Before We Die Alone

by Ike Hamill

  “I think you’re the one constrained by a false dichotomy,” I say. “You seem to think that the only possibilities are Earth being reset, or allowing people to destroy the Earth. What if we go back and convince the group in Australia to be more careful. What if we take the predictions from the bears and use them to inform the course of history so that we don’t make those mistakes. Perhaps the power generation technique could be developed in secret, and only used to enable us to travel into space and spread. There must be infinite scenarios that don’t end with the human race being reduced to a few tiny colonies. I’ve lived on Llanive, and I think most of the people there would agree that it’s not superior to civilization.”

  “The simulations the bears do are not likely to be wrong,” Adam says. “They would have accounted for the possibility of us going back to Earth with knowledge of the possible future.”

  “So we’re in the simulation? Even the outcome of this conversation?”

  Adam nods.

  “Besides, even if we did convince the Australians and protect humans from the new power source, who’s to say we could convince the bears that the threat was neutralized? They decided some time ago that the only solution to the human problem was extermination.”

  “I need to think about this one problem at a time,” I say.

  Adam puts his glass down on the small table between us and moves to the edge of his chair.

  “You think. I’m going to start dinner. Are you hungry?”

  “As long as you don’t serve giant six-legged squirrel.”

  ---- * ----

  As the sun starts to go down, the bugs come out. I move inside and sit in Adam’s cozy kitchen as he prepares a salad and roasted vegetables. His little cabin is warm, clean, and fresh. It’s nice to be inside after spending weeks in the woods, but it also feels restricting. I try to imagine myself back in the city, but I can’t do it. It seems like something in my DNA has been changed by my experiences.

  “How long have you had this place?” I ask.

  His knife stops chopping and he looks up towards the ceiling as he thinks.

  “Twenty years maybe? I’ve lost track. I think I cut the first logs about twenty years ago. It’s tough to remember. At first, I had a lot of ambition but no belief that I could pull off my plan. As the years went by, my ambition decreased, but I replaced it with stamina and I just plodded through the rest of the construction. It’s an interesting curve, you know? There are still things to do and I try to do a little each day.”

  “How much time do you spend here? I always thought you lived exclusively in the city. You were always there when I called to you.”

  “I don’t sleep much,” he says. “So it’s possible for me to spend time here and there.”

  “Wow. That’s a lot of travel.”

  He looks down at what he’s chopping. His knife moves with quick confidence. “I don’t think of it that way. For me, it’s no more than moving from the living room to the kitchen. Once you learn, it’s no effort.”

  “Weird.”

  ---- * ----

  We sit down to dinner as the sun sets on the horizon. That’s wrong—it’s not the Sun. It’s some other star. Adam told me that we don’t have a name for it. Telescopes back on Earth haven’t detected this star yet.

  “How come everywhere looks so much like Earth?” I ask.

  “How come Earth looks so much like everywhere else? Everything is cross-pollinated.”

  He has prepared us a simple meal of raw and roasted vegetables. Some light herbs bring out the flavors.

  His salt shaker is glass, with a metal top screwed on. I study it after shaking salt on my potatoes. “So they make these things here as well?”

  “No,” he says. “All the manufactured stuff I brought from Earth. Plus, I brought tools as well. I have stuff drop-shipped to the building and then cart it over here through the folds. It’s a lot of work.”

  “It’s a beautiful place, but why? Why go to all this trouble?”

  “This is where I’m going to live,” he says. “I’m building the place where I’m going to be forever.”

  He looks out the window at the land he’s claiming as his own. While he’s doing that, I’m giving him a good solid look. Honestly, since I’ve been here, I haven’t looked that hard at Adam. It was difficult at first. I’m the kind of person who hates to know what a radio guy looks like. Once I have a mental image to go with a voice, it’s very shocking to alter that concept. I suppose I would rather avert my eyes and maintain a conversation like we used to—no eye contact. But, while he’s looking through his window, I look him over. I would guess he’s about fifty. It’s hard to tell. He seems like he’s in pretty good shape, but he certainly has some miles on him.

  “Forever,” I say. I leave it at that.

  “You know what the purpose of aging is?” he asks.

  I think about it for a second. “Everything tends towards entropy. I’m not sure it’s a purpose, per se.”

