Humanity's Edge- The Complete Trilogy

by Paul B. Kohler

  Clay leaned back heavily in his chair, remembering two days ago, when Alayna had been nothing but his deputy, when his daughter had complained about high school problems and the flu, when the world had carried along without a care.

  “The first person I saw with symptoms like this was . . . Cliff. Cliff Henderson,” Clay said. “And he was in the cell with Trudy.” The realization struck him all at once. He felt he’d been punched in the gut.

  “Henderson. Right,” Jacobs repeated, his eyes assured. “He worked at the lab. He was part of the team.”

  Clay looked aghast. “He had kissed Trudy. They were both brought in couple nights ago.”

  Everyone at the table sighed heavily with the all-knowing, collective consciousness of a small town. “Shit. I can’t believe Trudy was our downfall,” Ralph said, his voice sarcastic.

  “What is it about this Trudy woman?” Jacobs asked, incredulous. “So she kissed Cliff. You said she was in jail?”

  “You don’t understand,” Norah said. “Trudy. She was a rather loose woman. The town floozy, if you will. Every town has one. And she was ours. I appreciated her for it. She always had a great story.”

  “And she was almost always in our jail for being drunk and disorderly,” Alayna chimed in. “Just the way she reached toward people with those big, beautiful lips. She kissed me once, years ago. Threw me off for days.” Alayna paused. “And she was released the morning Cliff went berserk.”

  No one spoke. Clay’s stomach twisted, imagining a crazed, lunatic Trudy rambling through the world with purple and red pus pulsing from lesions on her arms and legs. He shivered, wishing he could remember her as the pretty, if messy and wild, girl he’d known so well. “Shit. She must have been the way it got outside. She is, or was, the source—beyond Cliff, that is.”

  “What about the farmer and his daughter?” Alayna asked. “After the meteorite. I noticed that they both had the sweats. They were out of it, clearly messed up. Weren’t they infected?” She blinked wildly.

  Jacobs shrugged. “It could be a number of things, really. Anything from the flu that’s been running rampant to the effects of radiation exposure,” he said, glancing at Clay. “If they were family, it’s more likely that they have both had the same cold. It’s rather unlikely that they were demonstrating nanite symptoms.”

  “So it was just a coincidence?” Alayna whispered.

  “Stranger things have certainly happened,” Clay said, tilting his head.

  “Sounds messed up,” Ralph cried from the corner. “So the town slut is going to destroy the world? Ha. Connie always said to stay away from her. I did. Kept my affairs elsewhere.”

  “Well, you owe your life to her, then,” Brandon said, laughing humorlessly. “I mean, you owe her your life for the next few hours. Until we’re nothing but dust.”

  Jacobs spoke over them, becoming the voice of reason—the only one with actual, scientific knowledge. “It’s probably a coincidence, yes. Unless they interacted with someone who was infected, with their blood or saliva.” He shrugged again. “There’s really no way to know without interviewing them.”

  “So after you’re infected, what is the incubation period?” Clay asked, his eyebrows furrowed, thinking of his own symptoms. It seemed rather unlikely, at this point, that he was infected himself. But his hair still fluttered to the ground as he walked, and his joints ached. Perhaps Jacobs had answers.

  “Anywhere from sixty minutes up to eighteen hours,” Jacobs answered. “There’s really nothing specific about the timing. It’s how the nanites react to the individual host that’s different. As I’ve heard, your Dr. Miller didn’t show the psychotic signs until much, much after he was attacked. Meaning we don’t have many answers. We only know . . . well,” he paused, turning back to Clay, “if what you’re saying is true, and the nanites have escaped the perimeter, we can assume that the contamination is spreading . . . worldwide at this point. We can assume that the human race won’t last in these conditions.”

  “Jesus!” Ralph exclaimed. “Around the globe already?”

  Jacobs nodded. “There have been multiple researches on how viruses can spread. Within a little more than three months, complete saturation will be achieved. And with the added features that we’ve programmed into the nanites, it’s much more severe. The nanites are simply too powerful.”

