by Kondor, Luke
This afternoon a black cloud descended upon London, England, like a swarm of robotic locusts and ate all the organic life it could get to. The green grass of the parks. The birds, insects, squirrels, and yes, the humans. Race, gender, political preference, it really didn’t matter. It gobbled it up like it was nothing. And we saw it all because the non-organic technology—cameras, and the internet—allowed us, the rest of the world, to watch.
As the cloud makes its way across the globe, and the world is consumed, we’re being told to make our way deep underground. To hide in bunkers until The Signal (apparently that’s what it’s called) has finished with the organic matter it can reach and leaves the planet. I have my suspicions that this thing will find us anyway. Or, at the very least, won’t leave at all.
As the UK is consumed, and all of those physical bodies are eaten away, I have to think that I did something right because they’re still there, albeit online. Their likenesses, preferences, videos, pictures, their humanity, is stored. I created the empty container, and we all filled it with our humanity, and together we created the Time Capsule of our species. But that’s all it is. A Time Capsule.
Even as the cloud makes its way to the US where it will likely consume me too, and I, like the rest of the world, become little more than ones and zeros on the internet, I realise how wrong and silly I was. All those hours spent plugged into my laptop, coding away. All of the business meetings, the traveling from city to city to drum up money. Why? To be noticed? I’ve come to realise that I’m as insignificant as anyone else. We are insignificant as a species.
We’ll all be online for as long as our hard drives will last, but with nobody there to interact with, we’ll simply be the falling tree in the woods with nobody around to hear it.
So what have I really done?
Nothing.
I just wasted your time.
For that, I’m sorry.
For now, get to your bunkers, and let’s hope we survive this plague. If we get out, and there’s even a sliver of usable earth left, I know what I’m doing. I’m sure as shit not playing Farmville. Instead, I’ll be starting a real farm. I’ll be making real tangible things, like potatoes.
Yeah, I think potatoes are as significant a thing as I or humanity could ever hope to make.
So, hopefully see you on the other side,
Peace and love,
Mark
Luna Gajos
HOW DO YOU WIN AN argument? Teleportation. Easy. Why didn’t she think of it before? Luna looked out at the supposed countryside. Miles of rolling hills now patches of brown and dirt where the farmland once was. Dr Warwick spoke of the damaged soil. He talked about how difficult regrowing anything would be. The depletion of the oxygen levels was a genuine concern. The fundamental change out in the open could have caused an atmospheric shift. Something would happen. Something that Dr Warwick could only guess at.
The only thing Luna was any good at was cashing up a till whilst serving an irate customer, and monitoring the golden brownness of the pastries at the CrunchyBites restaurant. She was damn good at that. But this, whatever it was, was something else entirely.
She was also good at scrabble.
Polish scrabble, at least.
“Can you open a window?” she said to the rest of the car. It was full. A big four-wheeled jeep with black armoured plating. The IPC logo in bold white type on the bonnet.
A man with a shaved head called Daniel Wilson drove. His youthful soft skin reminded Luna of the employees at CrunchyBites. In the passenger seat was the pretty Indian TV host Nisha Bhatia, with the little brown boy on her lap, Darpal.
Luna was in the central back seat. Moomamu to her right, Gary to her left (adamant about having his own seat).
“But I’m cold,” Darpal said. “Can we keep it closed, please?”
The car was an IPC Security car. The IPC wasn't just a school, apparently. The IPC was also the premier non-lethal weapon developers of the twenty-first century.
“Sure, fine,” Luna replied. “Whatever you want.” She turned her head to look back at the trail of cars they’d passed. Hundreds, maybe thousands. All driverless. Probably stuck in traffic during their escape from the capital. Dying in a queue. Surely the worst way to go. The only movement on the road was their convoy. Three of the IPC Security cars. The doctor. The science teacher. A handful of IPC security. Forced to leave the HQ and make their way together.
“Does this remind you of anything?” Luna asked Moomamu. Just above the collar of the black t-shirt she could see a faint white line of scarring.
“Yes,” Moomamu said, without turning to look at her. “It reminds me of the last time we went to the soft spot. The time I gave my life to save the world. The time the cat led me to die.”
“Gary didn’t have a choice,” Gary said from her left side.
“Sure. And you didn’t give me a choice either. But I have one now. I’m going to leap back, do this job for that old lizard man, who’ll then take me back to my home and away from this nonsense.”
“Thinker has spoken to Light?”
“Yes … I forgot you were friends.”
“Light is no friend. Thinker should not trust Light.”
“At least he’s going to take me home,” Moomamu said.
“Guys,” Nisha said from the front of the car, “I know you’ve got stuff to work out but can we quiet the drama just a tad? Darpal and I have never met a talking cat before, never mind one with issues. I think it’s a little too much.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty fucked up,” Daniel said from the driver’s seat. “Also, if you guys get all bitchy and start yelling or whatever, you’ll probably lure a bubble or two down to us.”
“Yeah, that sounds reasonable,” Luna said, her voice down a couple of levels. “Plus I thought you two were friends.”
“We’re not friends. I don’t have friends. I’m a Thinker. I’m a god.”
