The End The Beginning (Humanity's New Dawn Book 1)

by Ryan Horvath

  “I’m at the Carlton Hotel downtown.” Simon paused. “I never would have thought it would be this nice in Minnesota this time of year,” he said gazing out his window.

  “It’s been a little unseasonable,” Ian said, “but not entirely uncommon. In a few weeks it could certainly be snowing. You’ll see… if we’re still here that is.”

  “Why do you say that?” Simon asked.

  “Our plan is to get out of town. I’m not sure how sure any of us were of that before but since you arrived and showed us that… thing, I think we’re all pretty much convinced getting outta here is the right thing to do.” He paused a few seconds and then added, “Man, I can’t believe this. Can you imagine what would happen if this got out?”

  Simon didn’t answer immediately, feelings of guilt over what he had nearly done crept over him. Images of the aftermath of the massive earthquake in Japan in 2011 came back to him: a mess of people fighting in panic and chaos for the last little bit of resources. He then recalled an appropriate quote though he couldn’t remember where he had heard it: A person is smart. People is one big dumb panicky animal. “I guess I’d like to think the best of people but riots and chaos are far more likely,” he finally responded quietly.

  Ian looked at Simon thoughtfully.

  “So would you tell me about the three of you and the cat?” Simon said.

  “Well, we three guys all went to The U together, that’s what we call the University of Minnesota. We all grew up around the Twin Cities but different areas. Brian’s from St. Louis Park but he’s been in Florida since we finished college. I’m from Crystal. Both of those burbs are just west of Minneapolis. Jack-Hammer, sorry, I have this thing with Jack’s name. There’re so many phrases with ‘Jack’ in them I’m always calling him something different. Anyway, Flap-Jack grew up in Minneapolis itself. We never met growing up but Black-Jack and my little league teams played each other once when we were younger.” Ian signaled a right turn and waited at a NO TURN ON RED light.

  “Are your families still around?” Simon asked. He smiled at Ian’s cleverness with Jack’s name.

  “More than less. Brian moved out here with his folks when he was ten. His dad got relocated for work. Bri’s the youngest of six and by the time he graduated his parents were retirement age. They fled to Florida.” Ian was surprised he was being so candid with Simon but he felt comfortable with this man. It was like Brian had said. Simon fit perfectly into the puzzle. Ian continued, “My mom and dad moved to Arizona after I finished college. Mom wanted to get out of the cold and got offered a vice principal job at a high school in Tucson. Dad’s a mechanic and knew he could find work anywhere; and he did.” He paused for a second and then said, “Geez, fuck, I sure hope I get to see them again.”

  “And Jack?” Simon queried after a moment.

  “He lost his adopted-dad about two and a half years before graduation. His mom died in a car accident about eight months later,” Ian replied.

  “Oh, that’s terrible. Were they a close family?” Simon inquired.

  “Close enough and their deaths certainly affected Jack-Bean for a while. His dad was a cop. A good cop and a good man. I only knew him for a couple years but I liked the guy. And, cop or no cop he never had a problem with the gay thing,” Ian said.

  “The gay thing? Jack is gay?” Simon asked.

  “Yeah, he sure is. Although you’d never know by any of the stereotypes. Apple-Jack’s as butch and masculine as any straight man I’ve ever met, maybe even more so. He hunts, plays football, watches NASCAR. He drinks dark beer and hard liquor warm and straight. He’s got no hair on his chest but he can kick your ass and mine.” Ian paused a moment for a left turn. “And while he doesn’t dress as sloppily as some of the Straights I know, he’s not one of those metrosexuals either. I think he always wanted to impress and looked up to his father.”

  “What about Brian… and are you?” Simon questioned. He had an interesting possible discovery blossoming in his mind.

  “Me, no. I’m a straight arrow. I tried fucking a dude once but it wasn’t for me. Give me a fuzzy clam any day,” Ian replied with a wry smirk.

  Simon chuckled at Ian’s frankness.

  “Bri is though. A dude chaser, that is,” Ian continued. “He and Jack-And-The-Beanstalk were sweet on each other during our senior year of college but I guess they fell apart after Brian left for Florida.”

  “What about now?” Simon asked.

  “I’m not sure about now although there’s been plenty of noise coming out of Monterey-Jack’s bedroom this week since Brian and I have been up to visit. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say they are picking up where they left off last year,” Ian surmised and paused. “If we get through whatever’s coming, that is,” he added.

  “So there’s been no indication of a… change in their sexuality since the other changes have occurred to them?” Simon prodded.

  Stopped at another red light, Ian looked at Simon puzzled. “Jack-Knife’s head board bounced against the wall for forty-five minutes last night. I’m pretty sure there’s been no change in their sexuality. I mean, c’mon, once you know you like what you like, that can’t be changed.”

  “Thank you for making my point,” Simon said. The car was moving again and Simon could see the Carlton Hotel not far up ahead. He could not stop his mind from thinking scientifically. “If this thing that’s happening to us and others is indeed evolution, disease eradication and pollution nullification, but at the same time, it’s happening to two homosexual men without affecting their sexual preference then it stands to reason that homosexuality is not a mental disorder or a gene defect as it was thought to be for so many years. Human sexual preference would definitely be rooted in our individual genes.”

