In the end, God never showed up.
Lights did come though. The police from the town twenty miles east.
HUMAN-KINGS
By Austin Biela
We have known that the universe would one day die. We learned that early in our history. We had the theories of the Big Bang and of entropic equilibrium, of a universal state where there would be nothing, things that pointed us to one, inevitable ending and we accepted that. We accepted it like a child accepts death; tragic when it happens to others but inconceivable for ourselves. It was too far in the future to consider by those who first discovered this. There was nothing to fear. It didn’t concern them beyond an idea to discuss with their peers. We focused on the present and the future we had ahead of us.
As human-kind developed, this looming certainty was shelved in the back of our minds. Within a few hundred years, human-kind began to explore its cosmic surroundings. We took our ships to the planets in our immediate solar system and colonized whatever we could, living out dreams of space exploration. In another millennium, we developed even faster ships that could take us even farther into the universe without tearing down, travelling along the expressways of sunbeams, and the technology suitable to make living in such a ship almost enjoyable. We fulfilled an existence-long ambition to meet the interstellar community. They gave us technology and in turn we gave them some of our own. The men and women who made these transactions described it as bizarre, “to think that such advanced life would trail behind in places where we have dominated.” Though it had to be reconfigured for their biology, our gifts of medical technology and pharmaceutical substances gave the first impression of human-kind to all of the interstellar community who heard. We were survivalists and survivors.
The next several thousand millennia proceeded at a brisk pace. Human-kind was brought into the fold of the universe’s culture, like the youngest child being taught all the tricks and secrets by their older siblings. We learned how to partake in universal politics, the best ways to discuss universal trade and even the proper, expected actions taken when engaging in war. Where there was disorder in the universe, this culture had maintained control. Those first alien races that had established this culture had passed down their values to its current occupants, the primary tenet being to make the best of the time they had now. Of course, there were always detractors and problem-starters. Warmongers, corrupt tradesmen, rambunctious races that decided they didn’t want to maintain control at all. This wasn’t us. Human-kind was glad that we were considered a valued part of the culture, an older sibling that needed to help integrate the next race that managed interstellar travel and met the challenge.
Still, there were times when human-kind couldn’t help but feel like it was being amused by our older siblings. They would watch in fascination as we would colonize worlds that would never be fit for hospitable existence. Instead of just building space stations, they would smirk as we talked about landing and building colonies on barren planetary bodies. They didn’t see the point in it. We could never live there naturally as a species. We could never grow cities the size of which we had on Earth or on other, more suitable planets. The same level of examination and investigation could easily be done with machines. What benefit was there to be had in looking at the rocks in person? We took it with a smile and laughed at how we just preferred it like this, while mumbling under our breaths and scowling when they weren’t looking. Why couldn’t they understand?
Other times, we were the ones who couldn’t understand. From time to time, we would have the sudden rise of doomsday cults. They would often start small and then die out. Other times, they’d grow and grow until nearly entire colonies were converted, proclaiming either the end of the planet, the solar system or of the universe itself. Human-kind tried to keep such groups quiet, especially when our older siblings were around to hear it, like a teenager with an embarrassing fascination. Instead, our older siblings only laughed and seemingly commended the doomsday groups for their acceptance. Our older siblings thought that, while it may have been silly to expect the end of days to come so quickly or to be soon, their embrace of the end was an example we could learn from. It didn’t sit well with us. In the collective mind of human-kind, our backburners began to heat up.
Thousands of millennia continued to pass. Human-kind saw many of our older siblings pass away. Their records and shared technology were all that was left of them. They had all been wiped out for various reasons. Victims of interstellar war that were caught off-guard and soon eradicated, a disease that boiled their bodies from the inside out and was too fast to properly diagnose, a freak accident of a meteor taking out their hive-mind collective. They all began to fade, until human-kind were the oldest sibling. We did our best to teach to the new ones what our predecessors had taught us, but our words were hollow. We discovered something about ourselves that we did our best to hide from those races under our tutelage. We had never really believed in the tenet of making the best of the time we had now. We had accepted it as individuals, but never as a race. Human-kind did not want to make the best of the time we had now. We didn’t want to give up our time. We had come too far, hadn’t we?
Apparently, others thought so as well. Soon, many of our younger siblings began to pass away, all for the same reasons our predecessors had. Yet human-kind remained, old and wise and powerful, having amassed the collective technology of the universal culture, including the technology that was no longer around. There was unrest in the culture. There were those races that called for human-kind to share the amassed power we had and to step back from universal politics. They began to call us, as best as we could translate, “human-kings.” This was theoretical of course. Human-kind had no one political power or advantage over any other race. We may have made our mistakes, but as a whole, we did not control or strong-arm any race into doing something they were against nor did we lord what we had over our younger siblings. No, what they were calling for was our death, for us to let them take our place and fade away with the rest of our older siblings. They thought we had lived for too long.
