Nobis shook his head slightly. He seemed tired.
“I left most of that stuff out. Like I said, I do investigations.”
“What happened on your world, Nobis?”
“It got smaller. It’s just a piece of rock now, the size of one of your lesser asteroids. My self-replicating, robotic bacteria were carbon-based. In a matter of decades they destroyed every living thing on the surface of the planet. Then they ate the planet. Only then did they stop replicating, although I don’t have any doubt a few of them are in interstellar space right now, looking for a galaxy to gobble up.”
“My God,” Zane Red Star said. He lost his grip on his whiskey glass and it shattered on the tile floor.
Walpole said sharply, “We have nothing to fear! Our nannies were designed to live on proteins unique to the human heart valve! When their food supply is exhausted, they—”
“Mutate,” Nobis said.
A Mexican houseman appeared in a doorway to announce, “Dinner is served.” Nobody moved or looked at him. He shook his head and retreated.
“Impossible,” Walpole said.
“Very little remains of the corpses of your first nine victims. What’s left has been placed in sealed titanium containers; they’re on the way to the deepest hole in the oceans—the Mariana Trench. That will slow the nannies down, but not stop them. They’ll continue to multiply from the minerals in seawater once they’re exposed to it. As for the tenth victim—”
“There is no tenth victim!” Mian cried. “We only wanted to make it clear to five of the world’s most powerful men that they must cooperate or they would be next.”
“There are men who are pure in their faith, others who are pure in their evil. I’m sorry. At your level of social development conflict never stops. As for the tenth victim—I ate one of your little cars yesterday; what it contained is now eating me. Doesn’t matter. I’ve had a dozen different bodies since I was removed from my planet and given a second chance.”
“Removed? By whom?” Mian asked. There were tears on her cheeks.
“Other galactic investigation teams. There are four hundred billion stars in this galaxy alone, and it’s not one of the biggest. My dot on the map contains a hundred million star systems with cognitive life on at least that many planets. Some as pretty as this one. But there are always kids who like to play with matches, and supposedly grown-up scientists who come up with foolproof schemes to ensure a more perfect world. You ought to have considered unintended consequences. Too bad.”
Sven Ullberg said, “Are you telling us Earth is—”
“On the endangered list? I wish the news was that good, Sven. No, we’re writing the planet off.”
“We?”
“The Intergalactic Union.”
Walpole said, “B—but . . . there must be something—”
“No. I am sorry about that. Our only concern is that the nannies you’ve infected yourselves with don’t spread to other planets in the system. Anyway, I’m being removed. The work goes on, sniffing out other misguided tinkerers before they succeed in destroying entire planets.”
“Is that all we are?” Walpole said in a fit of ego. “Misguided tinkerers?”
“What are you going to do to us?” Mian asked Nobis.
“There’s something worse than what you five already have set in motion?”
“I . . . I guess not.”
“But we’re always on the lookout for talent. I think if you hadn’t been turned into a quadriplegic ten years ago by a drunk driver, you would’ve been thinking a little more clearly, Mian. Your mind is the best of the lot. I’ve been downloading it for the past ten minutes.”
“But I’m—”
“We’ll fix you up, when we get to my little dot on the map.”
“What about me?” Walpole said. “You can’t just take my wife away from me!”
“How do we get there, Nobis?” Mian asked.
“We close our eyes.”
“It’s that fast?”
Smiling, she closed her eyes. No farewell glance at her husband.
Pierre Saint-Philèmon and various government and local law enforcement officers were watching from a mesa four miles from the hidden valley when the dwelling and outbuildings of Edward Walpole’s compound blew sky-high. Behind them the sun was going down. After a minute or two of silent watching, they all walked down to where the SUVs were parked with motors running.
A senior bureau official said to Saint-Philèmon, “So that appears to be that. What do you think, Pierre? Could Nobis have been right? We’ve only got ten years, maybe twenty?”
“Je ne sais quoi.”
“So what’s next for you? Back to Brussels?”
“To pick up my early retirement check. Then I shall catch a flight to Guadeloupe, buy a small boat, and spend as much of my days and nights as possible enjoying the sun, the sea, the women, the cognac. And the stars. Ah, the stars.”
“Sounds like a plan,” the FBI guy said wistfully.
Infinitely small, self-replicating eating machines going about their singular business until nothing remains of our planet but another lonely rock tumbling in space. Just call it an anomaly in the progression of scientific ingenuity. Or, to put it another way—there are no limits to the perversity of human beings, and even the most brilliant among us are merely carbon-based fodder for the appetites of our own creations.
DEAD POST
BUMPER
Dean Wesley Smith
For your consideration, the desert-preserved remains of one Elliot Leiferman, successful businessman, world traveler, and husband. He had earned everything he felt he needed: a beautiful home in Malibu and all the money he could spend. Talk of the world ending annoyed him, nothing more. His world was orderly, well-planned, and in his control. And he planned on keeping it that way, no matter what his wife believed. What he didn’t plan on was an afternoon drive to the end of the world, and the edge of . . . the Twilight Zone.
