remove, so I cut it out with my penknife, dropping the gunk into the bin without inspecting it too closely. If it’s from the tunnels, I’m not sure I want to know.

  After showering, Shen settles into the oxblood Chesterfield armchair nestled between the bay windows, rubbing a towel at the back of his neck. His damp hair lies flat. “Feel better?” he asks.

  I fall back on the bed, sighing. “I can’t stop thinking about it. The crash. Alexei.”

  “I know,” Shen agrees. He hesitates and says, “Do you think it was an accident?”

  I raise my eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

  “I just don’t know how you could crash a helicopter that drives itself. It would have sensors to guide it away from buildings. It’s all coded. It shouldn’t be possible.”

  “He probably programmed the flight path wrong or something.”

  “I guess,” he says. “I’m sure Baba thinks something is off too, though…” He lets his sentence trail off. Then his posture loosens, and the anxiety slips out of the lines of his shoulders. “I’m probably worrying about nothing.”

  “I can’t believe Big Ben is just … gone now,” I say. It all feels so surreal. I close my eyes, suddenly exhausted. The room smells like Dad’s homemade mint shower gel. Albert – who has some kind of internal nap sensor – slinks into the room and jumps on to the foot of the bed, woofing gently.

  I can’t seem to relax enough to sleep. I keep reliving the moment of the helicopter crash in my mind. The bright heat of the explosion on my cheeks, the shock of the belief that I was about to die. I feel twitchy and on edge. I need something else to think about. Sighing again, I fetch the old purse we found from my utility belt and take it back to bed.

  I turn one of the plastic cards over in my hands and rub free a particle of grit embedded it in. We’ve learnt about these cards. They were how people used to pay for things. The faded curl and spiral of Maya Waverley’s signature fills a white strip on the back of the card. I wonder who she was; where she lived; when she died.

  Intrigued, I type her name into the archive of an old social media site, just to see if I can track her down. A lot of the internet disappeared before I was born. Huge numbers of news websites, social media archives, reference sites, emails and more were lost as the companies that hosted the data closed down, one by one. They vanished like they’d never existed. Luckily, a few long-term internet archives are still online, and they make up a series of tiny islands sticking out of the ocean of online data that’s been lost to time.

  Feng showed us how to access them years ago. Whenever Shen and I want to research something, we can hop from island to island, searching for quotes from articles, or looking at screenshots of videos that no longer exist, and reading transcripts of code from websites that haven’t been available for decades. It’s enough to get the context of what actually happened, even if we can only view the eroded copy of a copy of a copy of the original facts. It’s hard to work out exactly what is being talked about most of the time, though.

  Out of all of the strange things I’ve learned about the past, social media is the weirdest. I can’t believe how much private information people used to post online, for anyone to read! I can’t ever imagine doing it myself.

  I scroll through the results for Maya Waverley, searching for anyone with that name who lived in Britain. It’s a rare name, but there are still too many results to narrow it down in any obvious way. While I’m searching, Shen picks a book from the stack on my bedside table. His reading pile always ends up in
my room, supposedly because my armchair is the best reading nook in the manor. I think it’s more likely to be because I have the best snacks. He checks the spine and then flips to the back. Shen always reads the acknowledgements first.

  He’s got his research face on, and I wonder if he’s looking up the helicopter crash, or the train in the Underground, or something else – something about aliens, knowing him. I’m pretty sure that he’s the world’s leading expert in faux alien sightings throughout history. He knows every single case study by heart.

  I flick through the cards in Maya Waverley’s purse again, looking for anything which might help me pick her out of the results. At my feet, Albert whines, chasing dream rabbits. There’s nothing on the cards, but the purse is embossed with the words “Loch & Ness”. I don’t know what that is, but I go through the search results again, this time checking the profiles to see if any of the Mayas made reference to it. There is one:

  Maya Waverley

  18 February 2024

  New Loch & Ness, new Loch & Ness!! Would it be bad if I stayed up until 9 a.m. to watch it when it goes live online?

  Loch & Ness must be a TV show, then. I’ll have to see if we have a copy of it in the archive. Dad stored a lot of old shows when the biggest internet memory banks were about to shut down, for Shen and me to watch one day.

  I look at the search results again. This Maya lived in Oxford, which is near enough to London that she might have been visiting and caught the Tube, leaving her purse behind by accident. According to her info, she was born in 2005. She would have been nineteen when the virus spread. She would be one hundred and four by now. I’ve never heard of her, though, so she’s definitely not still alive.

  I skim through her timeline, reading some of her public posts. I’m not really sure what I’m looking for, except a distraction from thinking about Alexei.

  Maya Waverley

  19 February 2024

  Me, grandly, crawling into a tangle of bedsheets at 9.45 a.m. after silencing my alarm: a productive day well spent. So glad I get to go back to sleep now.