“Thinker is not capable of friends,” Gary said.
They both turned away from each other, looking out their windows at the passing fields of dirt.
A moment of silence passed.
“I’m scared of the cloud,” Darpal said.
“Don’t be,” Nisha replied. “You see Mr .Wilson here?”
“That’s Sergeant Wilson, miss,” he said without looking away from the road.
“Well, Sergeant Wilson and the rest of his team are all with us. We’re all here to protect you. We’re not going to let anything hurt you. And if a bubble does even try its luck we’ve got EMPs to take it down.”
“Well, Miss Bhatia, technically we wouldn’t really be able to use the EMPs.”
“What do you mean?” Nisha said.
“Well, miss, most cars run on some sort of electronic system now. If we were to use an EMP it would take out the cars too. Probably for a few hours. By that time, more bubbles would show up to check on the missing bubble. Usually a twenty-minute process. That’s well before we could get back up and running and it wouldn’t give us enough time to hide either.” He spoke with all the calmness of someone who thought he was offering genuine insight.
“Have you got any other weapons?” Luna said.
“IPC made a big splash over the world with its use of non-lethal weapon technology and its private security department. A fantastic supplement for forces that require a delicate touch when dealing with peacekeeping, controlling movement of civilian populations, crowd control, refugee control, etc. It was the board’s and Dr Warwick’s belief that by creating effective non-lethal weapons we could save the world.” He smiled at Darpal and winked at him.
“Brilliant,” Luna said, as she looked out into the barren wastelands and seas of people reduced to dust in the cars around them. “Thanks for saving the world.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “You’re very welcome.”
Dr Warwick
The indigo children. A miracle? That’s what they were supposed to be. Instead, they turned out to be psychic beacons for an alie
n invasion. What a fucking miracle. All that time he’d wasted in his life. The IPC was founded on the very idea of finding and nurturing the children. They built an empire around themselves with the idea of funding and hiding the IPC’s true intent. The academies around the world put together to filter the children, to find those with the indigo speck.
“Does anyone else feel like they’re in the unpopular car,” Mr Foster said as he leaned forward from the central back seat, poking his head in between himself and the IPC Security guy who was driving, Kevin Wilson. Mr Foster shoved his bald head into the front like an unwanted turkey egg.
“What do you mean?” Dr Warwick said.
“It’s just … this reminds me of the school trip I went on once to Wales in Year Five. All the cool kids got their own room but I was an extra so I had to stay with these two weird kids. One of them had night terrors. I hardly slept a wink that entire two-week trip.” Mr Foster sat back again. An egg being sucked back up the womb.
“And then the cool children decided to make fun of me when I fell off the zip wire.”
“Sounds horrible, sir,” Kevin said from the driver’s seat.
“It was, Kevin. It really was.”
“Oh God,” Dr Warwick said as he pressed his fingers against his temples. “This is insane.”
Dr Warwick thought back to the first time he’d met an indigo child. Some little shit called Julian. Arrogant. He knew he was special. It was back before Dr Warwick knew anything about keeping oneself looking proper. Before he’d taken to hair dye and platform shoes. Before he’d had his dorky ears pinned back. Before he’d had the hair follicles that ran between his eyebrows sealed shut. A painful operation, but it did the trick. No more Mister Monobrow.
Anyway, this little kid, Julian. He had a unique ability. He was able to zero in on a person’s confidence issues. Make them feel inferior. Mentally, physically, spiritually. He made Dr Warwick feel old, outdated, unnecessary, ineffective. A brilliant psychic and a bully.
But it was when Dr Warwick shone his penlight into the boy’s eyes, that’s when the magic happened. When Dr Warwick realised that Julian was special. Not in the way the kid thought, but special in the way a new piece of equipment is. A special kind of tool that could be utilised for various purposes. He shone the light into the boy’s eyes and the numbers fell from his mouth.
That was when he agreed to join the IPC. When the numbers fell. That’s when he realised he wasn’t dealing with children, but equipment.
“Can I ask a serious question, sir?” Kevin said.
“You can try,” Dr Warwick replied.
“Well, I’m just curious. With all this craziness — the talking cat, the teleporting man who says he’s an alien, the black cloud — why are allowing more craziness to happen? Why are we taking the alien’s advice?”
“That is a good question, Kevin. Have you ever thought about the fact that this incredible cloud, this wonder of technology that crossed the galaxy to find us, is intelligent? How could it not be? The wonder of it all. Imagine being able to use some of that technology. Imagine if we could communicate with the cloud. I think it’s reasonable to assume that such a force of advanced technology must also have an advanced intelligence behind it. I believe there’s a degree of reasoning to be done with the cloud.”
“You know,” Mr Foster said from his back seat, “Stephen Hawking said that intelligent life finding its way to Earth would be similar to what happened when Columbus discovered America.”
“Maybe I don’t share the same fears as a broken man in a wheelchair who’s likely to be a pile of ash in a wheelchair right now,” Dr Warwick said. “Besides, it’s all in motion now anyway. And I have my failsafe with the EMPs.”
“When I see an animal with less intelligence than my own. I don’t see a lifeform. I see food,” Mr Foster said. “Who’s to say the cloud doesn’t see us in the same way?”
