“Why was that?”
“Well, about fifty years ago, all the countries of the world, including mine, signed a treaty, and that was it. No more war. By my time, we only had nominal forces for small crises.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Which one was that?”
“Why did you stop fighting wars?”
“I suppose we just didn’t like them any more.”
He smiled a disingenuous smile. His way of not answering.
“Okay. So you joined up. Which service did you join?”
“The Imperial Zumazscartan Submarine Troop. Sounds very grand, doesn’t it?”
“Very grand, yes. What did they do?”
“Patrol, mostly. We had a few underwater habitats. No chance of a war, of course, but the squid got a bit uppity sometimes. They liked to rip airlocks off for fun.”
“That’s some very impressive squid…”
“The Antecessors left us with quite a lot of interesting fauna.”
“Hm. So how much time did you spend on patrol?”
“None at all.”
“I’m sorry…?”
“They gave me an aptitude test and packed me off to headquarters instead. Intelligent people didn’t join the military, you see. There wasn’t much of a career path if there wasn’t any chance of fighting a war. So if someone with a good education walked in the door, they locked it behind you and made you an officer.”
“So you became…?”
“A military planner.”
“And that was your service? That was secret?”
“Well, the details were secret. I worked on defence plans in the event of an attack from the Asian mainland.”
“But I thought you said there were no more wars?”
“That’s right.”
“So why do it?”
“Budgets. They were trying to justify military spending to the government, so they had to spend the money on something. They were just trying to keep their jobs, really.”
“So it was basically pointless?”
“More or less.”
“And that was your military career?”
“That was the first two years. Then I joined special forces.”
“Special forces? You mean…”
“Small teams making point assaults behind enemy lines, gathering intel, demo ops, that kind of thing.”
“That seems quite a change from military planning.”
“It was. They turned me down twice.”
“So why did you want to join special forces?”
“Because I knew I’d spend the rest of my life behind a desk otherwise. So I went for the only branch of the military that was still doing something for real.”
“Did you see actual combat?”
“I did.”
“What sort of conflict? If there weren’t any wars going on…”
“Oh, there was always some little island somewhere… most of my service was in the Shizima Archipelago.”
“You mentioned that one of your colleagues suffered from PTSD.”
“Yes. It was always a risk.”
“Did you come through okay?”
“It never gave me a problem.”
“How long were you in the special forces?”
“A little over a year, once I’d finished training.”
“That’s not very long…”
“I had a better offer.”
“Can you tell me what that was?”
“No.”
“Was it secret?”
“Yes.”
“More than being in special forces?”
“Much more.”
“So you still feel the need to protect someone? Even though they’re all Antecessors now?”
His look at me was very serious and certain. “I’m not protecting them. I’m protecting you.”
“Why do we need protecting?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“That seems very mysterious…”
“I don’t mean to be. But it’s safer this way.”
“Is this a danger to us, here in the centre? Or is it bigger than that?”
“Much bigger.”
“Can you tell us anything at all?”
“No.”
“Hm.” Delusional? Given his world, it was far from impossible that he could imagine a threat against us and cast himself as our saviour. But he’d clammed up for now, so I went back to another issue. “Okay. So you’ve told me about how you joined the military, and what you did while you were there. You didn’t tell me why you joined the military.”
He looked at me. Or perhaps he looked through me. Pursing his lips and thinking hard.
“Is that something we can explore…?” I asked.
“I was looking for the Antecessors.”
“So it was a religious thing?”
“No. Not for me, not then.”
“But they were part of your religion. That’s what you’ve told us.”
“They were also real.”
“I thought that wasn’t known until they returned?”
“No. It was known. It wasn’t like the religions you have on other worlds. We didn’t have to invent gods. We had evidence — all the things they left behind when they went.”
“Such as…?”
“Technology. Science. Weapons.”
“I see. So what were you trying to find out?”
“What they really were. I thought the military might know.”
“Okay, but why? I mean, why were you searching?”
He looked away, his gaze floating out over the expanse of trees beyond the transparent wall.
“I saw them when I was a child.”
“But… you said…”
“Not as they are now. I found something they left behind. An animal cave.”
“You’ll have to explain that.”
He sighed. “So far as we know, the Antecessors had complete control over the entire planet. All the plants and animals were regulated down to the last insect. A lot of the systems had broken down — that’s why we had so much trouble with the squid. But a few places still had underground maintenance facilities that preserved the wildlife so it would never change.”
“That’s quite… disturbing.”
He shrugged. “You could say they were environmentalists…”
“I think some people would disagree. But carry on.”
