"This is no time to lose our heads," said Amy. "We don't know exactly what has happened but what we do know is that our communication system has failed, and if we want to get any answers we have to try to get it fixed as soon as possible."
"What good is a communication system going to do if everyone on the Earth is dead?!" Maria shouted as she began to get watery eyed. "Dammit, I wish that it was possible to cry in space." She began to wipe her eyes as little teardrops floated off of her face.
Amy floated over to Maria and put her hands on her shoulders. "I understand you're upset, I am too. But we don't know that everyone on Earth is dead yet. If there is even a small chance that anyone is still alive down there our best way of finding out is to get the communication system functioning again. Surely there has to be someone who survived somewhere, and if that is the case we need some way to contact them."
"How long can we survive up here?" Maria asked.
"Fortunately we were resupplied just a few days ago when Anatoly arrived. The supplies were meant to last the three of us exactly one year, although if we began rationing them we could probably extend that period of time. But right now our priority should be on getting the communication system working again." She turned to Anatoly. "Anatoly, if you are up to it I think maybe you should get suited up."
Anatoly nodded and went to prepare for his next spacewalk.
12:37 PM Eastern standard Time.
"I think that I have successfully found the problem," said Anatoly from outside the space station. "I think that it should be working now. I replaced the damaged parts that had burned-out and as far as I can tell from examining the rest of the space station it has suffered no direct damage from the bombardment the other night. So at least it doesn't look like we are going to die today." Anatoly began laughing.
"Thank God for small miracles," said Maria as she clutched a small cross that she kept with her.
"You should probably be heading back and we can see if we can raise Houston now that everything seems to be fixed," said Amy.
"I just want to check to make sure the solar array is still working properly and hasn't suffered any damage. The last thing we need is for that to fail. As of right now this space station is like our lifeboat, our Noah's Ark. Who knows, it might be left up to the three of us to repopulate the earth!" Anatoly began to burst out in laughter.
"Not if you were the last man on earth," Maria joked and began laughing for the first time since the situation started.
"I may very well be," Anatoly said with another laugh. "Although to be fair I am not on the Earth right now, but I have a great view of it."
Anatoly turned and looked at the Earth. He could see fires arising from the cities all over the world, but despite that depressing sight the Earth was still extremely beautiful from space. Even if the human race had been wiped out the Earth goes on he thought to himself.
"Amazing," said Anatoly. "No matter how many times I see it is still breathtaking. Even under these terrible circumstances the Earth is still a thing of beauty. I just hope that if aliens do intend to invade that they take better care of it than we did." Anatoly began laughing again but more quietly and then he started breathing really heavily.
"Is everything okay Anatoly?" Amy asked.
"I think I might just be short of breath," said Anatoly.
"Check your oxygen gauge."
"My oxygen levels appear to be normal." But he was still breathing very heavily.
"Are you sure you are okay?" There was no answer. "Anatoly!"
"What's the matter?" Maria asked.
"It sounds like he is struggling to breathe. Anatoly, please come in."
"I think –" Anatoly began saying before making loud choking noises.
"Your medical readings are going off the charts," Amy said as she looked at the computer monitoring his vital signs. "Anatoly you have to get back in right now."
"I think I am having a heart attack," Anatoly managed to choke out between huge gasps of breath.
"I need to go out there," said Amy.
"It's too dangerous," Maria said. "By the time you get to him."
"Too late," Anatoly gasped.
"Don't give up Anatoly," Amy shouted, trying to stay calm. "You might very well be the last man on earth after all. I am not saying that we are going to repopulate right away, but if you can just pull through I promise that I will at least take you out to dinner sometime."
"Same here," said Maria. "You're paying of course."
Anatoly laughed between gasping. "What would it take to get a three some?"
"Don't push your luck," Amy said with nervous laughter.
"I am afraid I am not going to make it to the orgy," Anatoly said between gasping, still trying to laugh.
"Just focus on breathing normally," Amy said.
"I, I can't –" Anatoly managed to choke out. "I can barely, barely feel my arm."
"I have to go out there," Amy said as she turned to Maria.
"Don't," Anatoly managed to choke out. "It's too late." He continued breathing heavily before slowly choking out. "If you ever get back to the Earth to find my family is alive tell them, tell them –"
"Anatoly!" Amy shouted. "Do you read me?"
The two of them floated there hearing nothing. Neither of them wanted to say it, but they knew that it was already too late. Anatoly was dead.
Maria began to tear up and hugged Amy.
And then there were two, Amy thought before she began to tear up as well and clutched Maria tight to her chest.
Chapter 4
September 29, 2026 10:35 AM Eastern standard time.
Amy was floating and doing her daily check, still no signs of communication from the Earth, same as every day for the last five months.