Elliot Leiferman: Summer 2016 near Death Valley
The dust and light sand swirled along the edge of the ancient road like a runner fleeing a threat, twisting in streamers on the dry desert wind, vanishing, then appearing a step or two later. The sagebrush whipped back and forth, its faint rustling quickly snapped away by the force of the hot wind and the empty nothingness of the desert. A fence of rusted wire and old wood ran ragged beside the road, sometimes upright, other times nothing more than a remnant of splinters mostly covered in sand.
The road, gray with age, vanished under sand drifts and piles of dry sagebrush as it stretched into the distance. Nothing but dust and sand and waves of heat had traveled down it in a very long time.
The rusting hulk of an old automobile rested on four flat tires, tipped slightly in a shallow ditch. One of its two doors hung open and the hood of the car was tucked against a still-upright fence post. The metal figure of a leaping wildcat adorned the hood, and the word JAGUAR in metal script rusted on faded blue paint.
A man’s body sat behind the steering wheel, the skin mummified in the heat and dry air and constant wind, the old seat belt still holding the body in position. Dead eyes stared at the fence post against the hood of the car as if it were an insult to even the living.
Dust swirled inside the car for a moment and then settled over the thick layer already covering the seats and floor. Sand was building a dune against one side of the car, already up to the bottom of the windows. In ten more years the car and man inside would be nothing more than a large pile of sand, and the highway would be completely covered.
Elliot Leiferman: December 20, 2012, Malibu, California
Elliot watched in disgust as his wife, Casandra Lieferman—Candy, to her few remaining friends—grunted as she lowered her large bulk into a chair beside the bed. She had a chocolate-covered maple bar in one hand and a large vodka-tonic in the other, three limes of course, more vodka in the tumbler than tonic by a factor of two.
Nothing he could say, no amount of pleading, begging, thre
atening, had helped Candy to either stop her drinking problem or go on a diet. His thin bride of eighteen years had ballooned in the last three years to over 350 pounds and she now regularly downed ten vodka-tonics in tumblers before dinner. He gave up counting how many she had every night after her huge dinner. She just passed out in her bedroom, eating and drinking while watching television.
He had moved into his own bedroom almost two years ago.
Something had gone horribly wrong in both of their lives and their marriage, and he had no real idea what. He had remained thin, actually five pounds under their marriage weight, and he seldom drank anymore. His work took him around the world on business trips and for years Candy had gone with him on many of the trips.
But then, three years ago, it all changed and changed suddenly. She started drinking and eating and quickly grew tired of the traveling as well, deciding instead to simply stay at home and indulge herself.
At one point, a year ago, he had begged her to go to counseling with him and she had shrugged and gone along. But in the sessions it quickly became clear she was never going to stop either overeating or drinking. She just didn’t seem to see why she should.
When the counselor finally got her to tell him why, clearly, so that he, the counselor, could understand her, she had simply said, “Why not?”
“I still don’t understand,” the counselor had said.
Candy had looked at him with disgust, then said simply, “You haven’t heard? The world is ending December 21, 2012. So why shouldn’t I enjoy this last year?”
Since that point, Elliot and Candy had argued many, many times over her belief. He had kept asking her what if she was wrong, what then? She had flatly said time and time again that she wasn’t wrong.
He had demanded over and over for her to explain how she could be so certain.
“The Mayan calendar is ending on that date,” she always said, as if that explained everything. “I just know my life, your life, will end that day. I can feel it.”
Now, as he unpacked from his last trip, she sat in his bedroom on his dressing chair.
“Tomorrow’s the big day,” Candy said between bites of the maple bar and sips of the vodka-tonic. A large smear of chocolate streaked her cheek, but she didn’t seem to care. She hadn’t been out of her bathrobe in weeks, and he doubted from her sour smell that she had even taken a shower in that amount of time either. He had been in Europe the last two weeks and had only gotten home a few hours ago.
“So,” Elliot asked, repeating a question he had asked every time she said something about her insanity, “what happens if the world doesn’t end tomorrow?”
“Oh, it will,” she said before taking a huge bite of the maple bar, chewing twice, then washing it down with a large gulp of vodka.
Elliot just shook his head. How could a woman he had loved so deeply, still loved, actually, gone so far off track? He had read a dozen books about insanity and nothing about Candy’s seemed to even fit a pattern. He could even remember the night it had started. Back in 2009 she had come to bed late after watching a History Channel special on how the world was supposed to end on December 21, 2012, the last day of the Mayan calendar. She was both excited and agitated at the idea, and he had listened only halfheartedly to what she said that night.
Over the next few weeks after that, she never stopped talking about the topic, even on a trip together to London, one of her favorite cities. At one point she had stood looking up at Big Ben and asked, “Isn’t it a shame that all of this will be gone in three years?”
He had changed the subject, hating even talking about predictions of any future. That was for those crazies who believed in that mumbo-jumbo. He was a believer in right now. The present. Today. The future would be what the future would be. And Candy, up until that point, had been as down-to-earth as he was.
