Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds

by Peter Adam Salomon

  Eight billion people. M kept repeating the number while watching Levi cross one Step after another off the plan. Still more than three thousand to go. Some easier than others. Billy finished half of his two Steps within a day. Of course, Levi figured his second Step would take just about the whole three years.

  M didn’t understand what Ground Zero meant for Billy. He’d seen the term attached to other Steps. Yasmeen continued to run analysis on her Ground Zero based Steps, and her last update narrowed it down to just a handful of locations.

  Levi sent a steady stream of supplies to Billy’s Ground Zero from the moment he’d received the location, opening a spreadsheet from Stephanie and ordering every item on it. Plus, a spreadsheet from Amy. Another from Devid. And his own. Tens of millions of dollars spent in a day. Millions more every week filling storage rooms that no longer appeared in any official databases.

  The doorbell rang.

  Levi switched his monitor to the feed from the door. Cathy stood there with a pizza.

  “Happy Birthday,” she said, handing him the food. “It was in the morning announcements, not that you go to school any more. How the hell did you work that?”

  “I’m home-schooled.”

  Cathy glanced around the darkened living room, the mess covering every surface. “Someone else lives here?”

  He shrugged, leaning against the wall.

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” she said, pushing a stack of papers off the couch in order to sit. “My last report card had far better grades than my sorry ass could get in a hundred years, but I think you know that already.”

  Levi went into the kitchen, returning with two paper plates. He handed a slice to her before taking one for himself and finding space on the couch. “Easier than doing your homework.”

  She choked on her first bite, laughing too hard. “Hacking the school is easier?”

  “Hacking anything is easier.”

  “Is that why my ex and his asshole friends ended up repeating all their classes?”

  Levi took a bite of pizza and then smiled.

  “Thank you,” she said, putting her plate to the side and reaching a hand out to rest on Levi’s arm.

  “For what?”

  “Not holding me back like them, my granddad would’ve killed me.”

  “I thought about it.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Levi studied the way her fingers rested on his skin, the chipped nail polish flaked off in random patterns. “Every so often you kept them from really hurting me.” He pulled his arm away. “You still laughed at what they were doing.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Sorry about that, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “Bunch of assholes at my old school used to pick on my brother. It was bad, put him in the hospital. I tried to protect him the only way I knew how but it was too late. Tried to protect you the same way. I tried.”

  “You protected me?” Levi stood, pacing the room. “How did you protect me?”

  Cathy pushed piles of crap out of the way until she reached his side, grabbing his arm to pull him to a stop. Close enough for vanilla to wash over him. Close enough for her hair to scratch against his cheek.

  “I do not want to talk about what I did,” she said. “Not now, not ever. Understood? I tried. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.”

  Levi nodded.

  For the first time, she smiled, leaning ever closer. “I broke up with him.”

  “How long?” L asked.

  “Twenty-six hours, forty minutes.”

  “How long did I sleep for?”

  “Seven hours, fifty-nine minutes.”

  L rolled over, staring at the empty half of the bed. She reached out, resting her hand on the pillow.

  “How is he?”

  “All systems operating within recommended stasis parameters.”

  “The other medpod is a stasis chamber, too?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “I’m running out of time, aren’t I?”

  “That information is not located in any accessible databases.”

  “Access secure databases.”

  “DNA authorization required.”

  L threw the pillow against the screen that appeared on the wall.

  “Access denied.”

  She laughed. Kept laughing while wandering the empty metal corridors, exploring empty metal rooms, her laughter echoing the empty metal hallways.

  “There’s no more DNA on the planet,” she said. “None. Nowhere. Is there?”

  “Negative. No radio or wireless signals indicative of human habitation. Sensors detect no biosignatures above the microbial level.”

  “How are the satellites?”

  “Satellites have decreased to a maximum 68.564% efficiency, diagnostic and repair no longer productive. Taking into account software and hardware degradation, there is no way to determine how long they will continue operating with enough scope to cover the planet.”

  “See, no more DNA.” L entered another empty room, resting her forehead against the wall. “Access secure databases.”

  The panel opened next to her. “DNA authorization required.”

  “Where am I supposed to find DNA?”

  “That information is not located in any accessible databases.”

  “Wasn’t talking to you, wasn’t talking to M, wasn’t talking to anyone. There’s no one to talk to. No one.”

  She slid down the wall, hair falling into her face as she curled into a ball on the floor.

  “I need DNA, but there’s no DNA. I don’t want to die, so I keep killing myself.” L stretched the stiffness out of her shoulders, wiping tired eyes with her palms. “Why can’t I just die?”

  “That information is not located in any accessible databases.”

  “Wasn’t asking you.”

  L took one last look around the blank room before leaving. Level F, Vault 0601 imprinted on the small plaque in the corridor. She kept checking the vaults on the way to the infirmary. Twenty-one with nothing but unopened boxes of diapers. Fourteen with infant formula. Far too many locked, most of the open ones empty.

  “Isn’t there any DNA around here someplace?”