“I love Stephen Hawking,” Kevin said, smiling.
“You do?” Dr Warwick replied, impressed. “Well, Kevin, you’ve surprised me more than once on this excursion.”
“Yeah yeah, he’s great. I think The Shining is my favourite of his,” Kevin said as he stroked his moustache with his thumb and forefinger.
Dr Warwick gritted his teeth and returned to massaging his temples.
“I’m still not convinced that this isn’t all some sort of acid flashback. For all I know I’m back in the IPC HQ and you’re all doing tests on me right now,” Mr Foster said before leaning back into his chair and whistling the theme tune to Countdown.
Moomamu The Thinker
A sign passed them. Alvaston. Moomamu recognised the stone buildings and the cobbled streets from the last time. The same signs. The same feeling. The same hills rolling upwards. The same empty field with the white posts stuck into the ground and walls made from crooked rocks.
But where it was once crawling with life, it was now barren. A few patches of dust and clothing here and there. A few displaced moving machines. But the greenery was gone. Replaced with the smell of ash and dirt.
“Can you close that window?” Moomamu said. “It stinks.”
They drove slowly down the road. The moving machines ahead and behind them matched their speed. The convoy manoeuvred around two broken machines, crumpled into each other in the chaos. He turned around and looked at the moving machine behind them. He could see the driver. A vapid face of limited understanding. The blond moustache. The man who hit him with the stick. A dangerous fool, for sure.
“Who is that idiot driver?” Moomamu said.
“That would be my brother,” Daniel said from the driver’s seat. “I wouldn’t say that to his face either. Violent streak in him that one. Like the both of us, eh?” As if he’d told a joke, the driver chuckled.
“Oh,” Moomamu said.
Next to the moustachioed driver was Dr Warwick’s angry little face. He didn’t wave or anything. Odd for a human. Usually, when he looked at them they waved. A way of dealing with how uncomfortable Moomamu made them. He used to think it was because they naturally sensed his power and reverence beneath the human vessel, but he was pretty sure it was just an odd human quirk. Like the noises they make in the bathroom. Or the fact that they kill so much livestock every day and claim not to be barbaric in nature.
But Dr Warwick, he stared at Moomamu like he was looking at an idiot. Strange. Moomamu turned back to look ahead as the moving machine in front turned onto a smaller road. As they followed, Moomamu saw the familiar sign that read ‘White Log Farm’. His stomach bubbled.
He turned to look at Luna. She’d seen the sign too. He saw her skin go a shade lighter. She rubbed her eyes until she noticed Moomamu looking at her. She smiled and nodded.
Moomamu returned the smile, trying to ease her nerves.
“It’s fine,” Moomamu said. “No parasites here.”
“But the clouds are dark,” Darpal said looking up to the skies through the car window. “The skies are too dark. That means the cloud remnants are heavy here.”
“It’s okay,” Nisha said. “We’re going to be fine.”
They stopped the moving machines on the square of gravel and the group of IPC Security men erupted in a maelstrom of shouting and running around with metal boxes and equipment, talking about perimeters and bubble heavy areas. Dr Warwick and Mr Foster didn’t move much from their moving machine. Their driver stood by them. A personal guard of sorts. It reminded Moomamu of the prince, his fat idiot companion, and Snuckems.
None of the Security had a lethal weapon between them. It wasn’t in the IPC’s remit, apparently. A poor army, Moomamu thought as he looked at their measly body armour with plastic visors and their small black sticks slotted into their sides.
The pile of burnt wood was still next to the car park. A mess of black that used to be a structure. The white van still sat there motionless. He walked over to it and ran his hand against the cold white and found the plastic handle. He took a deep breath and pulled it open. Marta’s body had d
isappeared. In its place, a pile of darkened dust scattered over plastic bags.
“You better get to your time travelling,” Dr Warwick called from his car, finally showing his smile. He was standing on the tips of his toes looking over the side of the moving machine.
“You going to the barn?” Luna said to Moomamu.
“Yes,” he said. “Are you coming?”
“I don’t think I can,” she said as she looked away from Moomamu.
“Fine, whatever,” he said. “You, brown human and spawn, are you coming?”
“Bit rude and kinda racist,” the brown woman said. “It’s Nisha. And Darpal’s not my son, but yes, definitely. I’d love to see you time travel.”
“As you wish,” Moomamu said as he started to walk up the gravel path.
“Does Thinker wish Gary to come?” Gary said.
“I could do without the distraction.” He didn’t look at Gary. He couldn’t bear to look at him. Too much fur. Too many claws.
Moomamu took the spawn and the human up the gravel path and into the Pig-House. Inside the smell was still strong. Ash and blood. Bone and flesh. No more bodies, though. More dust and clothing.
Moomamu walked to the area he thought was ‘about’ right. He planted his feet on the floor, shoulder-width apart. Seemed appropriate. He looked to Nisha and Darpal, nodded his head, and then jumped. He heaved as his body lifted into the air and then landed with nothing but the sound of his feet hitting the muddy floor. He tried again but nothing happened. His feet hit the floor.
