Genesis

by Michael McCarthy

  Mary had never stolen anything before in her life, but she felt justified. Even though her father was a cop, she knew he would have been proud of her for stealing it.

  Mary stared at the gun in her hand.

  You should have come up with something better…All those years of college and this is your solution? At the very least, build some sort of Rube Goldberg device to pull the trigger. Have some self-respect for Christ sake.

  “Shut the fuck up.” She said aloud to the voice inside her head.

  It was her own voice, and it was nitpicking as always. She shrugged it off, then poured herself another shot of tequila.

  In one swift motion Mary drank the shot then tossed the empty shot glass across the room and into the empty fireplace. It shattered into a hundred little pieces upon impact.

  “Mazel tov!” she giggled.

  The sound of the breaking glass triggered a thought.

  She froze completely, afraid for a moment that if she made any movement the thought might slip from her mind and disappear forever.

  A convex regular polychoron in an eight cell octachoron hypercube.

  “Son of a bitch!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

  In the Petrie polygon format she was used to working with, it would not be obvious, but as a wire-framed orthographic projection, it all made sense.

  Shit.

  Mary put the gun down.

  She had to tell Dr. Cooper.

  Killing herself would have to wait.

  If Dr. Cooper was still alive, she needed to make the effort to tell him. It was his life’s work after all. Maybe they would celebrate and then wait for end together.

  Or maybe Dr. Cooper could just do it for her.

  Dr. Cooper had never really liked to socialize outside of work, but he did always say that she could drop by anytime, and since the phones had been dead for some time, that was her only option.

  Mary looked out the window of her apartment. The streets were clear, and had been for some time. No movement at all. Everyone was either locked inside hiding or long gone, having made a scramble to ‘safer ground,’ whatever or wherever that may be.

  By car, she could make it there in thirty minutes, maybe a little less depending on traffic. She laughed out loud for the first time in a week. Traffic won’t be a problem. The stores had been empty for a few days, and so were all the gas stations. No one ventured out anymore, and especially not after dark. Mary tried to decide if she needed anything, looking back at the gun sitting on the table.

  No, she didn’t need anything.

  She was prepared to die, and if she encountered something on the way to Dr. Coopers, then so be it. She tore the plastic off her front door and headed down to the parking lot. With every step she took, she inhaled deeply. No biological weapon detected, but then again, she was smart enough to know that the human nose was not considered to be a particularly acute instrument. The dominant scent in the air tonight was one of her favorite smells of all, petrichor.

  Petrichor, or the scent of rain falling on dry earth, is caused by a couple of chemical compounds in the soil, one of them known as geosmin. Geosmin is produced by several types of bacteria and algae, and is kicked up when the rain disturbs the soil. As weak as the human nose may be, it can detect geosmin in the air at levels of just ten parts per trillion, something that Mary knew as a scientist, and something Mary knew that meant geosmin played a very important role in the evolutionary process of humans. The theory she liked was that the ability to detect this one chemical element on such a low level was perhaps some sort of genetic survival trait since it was easy to imagine a tribe of early humans trudging their way across a vast swath of territory in some arid region looking for water. Bactrian camels in the Gobi desert, which are able to detect water for up to fifty miles, are actually smelling geosmin carried by the wind from the oases.

  She could use a Bactrian camel tonight, she thought to herself as she tuned the ignition on and the low fuel light came on; at least it would get her most of the way. Mary had started to back out of her parking spot when she saw them in the rearview mirror. Two boys stood near the dumpster, trying to hide themselves from the light of her taillights.

  The taller of the two boys sheepishly waved after realizing he had been seen. Mary wondered if there were infected.

  Did it really matter at this point?

  The boys just stood there, staring at Mary and her car, bathed in the warm red glow of the taillights. Mary stared into the mirror and then…could it possibly be?

  Mary put the car in park.

  It had to be the fever. Tommy would be eighteen now, not a young boy. The fever had to be causing her to imagine things.

  What she was seeing was impossible.

  Then she remembered her entire reason for being in the car in the first place. That was impossible too; a convex regular polychoron in an eight cell octachoron hypercube in dynamic mutation.

  Maybe not impossible. Highly improbable perhaps, but it was technically possible.

  Mary got out of her car and walked with purpose to the boys. The smaller boy quickly hid behind the taller one. Could it be? Mary couldn’t be certain until she got closer.

  It wasn’t the fever.

  The older boy sheepishly smiled.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  The rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind that swept up the mountainside, rattling along the tree-tops, and fiercely agitating the scant flame of the small brass ship’s lantern that struggled against the darkness.

  *Christopher used his free hand to shield the top of the lamp’s glass chimney from the wind and rain as he moved forward carrying the lantern towards the entrance of the mineshaft. The rocks were wet, and it was a treacherous endeavor, not made any easier by the fact he could not use his hands to help him. Christopher had been to the mine many times, but never alone. He had always come with his grandfather, but not tonight. Tonight it was all up to him.