  “There are—” the computer said.

  “Really wasn’t asking you.”

  “—Currently five operating stasis units within the habitat.”

  She stopped walking, blood draining from her head, leaving her mind foggy and indistinct. “Five?” L asked and then she collapsed, twitching, to the floor.

  L crawled, feet slipping on the floor, muscles twitching too violently to control. She pulled herself down the corridor, blood trailing from her fingernails, clenching to fight the spasms. The light dimmed, everything out of focus.

  “Medical emergency, please respond.”

  “Time?” L asked through chattering teeth.

  “Twenty-two hours, forty-seven minutes.”

  “How much…how much further?”

  “The infirmary is sixteen feet ahead of you.”

  L collapsed, no longer able to crawl. Inch by inch, she squirmed her way across the metal floor. Keeping her eyes closed to stop the world from spinning around her. Heart beating too rapidly, breathing too fast, moving too slow.

  “How far?”

  “The infirmary is three feet ahead of you.”

  She stopped, struggling to take a deep breath. The door opened, medpod waiting, out of focus, but there.

  “You can do this.” She took another breath and lunged forward, crawled forward, slipped forward. Just kept moving until she felt the base of the medpod beneath her twitching fingers. One more deep breath, and she pushed up, dragging herself with bloody fingernails into the lowered chair.

  Then, finally safe, she killed herself.

  Amy gazed at the CPU. She’d made it as small as possible while still containing an operating system, Wi-Fi, and one vital piece of software. Darkweb coding pieces of a puzzle she’d spent a year putting together. The pr
ogram worked in conjunction with the hardware she’d designed in order to impact one specific part of the brain: the diencephalon.

  Together, the whole effectively served to electronically mimic retrograde amnesia.

  The motherboard glistened, smaller than one of those old postage stamps her grandfather used to collect. Half a dozen insulated threads spreading out from the hardware gave it the appearance of a square spider.

  “You’re so beautiful,” she said.

  Five more sat on her desk, trailing their own threads.

  She turned to the computer, opening the encrypted messaging service to text Devid.

  >>Done. I’m done.

  L studied the six tiny boxes Amy had arranged on the desk. They reflected the light despite whatever insulating material protected them, covering the metal visible through the translucent covering. The emotions burned the images into memory, but more images kept replacing them.

  And you thought it would take you another year, sweetheart. I’m proud of you.

  >>Deadline’s coming up, I didn’t have another year. Plus, I have another assignment. For now, I’m proud of me, too. Proud of you. Proud of all of us.

  Thanks. But I’m not done, yet.

  >>You’ll get there, I have faith in you. Anything I can do?

  Not unless you’ve started studying aeresolization behavior and the stabilization of biologic materials in relation to their dustiness ratios in order to create a non-aerosol distribution mechanism.

  >>How about I just distract you for a few minutes?

  What did you have in mind?

  >>Me, you, video?

  Sounds wonderful…crap, hold on, Levi wants to talk to everyone.

  >>Something happen?

  An invitation message opened with the URL for a private chat room before Devid replied to her text.

  Yasmeen figured it out, I think Levi’s picked a date.

  >>About time.

  “Clear.”

  L begged anyone who might listen, trying to stay just long enough to see the website.

  M wanted to disappear, knowing Levi’s first kiss should be a private moment. He’d been Levi for years, experiencing every moment of his life. Knew everything about him, sometimes thought of himself as Levi. Easier to think of himself that way, simpler to forget he believed he’d seen the future.

  Of course, sometimes he questioned his own sanity. Maybe he was Levi’s conscience and Levi had banished that fragment of himself, ignoring it. Had a part of Levi grown so terrified by the magnitude of his plan it had developed its own consciousness? Was that what he was? Were the long stretches of blackness, emptiness, and shadow when Levi slept his punishment for not being fully supportive of Levi’s ARMAGEDDON dream?

  And now, see, right here, right now, right in front of him, there’s life. Happiness, joy, all that good stuff. He remembered kissing. Or tried to remember. He’d loved someone once. His own Cathy. That wasn’t her name. He’d forgotten her name long ago, if she’d ever been real. Forgotten what she’d looked like. He tried to remember. So much to remember, so many things to tell her. If only he knew her name.

  Or, for that matter, if only he remembered his own.

  Did remembering matter? Not really, no. He was probably Levi. He lived Levi’s life. Experienced Levi’s first kiss.

  Levi closed his eyes.

  M stared into the blackness, emptiness, and shadows until Levi opened his eyes.

  Cathy smiled. “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

  Levi pushed his way past her and took a drink.

  She reached out, pulling him closer. “No, it’s not a bad thing, really. I’ve no idea what I’m doing either. Not this, with you. This isn’t why I came over. I should leave.”

  M watched her walk to the door, the way her hair covered her shoulders, hiding so much of her from view.

  “You’re not going to ask me to stay?” She turned with her hand on the door, the smile fading.

  Levi dropped the empty cup into the pile of crap filling the living room, shook his head.

