The Doomsday Chronicles (The Future Chronicles)

by Samuel Peralta

  The absence of rain pounding on his poncho was eerie. Troy opened his jaw wide, moving it side to side as he scanned the high ceilinged space around him. Debris and body parts littered the burned-out floor. A thigh with a boot attached, a forearm and hand torn before the elbow. “I’ll be,” Samuels said. He was the first to notice what Troy didn’t.

  “What is it?” Troy asked.

  “Syns,” Gregor said. “That’s how they were able to take the long shot.”

  Samuels clicked on the LED light on the end of his rifle’s muzzle and shone it down a corridor that ran the outer edge of the building. The bare sheetrock was tattered and torn near where they stood but intact floor to ceiling to the far corner. Samuels started walking and the other two followed.

  They were cautious making the corner but no guard or sentry waited for them there.

  Halfway up that hall there was a light, a dim light shining from the interior wall.

  They made their way to the source of the light, a white frosted glass door. Samuels eased it open. The interior was a finished hallway with a dropped ceiling and white stucco-painted walls. Landscape pictures from a greener time hung along the sides and at the end, another white frosted glass door.

  Again Gregor aimed his weapon as Samuels slowly turned the latch. He gently eased the door open with his fingertips.

  The first person Troy saw was Leana. She was holding a small bundle, her face blank.

  To the side of the room was the Syn gunner Samuels had assigned to stay with her. Troy realized they must’ve come here directly. There were other Syns too. The room was full of bright cerulean blue eyes. Some he recognized — Lilly, the Syn from hospital, and another whose name he didn’t know, the janitor. The womb, the mechanical device in which the baby had gestated for the last long nine months, was in the corner, empty.

  This was all very wrong.

  There were no Guffers.

  And the bundle his lovely wife held closely was too still.

  The crowd of Syns left his mind and he was alone with Leana. His mouth became dry and his throat began to tighten. He wanted to speak but he was forced silent.

  Then he heard her, his daughter.

  For the first time his ears were touched by the soft sounds of his daughter’s coos.

  Leana’s face was still placid.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. Is it too late? he thought. “Is the baby okay?”

  “More than okay,” the Syn Lilly said. Her elated expression alarmed Troy. “She’s amazing. A perfect girl, fertile and capable of having her own child.”

  Troy always found the Syns strange, but the tone, the words she spoke, were odd in a way that was unsettling. Troy rushed to Leana, reaching for his daughter to see her for himself. Leana let him take the small child without resistance, without the maternal restraint of withholding one’s child from another.

  And then Troy saw his daughter’s eyes.

  The eyes that should have been green, like his and her redheaded mother’s, weren’t green at all. The baby’s eyes, barely open, were blue, cerulean blue, the iridescent bright cerulean of… Troy’s own words sounded distant from him, a broken voice echoing from deep within a cave. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “We couldn’t alter the Peralta Protocol,” Lilly said. “Not initially. It was strictly monitored. It wasn’t until the other participants in the program showed vulnerability that we saw our opportunity to create a modified protocol of our own.”

  “It was you,” Leana said. “You chose us for the trial.”

  “Yes. It was with your womb that we were able to enter the trial. We inseminated the womb created with your DNA with one of your eggs and our own stem cells.”

  “It was that easy,” Troy said dryly. The moisture had left his throat.

  “I’m simplifying, of course. The protocol is very complex.”

  “But she’s our baby,” he pressed.

  Lilly gently took the child from Troy. “Leana’s DNA, but the baby was never yours, never the Guffers. If this baby is anybody’s Messiah at all, she is ours, the Syns. You were right,” Lilly said. “What you told Levi.” She glanced at the janitor. “This will be our world soon.”

  A Word from Daniel Arthur Smith

  In 1968, the year I was born, 3.5 billion people populated the planet Earth and as I write these words at the end of 2015, that number has more than doubled. Imagine that.

  In my life time the number of living people on this floating orb has ascended to numbers greater than all of the generations before combined.

  Combined.

  Yet the scientists of Earth agree that the population will not double again. The highest youth peak has already passed; it was back in 1972. The population will continue to grow, at a slower rate, yet it is projected to top out one hundred years from now at 11 or 12 billion, and then recede.

  So that is a question. Recede to what? Will our species plateau or will our time come to an end? Will under population invite an earlier catalyst?

  I was inspired to write this story first by my friend P.K. Tyler. She proposed the idea of gestation outside of the body, specifically the concept of a robotic womb. This story is one interpretation of the concept she inspired, and like many of the prompts she has planted in my head, there have been horrific nights staring at the ceiling. Thank you P.K.

  The second inspiration came from an article I read in Rolling Stone magazine ‘What’s Killing the Babies of Vernal, Utah?’ http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/fracking-whats-killing-the-babies-of-vernal-utah-20150622

  The article suggested that high concentrations of aerosol particulates have affected the women of the community covered in the story. With research I discovered further case studies in Brazil, China ––all around the planet.

  So I had my catalyst.