“I grew up on the north Selatanian coast — that was part of Zumazscarta, the rest of Selatania was another country entirely.” So far as I could tell, Selatania was his world’s version of Australia, though its climate was very different to most Australias in the multiverse. “The forest went from there all the way across the continent, and we played in the woods all the time. And then one day we found a hole in the ground.”
“One of the maintenance facilities?”
“Exactly. An animal cave. I was with three other children. We couldn’t resist — it made a splendid little fort, but that was just the tunnel leading down. Then we found a door. And it opened by itself. We went inside and the lights came on… it wasn’t big. The corridors weren’t really meant for humans. We were only children and we were still a little too tall. Everything was polished metal, as though it had only just been built, and even the animals couldn’t soil it. They were everywhere. All kinds of creatures. Marching in from tunnels, straight into cages, hundreds of cages. And little operating stations. The animals were picked up and delivered there when they were ready to start. We saw a ferret cut open, the leg bone replaced where it was broken. Mostly it was small animals but there were a few cages at the back for bigger ones. There was a bear cub in there, sleeping. As big as we were.”
“Sounds rather scary.”
“Terrifying. But so exciting…” There was a light in his eyes. “We all knew about the Antecessors from school. But we’d never seen anything for real. My heart was thudding, I was thinking this is it, this is them, they were here once…
&nb
sp; “And then they were there with us. Not really them. Just a hologram. A woman, but not quite right. Her face was set up wrong. Maybe I’m not remembering it right… she spoke to us but we didn’t understand. I ran…”
He shook his head. “But the others were too scared. Or something else. They just stood there. I only looked back when I got to the door. All the lights switched off inside. I shouted after them but they didn’t come.
“I ran home and kept my mouth shut. I was terrified. My parents could tell something was wrong but they didn’t know what it was until my friends’ parents called and asked if their children were with me.
“I still couldn’t say it, but they guessed and called the police. It wasn’t the police that came, though. It was the government.
“They put me in quarantine in a plastic bubble, running tests on me, people in biohazard suits going around everywhere. They found the animal cave but they were too late for the others. I don’t know what the cave did to them. But I remember thinking — those cages at the back. They were big enough for us. Just the right size…” He looked away at the forest and I wondered what he thought of it, so natural and yet so empty. “They didn’t get out.”
“What happened to you?”
“There was a man that came to me. No uniform, no biohazard suit. He looked like he’d stepped out of an office. He told me my friends weren’t coming back and it wasn’t my fault. They weren’t blaming me. But they were going to take us somewhere else and we weren’t supposed to talk about what happened ever again. My whole family got moved to a city on one of the islands. We never went back.”
“Who was he?”
“He was from the government.”
“Not the military.”
“No. That’s what I thought it was then. But it wasn’t.”
“A secret organisation?”
“That’s right.”
“Which you later joined…?”
He smiled. “Not much gets past you, does it?”
“Are you sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?”
He looked back out over the forest. “It really is very, very beautiful here. I think I’ll get my boots on and help Olivia in the garden, if you don’t mind.”
“Will you tell me when you’re ready?”
“She probably wants someone to help with weeding…”
“Iokan? If this is something to do with the Antecessors, I think we need to discuss it.”
He looked back at me with a helpful smile. “Another time,” he said.
10. Security
Lomeva Sisse came through my door as soon as she decently could, once the individual sessions were over. “Well?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“I’ll search their rooms,” she replied, and turned to go.
“Lomeva. No.”
She turned back again.
“If they’re clever enough to mess with our computers, what makes you think they aren’t clever enough to find a hiding place? And what do you expect to find, anyway?”
“I don’t know. That’s why we need to search.”
“No. It’s a waste of time… how much more surveillance can we get?”
She paused a moment. “Outside and in?”
“Anything.”
“I can blanket the place if you like. If the budget’s there.” She reflected a moment. “Better still, a secondary system that’s not connected to the first. Just in case.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I said.
“So you just want to watch?”
“I want to catch them doing it. I’m not going to make all of them feel victimised just because one person’s sneaking out.”
“I’ll be reporting this.”
“Yes, Lomeva. You’ll be reporting it to me. And I’ll decide what to do. I hope that’s clear.”
“Yes… ma’am.” She didn’t like it, but I was within my rights. She’d probably find someone to complain to sooner or later, though, so I could only hope that whoever had broken out tried again as soon as possible.
11. Group
We didn’t have any trouble getting Olivia to attend the next group therapy session, because she’d fallen asleep on a sofa in the common room an hour earlier. Veofol gently shook her shoulder; she snapped awake and lurched away from him with a look of terror.
“It’s okay!” he said. “It’s just me…”
She realised where she was, breathing hard. “Don’t bloody wake me up like that! Damn elf…”
“It’s time for group, Olivia,” I said as the others settled into their chairs.
“You got me up for that? Ugh…”
“Everyone else is here.”