  Clay sat with these words. He realized in that moment that he’d been perfectly fine with dying, as long as the rest of the world was allowed to live. He wanted his daughter to grow older. He yearned for his wife to smile, every single day of her life, into old age.

  But the world was grim and dark, teeming with sickness. And even Alayna, sitting before him, with her dark eyes upon him, couldn’t bring any level of happiness. Humanity was doomed.

  Chapter 61

  Clay stood and began to pace, his arms behind his back. He hated the feeling of being trapped. He searched his mind, hoping for a flicker of resolve.

  “So, we’re fucked,” Brandon said, scooting his chair back and looking at them blankly. “The entire planet. It’s over, friends. We did the best we could.”

  Alayna peered at Clay, knowing him well enough to sense when something was brewing. “Clay. What are you thinking?” she asked.

  Clay turned toward her, his feet spread wide apart, his stance dominant. Even Daniels seemed in awe of him. “I say we deactivate the device,” he said sternly.

  “What? Impossible,” Jacobs said, shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”

  “Why? The contamination is everywhere, both inside and outside the energy field, meaning there’s nothing to be solved by allowing the device to destroy us.” His mind revved, realizing that he had a few more hours or days or even months to live, if Jacobs would allow it. “It would give us the time we need to figure this out. To find our families and protect them.”

  Across the table, Alayna shifted in her chair, suddenly restless. But Clay ignored her, staring intently at Jacobs. “It’s no use for us all to die. Don’t you understand?”

  Clay searched the faces of his other survivors. Ralph began to mutter to himself, confusion filling him. “Well, if we don’t have to die today—” he began.

  Norah sighed. “I think what Clay is saying makes sense,” she said. “We’ve come too far to give up. We’ve fought through these last few days. There’s nothing that says we can’t continue to fight.”

  Brandon smacked his palm against the table, shaking it. “Whatever. I’m in if you guys are. Come on, Leland. Even you don’t want to die today. I can see it in you.”

  Daniels erupted from his chair, popping his hands upon Jacobs’s chair and jiggling it. “You hear that, buddy? We have the beginning of a plan. Come on, now! Do the right thing. Not like last time, when you decided to destroy all of humanity.”

  Clay turned to Alayna. She hadn’t spoken. She leaned heavily upon her fist, and her face was nondescript.

  “I agree,” she finally said, nodding. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Very well, then,” Jacobs said, leaning back in his chair. “But before I tell you, know this. I’ll have nothing to do with it. You’re just extending the inevitability of our deaths, and it’s reckless. I think you all know that. Maybe all of you except your optimistic sheriff, here.”

  Clay glowered.

  “But I’m guessing you won’t have time to get there anyway. So it doesn’t really matter to me. I’ll live out the remainder of my time here, relaxed, contemplating me existence. The rest of you will rush off to the clock tower—the very top.” His eyes glinted as he looked at his watch. “And seems like you only have about twenty minutes at this point. Isn’t that so, Clay?”

  “Twenty minutes? We’ll never have time.” Norah bowed her head. The sight of it was disheartening for Clay. A sign that just another in his troop of survivors was open to giving up.

  Ralph gave up, too. “Hell, I don’t care if we live or die any longer,” he said, stabbing a fork into one of the remaining sausages and t
aking a menacing bite. “I ain’t cared since Connie died. You all run off and find this device, or whatever. I’m going to have me a morning whiskey.” He lifted from his chair and poured yet another glass, watching as the liquid glugged into the glass.

  But Clay, Daniels, Alayna, and Brandon leaped from their chairs and bounded down the steps, fresh with the knowledge that they could live—they could continue to exist, to play this terrible game—for just a little bit longer. Brandon’s long, lanky teenage legs allowed him to run faster and stronger than the others. And Clay felt a moment of pride, watching this once-sarcastic and snarky individual race for his freedom, and his life.

  Chapter 62

  The clock tower was about a half-mile away, a bit off Main Street, and tucked against the old cathedral, which had been built more than a century ago. Clay had necessarily passed the clock tower countless times in his cruiser, hardly viewing its age-old beauty. Miraculously, he’d never been inside. The view, he’d been told, wasn’t remarkable any longer, since many of the old buildings had been demolished to make way for the highway and the multiple gas stations.