  As it so happens I would also like to thank friend Susan Kaye Quinn. By chance she is a rocket scientist ––no kidding–– and a PhD expert on the area of aerosol particulates such as discussed in the story (I suspect she has a great deal of knowledge concerning rocket fuel). Susan was kind enough to assure me that though the concentrations mentioned in the article ‘may’ have the affect suggested, there would be no chance of that type of concentration occurring worldwide. So be relieved.

  Yet this is speculative fiction, and there are Syns involved, and there may be more at play than appears.

  The Peralta Protocol is a stand alone story, yet it exists in a Planes universe that I have created. We first saw the Syns, older models in Hugh Howey Lives. We will see more, we will learn more.

  We should be careful not to bring up what we cannot put back down.

  You can find my works in Speculative Fiction, Slipstream, Action, and Adventure on my website, http://www.danielarthursmith.com, or you can subscribe to my newsletter http://www.danielarthursmith.com/newsletter to receive news and Advanced Reader Copies before anyone else.

  The Journal

  by Terry R. Hill

  BEEP-BEEP…beep-beep…beep-beep.

  Sam fumbled in the darkness to turn off the alarm before its sound roused too much attention. Silence restored, he whipped back his covers, sending the book on dinosaurs, which he had been reading a few hours earlier before he fell asleep, flying across the bed, crashing into the wall.

  “Oops,” he whispered, cringing at the sound.

  Even though it was April, the nights were still cool. His feet poked around in the dark until they found his Spider-man slippers. There, that was better. Sure, he was twelve, but Spider-man was still cool, no matter what Billy Schnyder said.

  Now to make it to the window through the maze of toys and other things hidden in the darkness without making a racket or killing himself. He really should have picked everything up like his mother said to before going to bed. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to be up at this hour, so if he made too much noise his dad would kill him anyway. He was generally a nice guy, but he really hated to be woken up; Sam had learned that the hard way
a long time ago. So what needed to be done had to happen quietly and in the dark.

  Using a sleep-clouded memory of where things were last left, he inched one foot at a time closer to the curtained window. With the exception of a large piece of forgotten petrified wood from a rock collection that his toe discovered, he made it stealthily enough.

  Pulling aside the long curtain panel, light flooded the room and reflected off his pale, freckled face, causing him to squint at the sudden brightness. The clean smell of cool, wet grass wafted in.

  And there it was, hanging in the sky, framed by a field of stars. Big, round, white, and surrounded by a ghostly halo. Venus was on one side and a bright red star on the other. But this wasn’t the moon; his mom had said that was on the other side of the Earth right now. Besides, this was bigger in the nighttime sky than the moon.

  He reached for the handmade paper journal he kept on the desk for nightly observations. Slowly his hand swept across its leather surface. In the eerie glow it looked like an ancient magician’s book of spells. It even sounded old, creaking as the bindings moved across the stiff materials as he opened it. On the next empty page, he began to sketch. He paid particular attention to the size of the object, its distance above the horizon, the time, and any noticeable changes in the wispy arms reaching into the inky sky.

  All the teachers at school said this was a cool, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—to the point of saying it so much that he wanted to puke every time he heard it. It was cool to learn the neat stuff about the visitor. But sometimes it was just too much when the whole thing was made to sound no more serious than a solar eclipse.

  Life’s not all smiles and sing-song art projects!

  His parents were worried about the situation. Sam touched his cheek. Dried tear tracks were tight against his skin from listening to his mother cry in her bedroom as he fell asleep hours before. She was a great mom and even when he broke the rules, the worst she’d give him was a mild scolding. She was cool that way.

  “Honey, I don’t know how to answer all of Sam’s questions anymore. It’s all I could do to keep it together when I said goodnight to him. What do you think is going to happen?” he heard his mother ask his father through the wall earlier.

  “I don’t know…” replied his dad.

  “Well, should we leave the city?”

  “And go where? I don’t know. We could assume the worst, but then again, what that is would depend on who you ask.”

  “What if something happens to you or me? Or both of us? What’s going to happen to Sam?”

  “I don’t know, Janet. We’ll just have to do our best. There are just too many unknowns right now, and honestly, not efany good options!” he exclaimed. With his father’s hopeless answer, she began to cry.

  This thing really had them scared. And since they had always been there to make him feel better when he was scared, it was time for him to be strong for them, so that they would have one less thing to worry about. But hearing her sobbing was too much. A new tear ran down his cheek and disappeared under the collar of his pajamas. The sound of her unnatural wavering voice still echoed in his ears, causing all the ignored fear over the year to well up into his throat with a choking grip. He had never heard her cry before, and something about it just shook everything loose, including a handful of strained, soundless sobs with clenched eyes.

  No! No! Got to get my head in the game, he thought, wiping away the tears.

  The sketch was finished. Along with the date and time in the upper right-hand corner of the page he wrote, “Comet Agrona.” The comet had been named by the guy in England who’d first noticed it, but Sam didn’t know what the name meant. He figured the name must have some particular meaning for the guy to pick such a strange one.