She floated over to the viewing port and looked down at the Earth below. She could see a vast hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico annihilating all of the coastal cities, many of which were now completely under water. Observing New Orleans the floodgates had once again broken like they did back in the time of Katrina, but this time there was no one coming to clean up as there was no one left alive to rescue.
"Any communication from Earth?" Maria asked as she floated over.
"Nope."
"So same old same old?"
Amy nodded.
"Look at that destruction down there," said Maria as she stared at the hurricane. "It's almost beautiful in a way."
"I suppose there is a certain beauty in the act of destruction, especially when you know that no one is dying down there. I remember reading once how if the human race were suddenly to vanish inexplicably from the face of the earth within a century there would hardly be any signs that we ever existed at all."
"I can believe that. Look at how nature is wiping away all remnants of the human race in just the last couple of months. In a couple of more years we might find the Earth actually starting to recover from all the damage we had done to it."
Amy smirked. "I suppose the environmentalists would be very pleased, if they were alive. I was always something of an environmentalist myself actually, but I never thought that genocide of the human race was the way to go about solving the problem."
"I still can't believe that there is no one left alive anywhere on the planet. Nothing kills everyone. The Earth has had pandemics in the past, maybe not as bad as this one, but there has to be at least a couple of survivors somewhere."
Amy shook her head. "Not necessarily. This wasn't a naturally evolving pandemic. This resembles something more along the lines of a massive biological attack. They completely saturated our atmosphere so it's possible that everyone on earth who so much as inhaled any of the air might have dropped dead rather quickly, probably instantaneously."
"At least it was probably relatively painless. Most of those back on earth probably didn't even know what hit them."
Amy nodded. "I guess that's a small consolation. At least whoever is trying to exterminate us did so in one of the more humane ways possible, if yo
u can consider anything like this the least bit humane."
"But if we were being invaded how come there has been no follow-up? It's been five months now and we haven't seen any signs of communication from whoever did this. If they were conquerors you would think that they would have set up on the Earth by now."
"Maybe this was just something that they sent ahead, like an initial attack to clear things up before the colonists arrive."
"My grandparents used to tell me stories about how our ancestors in Mexico were wiped out when the Spaniards came and brought their diseases from Europe. Sometimes the most efficient way of conquering a people is with microbes. So I suppose it is possible that this was the attack to wipe us out and we are just waiting for the cavalry to arrive and finish anyone off."
"If anyone still exists to be finished off that is."
"I like to remain optimistic about that possibility."
"If there are any survivors maybe they envy the dead."
"Why do you have to always be such a downer?"
"I consider myself a realist. And in a situation like this realism and pessimism are pretty much one and the same. From everything we know so far it would appear that there are no signs of survivors. And if anyone did survive and there is going to be another wave of the invasion the ones who were wiped out instantaneously and relatively peacefully would be the lucky ones rather than the few survivors who might have to fight off actual invaders in armed combat."
"At least in combat there is still a chance."
"Against an advanced race of extraterrestrials with the capability of interstellar travel, I wouldn't really think that that is much of a chance. If there is going to be another wave of armed invaders the weapons they have will be so far beyond us that there will be very little we can do to resist. Again I am just being a realist. If aliens really are going to invade it won't be like in the movies. What we have witnessed so far seems like a much more efficient means of waging interstellar war. They have more or less won already."
"I realize the situation is pretty hopeless, but in spite of that I still like to have some faith," Maria said as she fingered her cross and rosaries. "Don't you want to believe that your fiancé is still alive down there somewhere?"
"Of course I do, but I want real hope, not false hope. The irony is that my fiancée was a virologist working to cure the world's most deadly diseases, so he would love to be studying this phenomenon if he did survive."
"Maybe he did survive and has found a cure."
"I really do love your optimism. As much as I try to be realistic I would much rather have your faith that your husband is definitely alive out there somewhere. I am probably a hopeful agnostic at best."
Maria put her arm around Amy. "Well we still have each other, and if you ever get really lonely am still open to the possibility of us joining the 250 mile high club."
The two of them began to giggle and then kissed each other and blushed.
"Well we aren't going to be the ones to repopulate the human race at any rate," said Amy with a smile.
"I suppose not," said Maria as she grabbed her stomach and began laughing before she grabbed her side and winced in pain.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing, I just had a sharp stabbing pain in my side."
"Do you think it could be indigestion?"
"No, I don't think so. It has been hurting me for the last day or so now and it feels like it's getting worse."
Amy felt Maria's forehead. "You feel like you are burning up."
"I might just have a small fever," said Maria as she began to gag and then started throwing up.
"Gross!" Amy shouted as she ran to get a vomit bag for her.
Maria began vomiting heavily into the bag.
"I think that we better get you into bed," Amy said as she helped Maria put on her restraints to strap her into bed.
"I am sure that I will be fine," said Maria as she continued to gag a bit.
"Let me feel," said Amy as she felt Maria's side and frowned.
