by Amy Cross
"You look totally confused," she says.
"I am," I reply. "I'm... freaked out by all of this".
The woman smiles. "I've been an evolutionary biologist for twenty-five years," she says, "and I'm freaked out by it too. This is clean pants time, if you know what I mean". She reaches out a hand. "Monica," she says.
She takes me through to another part of the facility. Despite the fact that she used to be a research scientist, Monica is now spending most of her days cleaning up and trying to work out ways to make the meagre ration of food last longer. She shows me the storeroom, admitting that they have enough food for another three months, or two and a half months if I stick around. And the food that they do have doesn't exactly look very appetising, consisting entirely of a ton of tins and cans, and some sachets of powder. Nothing fresh, nothing that really looks like food.
"This place isn't a permanent solution," she says, as we stare at the shelves of containers. "It's like an island. We're okay for now, but we're going to run out of the few resources that we have, and that means we're going to have to decide what to do next. If we stay here, we'll starve to death".
"Can't you grow food?" I ask, trying to come up with a way for them to have a better chance.
"With what?" she replies. "No-one thought to stock up on seeds until it was too late. Besides, there's not much we could grow in sufficient quantities that would be ready in three months' time". She takes a can of beans from the shelf. "These'll fill you up," she says, "but in terms of sustainability, they're the end of the road. You can't grow more beans from them, not after they've been in the can for so long. We didn't think ahead, not at all. And now we're going to die".
"But we can just keep moving," I say. "Can't we just leave here and go somewhere else?"
Monica leads me out of the storeroom and pulls the door shut. "The radiation level's rising," she says. "Soon we'll reach the point where it's too dangerous to go outside. We have some anti-sickness pills, but their effect is limited. And then there are these worm-infected people. We have no idea how many are out there, but there could be thousands. Millions. It's too dangerous to be out there".
"Where did they come from?" I ask. "I mean, they weren't here before".
"They were," Monica says. "The best theory right now is that they were an ordinary variety of parasite that posed no threat to humans until the radiation levels hit a certain point, and then the damn things began to mutate". She smiled. "It's funny, but when something changes in a good way, we say it's evolving, and when something changes in a bad way, we say it's mutating. But both are essentially the same process, depending on your perspective. Either way, it's just semantics. The worms are what they are, and I don't see that there's much we can do to deal with them".
"So you're gonna sit here and die?" I ask.
"Maybe," she replies, smiling fatalistically. "Maybe we are, yeah. Because maybe that's all we can do. Maybe the world has changed too much, and humans just can't make it any more. I'm starting to believe that more and more".
"I can't accept that," I say, as we start walking along the corridor and up a set of stairs. "I'm not gonna let myself die".
"Good luck," Monica replies. We enter what seems to be an observation room, with large windows looking out at a huge concrete dome and, beyond the dome, a vast desert landscape with mountains in the distance. "You see that?" Monica asks, indicating the dome. It's an imposing structure, a large sphere of concrete. "By the grace of God, the nuclear material was out of action when the power was cut. That's the only reason this place didn't sink into a nuclear meltdown like the rest of the power plants across America. But look further, look to the mountains. What do you see?"
I stare into the distance, but all I can see is the empty desert.
"Come on," Monica presses me, "what do you see?"
"Nothing," I say.
"Exactly".
I turn to her, confused.
"The air is poisonous," Monica says. "Every minute, there's a slight increase in the amount of radiation. All over America, all over the world, reactors have been melting down now that there's no power to run the cooling systems. All that radiation seeps out into the soil, and some of it gets carried by the wind. We estimate that by next week, it'll be too high for anyone to survive out there, anywhere". She pauses. "Most parts of the country are probably already nuclear wastelands, uninhabitable by humans".
"Then we have to leave," I say.
Monica shakes her head. "We can't just walk out into the desert and hope for the best. We're so far from a town right now, it's insane. And even then... The whole of America is like this. Even the food is damaged, becoming toxic. We have to face it, this country is reaching the point where humans won't be able to survive any longer. And eventually the planet will get rid of us all".
"So there's nowhere safe we could go?" I ask.
"Maybe Africa," she says. "Places like that, where there were no nuclear facilities. But that would mean crossing the ocean, and anyway, the radiation would drift over to us eventually. We'd just be playing a waiting game".
"I don't accept that," I say. "There's got to be a safe place. Somewhere we can go".
"I wish I agreed with you," Monica says, "but -"
She stops as we hear the sound of a man shouting outside. Looking out the window, it takes us a moment to spot the bearded man running frantically from the concrete dome, heading back into the main building.
"Something's wrong," Monica says, turning and running out of the room. I follow her and we sprint back along the corridor, eventually reaching the main room and finding the others locked in a fiery discussion.
"Calm down," Dominic is saying to the bearded man. "It can't be true, okay? It just can't be. No-one's been out there".