There were even some races that tried to enact our demise. They would gather in secret before launching an attack, their metal battalions battering down on an unsuspecting colony. Sometimes, they were even able to win a fight but one colony was all that they ever acquired. While the fear of extinction had separated us from our younger siblings, it had united us as a race. Death on a universal scale was no longer tolerated and retribution was efficient upon our foes. Those usurpers that survived only went on to say that, the closer human-kind came to death, the harder we fought back. We reminded our universal community that we were survivalists and survivors. We seemingly convinced them that we could not be killed and perhaps that we were eternal. No, not yet.
This was the state of affairs for many millennia. Human-kind’s presence was tolerated amongst the stars, still a part of the universal culture. We attended the same meetings and gatherings that required our presence, donated our supplies and troops without expectation of compensation, and shared a fraction of our scientific discoveries and technology, the things we believed would be universally beneficial. In turn, the same was given to us and human-kind put all of it to use. The fear of universal death trickled down to the common human and efforts were placed against that fear. While we knew then that death came for everyone in the end, that didn’t mean we couldn’t prolong it. We found ways to extend life without sacrificing physical ability, growing to the age of 200, then 300, then 500, then 700, then a millennium. We became the new Methuselahs. Our younger siblings watched as we refused that ever-lingering limitation, letting out subtle sighs of relief when our long-standing diplomats and politicians finally passed away, and watched their young replacements with anticipation, wondering how long this one would last. It was a sign that we were still like them, bound to the inevitable.
They didn’t know how deep our reputation ran within us.
There is no exact date to when human-kind looked up
and saw the stars begin to die out in large numbers. Like a plague through a crowded city, darkness was sweeping through the skies and across all lines of sight. The end of the universe showed signs of arriving. We were still not ready. The once-great inevitability that our planet-locked ancestors had accepted became a startling reality human-kind could not ignore.
As our younger siblings had long wanted, human-kind withdrew itself from the universal culture. We pulled out all resources, troops and foreign bodies and gathered ourselves together into planetary clusters. We evacuated colonies and boarded ourselves away from our younger siblings. Human-kind focused solely on itself and its new line of inquiry. Research and technology investigated into new types of metal, things durable and strong enough to withstand the pressure of black holes and the heat of supernovas. Our younger siblings were all but happy to finally be rid of us and any attempt to contact us was met with pleas to go away and leave us to our work. No one noticed or recorded when our last encounter with another race of beings was. Human-kind was alone once again.
Time had no meaning when our ark was finally launched. It was our finest creation. Forged from the strongest metals we could create, it was built to sustain anyone who lived inside it forever. It was the size of a solar system and it had to be. The amount of technology to both store the collected history and knowledge of human-kind, as well as the life-sustaining machinery, the self-sustaining energy generators, and the remaining 333 billion population of human-kind required every inch of that size. The only flaw to it was that there were no means of holding everyone in a cryogenic state. The generator wouldn’t be able to handle all we asked of it and the ark would’ve failed. We weren’t going to let that happen. It was built at the farthest edge of what remained of our galaxy, directed out into an unyielding emptiness. Its purpose was simple.
It was built to last us past the death of our current universe and, with any hope, bring us forth into the next.
Once everyone was aboard, our long wait began. The fear of whether we would survive this long began to fade and was replaced with anxiety and boredom. We had spent nearly a millennium preparing for these moments and now found that we had no idea what to do with the time we had. We began to tinker and toy with the resources on hand, exploring the massive artificial gardens we had created for agriculture and the way we recycled everything, including our wastes. There was no safety of mind for dumping things out into whatever void was left out there. Everything flushed away was cleaned and redistributed or used for fertilizer. As for entertainment, the arks had a near-complete recorded history of human-kind’s stories and digital media. Human-kind would reteach itself all over again, ready for the generations of people that would be born aboard the ark.
In fact, this was the first problem human-kind on the ark faced. With so much time and freedom, people found bedfellows far too easily and in surplus. Sex became a thing to pass the time and soon a wave of offspring were born from it. The appointed leaders of the ark, the engineers and crew who designed and were trained to maintain the ark itself, set the rules for population control. Though the ark was mighty, overpopulation was still a concern. Too many people at one time would only be a drain on the resources which, while built to continually renew itself, still came with a cycle. It was decided that only official couples would have children and then only one at a time. When the possibility of twins was brought up, it was resolved with a medical procedure that would reverse the cell division, ideally reverting to an only child. Though it was met with some outcry, the decision of facing either human-kind’s ultimate end or keeping themselves under control seemed an obvious choice.
