Before the Nothingness

by Kevin George

  “Sorry, getting off topic,” Charles said, shaking his head. “All I’m saying is that if we’re so willing to accept gen-mods in other aspects of our lives, why not modify humans to survive in the changing conditions we’ve created? To survive in the extreme climate we’ve created? I mean, it’s not like humans don’t have plenty of flaws that could be changed for the better.”

  Tom frowned. “Call me crazy, but I only think God should be responsible for creating humankind in His image.”

  Charles snorted. “Option two: figure out how to create shelters for aquatic or sub-aquatic conditions. Do you know how to build houses on top of or beneath water? And do you think millions of displaced humans are able to purchase expensive homes now that theirs have become inundated? I’d say that’s as unlikely to happen as people figuring out a way to live in the skies. That leaves only one feasible option, one option that The Jonas Family Building Company would be capable of assisting with.”

  “Relocation,” Tom said.

  Charles nodded. “Bravo, Father.”

  “Your old man is smarter than you think,” Tom said with a smile that quickly faded. “But I don’t know what we can do about relocating thousands of people being flooded out of their homes each year. The government already has subsidies in place to move those citizens into dormitories in countless cities across the—”

  “Dormitories? In slums? How would you like to live in one of those instead of this house?” Charles asked.

  Tom looked around in silence, knowing he might not have long until he lost the house and ended up in the exact situation his son was describing.

  “I wouldn’t like it,” he said solemnly. “But after those people have lost everything, how can they afford anything else?”

  As if on cue, an image popped up on Charles’s HoloBox. At first glance, it appeared to be a tiny house. But as Charles looked closer, he realized many features in current hi-tech ‘smart’ homes were missing, replaced by energy-saving solutions that appeared to focus on one particular goal.

  “Self-sustainability,” Tom said.

  Charles looked at him and smiled. “The country—the entire world, for that matter—has been steering itself toward an energy crisis for years. People are too busy stuck in their virtual existences and don’t focus enough on what’s happening out there.” He pointed toward a nearby window and chuckled. “I’ve been guilty of that for a long time, too. But the climate is growing worse and the solutions to deal with it can’t keep up with demand. Seems to me the future will send more and more of our displaced citizens into the heartland of America, where housing is at a minimum.

  “Farmland can’t very well be sacrificed and there’s no way construction companies—even major corporate ones—will be able to build sufficient housing. That’s where my ISU comes into play.”

  “ISU?” Tom asked.

  “Individual Surface Unit,” Charles said. “Fully self-sustainable, powered by solar energy, able to produce sufficient food. They can be mass produced cheaply and constructed quickly without the need for huge plots of land.” His fingers danced through the blueprint hologram, changing the view to the underside of the ISU. “I’ve even conceived the ability for ISUs to become subterranean in the case of extreme weather changes. I read an article in the Journal for Climate Change that theorizes an extreme drop in global temperatures within the next century, though the hydraulics needed for this type of construction would make the ISUs far more expensive. Maybe on later models.”

  “It looks like a great idea,” Tom admitted. “But I don’t know if my finances could afford to get through the prototype stage of such an operation. I only have one asset in life that might net us enough to try. . .”

  Thomas Jonas looked around at his house, knowing such a proposition would require selling his house for its equity. He’d lived there for nearly three decades; he’d carried his wife across its threshold, he’d brought his baby boy home there, he’d held his wife’s hand in their bedroom as she’d breathed her final breath. His house was the only significant thing he’d owned in life, but it would soon be going away. Thomas just needed to decide if he’d lose his home of his own volition—and for a chance to make his son’s life better—or if bill collectors would eventually force him to sell to pay off his debts.

  Tom forced a smile as he stared at the holographic ISU. “Think I could test out living in the first one?”

  AN EXCERPT FROM THE FINANCIAL TIMES OF THE UNITED STATES OF NORTHERN AMERICA

  - In an article titled “Merger of Jonas Industries with First Bio” (March 8, 2078), reporter Stephanie Phillips explains the surprising acquisition of First Bio—a small, often controversial firm that specializes in the fading field of genetic splicing—by well-known conglomerate Jonas Industries. The famed Jonas family propelled their meager construction business into one of America’s most successful corporations with their ability to mass produce self-sustaining, environmentally-friendly housing units for those displaced by rising ocean levels.

  The U.S.N.A. government remains financially indebted to Jonas Industries for the company’s willingness to build hundreds of thousands of these homes without being paid. This has allowed the government to continue operating without further crippling its economy or U.S.N.A. citizens, who already pay some of the highest tax rates in the world.

  “The continued generosity of Charles Jonas and his family has allowed us to thrive as a nation when so many others are failing,” President Loren Vinson proclaimed at a recent press conference held on the White House grounds in Lincoln, Nebraska. The president also spoke of a potential land deal with Jonas Industries that would eradicate U.S.N.A.’s debt with the company.

  The acquisition of First Bio comes on the heels of Jonas Industries purchasing several other companies, including: EarthOne GlassWorks, a Nevada Republic company specializing in the production of greenhouse glasses; HeatWave, a New Canada company that produces a synthetic glass covering for high temperatures; and Rhamy Mountain Mining and Excavation, a Colorado-based heavy mining company.

