The Last Man on Earth Club

by Paul R. Hardy

  “There’s an ethical issue there.”

  He sighed. He didn’t have a high opinion of ethical issues. “How long does she have?” I asked.

  “Weeks. Maybe two months at the outside.”

  She came back to herself an hour later, the longest period of recovery yet. It was Elsbet who opened her eyes in her old room in the infirmary, tubed up to machines regulating her biological systems until we were sure it was safe.

  I sat by her bed to explain about the implants in her brain, that mimicked the ones she expected to be there but which had entirely different functions, accelerating her neural efficiency and wearing her brain down.

  She was slower than before, but still had a touch of fire in her. “Take them out.”

  “We can’t. We don’t know how to do it without killing you.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “If things stay as they are… you’ll die.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. “Then I’ll die.”

  “There is a treatment. We can put you in a new body. It’s easier than fixing the old one. But we have a problem.”

  She opened her eyes. “What problem?”

  “An ethical issue.”

  “A what?”

  “You see… when we found you, in space… you were someone else.” She stared back at me. “You were called Katie. You were a very different person. And when we asked her if she would accept the treatment, she refused.” I sighed. “The problem is… she has rights. And she’s in your skull as much as you are. And to make things worse… we don’t know which of you is the primary personality. You, I mean you, Elsbet… you may well be a persona coming out of the implants. If that’s the case, we have to put Katie’s wishes first. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “I understand that. But I assure you, it’s true. When you had your seizure, she came back for a moment. And if she comes back again, we’ll do everything we can to convince her to accept the treatment.”

  “Who the fuck is this ‘Katie’?”

  “We think… well, we’re not sure, but she might be an infiltrator. From the machines.”

  Her eyes went wide. “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m human!”

  I couldn’t answer that. Instead, I asked her: “What’s the last thing you remember? Are you sure it was just the missile hitting atmosphere?”

  “Yes! I’m…” But her certainty melted. “No… No… No!”

  “What is it?”

  “No, no, no, no, no!” She ripped tubes from her arm and noticed she was doing it with the reattached cyborg limb. “Get it off me! Get it off!” She reached to pull it away, but she was weaker and couldn’t grasp it properly.

  “Elsbet—”

  “Get me out of here! Get me out of this thing! Get me OUT!”

  She was screaming and weeping, and there was nothing to do but call in the medics and have her sedated.

  5. Olivia

  I kept the lights off in my office for a while. I had an entirely irrational feeling that everything was suddenly going wrong with the group. Veofol reported that Kwame had withdrawn into his room and switched on privacy for more than the allotted time, and then shouted at him when he went to see how he was. Pew’s injuries were hardly severe, but the nurse who treated him reported a higher than usual fear of human contact, and he only accepted medical care with a great deal of persuasion. Veofol tried to have a chat with Iokan about his past, but ran into the same brick wall I’d seen in his session. And there was still the problem with Bell, which left me feeling irritable and annoyed. I debated the merits of letting Veofol take the next individual session before I became too irritable, but dismissed the idea quickly. Not so much because he couldn’t cope with it, but because I didn’t want to run away from my responsibilities, though it didn’t help that the next session was with Olivia, who would doubtless do her best to avoid it until I personally went in search of her.

  So I was very surprised when she turned up on time and took a seat in one of the comfortable chairs, despite her earlier assertion. She was even smiling. But I soon found the smile was far from friendly.

  “So,” said Olivia. “What shall we talk about, then?”

  “You’ve got something you want to discuss? Of course, go ahead.”

  She grinned. “You’ve got man troubles.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You do shout a lot on the phone, don’t you?”

  My eyes must have gone wide for a moment, because her smile broadened. I thought I’d taken every precaution when I took the call from Bell in the garden — how had she heard me? Later, I found out: the watering can she’d been fiddling with was the key. She’d unscrewed the sprinkler from the spout, then the spout itself from the can, and found the broad, open spout made an passable ear trumpet.

  “I… think that’s private, Olivia.”

  “Privacy? In here? Hah! You must be joking! The word’s out, missy, and there’s nothing you can do about it. How does that make you feel?”

  “Like a therapist with a patient who’s determined to make trouble.”

  “No, no, no. A soon to be single therapist with a patient that’s determined to make trouble.”

  “Was there anything else you wanted to tell me?”

  “Well! I wanted to know what it felt like to have your husband run off…”

  “I’m not married.”

  “Boyfriend, then.”

  “He hasn’t run off. We had a disagreement.”

  “Sounded like a very loud disagreement…”

  “It happens, Olivia. I’m sure you have your own experiences in this area.” I couldn’t help being irritated. Too irritated for a therapy session.

  “Ohhh yes, but it’s lovely to see you having them as well.”

  “Is that what it takes to impress you, Olivia?” I realised I’d snapped back at her and given her precisely what she wanted: anger. Emotion. Stooping down to her level of vindictiveness.