Millennia began to pass and human-kind settled into habit. There were few complaints and they seemed small in comparison to extinction. One was how the meat, all synthetic and mass-produced, lacked any taste of the real thing, none of the blood and fat and juices that came from cooking living things. The reasoning was that having any other animal life on the ark besides human-kind would only be a burden. Another was how only the appointed leaders were allowed access into certain areas, reasoned away by it being technical information that was unnecessary for the comfort of human-kind. Otherwise, life was calm and well and people grew more bored than scared anymore. To try and stay focused, they turned their attentions to either books, digital media, historical recordings, or to the health and education of the next generation. These ark-based children, who knew nothing of existence besides sterile rooms and empty hallways, were the main attraction for everyone who knew any couple with a child. Everyone found it imperative that these children know about human-kind, know about our great history and eternal legacy. For the first hundred years of this generation’s life, we had them learning every single recorded word, from the earliest history of Earth to our first encounter with the universal culture to the day the ark launched. There was no motion to produce new culture yet. Human-kind wanted to bask in the glory of its past and prepare for it all over again when they could leave.
That peace and settlement could not last. In the year 1066 AE, “After the End,” one of the older residents of the ark fell over dead. Those who had witnessed the scene were interviewed later and reported that he had clutched his heart and strained against the back of the chair he sat in. When they saw it, they didn’t understand what had just happened. We had grown so comfortable and serene in the ark that his passing came as a reminder. We had not escaped that force. If anything, we were surrounded by it more than ever before.
We did our best to not panic. Like a flash, it had left us stunned in the aftermath and we tried to live as we had for the last millennium. Still, there was a mood that swept through human-kind. What they had once been content to learn through our books and recorded media, the younger generation began to ask their parents about why it was so important that the ark be built and why this man’s death startled us. So, we passed down our instincts of survival. We had taught our children of the true greatness of human-kind. So now we taught them of our ultimate nature.
When the man had finally been carted away, there were inquiries and demands to know what would come next. They all boiled down to a simple question: “What would happen to the body?” He couldn’t be recycled like waste. He was a human, he deserved better than that. It seemed that the administrators had already foreseen this, claiming to have the foresight to think rationally even in stressful times, as they had in the ark’s construction, and revealed a previously unknown part of the ark. A morgue, an enormous rotund space with every inch chilled to near-freezing temperatures, with which to store the bodies of those who passed on our journey. Preserving the dead was much simpler than cryogenically freezing someone and so it was deemed necessary. When we would finally land, we would properly bury the bodies, in ways that that had been deemed respectable in the times before the ark.
Yet, the administrators were not as rational as they thought or perhaps tried to hide it from themselves. In another millennium, the morgue was more than half full. Even the bodies of the administrators were stored there, packed away among countless others, while their children took their place. Soon, the first generation had died and the second took their place, the third generation beginning the same lessons and hearing the same centuries long history lessons that their parents had heard. In that time, there was still no trace of the next universe, no sign that our journey would produce results. We were still surrounded by oblivion with no end in sight and human-kind persisted in numbers. The morgue had failed.
So, instead of being shut down or scrapped, its purpose was transformed. In the year 2108 AE, as human-kind came together for their dinner, the first ark-bred generation partook in our first real taste of meat. We loved it. No one suspected a thing, only noting how much more sensual the food was for once in our life. It did more than satisfy and nourish. It excited and engaged our disused taste buds, only accustomed to bitter tastes and the occasional sugar spike. Portions were disappearing almost the instant we sat down to enjoy them. Children kept coming for mo
re and more, begging and pleading for any way to sneak out a second portion, even a mere scrap. Not only the children, but the adults too. Everyone to taste the meat couldn’t get enough of it. We never even bothered to ask where the meat could have possibly come from. Perhaps we chalked it up to some advancement in the culinary skill of the cooks or perhaps some lenience with the administrators over what could be used to spice the portions. After dinner, we found out that the administrators did have a hand in it after all but never in a way we could have imagined.
When the administrators announced what they had done, we thought it was a joke or some ill-advised prank. The current captain, the head of the administrators, was a stern woman but surely, she was capable of jesting with us? But no, she was quite serious. The loss of free space in the morgue was becoming a growing problem, one she felt had to be solved post-haste. So, she and the other administers had found a solution, one that freed space within the morgue and made use of the removed bodies. As they explained themselves to us all, they made it clear that this was not an action taken lightly. It had come after many years, possibly a century’s worth of consideration, but she had decided that it was the best solution. She had even tried to seem self-sacrificing, the first of the cuts having come from the previous administrators, including her father, our previous captain, the ex-head of the administrators and the one who had introduced the morgue in the first place. She stood by this new form of human waste and disposal, citing the name of survival itself.
Her words left us trembling. We felt disgusted at first. Human-kind had not openly engaged in such an act since we were planet-locked and any revelation regarding it was considered taboo and repulsive. However, we had never experienced it. We had never had a line of comparison before within the ark, between the manufactured meat and the real thing. No one denied the difference, how we all clamored for more when we didn’t know the truth about it. That truth, that point of origin, wouldn’t change how it tasted.
Year's Best Body Horror 2017 Anthology Page 6