  The story of Charles Jonas’s rise to success is one known by most North Americans, as well as those from around the globe. After dropping out of college his senior year, he convinced his father to liquidate his fledgling construction company to build the first prototype of an ISU, the structures now housing millions of North Americans whose ancestors once hailed from the East and West Coasts. Many historians point to the creation of ISUs as a turning point in North American history, when our economy and urban infrastructures were crumbling. Allowing displaced citizens to disperse across a greater section of the country—millions in as little as a few years—curbed the negative effects of overpopulation in North America’s largest cities.

  After the small ISU startup morphed into the giant Jonas Industries, Charles fulfilled his promise to his father by returning to college and completing his dual degrees. Though his advances in Architecture ultimately made him a wealthy, powerful man, Charles’s main love was science, specifically the study of molecular genetics. One can only wonder if this love affair played a role in his company’s acquisition of First Bio, which seems to be spinning off his company in an entirely new direction.

  “Jonas Industries no longer views itself as just an environmental disaster relief company,” Charles Jonas said at the press conference. “We are launching ourselves into other scientific fields, other scientific endeavors, to ensure that we no longer just react to Climate Change problems, but we adapt and thrive in light of a changing Earth. With that said, the Jonas Industries name no longer applies to the goals we’ve set forth to improve society. We hope to make improvements for one humankind, to bring all countries together as one world. Therefore, we will now be known as One Corp.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  JUNE 6, 2098

  Richard Eaton swerved to the side of the deserted highway, his hovercraft nearly gliding to a full stop before the front end nudged a tree. His old hovering clunker had run into plenty of things much har
der in the past—most times in the process of parking—but this tiny bump created a long crack down the windshield. Richard unleashed a string of curses. The quiet whistle of cold air leaked into the craft, but his face burned red and he felt his heart fluttering within his frail chest.

  He opened the craft’s door, a punch of cold air hitting him in the face, momentarily knocking his vision straight. Richard stumbled out and looked down both ends of the highway, which was lined with trees on both sides. It was the middle of the day but not another craft—wheeled or floating—could be found.

  Only workers coming out to these parts, he thought. Nobody else would dare face the wrath of One Corp.’s security force.

  Richard looked up at the nearest tree and chuckled, laughter turning to coughing as his lungs filled with cold air. He’d hit the tree hard enough to crack his windshield, but not hard enough to disturb the snow covering the tree’s branches. He shook his head, doubting he’d make it all the way back to Billings before the windshield completely shattered. There is one place I can make it to, he thought with a grin.

  Richard climbed back behind the wheel, but didn’t throttle the craft back just yet. He’d pulled over for a reason and wasn’t going to waste this opportunity. He reached into the passenger seat for the half-empty bottle of whiskey, from which he took a long, deep swig, enough so he could feel the cold no longer. His insides burned sweetly and any threat of sobriety was swallowed in a fog of drunkenness.

  With a deep sigh, Richard steered back onto the highway, squinting into the distance until spotting a break in the trees. A single road intersected the highway, a road disappearing into the trees with a sign reading “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.” Richard turned onto the road without hesitation, driving so quickly that he nearly crashed into the sign. He spun the wheel at the last moment and drifted to another stop. He looked over at the other object sitting on the passenger seat but decided on the liquor bottle again.

  Richard stared into the trees and cut the engine of his craft, realizing how whiny the engines had been now that they were turned off. He closed his eyes to the silence and took a deep breath. Smoke tinged the air, but it reminded him of the smell of his wood-burning stove in his old cabin. He opened his door, frigid temperatures be damned, but heard no skittering among the leaves and snow; these woods used to be filled with little critters.

  Probably run off by them, Richard thought. Kicked out of their homes, too. He finally found a reason to smile when a bird began to chirp. Can’t run all of us off of our lands, no matter how hard you try.

  His smile was short-lived. The bird quieted and flew out of a tree, soaring in the opposite direction of the road. A few seconds later, Richard heard a deep rumbling approaching in the distance. His craft floated a few feet above the road, but flurries of snow drifted off nearby trees as the ground shook. The rumbling was soon joined by a long, low honking unlike any animal Richard had ever heard. He knew right away what caused the noise and he quickly turned his hovercraft onto the road, heading straight for it.

  A line of massive dump trucks hurtled toward him, all of their drivers laying on their horns, undoubtedly frightening away the tiniest creatures still braving these woods. I won’t be scared off so easily, Richard thought, ramping up his speed, refusing to slide away from the middle of the narrow road. But the first in a line of dump trucks didn’t slow down either and eventually forced Richard to turn his wheel, where he ricocheted off another tree. The first truck driver slowed and lowered his window, reaching out an arm and raising his middle finger in Richard’s direction.

  “You’ll never learn, you crazy old coot!” the driver yelled.