  “Who said anything about being impressed? I just think it’s funny.” I took a breath as she smirked. I had half a mind to cancel the session. Or get Veofol in. Or something.

  “Well…” I said.

  But could I use it? Was there a way into her own trauma?

  Yes.

  “Well what?” she demanded.

  “Perhaps you can help me.” That made her laugh. “You did agree with me when I suggested you had your own experience of this…”

  “What, haven’t you got any friends you can go to?”

  “No one who’s been through what you’ve been through.”

  “You want advice from me? All right. Kill him. If he’s dead he’s not going to give you any problems. There, that’s my advice.”

  “I see… is that what you did?”

  She held her tongue for a moment. She wasn’t amused any more. I’d found something. “Yes.”

  “I’m so sorry…”

  “What are you sorry about?”

  “I didn’t know you lost a husband.”

  “Lots of women lost their husbands.”

  “How many had to kill them?”

  “Too many. You’ve done it again, haven’t you? You’ve got me talking about myself.”

  My smile was humourless, but still sympathetic, I hoped. “I think I’ve said this before, Olivia, but you do like giving people advice. If you can tell me anything about how to deal with a partner who’s not being reasonable, I’d be glad to hear it…”

  She sighed. “Let me guess. He doesn’t like you working.”

  “He’d prefer I spent less time here.”

  “Well then, he’s a sensible man, isn’t he?”

  “Olivia. Seriously.”

  “Well…” she cast about for something to say. “You’ve got it all different here, haven’t you? You don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to go to work.”

  “Is that how it was on your world?”

  “Of course that�
��s how it was. We were primitive. Remember?”

  “So you weren’t very happy with things as they were.”

  “No I bloody wasn’t.”

  “But you did marry.”

  “Yeh. Eventually.”

  “Was he your first…?”

  “No, he wasn’t. More fool me. What about you?”

  “No. He’s not my first.”

  “And it still goes wrong, does it? Even when you’re all advanced and not as primitive as the rest of us?”

  “We’re only human.”

  “And men are still getting jealous when women go to work.”

  “It’s not that. It’s more that he thinks I’m working too hard.”

  “When was the last time you went home?”

  It caught at me for a moment. “He’s been away for a few weeks. He came back today.”

  “Well for gods’ sake, woman, bloody go and see him! You don’t want him to forget the sight of you! He’ll take up with some trollop, mark my words…”

  I could only manage a thin smile. “I’ll bear that in mind. But what happened to you?”

  “What about what happened to me?”

  “You were married. Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

  “Yeh. Don’t do it.”

  “Is that because you had to kill your husband…?”

  “No… just don’t. It’s not worth it. You fall in love with the bugger and then he’ll let you down one way or another. They always do.”

  “It sounds like you’ve had some unhappy experiences. Can you tell me any more?”

  She sighed. “You never let go, do you? All right, number one,” she held out a single finger, “Antony Whatecroft. My professor when I was doing my master’s degree. Brilliant mind, everyone looked up to him, he said his wife didn’t understand him, I fell for it. Number two,” she held up two fingers, “Jack Lockehust. Married him when my research career was over, only he killed himself because he was in debt up to his eyeballs, the stupid shit. And then he got up again, and, well, you know what I do about that kind of thing. Number three,” she held up three fingers, “Mike Brokefeld, head of security at Tringarrick after the last outbreak. He was… well, he was available, if you take my meaning. He buggered off with everyone else when they all gave up.”

  “I suppose Antony died before the last outbreak…?”

  “No. He was supposed to come out and join us at Tringarrick. He was on the last train but he never made it.”

  “So you still knew him, even then?”

  She shrugged. “Once I realised the last outbreak was coming, I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I had to do my bit, and he was still doing the best research.”

  “Wasn’t that uncomfortable?”

  She gave me a crooked smile. “Didn’t care. I made him think the children were his and then he gave me whatever I needed for my research.”

  “Your children?”

  “Yeh. I had children. Girl and a boy. Happy now?”

  “You’ve never spoken of them.”

  “They’re dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop saying you’re sorry. You’re not sorry and even if you are how are you going to keep saying sorry every time you hear someone died?”

  “It’s a mark of sympathy, Olivia.”

  “Well stop it.”

  “If you want me to, of course. But you were talking about your children…?”

  “No. I wasn’t. I was talking about my men.”

  “Oh. Well, please continue…”

  “You want more?”

  “They can’t have been all bad.”

  “Not all the time. They always took advantage, though. Antony certainly did.”

  “How did he do that?”

  She sighed. “Well, if you must know, he was the one who got me out of medical school and onto the biology course. I wanted to do something about the bloody revenants and being a doctor wasn’t enough.”

  “Was it difficult to get on that course?”

  “Well they didn’t want me, did they? Last thing they wanted was a woman they couldn’t say no to because she was wearing a medal from Tanymouth. But Antony decided he wanted me on the course and that was that.”

  “Did he have sexual intentions from the start?”