  They raced toward it, each of them breathing heavily. Clay had stabbing pains up and down his abdomen from the sprint. He hunched over, gasping for oxygen. A stone archway loomed above the entrance. “Jesus,” he breathed, gazing up at the high clock tower.

  “COME ON!” Daniels cried, rushing through the doors and turning toward the stone steps. Clay followed after Alayna and Daniels, with Brandon close behind him. The feeling of trepidation was palpable, and they no longer spoke, recognizing that even one wasted minute meant the end of their lives.

  The staircase wound upward, making Clay’s head spin. Just as he thought he might vomit, they burst onto the landing. One by one, each of them gasped, recognizing precisely what awaited them at the top.

  In the center of the clock tower’s dome was a large, black orb, connected to countless wires and circuits and blinking lights. To the left of the orb, a clock ticked back the minutes, alerting them that they had just four minutes to figure out how to deactivate the bomb.

  Clay wiped his hand over his thin hair, marching around and around it, trying to make sense of the wires and lights. The others followed suit, knowing they needed to move quickly—but that one false move meant it could detonate anyway. The moments were fragile.

  “Jesus. We should have made him come with us,” Brandon finally spoke, breaking the silence. “We don’t know what the fuck we’re doing. He’s the one who’s the scientist.”

  “Damn it,” Daniels said, growling. “Three minutes, guys. We have to do something. We have to try.”

  “Well are you going to be the one?” Brandon asked, laughing. “Because I don’t want to be the one to choose what will kill us. I’d rather let it go.”

  Clay began to twiddle with a few of the wires, knowing he had to make a move; he had to be the one with the confidence and bravery to persevere. He remembered the movies he’d watched as a kid, when the bomb was always deactivated two seconds before it detonated. Surely something would come to him. Sweat beads poured from his forehead, dripping down his cheeks.

  Suddenly Alayna cut forward, easing in front of him. Clay stepped back, too curious to ask questions. With two minutes remaining, Alayna clicked a switch to the left of the countdown clock. The moment she did it, Clay closed his eyes, sensing destruction.

  But as he stood with his eyes closed, Daniels let out a mighty roar. Clay moved his fingers, testing to see if his body was still intact. His thoughts swam freely. He felt things. He existed. He blinked to see Daniels wrap his arms around Alayna and lift her high into the air, bouncing her and crying out. “YES. SHE DID IT.”

  “You flipped the switch, and it worked?” Clay asked, incredulous. “That was all?”

  Alayna grinned nervously. Daniels lowered her, and she shrugged, gesturing toward the now-blank countdown clock. None of the lights were on; the bomb no longer beeped. It looked dead and lifeless.

  “The simplicity of it all,” Clay said, slipping Alayna’s hair behind her ear, trying to preserve this special moment in time.

  “That was some timing,” Daniels joked behind her, noting the intimacy between the two of them. “Some timing indeed.”

  Chapter 63

  Brandon led the way back down the steps, taking them two at a time. His shoulders shook with relief. When they reached the early afternoon light on the street, he wrapped Alayna in a hug, looking briefly like an overjoyed kid. “I know it doesn’t matter. I know we’re probably going to die anyway,” he said, his smile wide. “But that was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen. Thank you, Alayna. We all owe our lives to you.”

  Alayna returned the hug but pulled away awkwardly. “Easy, there, Brandon. All I did was flip a switch. Nothing terribly heroic about it,” she said modestly.

  Brandon’s sincerity made Clay grin cautiously. He sensed they’d only just begun a long and burdensome road. And someday, maybe soon, Brandon would die. And maybe they’d all have to watch it.

  “Let’s get back to the hotel,” Alayna said, patting Brandon on the back as she moved past him. “I want to see the look on Leland’s face when he realizes we’re going to survive. Glad he chose today of all days to tell us the truth about the nanites. He could have told us last night and given us a bit more time . . .” She trailed off, falling into stride beside Clay. “Perhaps he liked the drama of it all.”