  Cathy opened the door.

  “Stay. Please?”

  So, she stayed.

  L blinked.

  “Where are they?” she asked.

  “Please repeat your request.”

  “Those five stasis units you told me about, where are they?”

  “One is in the Infirmary.”

  “The other four?”

  “That information is not located in any accessible databases.”

  L threw the empty injector into the wall where it bounced off without damage.

  “Alert me at nineteen hours,” she said.

  “Nineteen hours and counting.”

  L stood next to M's stasis pod and inserted a food pouch. Her notebook sat on the tray beside a neat row of vials but she’d nothing new to write. No need to try remembering anything. The real mystery was here, now. Four more pods. With their potential DNA waiting.

  She changed her mind, grabbing the notebook. The highest level contained their residences, everything else accessed through corridors and ladders, with some doors locked behind panels requesting more DNA.

  Down one level to B, more empty rooms, one full of useless tents, several of the largest of them an interconnected massive server farm, plus the vault of yellow vials. She’d explored to level F without finding anything. How many levels to explore? How long before she’d need to return to die?

  “Are there any other infirmaries?”

  “Level I, Vault 0218 is a designated triage unit with basic medical equipment.”

  “Does it have a medpod?”

  “Affirmative.”

  She descended all the way to I, ignoring the chance to explore the levels she passed in order to get her supplies safely stored in the other infirmary. Safer than exploring first and running out of time if she discovered a problem with the pod. The door opened, the light flickering on. Exact same setup as upstairs, two medpods attached to the floor.

  “Everything work in here?”

  “Running diagnostics now.”

  L lined the yellow vials on a shelf. Food coloring, that’s all. No reason not to make it purple. She liked purple better.

  “Medpods online, functioning at 100%.”

  “Time?”

  “Four hours, fifteen minutes.”

  L climbed to G, before walking the corridor opening doors into one empty room after another. H, rooms filled with useless furniture, boxes of assembly-required cribs and thousands of vacuum-packed mattresses rolled up and stacked to the ceiling. Hundreds of empty rooms. I, where the infirmary waited for her.

  Level I, Vault 001, read the plaque where the corridor ended. She stood in front of the door until it opened.

  The light came on, illuminating a bed, chair, desk, and table. No sheets on the bed, no clothes in the dresser, nothing in the closet.

  Level I, Vault 002. Another room, like a hotel, room after room, prepared for guests she knew would never arrive. More empty rooms. More storage rooms. Rooms with chairs. Desks. Dressers. Computer monitors. Massive amounts of supplies filling each one. It wasn’t DNA, but it was more interesting than the emptiness of the majority of the rooms upstairs.

  Passing the infirmary, she continued on through the rest of I. More storage. An entire room filled with nothing but the small white notebooks they’d used for taking notes. Another with the pens they’d used. Fifteen with spare medpods far too small to replace the ones in the Infirmaries.

  L descended to J. Stood in front of the first door.

  Behind the metal and glass doors of refrigerated compartments, row after row after row of food pouches. Thousands, hundreds of thousands. More than she’d ever use if she lived another few dozen years. Besides, she figured she’d be in a stasis pod long before then.

  Level J, Vault 002 through 093. The doors opened. More food pouches. Enough to feed thousands of people for decades.

  Level J, Vault 094. The door opened. Uncountable numbers of yello
w vials sparkled in the fluorescent light as far as she could see.

  L laughed. Nothing to do but laugh. She laughed mostly for M, always worrying about eating too much. Or going through vials too quickly. No choice but to laugh. There’d never been any danger of running out of anything.

  She descended to K.

  Even the ladder changed. Longer. And when she reached the floor, the ladder ended rather than continuing to any further lower levels.

  It was a little chillier, enough for her to notice, not enough to make it cold. The floor and walls and ceiling the exact same metal. The same fluorescent lights. The same recycled air.

  The corridor far wider than the others. Each door bigger, taller. And locked.

  “DNA authorization required.”

  L rested her palm on panel after panel.

  “Access denied.”

  “Is there some kind of override or anything?”

  “Negative.”

  Hundreds of doors stretching off so far into the distance that the corridor curved out of sight before she saw an end. Far longer than any of the upper levels. She returned to the ladder, thousands of rungs through each level to reach the main residences far above.

  L climbed.

  She curled into bed and drew a rudimentary sketch of the levels she’d searched. From the top, where she slept, to the bottom with the giant doors. Eleven levels. Far too many locked doors.

  “Do you have blueprints or something of the habitat?”

  “Accessing secure databases. DNA authorization required.”

  L held the drawing up. “Can you scan this?”

  “Affirmative.”

  A 3-D rendering appeared on the monitor next to the bed.

  “Can you mark the rooms I’ve been in?”

  “Accessing logs.”

  She tried staying awake, but soon fell asleep. The alarm at nineteen hours woke her.

  The computer chimed.

  “Visited rooms are designated in red.” On the monitor, less than half of the rooms on the model contained red circles.

  “Can you mark the locked rooms?”