  “I don’t know. It was years before he did anything. I had my degree by then and I’d joined the research group. We were working on the marinade…”

  “The marinade?”

  “Yeh, the marinade. All our livestock was infected, how do you think we fed people? Antony discovered a chemical formula that would kill the revenation bacterium. Took a couple of years to figure out how to use it to treat meat and not kill whoever was eating it.”

  “What did it taste like?”

  “Horrible, until it fried your tastebuds off and then you didn’t mind as much. A lot of people got used to being vegetarians after the first outbreak but that went out of the window as soon as meat was available again. We should have stayed vegetarians…”

  “Why?”

  “Because it didn’t work. The bug didn’t die, it just went dormant. A couple of months later it woke up and did what it always does. All us clever scientists trying to find a way to save the world and all we did was end up killing it a bit more.”

  “I think we should get back to Antony Whatecroft. What was it about him you liked?”

  “He was the only one who was doing anything about the revenants that actually worked. So I worshipped him, didn’t I? Like a little girl. And I did what little girls do when they meet the big man, I went weak at my knees and got into his bed as quick as I could…”

  “Did it go on long?”

  “Years. When I was in his research group, then when I had my own group working on phages, but the damn bugs wouldn’t do what they were supposed to and then somebody discovered antibiotics and all the money went in that direction so I ended up with nothing. And then I found out Antony was sleeping with one of his graduate students, so I wasn’t best pleased, I can tell you. There was me thinking he was going to leave his wife for me one day. Stupid.

  “So I got married to someone else, got out of science and got pregnant so I could tell him to go frig himself.”

  “I can see how you’d be angry.”

  “I was stupid. I should have stuck with it. Instead… ugh. I wasted years living in a pretty little house, and I let Jack sort all the money out like an idiot. Until he died.”

  “That must have been traumatic.”

  “Hah! I’ve killed hundreds like him.”

  “I thought you said he killed himself?”

  “He did. And then I killed him again.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  “I thought the revenants were almost gone. You didn’t hear anything about ’em. They were keeping it quiet. Anyone who died went into the marinade to make sure they didn’t get up again. When I found Jack, he’d been dead a couple of hours. Took pills in his tea and wrote a note about all the debts and how he couldn’t face admitting it and all that nonsense, but he was still warm, I thought he’d only just done it, I thought I might be able to save him. I stuck my finger down his throat, tried to get him to throw up. Only he didn’t. He bit me.”

  She held up her left hand with the stump where her middle finger should have been. “You see?”

  “And then you had to…”

  “I put him down.” She didn’t say how. I didn’t like to ask.

  “What about the children?”

  She looked up. “What about them?”

  “Did they see?”

  She took a long breath. This was harder for her. “They heard. They came downstairs.”

  “What did you do?”

  She looked up at me, eyes full of pain. “Kept the bloody door closed and told them to go back upstairs.”

  “I mean… how did you explain it?”

  “They were only little. I told them dad
dy was sleeping, called the coroners, got them dressed and left.”

  “How did they react?”

  “They knew. They heard the fighting. They saw blood on my dress. And I was missing a finger as well, they noticed that all right…”

  “Olivia… what happened to them, in the end?”

  She looked back at me. “What do you think happened? They’re dead.”

  “I’m sorry. When did they die?”

  I’d forgotten her earlier admonition. She burst to her feet. “Stop it! You’re not sorry! You’re not sorry about anything! You’re only sorry you can’t get me crying about it! I’ve had enough of this…”

  “Olivia, please…”

  She sat down, folded her arms and assumed a stubborn silence.

  “Olivia. I don’t mean to push too hard. We can stop there, if you like.”

  And stop we did. But I remembered something from her psychomedical history, and called it up on the screen once she left. When she had been found, there had been two revenants still in the pens at Tringarrick. One female and one male.

  It would make sense: the two revenants she had not been able to bring herself to kill until she was ready to take her own life could conceivably be her children. I found myself shivering as I realised this, and feeling no comfort in my success at turning the session into something useful for therapy.

  6. Kwame & Iokan

  The evening meal was subdued. Olivia was in a dark mood. Pew stayed silent. Elsbet was still in the infirmary. Kwame avoided the meal altogether, hiding in his room. Iokan was the only one to try and inject some levity, but he came up against irritation and silence. Olivia excused herself as soon as she could, and headed out to the garden to inflict suffering on plantlife. Pew excused himself as well, leaving Iokan alone in the common room.

  Iokan usually made it a habit to stay downstairs after dinner and make himself available for chats and games with the others. This evening was no different, but he was surprised when Kwame joined him. Kwame hadn’t eaten anything that day. He’d taken some tea after much insistence on the part of a nurse, and had gone so far as to nudge food across his plate at lunchtime. The normal procedure would be to intervene after another day of fasting, but for now we were leaving him alone with his troubles. So his emergence into the common room to join Iokan was a pleasant surprise I hoped would produce some benefit.