"Is it bad?" Maria asked, already knowing the answer.
"Have you had your appendix out?"
"No, why?"
"I think you have appendicitis."
The two of them floated there saying nothing for several minutes before Maria finally broke the silence as she gently stroked her cross. "I am not afraid to die."
"Please don't talk like that. You are supposed to be the optimist."
"I think that in this case I have to be realistic."
Amy grabbed Maria's hand tightly. "No, I need you to be the optimistic one. You can't leave me alone up here."
"You know that I don't want that any more than you do."
The two of them began to cry before realizing once again that it hurts a lot to have watery eyes in space.
"Take this," said Maria as she pressed her crucifix into Amy's hand. "It will bring you luck."
"Please don't leave me," Amy said as she fought back tears.
"Will you stay with me," Maria said as she grabbed Amy's hand tightly.
"You know I will," Amy said as she squeezed back and held on all day long and into the evening as Maria slowly faded away.
The next morning Amy prepared Maria's body and put it to the airlock and then gave her a burial at space. As she watched her one remaining friend float away from her forever she never felt more alone. She was the last one remaining and the universe outside her window never felt more vast, empty and malevolent.
Chapter 5
April 20, 2028 7:34 AM Eastern standard time.
"This is Amy Takahashi, if anyone is down there please answer," Amy broadcasted to the Earth as she had done every day for the past two years.
But much like every other day for the past two years she received no response, and every time she used the communication system it seemed like it was functioning less and less each time. Then finally today it completely failed.
"Happy anniversary," Amy said as she turned off the computer.
She went to the porthole and looked upon the Earth. It still looked completely desolate and devoid of any signs of life whatsoever.
"I almost wish that the aliens would invade," said Amy as she pushed herself away from the porthole. She went to her room where she looked at pictures of herself with Maria and Anatoly. She then looked at a picture of her fiancé receiving a distinguished award in the study of virology. "At least if the aliens arrived I would have somebody to talk to."
Amy went through her computer files and brought up videos of that day from two years ago when the bombardment began. In the two years since that not a single thing had happened of notable interest. Every single day was like the last. No communication with the Earth, no communication from whoever brought about the bombardment. If there was some higher intelligence out there trying to wipe us out it has made no attempt to contact us. But that just made her feel even more alone.
She decided to do yet another inventory of the space station's maintenance systems to make sure everything was still functioning. With no one coming to resupply the space station she was amazed that it lasted as long as it did. With the deaths of Anatoly and Maria she was able to stretch a year's supplies this far but she knew she was going to run out eventually.
She floated over to the experimentation area where she looked at the cages where they kept the mice that they brought up with them. Somehow they had managed to survive for two years in space along with her and were now her only companions, and if she got really desperate perhaps her final meal, but she chose not to think about that.
"You guys are the only friends I have left," she said as she fed the mice. "I guess that we are both record holders. No one has been in space for as long as we have. And by the looks of things it doesn't look like anyone's going to break our record anytime soon."
After doing her daily exercises she ate her daily rations and took her vital signs. "I seem to be healthy enough. I was sent up here to test the long-term effects of staying in space and no
w I have been up here for more than 2 1/2 years. Had the Earth not been destroyed I probably would have returned at least six months ago. I have been up here for as long as a round-trip to Mars would take." She began to clap. "Congratulations Amy, you've proved that human beings can survive in space long enough to get to Mars. Unfortunately it looks like that's one dream that you are never going to get to live out."
Amy went to her computer and brought up an image of Mars. She thought to herself how it had always been her dream to actually travel to another planet. That is what inspired her to become an astronaut in the first place. People had laughed at her when she was a little girl when she said that she wanted to be the first person to set foot on Mars, but when she actually became an astronaut everyone changed their tune and it looked like that might be a very real possibility. As one of the more experienced astronauts, being in top physical and mental health, it was conceivable that in a decade or so she might very well be making that voyage to Mars. But now it was never to be.
"I didn't even get to go to the freaking Moon," she said as she turned off her computer. "I can see it not that far away and yet I will never set foot on it, frustrating." That was when she turned and looked at the bumper sticker that she kept on the wall which said the dinosaurs didn't have a space program and look where it got them. "Look where it got us. I guess we didn't expand into space fast enough before someone came and wiped us out. If only we had gone a little bit longer we might have been able to colonize space before this happened. But now it looks like we are the ones who are going to be colonized."
Maybe she just needed to have more faith she thought to herself as she grabbed Maria's cross, which she kept around her neck. "I just wish I had your optimism," she said as she fingered the cross and thought of Maria. But she was the rational skeptic, not quite a cynic, but experience was starting to make her that way. From all the evidence she could see around her we lived in a cold, cruel universe hostile to life and that if there was alien life out there, as it seems there very well might be, it clearly did not have benign intentions towards us.
The Last of the Living Page 2