  Anger exploded in Richard and he put the hovercraft in reverse, fully intent on ramming the dump truck (though he realized such a crash wouldn’t end well for him). The hovercraft didn’t budge. The other truck drivers honked and laughed as they watched Richard trying to dislodge his craft from the bushes. When the trucks were gone, silence surrounded him again, just in time for the snows to begin. Snow was nothing new in this part of North America at any time of the year, but Richard remembered years ago when snow in September would’ve been considered a rarity.

  He tightened the collar of his coat and continued down the winding road, where another line of trucks headed his way. This time, he steered to the side, ignoring their honks and cries of ridicule. Richard reminded himself that most of these men were local loggers or other types of construction workers, men he probably would’ve had a beer with at the local watering hole in his younger years.

  Cogs in the evil corporate wheel that ran over my life, he thought, reaching across the seat again for another drink. The road became wider as he drove farther, the surrounding forest emptying of trees recently cut down, their stumps a stark reminder that the woods Richard once knew so well would never be the same again. By the time he reached the security gate, he’d whipped himself into a frenzy. Not even the sight of armed security guards dissuaded him, though Richard did slow down and pull his hovercraft to the side of the road. He glanced toward the passenger seat again, but ultimately sighed and got out, empty-handed.

  Pamela Redwood turned to the rest of her security force and nodded. The guards lowered their weapons and returned to their normal duties, mostly dealing with the lines of vehicles streaming in and out of the gate. Pam held her semi-automatic gun where Richard could see, but she kept it lowered as she approached.

  “We really have to go through this every day, Dick?” she called out over a sudden gust of wind.

  “My name is Richard,” he snapped back. “And it’s not every day.”

  Pam nodded to his hovercraft. “Sure looks like it. One Corp. bought you that craft less than a year ago but it looks like you’ve put years of damage on it. Why waste your time driving here all the way from Billings when you have a great life there?”

  “How do you know what my life is like?” Richard said. “I don’t know anybody and I don’t wanna live in a big city by myself. I come out here because this is my home and I wanna come in.”

  Pam frowned and stepped closer. “Been drinking today?”

  “Doesn’t matter if I been or not,” Richard said. “I still want the same thing. I still wanna go home.”

  Pam shook her head. “But this hasn’t been your home for a long time, remember? The USNA government granted One Corp. this land years ago as payment for a business deal.”

  “This will always be my home,” Richard said, his vision blurring. “This is where I married my wife, where I raised my kids. It’s where I’m supposed to be.”

  “Home isn’t a place, it’s where your family is,” Pam said. “Why don’t you go back to them?”

  “I. . . I can’t,” Richard said. “My wife met some fancy new man soon after we were kicked off our lands. Last I heard, they moved down somewhere in the Texas Republic. My oldest daughter, she wants nothing to do with me, probably on account of her mother filling her mind with lies and. . . that’s a whole other story. And my younger daughter, well, she was working on an underwater salvaging crew in New York City—”

  “Sounds like a swamp robber,” another guard added.

  Richard turned to the man, who kept his weapon raised and ready.

  “I’m handling this situation,” Pam snapped at the guard. “If I need help, I’ll ask for it.”

  “My Jennifer wasn’t no swamp robber or swamp pirate or whatever you call those thugs stealing from the flooded coasts,” Richard snapped. “She was a good girl, a smart girl, not that she got that from me. Part of a team that worked for the government to recover historical artifacts that weren’t removed before the flooding began. She just happened to be on a dive when the Tsunami of ’94 hit.”

  “I’m so sorry, Richard, I didn’t know,” Pam said.

  “She isn’t dead, I can feel it in here,” Richard said, tapping his chest. His eyes glazed over. He no longer saw trees and snow, his vision focusing on something much farther away. “Never found her body and there’s lots o
f places she could’ve ended up, lots of buildings sticking out of the water that haven’t fallen over yet.”

  “The rest of her crew?” Pam asked.

  Richard shook his head and looked down. “But my house. . . in there. . .”—he pointed beyond the fence—“. . . that’s the only place I feel like I could be with them again. Maybe not the real them, but a part of them. You know what I mean?”

  “I do,” Pam said. “And I wish the best for you, I truly do. But your house isn’t there any longer. It was torn down, like every other house removed from these lands.”

  Richard shook his head and stepped forward. “No. But the forest. . . my forest. . .”

  Pam held up a hand to stop him, her other hand tightening on her weapon. “All of the trees have been cleared from it. You wouldn’t recognize the lands any longer.”

  “You’re lying to me,” Richard said, his voice quivering.

  Another deep rumbling approached from the distance. Pam glanced back to the next line of trucks driving toward the gate. She took Richard by the arm and guided him to the side of the road. The other guards dealt with the trucks streaming out of the work site.

  “I wish I had a better story to tell you, but I don’t,” Pam said. “Your house is gone, your forest is gone. One Corp. not only compensated you financially and with a new home, but they listened to your concerns and purchased your hovercraft to allow you to travel the country. Those things might not bring back the people you want or a time and place you want, but the government’s deal was to give these lands to—”

  “One Corp.,” Richard said. “I know the deal. That doesn’t mean it’s right for fewer corporations to take control of not just the economy, but the government, too. Most of these corporations are the reason for climate change, the reason for the weather dipping, the reason everything in this world is going to hell.”