  “Well, he truly didn’t know about the spread of the infection,” Clay offered. “And he obviously doesn’t care about us at all. Why would he? He’s not a native. He arrived, what? Just a few months ago?”

  “Didn’t reap any of our neighborly kindness,” Brandon joked, stabbing his elbow into Daniels’s side. “Not like this gentleman right here.”

  Daniels shrugged. “Small town or not, with people I know, or not—I was assigned to save Carterville. Didn’t expect to make any friends along the way.” He eyed both Alayna and Clay with subtle affection. Clay wondered if the man had ever made a friend in his life.

  They returned to the hotel to find Ralph seated beside the record player, watching the vinyl spin and spin with a glass of whiskey in his hand. He was already bleary eyed, clearly attempting to reach darkness before the world blacked out around him. But the moment he saw them, he jumped to his feet. “What happened? Is it over?” he asked, slurring.

  “We turned it off,” Brandon said, patting him on the shoulder. “We live another day, old man.”

  “Huh,” Ralph said, pouring himself another glass. “Well, can’t say I’m surprised. I can’t be surprised anymore. It’s just been one thing after another.”

  “Where’s Norah?” Clay asked.

  “She went to her room to lie down. Didn’t want to see it happen,” Ralph said. “And that Leland asshole, he’s in his room, too. Said he was going to do some reading. I don’t trust him.” His white eyebrows furrowed deeply.

  Jacobs appeared in the doorway, then, Norah following close behind. Norah’s face was content, with a slight smile. She wrapped her arms around Alayna, giving her a soft kiss on the cheek.

  “You should be thanking her,” Clay offered. “She’s the one who flipped the switch.”

  “That’s my girl,” Norah said kindly, gliding her fingers over her hair. “I knew you all could do it. I just couldn’t make it myself.” She blinked softly.

  But Jacobs scoffed, his forearms crossed over his chest. “Well, now what? We get to live another day,” he affirmed. “But what about tomorrow? And what about the day after that? We’re all dead already. And you know it.”

  “Sure. With an attitude like that, I suppose you’re right,” Clay said sternly. “We’ll be dead if we don’t try. And we’ve come too far to take this lying down.”

  “Agreed,” Alayna said, standing beside him. “And I think it’s time to discuss survivability moving forward. The hotel has been wonderful these last few days, but we need to find something more sustainable. If we’re not careful
, we’ll run out of supplies, fast.”

  “I did use too many potatoes this morning,” Norah whispered, cursing herself.

  “Forget about it. We thought we’d be fried potatoes by now,” Brandon assured Norah, patting her hand affectionately.

  “Surely you were prepared for something like this,” Clay said, looking toward Jacobs. “You were moving somewhere all too fast yesterday. Somewhere in your candy shop.”

  “That’s right!” Daniels said, snapping his finger. “You were heading somewhere behind the store shelves. There was some kind of staircase—”

  “That’s the lab,” Jacobs admitted, rolling his eyes. “The lab is beneath Moe’s. And, yes, there are plenty of supplies down there. Water. Food. Even a bit of alcohol, although surely not enough for Ralph here.” He skidded his foot across the ground, contemplating.

  “Leland to the rescue,” Clay said halfheartedly. “You have to let us down there. To gather supplies.”

  “I don’t know. It’s meant to be sealed from the public,” Jacobs said, lifting his chin in hesitation.

  “Are you kidding me? You can’t use that excuse now,” Alayna said. “The public might be a thing of the past. We’re all we know. Even you, with all your knowledge about the nanites, haven’t a clue if your family and friends are living or dead.” Her eyes flashed with the seriousness of her words.

  Jacobs moved toward the door, then, gesturing. “Fine. I’ll let you in, if you’re all in such a big rush.”

  Chapter 64

  Deep beneath Moe’s Candy, the research lab was a sterile, white-walled environment with massive vats of gooey liquid lining the sides. The survivors paraded lightly through it, eyeing the liquid with suspicion.

  “That’s the nanites,” Jacobs affirmed. “We keep them in what we call jellyfish puree between rounds. Now, as we speak, those nanites are multiplying in the liquid, making it more and more saturated. Of course, they’re harmless. The containers are airtight.”