  Christopher made his way down into the mineshaft and the flame from the lantern began to steady itself until it was no longer in danger of being extinguished from the wind. He stopped and set the lamp on a large rock, then knelt down and warmed his hands over the flame. He was drenched to the bone, his wet shirt and jeans clinging to his youthful frame. He was cold and should have worn a jacket, but the rain felt good after such a long winter. As cold as it was, it was worth it; Christopher was smart enough to know that he could die on the way back to the farm tonight, and he loved the feel of rain on his skin. Any chance he could, especially now, he would go out in the rain. Anytime could be the last time.

  He picked up the lantern and started walking deeper into the mine. The shaft was long, and it would take him some time, one of the things he had little of, but his instructions from his grandfather were clear. A flashlight would have been better suited for the task at hand, but every time they visited the mine, his grandfather had always insisted that no metals other than copper and zinc be allowed in. Brass, being an alloy made of both copper and zinc, was also permissible. His grandfather had explained why to him once when he was younger, something about the special electromagnetic properties of the rare-earth minerals contained in the shaft and surrounding veins, but the lecture had come the same day that he had discovered the love of his young life, and Christopher had been daydreaming at the time, and at many times since.

  “Are you an honest man?” Christopher whispered into the darkness, hearing his own words echo down the shaft. It was a tradition he and his grandfather had started the first time they had explored the mine. A simple question whispered into the darkness, followed by a pause to await the echoed return. He had always been fascinated as a young child by the stories his grandfather told him of Diogenes of Sinope, and even with everything going on in the outside world, Christopher could not help thinking of him while carrying his own lantern into the darkness.

  Diogenes of Sinope was a Greek philosopher and one of the founder
s of cynic philosophy. Diogenes believed that virtue was better revealed in action than in theory, and he used his simple lifestyle and behaviors as a way to criticize the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt society. Diogenes even once publicly mocked Alexander the Great, something most people did not do back in those days, and he quickly became notorious for his philosophical stunts. Most notably, Diogenes was known for wandering around ancient Greece carrying a lantern in search of an honest man, which he never found.

  Christopher had no expectations of finding anyone, honest or otherwise. The mine had been abandoned off and on over the years, and the last real significant mining activity had occurred during the First World War when it was mined for its high grade zinc to be used the war effort. After the war, it had been closed up with a large pile of rocks and boulders at the entrance, awaiting use at some point in the future when the price of zinc would rise, thus justifying the expense of removing the material from such a remote site. By the time the Second World War erupted, newer sources of zinc had been discovered, and with cheaper extraction and delivery costs of the raw materials to the factories, this zinc mine had been long forgotten. Forgotten by everyone except his grandfather.

  Christopher and his grandfather had spent two summers removing rock and ruble by hand, carefully and discreetly, always cautious of rockslides and always cautious to hide their progress and make it look as if the old mine was still sealed up completely. Not that anyone ever came to check. The mine was both remote and forgotten.

  Christopher’s feet walked through a large puddle of water. He had reached the halfway point. He took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and scrawled something on the rock wall, then continued on his way.

  Following the mineral vein, the mine was not straight, nor was it level. It made turns and dips, the largest dip long ago having filled with water from some unseen spring. It was the freshest water he had ever tasted, and it was always cold. The water was perfect treat on a hot summer day after a long hike up the mountain to do help his grandfather with his work inside the mine.

  What exactly his grandfather was doing was well beyond the grasp of Christopher. His grandfather wasn’t exactly the open book sort of guy, and he kept a lot of secrets. Whenever he asked, he always got the same reply.

  “It’s need-to-know, and right now, you don’t need to know. Besides, you can’t even begin to comprehend it.”

  Initially, he argued with his grandfather, who would simply retort with some mathematical theorem and then stare at the floor of the mine and mumble under his breath for hours.

  Fair enough. As long as someday he was brought into the loop, he had thought. Typically, he would just bring a book to read and would sit at the entrance of the mine, officially on guard duty, but mostly just absorbed in whatever book he was reading at the moment. His grandfather liked him to read non-fiction books, mostly field guides and plant identification and survival manuals, but he was also ‘forced’ to read the classics—something else he had fought at first, but then actually found himself enjoying more and more with each novel he completed. He paused for a moment, briefly sad that he could not remember the last time he actually sat down and read a book. How times have changed.

  The last dog-leg turn to the left. The end of the shaft would be just up ahead. His instructions were simple. Leave the lamp, with plenty of fuel, at the end of the shaft, and then return to the rendezvous point. Simple enough.

  The shaft ended abruptly, in a perfectly vertical wall of deep black granite. Christopher could see the chalked notations of various equations scrawled on the wall in his grandfather’s handwriting. He smiled. On the ground, at the base of the wall, a pile of rocks formed a small cairn. Each time his grandfather had come to the mine, he had carried with him a rock or mineral of some sort that he had collected over his years of travel and put it into the pile. This cairn some two thousand feet into the center of the earth had rocks in it from all over the world. Feldspar, limestone, talc, quartz, jasper, fluorite…rocks and minerals of every kind.