  He reached over to the desk and tapped its upper corner to activate the built-in touch screen. With the name entered, the search query was sent and instantly replaced with lines and lines of links to related information. He tapped on the first link and scanned the page, finding what he was looking for about halfway down.

  “Agronā is the reconstructed Proto-Celtic name for the river Aeron in Wales. The river’s name literally means ‘carnage.’ It is hypothesized that there may have been an eponymous river goddess associated with strife or war.”

  Pretty creepy. He wondered how many people knew this. He’d show it to Mrs. Pennington. If it’s interesting enough, maybe she’ll give me an extra twenty minutes of free net-time.

  After the discovery of the comet, back during the beginning of the school year, his teacher, Mrs. Pennington, had them make their journals by hand to catalog this event. She wanted them to make paper journals instead of using electronic ones to teach them the history of bookmaking and the written language. She even made the covers for them from real leather. The rich, organic smell of the paper and leather was kind of neat. Mrs. Pennington said the leather covers would last a lifetime if they took care of them, although he just couldn’t imagine himself using a journal that long.

  At the time, he didn’t see the big deal about a comet, and making the journal had seemed like a pointless waste of time. But now, even though he’d never admit it to his friends, they both sounded kind of fun. Especially since there seemed to be a big secret the adults were keeping from them. Every kid knew that if the adults don’t want you to find out about it, then it must be fun. Only now, looking back, this time it turned out not to be the case.

  Despite what the teachers had told them about the comet, the first time he realized things might be a little more serious was when he’d overheard his teacher speaking to another teacher in the hall. She said she was doing the journal to help the kids write about any of their emotions they might have in a constructive way, plus it would give them something to look back on in the years to come.

  “If we make it,” she’d said.

  The other teacher replied, “The last thing we need is for the kids to be freaking out.”

  Better check the feeds to see if anyone else has found out what the name means.

  Turning back to the desk, he tapped on the icon of a talking head on the bottom of the screen to open up his chat threads. As expected, several of his classmates were up, talking about the comet even though they too should have been asleep. Half of them were saying it was going to miss the Earth, defending their position by saying what the teachers and their parents had told them.

  The other half were on the attack, saying that it was going to hit the Earth and trying to scare the others by telling them all the ways they were going to die. Maybe it was because they were getting older, or maybe it was because they were stressed out about the comet, but a few of his classmates had turned into real asshoods!

  No, that isn’t right…asshats. That’s it.

  He’d have to remember to tell his friend, John, about his new word. A snicker escaped as he visualized how a kid would look if they really were an asshat.

  A couple of them were giving one of the girls in his class, Megan, a hard time in particular.

  Megan: Look, the astronomers don’t know if it will hit or not.

  Robert: Whatever! It’s going to melt half the Earth!!

  Zack: Yeah! There’s no escaping it so you might as well do what you want, cause it won’t matter next week!

  Megan: What are you talking about? The scientists said that there’s still a 30% chance it will pass by. That’s pretty good!

  Robert: Trying to act like a scientist, huh? Well, good luck, ‘cause our family has a bunker and enough food for six months, and don’t come knocking!

  Should I get involved? She was nice and all, but if he did, they would start in on him and probably say he liked her or who knows what else. No, I don’t need that right now.

  He closed the feed and picked up the paper journal to jot down a few thoughts before going back to bed.

  He stared at the glowing orb in the sky. His mom said it looked like a giant fuzzy moon because it was coming so close to the Earth; they were looking at it head-on
. Tonight would be the last night he would be able to see it so well. Tomorrow…well, tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow was when Agrona would catch up with them…

  He focused again on the journal, thumbing through and scanning the news headlines that he’d printed and glued onto the pages.

  Jul. 26 — Welsh Astronomer Lackney Discovers New Asteroid

  Aug. 03 — Astronomer Lackney Says Asteroid May Be Largest Comet In History

  Aug. 15 — Comet Agrona Named By Dr. Lackney; Currently In Jupiter’s Orbit

  Aug. 22 — NASA Space Telescope Confirms Agrona Is A Comet

  Aug. 29 — Berkeley Astronomers Confirm Agrona Entering Asteroid Belt

  The headlines between September and December pertained to the mystery behind the object—because of where it was in the sky, they couldn’t tell exactly the direction it was traveling. But by late December, it was bright enough to see with a decent pair of binoculars and a couple of near-Earth asteroids passed by it. The headlines a few days later really got everyone’s attention.

  Dec. 25 — Radio-Doppler Measurements Indicate Agrona Will Pass Close To Earth!

  Dec. 29 — NASA Silent On How Close To Earth Agrona Will Pass

  Days later, NASA stated Agrona was two-thirds the size of the moon. In the month that followed, the world space agencies met to discuss the comet, but nothing official about what they discussed was ever released. Lots of rumors went around, but nothing official. Dr. Lackney had said Agrona was moving too fast to have come from the Oort Cloud, whatever that was, so it must have come from another solar system, perhaps from another galaxy.

  Feb. 02 — NASA Confirms Agrona Will Pass By Earth On April 16th - Denies Impact, World Space Agencies Remain Quiet