"Go and look for yourself," the bearded man says, a look of total shock on his face. "You can't deny it when it's right in front of your fucking face!"
"What's wrong?" Monica asks.
"Nothing," Dominic says.
"Everything," the bearded man interjects. "I just went to the dome to look for some wire, and I heard something inside. I went in, and someone's removed the isolation ducts from the reactor core".
I see Monica's face go almost completely white.
"What does that mean?" I ask, starting to get really worried now.
"It means..." Monica pauses.
"It means the core is no longer contained," the bearded man says. "It means we're no longer safe, and the reactor's going to enter meltdown in twenty-four to thirty-six hours".
"How the fuck did this happen?" Monica asks.
"It didn't," Dominic says firmly. He turns to the bearded man. "John, you made a mistake. You're wrong".
"I'm not fucking wrong," John replies. "Go and look for yourself. Someone went in there and removed the ducts. Someone did this on purpose. They didn't just fall off!"
"That would be suicide," Dominic says. "Why would anyone do that?"
"To save us from a slow and agonising death?" says one of the others. "It wasn't me, but I can kind of understand. Someone wanted to get this misery over with as fast as possible".
Dominic is clearly angry with all of them. "We don't have to give up," he says.
"Someone's given up," John says, "and they've decided to take all of us with them".
"Can't you put the ducts back on?" I ask.
Monica shakes her head. "One they're off, there's no way back. The core starts to heat. Maybe if we had pumps and a filtration system, we could do something. But as things stand, we're sitting ducks. We have no option but to sit here and wait to die".
"That's what we were doing anyway," mutters John.
Dominic runs over to a small window. Looking out at the large concrete dome, he seems shocked. "The core's going to go into meltdown. It's probably already started". He turns to the rest of us. "This is it. We don't have a chance. Not any more. It's over for all of us".
Chapter Six
"Who did this?" Dominic asks, staring at the
rest of us one by one. "Come on, admit it. There's no point hiding it any more, you might as well confess. Which of you decided your own personal fatalism was worth killing all of us for? I want to know which of you bastards consigned the rest of us to death?"
Silence falls upon the room.
Dominic storms over to Monica. "Was it you?" he asks.
"Don't be ridiculous," she replies.
"What about the new girl?" John asks, turning to me. "She's the one we don't know anything about".
"I didn't touch anything!" I say. "I swear, I didn't do it!"
"It's not her," Monica says. "Think about it. She's the only one here who doesn't know how the facilities work. She had no idea how to remove the ducts and how to trigger a meltdown. When you're looking for someone to blame, she's the last person who should be on your list".
"Then it was one of us," John says. "But that doesn't even make sense. We're all scientists. We all understand the technicalities of what we're doing. We all know that there's still a chance, if we just put our heads together".
"Someone in this room gave up," Dominic says. He looks at us each, one by one. "Someone in this room decided that there was no point fighting, and that we might as well all just die. And if I'm going to lose my life, I want to at least know who hit the button. So come on, coward, let's see your face".
Again, there's nothing but silence in the room. Whoever removed the ducts, they sure as hell aren't going to admit it.
"Those ducts don't just remove themselves," Dominic says. "Someone in this room made a conscious decision to go out there, enter the reactor room, unscrew the ducts and then come back in here and wait for us all to die. All I want to know is who did it. I won't even be angry. I won't hurt you. I just want to know, and I want to know why you did it. Is that too much to ask for, a little honesty?"
No-one responds.
"We're dying," Monica says eventually. "Are we really going to spend the last few hours of our lives arguing about who's to blame? We all know what caused this disaster. The sun. A completely random emission of energy. Just total random disaster, as if the sun looked down at all the technology we'd developed and said 'That's enough', and reached down and swiped it all away, plunging us back into the Dark Ages. Everything after that has been just a variation on chaos. We knew we'd be dead. We were sitting here waiting for the final moment. Maybe it's good that it'll be over sooner rather than later".
"So it was you?" John asks.
"Of course not," Monica says. "But I understand the motivation of whoever did it. Maybe it's better to die a quick death than to have it drawn out over many weeks".
"It doesn't make sense," Dominic adds. "Life wants to live. That's how life thrives. Suicide is an aberration. Life, in all its forms, is determined to survive. Life will do anything to survive. This doesn't make sense. None of this makes any sense at all -"
"It just takes one madman," John interrupts. "It just takes one person with access to the right equipment, and we're all on our way out. You all know it's true".
"No," Dominic says. "That's not how life works. That's not how evolution works. Change happens because a species will do anything to live, not because they'll do anything to die. From a purely scientific, evolutionary point of view, this whole damn mess doesn't make sense".
Monica sighs. "There's no point arguing," she says. "All we can do now is prepare for the final moment. We just have to accept that we're going to die, and we have to make peace with one another. Make peace with whatever personal gods we happen to worship, and try to not spend the remaining time at each other's throat".