  Christopher set the ship’s lantern down and turned and walked back into the darkness. He would have no light on his return journey, something he was prepared for. Allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the mine before going back outside would only help him. And he needed every advantage he could get if he were going to make it back to the farm alive.

  They say time is relative, and for Christopher, it certainly was. The walk back to the entrance of the mine was the longest walk he had ever taken, even though it took no longer than the walk a few minutes previous. Even though he knew with absolute fact that he was in a secure area, being in the dark was something that not very many people chose to do anymore these days, and for good reason.

  But he had good reason.

  The last time Christopher was alone in the dark, he wet is pants from fear.

  And that was last week.

  No one knew about that incident, but Christopher needed to prove once and for all, to himself, that he was ready for the world he knew was coming. Ready for the trust that his friends and family were going to be placing in him. Christopher fought back the fear as he made his way forward. He could feel the anxiety building in his stomach, and the pressure building in his bladder.

  There was a bright flash of light ahead, followed immediately by the sound of thunder that echoed down the mineshaft. That bolt struck nearby, he thought to himself as he was momentarily blinded by the flash, and he closed his eyes to give them time to adjust.

  One Mississippi…two Mississippi…three Mississippi.

  He opened his eyes and made his way forward, this time able to use both of his hands as he climbed up the rubble pile at the entrance to the mine. He could feel the rain hitting his face as he climbed up into the darkness. The wind was howling.

  Christopher had been taught to always wait a moment at the entrance to the mine to make sure it was clear and no one was around before he made himself visible, but he was in a rush to get out of the mine before his bladder exploded. His jeans were already wet, and he didn’t need them drenched with urine, too.

  He burst out of the mineshaft almost at full sprint, internally celebrating his victory over his personal fear of the dark. He found a spot that was slightly sheltered from the wind and rain and paused, relieved to be out of the mineshaft. It was dark outside, but not like the darkness inside the mountain. That was a different kind of dark.

  On any other night, Christopher would have heard the sounds of the approaching thing coming up from behind, but tonight, the rain and the wind rattling the tree-tops helped to obscure the sound of the approaching danger. The thing was almost upon him when Christopher glanced backward. He hadn’t really heard anything, but a nagging feeling in his gut made him turn his head at the exact moment the thing lunged for him.

  If one thing happened before the other, it was unobservable to the naked eye, and indeed if one had been watching, it would have looked as if Christopher did the two things simultaneously: wet his pants from fear, and began to run down the mountain at full speed. But Christopher knew, and inside it made him feel even more ill-prepared for the night than he already was.

  At least the rain would wash away the evidence.

  In the dark they’re nice and slow…

  He slowed to a swift walk as he repeated his grandfather’s mantra in his head. As disappointed in himself as he was, he was mature enough to understand it was actually quite remarkable that he was out and about. Most kids his age were locked inside their homes with their parents, trying to wrap themselves in plastic, and here he was, a sixteen-year-old kid with nothing more than a machete, roaming around the countryside running errands for his grandfather as if nothing had happened in the world at all.

  His posture got a tad better, and a bit of self-esteem returned the farther he got from the mineshaft.

  Mission accomplished.

  Besides, the rain would wash the urine from his pants before he got home, and no one would be th
e wiser; and with that, the torrential rain stopped as suddenly as it has started, and he could see the stars again peeking through holes in the clouds for the first time that night.

  It looked like it was just going to be one of those days.

  It was the knock on the door that jarred William back to reality. He wondered how much time had gone by as he stood up and gained his bearings. The last time this happened to him he had lost track of several hours. It felt shorter this time, but by how much? His head hurt—a lot. Something that always happened when he had one of his episodes, but this time it was more intense, more piercing.

  KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

  Whoever it was, they were in a hurry, which was understandable given the fact that a small group of those shit-eaters were feeding on a body just off the porch. William tucked the photo into his front pocket—it would be useful later—and made his way down the stairs.

  He knew it wasn’t Dr. Cooper; it was way too early in the evening for him to be home yet. Besides, Cooper would just unlock the door and come in. It was most likely a refugee looking for shelter, so he would need to be careful. Most of the ones left had guns.

  KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

  The knock was somehow even more urgent this time.

  “Dr. Cooper! Wake up!” A female voice, and clearly she knew the Doctor.

  William’s posture relaxed just a bit. Probably a neighbor or a co-worker, but just in case, William put his hand on his service pistol as he pulled the curtain back on the widow just a bit to peek outside.

  It was a blonde woman, and he couldn’t help but notice breasts. William recognized those breasts from Dr. Cooper’s file. One of his laboratory technicians, Mary something or another. He couldn’t remember, and it didn’t really matter. She was unimportant, and he was not authorized to transport her anyway, even if he wanted to. She was disposable.