  “Huh?” Ian said, stupefied.

  “Don’t you see? Jack’s HIV? I’ve read reports of other miraculous recoveries from incurable diseases as well. If homosexuality were a disease or disorder, don’t you think it would be wiped out with all these other changes?” Simon posited.

  Ian thought about this for a moment. “Yes, I suppose that makes sense. But I never thought there was anything wrong with my queer friends.”

  Simon laughed out loud and Ian smiled back at him. Ian then guided his car into the pull through for the Carlton Hotel. Neither he nor Simon was aware that a text message exchange in the building across the street had just begun, distracting a mad man with horrible green eyes from catching sight of them.

  “I’ll be two shakes,” Simon said. “My room is right near the elevator and only on the third floor.”

  “I’ll be here,” Ian replied.

  Moments later Simon reappeared. He opened the rear passenger side door and tossed in a black computer bag that looked ready to explode at its bulging seams.

  “What’s all that?” Ian asked.

  “Just some clothes, cash, and my computer. My computer’s software is a bit more advanced that my tablet’s is.” Simon was excited to continue the conversation with Ian. “So how did you all meet?” he asked Ian.

  “We all met when we were freshman.” Ian drove out of the Carlton Hotel’s pull through and into light city traffic. After Ian rounded the block and headed back to Jack’s, the green eyed mad man across from the Carlton Hotel turned his attention back to the street below. “I was watching the Daytona five in the common room at our dorm. Brian joined me and through our mutual love of the sport, we became instant buds. Brian and Jack-Mackerel met when they were both taking a class on infectious and dangerous plants. Brian was taking it for his botany degree and Jack for his nursing degree. Brian introduced me to Jack-pine at a pool hall a couple weeks later and we’ve been tight ever since. The start of our second year, we pooled our funds and got an apartment together. The cat, River, she just appeared on Phone-Jack’s deck on Monday. The next day, I saved her life.” Ian could again feel his flesh being torn by talons and tried to put the thoughts out of his mind.

  “That’s all pretty cool. It’s funny how rand
om events in our lives can bring us together isn’t it?” Simon said.

  “Yes indeed-a-le-dood-ly,” Ian replied.

  “So you said it was Jack’s step-father who raised him?” Simon asked.

  “Yeah, and adoptive. I think he married Split-Jack’s mom when he was like, three or four,” Ian answered.

  “What about Jack’s biological father? What happened to him?” Simon had a pretty good idea that he knew what happened to him.

  “Jack-Squat never talks about him,” Ian replied. “I don’t think he knows who he is. Once, he said his mom said he’s named after his dad. I don’t know if he knows more or maybe he just doesn’t and doesn’t want to press his mom. Besides Marcus, that’s the step-dad, was a good provider and, I guess, all the father Pepper-Jack ever needed or wanted.”

  Simon thought about this. He wondered if it could be true. The younger man certainly fit the right age to be the older man’s son. They shared names. They shared physical features. Both men had come into Simon’s life after the object had arrived. Of course, it had to be true. He decided he’d ask Jack about it sometime. Just then, he’d realized he’d gone quiet and he felt Ian’s eyes on him. Simon also realized that he’d gotten a lot of information from Ian and not given anything about himself.

  “Well, is there anything you want to know about me?” Simon volunteered.

  “Twenty-eight going on eighteen; astrophysicist; sought by CIA assassins; kind of a nerd. I think I’ve got you worked out just fine,” Ian answered with his cocky grin.

  Simon laughed heartily for the second time, catching on to Ian’s joking. He really liked this guy and he realized they were going to be good friends. He hoped that friendship would last longer than the coming days.

  With that thought, Ian parked the car back in front of Jack’s townhouse. Once in the space, he reconsidered and pulled back out of the space. “On second thought,” he said, “in case we run out of room for the stuff in the garage, we might need a second vehicle. And since you’ve hitched up with us and Bri is expecting more hitchers, a second car isn’t going to hurt one bit.”

  “I’ll bite again. What’s in the garage? And where are we going?” Simon asked as Ian drove his car into Jack’s driveway.

  “We’re going west. Just getting out of the city and laying low for a few days. I think Jack-Be-Nimble will want to come back but I can’t say for sure. After that, I’m not sure what we’ll do. As for the garage, c’mon and see,” Ian said and got out of the car. Simon got out too and took his bag from the backseat. Jack had opened the service door to the right of the garage.

  “That was fast,” Jack said.

  “You know me. Speedy. ‘Cept in the sack. Step into our parlor, Dr. Shepherd,” Ian said waving Simon through the door.

  Inside, unable to take it all in at once, Simon stared around the space. It was crowded with guns, ammo, a crossbow, Kevlar, boxes of canned food, and cases of bottled drinks. There were deadly hunting knives and throwing stars on a table. Sets of silverware and cookware sat next to them. A metal baseball bat and an axe leaned against the rear rim of Jack’s vehicle. Two tents and four bagged lawn chairs occupied a corner with three rolled sleeping bags. There was a slate chalkboard on the wall next to the door Simon assumed led into the house. Written on it were about three dozen items, a lot of which like food, water, and shot guns had been crossed off. Some of the uncrossed words were gas, propane, more sleeping bags, and more hand guns.