Not anymore. She was as crazy as they came.
He turned from his unpacking and looked at the mess of a human being his wife had become. “I guess tomorrow we shall see, won’t we?”
“That we will,” she said, smiling. “I plan on spending the day on the deck, watching the world end over the ocean. Would you like to join me?”
“Thank you, dear,” he said, turning back to his now almost empty suitcase on the bed so that she wouldn’t notice how disgusted at her he felt. “I’ll do my best to make it back from the office in time.”
“With the world ending, why bother to go into the office at all?”
He shrugged, keeping his back to her. “I just like the routine is all. It’s comforting.”
“Well, do hurry home,” she said. Then grunting, she hefted herself out of the chair and waddled down the hall toward the kitchen.
He had no intention of being home tomorrow, end of the world or not. He’d deal with her the following day, after her fixation had been proven wrong.
Then maybe he could help her, get her the help she needed.
Elliot Leiferman: December 21, 2012, near Death Valley
The car hit ninety easily as he took the Jaguar down the straightaway out onto the desert road headed toward Death Valley. The old highway was almost never used anymore, and to even get on it he had had to move a road-closed sign, but he loved the freedom of the straight pavement and the speed at which he could safely drive without worrying about any patrols stopping him.
Thunderclouds threatened in the low hills in the distance, but the cab of the Jaguar kept him comfortable from the intense heat and safe from the blowing sand. This morning Candy had been like a schoolgirl in her excitement. How anyone could be excited about the end of the world was beyond him, but for weeks the news reports had gone on and on about the Mayan calendar coming to an end today, and this morning’s headlines were END OF THE WORLD?
The entire thing just annoyed him.
It was not only stupid, but it had cost him the woman he loved. He wanted this over and done with, he wanted to help Candy get healthy again, stop drinking, lose weight, become the woman he had married.
But that wasn’t going to happen until he got home tonight and the world hadn’t ended. Then he could start helping her recover for real and maybe even get to the root cause of why she had believed the end was coming anyway.
The Jaguar’s smooth ride ate up mile after mile of the old road, taking him deeper and deeper into the desert. Even at this time of the year, the temperature outside was a baking ninety degrees and he had the air-conditioning holding him in comfort. He had come to learn that there were real advantages to having large amounts of money—the beautiful home in Malibu was one, this car was another.
He loved this car, and lately had taken more and more long drives in it when home, just to get away from Candy.
He looked out over the expanse of desert around him, letting himself relax into the drive. Wouldn’t it be funny if the world actually did end today while he was in the desert? He snorted to himself and snapped on the radio, letting it search for a radio station.
Normal music playing, no alarms, nothing different.
Nothing was ending today.
He let the miles drift by as he thought about all the wonderful times he and Candy used to have and the hope that starting tomorrow, they could rebuild that old life once again.
The sun was starting to touch the horizon; the day was nearing an end. Candy was going to need him later tonight. He had no doubt she would pass out from all the drinking, but at least he could be there to take care of her. For the first time in a year, he felt he wanted to. Something that she had believed in deeply was about to not happen and she would need help getting through that.
He let the car slow down to under sixty and glanced around at the vast expanse of nothingness. Amazing that in such a crowded place as California, there could be so many thousands of square miles of nothingness.
At that moment he noticed a faint light on the dashboard. He slammed on the brakes and came to a stop in the middle of the old road.
The gas warning light was on.
&n
bsp; Oh, God, no. He had no idea how long it had been on, but it was unlikely he had enough gas to make it back to the roadblock. That had to be seventy or more miles back, at least.
It had never occurred to him to get gas before he left. His thoughts had been on Candy and the end of the world, not his wonderful car.
He swung the Jaguar into a quick three-point turn on the narrow old road, and started back west into the glowing orange of the sun as it sat over the Pacific in the far distance.
He had to stay calm, think this through.
At that moment the finely tuned car that had run so smoothly for so long sputtered, caught again, then sputtered and shut down.
He was out of gas.
On a closed old highway near Death Valley.
Oh, God, oh God, oh God, what have I done?
The steering was heavy in his hands as he took the car out of drive and coasted to a stop.
At the last moment he eased the car off to the side of the road, letting the Jaguar come to rest in a very shallow ditch, its front bumper resting lightly against an old wooden post of a long-gone fence. No point in taking a chance that someone else out speeding on this old road would plow into his car in the middle of the night. He just hoped that bumping the old fence post hadn’t scratched the bumper.
He snapped out his cell phone and looked at the signal.
Nothing.
And he’d never bothered to have a tracking satellite system installed, even though the dealer had suggested it. He had never figured it would be needed in his drives around Malibu.
He glanced around.
Death Valley.
A closed road with no traffic.
Nothing within seventy or more miles of him.
God, oh God. What can I do? His stomach twisted as if he were about to be sick.
He couldn’t let himself panic. He had to think this through. If he panicked, he was as good as dead.
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