“All right, all right, I’m awake, hold your bloody horses…”
She joined us in the circle and I began. “Okay, thanks to everyone for coming along. I think you’ve all been putting in a lot of effort and the way things have changed is quite noticeable, so I’m very happy with that. And now we’re feeling a bit more like a group, I’d like to tackle a more serious subject today.
“What I’d like to talk about is one of the questions a lot of survivors ask: Why me? Why did I survive? Now I know that for each of you the answer is probably different, but I’d like to hear what you think.”
“It’s a stupid question,” said Olivia.
“I don’t think so,” said Iokan.
“Oh, trust you to suck up to her…”
“I was meant to survive. It’s simple. Why me? Because the Antecessors chose me.”
“And no doubt you think we were all chosen,” said Kwame. He hadn’t slept for a couple of nights, and was more irritable than usual.
“I think it’s a possibility,” replied Iokan.
“There was no ‘choice’ in my survival. As soon as I became President, I was informed of the hibernation chambers and my role in wartime. The choice was made before I took office.”
“That sounds like predestination to me…”
“So it was predestined that I would become President? That I would be out of the country at just the right moment? That I would be elected to parliament in the first place? All that was chosen for me, is that what you are saying?”
Iokan shrugged. “Who knows why we take the paths we take?”
“It is nonsense. Our survival is random. I was merely fortunate. Or unfortunate.”
“But… um…” said Pew.
“Yes, Pew?” I asked.
“Well, once you became President, you were one of the most likely people to survive. It might be chance that you got the job, but once you were there… well, you might not have started out special but you became special. I mean statistically. Does that make any sense?”
Kwame looked back at him. “And were you special?”
The question took him by surprise. “I, um, I suppose. I was immune to the plague, when I was a boy. So yeah… if it’s about probability then I had more chance than the others…”
I decided to try and bring Liss into the conversation. She was drawn up in her chair, cocooned as much as she could be. “Liss? Do you think that applies to you?”
Liss looked up at the group, brushing aside unwashed hair. She hadn’t bothered with one of her horrible outfits and was just wearing whatever she’d scraped from the bottom of the drawer: shapeless sweater, flowered jeans and bare feet. “I don’t know. I wasn’t special. I don’t know anything. Don’t ask me. I don’t know anything…” Tears came to her eyes and Veofol offered her a tissue.
“Oh, don’t give us the waterworks,” said Olivia. “You’re always bloody crying, girl! What have you got to cry about? You survived, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know why… I don’t know why it was me! I don’t understand it…”
“Olivia. She’s only just remembered. A little sympathy would help,” I said.
Olivia rolled her eyes.
“I have information that may assist your emotional disturbance,” said Katie, looking directly at Liss. “When a species goes extinct,
one individual must always be the last to die. The reasons are likely to be beyond the control of the individual. It is pointless to trouble yourself with an examination of causes.”
Liss stared back at her with no idea what to make of her words.
“That’s… helpful. Thank you, Katie,” I said.
“I am happy to assist with therapy.”
“So it’s all just chance and there’s no point talking about it, is that what she’s saying?” asked Olivia.
“I think so, yes,” I said.
“Rubbish. Chance hasn’t got a thing to do with it, apart from maybe having a head start like Pew said. I damn well did everything I could to stay alive. None of you just laid down and died, did you?”
“I did,” said Iokan. “But the Antecessors had other plans.”
“Yeh, well you’re a nutter. But the rest of you fought. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“I… not really,” said Pew, frowning.
“I did not fight to survive,” said Katie. “I fought to defeat the enemy. My survival was incidental.”
“But you didn’t give up?”
“I would have been content to die in combat.”
Olivia looked round at Liss, “You didn’t give up. You could’ve, couldn’t you? Could’ve killed yourself, but you didn’t.”
“I should have,” said Liss. “I should have died with them.”
“Oh, you pathetic little cow…” Liss flinched at Olivia’s words. “Am I the only one who actually bothered to try and keep breathing?” She looked at Kwame. “What about you?”
“I had no choice. I had a duty to my nation,” said Kwame. “If I could have chosen for myself, I would have stayed with my wife and children to the end.”
“Olivia, can I just ask something?” I said. “This seems to be very important to you. Can you tell us a little more about why you feel this way?”
“Why do you think? I didn’t give up! I never gave up! And you all just… ugh. I don’t know why I bothered.”
“Is that the only reason you survived, do you think?”
“All the people who gave up are dead. I’m not dead. Therefore I didn’t give up. Where’d you learn your logic?”
“And you don’t think there was anything special about you? About who you were?”
Kwame took up the theme. “Were you not involved in researching the revenation bacterium?”
The Last Man on Earth Club Page 19