  To Simon, it looked like he’d stepped into an episode of Doomsday Preppers.

  As he took everything in, all Simon could say was an almost whispered, “Holy shit!”

  46

  THE OBJECT

  While the object from deep space did not know it by name, it currently cruised overhead of the continent of Antarctica. Thousands of miles away, Ian Turner and Simon Shepherd returned to Jack Voight’s townhouse where it looked like a fallout shelter and mini armory rolled into one in the garage. Amanda Breck waited patiently and worriedly for some kind of rescue or solution to present itself where she lay bound to a table in a chilly, dark, mildew reeking place. Karen Thomas and the dog named Blaze were catching some sleep in the small town of Farmington, Minnesota where they had come across a quaint bed and breakfast owned and run by a very lovely older couple. Art Spektor stood at his bathroom window staring down at a street where the person he had been waiting for had come and gone while Art had been distracted. The late Jack Thomas, unbeknownst to his widow, was turning into ashes in a secret CIA crematorium where a defeated looking CIA Director Hayes stood watching with reflected flames dancing in his glassy eyes. It was Thursday afternoon.

  The smaller portion of liquid that comprised the object’s insides was nearly fully expelled into the atmosphere. The object had no concept of time but the reality was this phase of emission would complete around 5:00 PM on Friday afternoon. Once the smaller quantity of this first liquid was entirely drained from the object, the second larger quantity of liquid would take what would amount to approximately sixty hours to be ready for release. The time between, the object would use to scan and analyze the planet to ensure the first liquid had done its purpose. The object did not know that the first liquid had not ever failed. It was simply the programming that would make the object make this confirmation.

  The first liquid the object released was unlike anything anyone on the planet below had ever seen. Inside the object, its color would have been described as viscous yellowish amber. As this liquid was released from the object into the atmosphere, it quickly evaporated into the gaseous state and was as clear as the air around it.

  The first liquid showered down on the planet was not designed to affect everything on the planet below. Nor would it produce the same result for everything it did affect.

  Plant life on the planet would not be afflicted by either liquid from the object. However certain toxic algae blooms that were caused by excessive pollution levels would be eradicated. Life in the lakes, rivers, streams, and oceans would go on unchanged. The great white shark would still hunt and feed in the waters of the planet’s largest ocean. Salmon would continue to swim upstream to their spawning places in the planet’s third largest continent’s northwestern region. Swans would persevere and make their pair bonds and nesting places on the banks of ponds and the shores of lakes all across the surface below.

  Land dwelling wild life would also endure unaffected. A grizzly bear would still hibernate in a cave through the cold winters. Sidewinder snakes would still survive and undulate their bodies across desert sands as they had for thousands of years before. Dominant male lions would still lead large prides of lesser males, deadly females, and playful cubs in the grasslands. Lemurs would still watch the world around them with their large eyes in the rain forests.

  The first liquid was designed to affect the dominant species of the planet whose population had reached dangerous and near catastrophic levels. The liquid would also affect certain animals the dominant species had domesticated. Not all the dogs, cats, small birds, reptiles, and fish would undergo changes and the object did not know and did not care what happened to the domesticated animals that did not respond to the effects of the first liquid. The object simply had no programming for such concerns as that.

  The first liquid had another purpose. When it was released into the atmosphere of this highly polluted planet, a chemical reaction started to take place. The outcome of this reaction was akin to the atmosphere being attached to a great filtration system and as the winds of the planet blew, its atmosphere was continuously pushed through this filter. The result was that the air became cleaner; cleaner, in fact, than it had been in this planet’s past one hundred years of history.

  As the skies were scrubbed, the water cycle of the world carried on. Evaporation took place as did the subsequent condensation. Soon, the planets waters were cleaner and fresher than they had been in almost seventy of the planet’s years.

  Every member of the dominant species breathed in the first liquid w
hile the object did its continuous orbits. However, not every representative of that species would react to this inhalation until the release of the second liquid.

  Those who did take notice of the effects of the object’s first liquid would experience various things. Some would overcome incurable diseases. Some would experience precognition. Some would become aware of heightened senses.

  Others would gain strength, agility, agelessness, and higher brain function. The percentage of the planet’s top species population that would notice these effects was designed to be very small.

  Pair bonds between some of these individuals and animals would form.

  When the second liquid inside the object was released, it would come out much faster than the first, with its much larger quantity expelling from the object in a fraction of the time it took the first liquid to release.

  After the second liquid completed its integration with the planet’s atmosphere, those individuals who did not respond to the effects of the first liquid would soon react to the combined ingestion of the two liquids.

  It would not go well for those individuals.

  But the object cared not about such things. It simply was not programmed to care.

  The survival of the planet was dependent on this happening. That was in the object’s programming.

  And now, Friday afternoon, the object approached what the humans below called Chicago, Illinois. It was a bright clear day over this region. The planet’s natural orbiting satellite was starting to pass between the object and the star situated ninety three million miles away. The planet’s surface below darkened.