"And what about the worms?" John asks. "How do we know we're not infected? How do we know we won't die and then come back as those... things?"
"We don't know," Dominic says.
"There's a simple test," John continues. "We check our blood. The worms lay eggs in the bloodstream. A simple blood test will reveal which of us are infected. And I damn well want to know if my corpse is gonna be reanimated by some stupid little worm".
"I don't," Monica says. "Once I'm dead, I'm dead. My body isn't mine any more. It's none of my business if some little worm wants to take the steering wheel".
"Well I damn well want to know," John insists.
"Fine," Dominic says. "Anyone who wants to get tested can follow me. But personally, I'd rather stay in the dark. Death is death, and anything that comes after is just something else entirely. It's simple science. There's no such thing as a soul. The body is a complex collection of actions and reactions, and if it gets taken over by another creature, so be it. That's just how the world works, and it's not like there's anything we can do to stop it".
We all head through to a small laboratory. Dominic lays out a set of syringes. "If you want to be tested, take a sample of your blood. Don't mix syringes, you might end up getting contaminated if you're currently clear". He starts setting up a microscope on the bench. "Hurry up, we don't have all day".
Monica, John and the others each take a syringe and draw a little blood from their arms. I take a syringe too, but I can't bring myself to put the needle in my skin. I've always hated needles, and a situation like this is kind of my worst nightmare. I put the tip of the needle against a vein, but I can't do it, I can't break the surface of my skin.
"You want help?" Monica asks. She takes the syringe from my hands and carefully takes a blood sample from me.
"Thanks," I say.
Dominic has the first sample under the microscope. "Infected," he says, turning to John. "I'm sorry".
"Let me see," John says, taking a look. After a moment, he steps back.
"It's not that bad," Monica says. "It won't affect you while you're alive, it just means that after you die -"
"I'll be like Bob," John says. "I'll be a fucking zombie, staggering around". He turns to the others. "We'll all be like that".
"We'll trap ourselves in the building," Dominic says. "At least that way, we won't pose a risk to anyone outside".
"And then what'll happen?" John asks. "Are we gonna stumble around in here attacking each other? Are we gonna end up eating each other?"
"It doesn't matter," Monica says. "It won't be us any more, not really. It'll be our bodies, but our souls will be long gone".
"You infected too, Monica," Dominic says.
She rushes over and looks down the microscope. "Fuck," she says. "I shouldn't have taken the test. There's no point in knowing about shit like this".
"Can I see?" I ask. Monica moves aside and I look down the microscope. I immediately see a series of small round objects in the sample. "What are they?" I say.
"Eggs," Monica says. "The worm is in the head, but it lays eggs and they travel through the bloodstream before they hatch. Eggs confirm the presence of the worm".
Dominic checks each blood sample, and they all come back positive. Everyone in the room is infected by the worms, and then he checks my sample.
"Clear," he says after a moment. He looks up, an expression of shock on his face.
"Seriously?" Monica asks, looking stunned.
"Look for yourself," Dominic says, stepping back and letting Monica look at the sample.
When it's my turn to look, I see that there are no eggs at all in my sample.
"So how come she's clear and the rest of us are infected?" John asks.
Dominic sighs. "She hasn't been here long enough. One of us was infected, and that was enough to infect the rest of us because we weren't aware of the problem. We weren't taking precautions". He turns to me. "You would have become infected, if we hadn't realised what was happening in time".
I realise that everyone is staring at me. I guess they're angry that I'm the only one who, so far, isn't going to turn into one of those... things... when I die. I feel relieved, of course, but also bad for the others. No-one deserves to end up in that kind of state.
"So what do we do?" John asks.
"We have to stay here," Monica says. "If we go out into the wider world, we'll just infect others".
Dominic nods. "The fact that Emma isn't infected demonstrates that there are still some people out there who don't have the worms. Probably not many, but some".
"Wait," I say, confused about something. "I was living at a camp in the desert. Some of the people there, they were infected. How come we weren't all infected?"
"It probably travels through blood transfer," Dominic says. "I'm sure it'll evolve other methods, but for now transfer is relatively difficult for it to achieve". He pauses. "Emma, you have to get out of here".
I nod. Although part of me wants to stay to help these people, there's a more pragmatic voice at the back of my head, reminding me that there's no honour in throwing my life away. "What will you do?" I ask.
"The reactor will kill us in less than a day," Dominic says. "I guess we'll take all the food, have a hell of a party and then wait for the inevitable".
"You should go now," Monica says to me. "When the reactor goes, it'll go big-time. You need to get away from here. I know it sounds crazy, but we have an old bicycle in storage. You can use it to get away from here as fast as possible. It'll be dark soon, you can travel by night, and we have some old maps you can take". She smiles, tears in her eyes. "Don't be sad, Emma. I don't know about the others, but it makes me feel better to know that at least you'll get out of here alive".