  “No, there’s a distinct purpose,” he says. “It’s a mechanism, like hunger or thirst. You age because it’s the only way your genes can survive and evolve. If you stayed around and competed for resources with your progeny, better copies of your genes would never have a chance to spread. Organisms age because at their core they realize that space, air, and food all have fundamental limitations. There are only so many atoms on a planet.”

  “Okay?”

  I have no idea where he’s going.

  “But there’s something triggered when you begin to move between worlds. Maybe there’s a different isotope in the air. Maybe there’s a different wavelength to the light from the nearest stars. Whatever the cause, your body knows when you’ve removed the restriction of living on a single planet.”

  “It does?”

  “Do you know how old I am?”

  I don’t want to be insulting, but he doesn’t seem vain. “Fifty?”

  He smiles and looks close to laughing at my answer. “Try one-fifty.”

  “One fifty what?”

  “I’ll be one-hundred and sixty four years old in December. Of course, that’s assuming Earth is still around then. As soon as Earth goes away, I’ll be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what day it is. I suppose not having a calendar doesn’t really change the nature of the fact though.”

  “Wait, shut up for a second,” I say. “What do you mean one-sixty-four?”

  “Just that,” he says. “No trickery. Look at that photo. It’s me when I was roughly your age.”

  Behind me, on the wall, there’s a photo of what looks like a college wrestling team. It’s one of those old photos where the ink looks metallic and everyone wears a severe expression that suggests they were forced to hold the same position for a minute. The man off to the side could be Adam. It could also be Adam’s grandfather.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “You don’t have to believe me. Whatever. You’ll see for yourself, I’m sure.” He lets the air clear while he eats another forkful of salad. “I’m going to start a little community around this lake. There’s virtually nobody else on this planet. I think it will take centuries before anyone even finds us.”

  “Us who?”

  Aside from the guest room, his little cabin doesn’t look like it holds anyone but him.

  “I’ll begin slowly. There are a couple of young women who might respond well to the idea of remote living. I have a plot of land that you could build on, if you’re interested. I’m not making any assumptions, but knowing what you know, I figure you’ll be looking for a safe place to take up residence.”

  Adam never talks about plans. I had no idea that he was even interested in meeting women. These ideas sound strange in his voice.

  “We’ll have to bring over enough supplies to carry us through the demise of Earth,” he says. “I’ve figured out gardening in this soil, but it takes a lot of time. It would be safer to start stock-piling. Plus, there are medicines to think of. So many things.”

  “Uh-h
uh,” I say.

  “I’ve been working on a list,” he says. He leans back in his chair so he can reach into a drawer. From it, he pulls a notebook filled with handwriting. He flips it open to a tab that marks his place. On the left page, everything is crossed out. On the right, he still has a bunch of items left. “I’m going to put a question mark next to companion animals. I wrote that back when I thought there might be more indigenous predatory wildlife. I don’t think there’s enough to worry about. At least not enough to warrant having another mouth to feed. Some of these items are from years and years ago.”

  He flips through.

  “You said it would take centuries for anyone to find you? I wasn’t even trying, and I found you pretty quick,” I say.

  “I don’t think that’s true,” he says. He looks up from his book. “You stumbled on this place. I suspect you got sucked in through one of my old folds. You weren’t consciously looking for me, were you?”

  I shrug. “Kinda,” I say. “I figured you were the one they were talking about in the woods. The one woman said you lived in the in-betweens, and I immediately thought of you. Plus, I heard your voice in the woods that first day. I figured you were the guy and you had found some portal or something to get out of there. In a way, I was looking for you. I just didn’t know how to go about finding you.”

  “Well you’re the first one to come here since I’ve discovered the place.”

  “The black bear talked about this planet. You haven’t seen him around?”

  “No,” he says. He makes an attempt at a smile, but it doesn’t look very sincere. I catch his eyes as they dart to the window.

  “And the people back in the forest—I think some of them knew about Maldy as well. It was one of the places they figured you had fled to.”

  He puts his fork down. Now he can’t hide his dismay. He wipes his mouth with his napkin and tries on another smile. “It’s a big place. There could be a million people on this planet and I wouldn’t run into them.”

  “How big is it?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “I’m not sure.”

  “In relation to Earth, I mean.”

  “Don’t know.”

  “There must be some way to figure that out, right? Scientists were able to calculate the diameter of Earth before anyone was able to traverse it, right? There has to be some kind of formula or something.”

  “I know that it has a long day compared to Earth, but that only means that it’s rotating slower. It has atmosphere, and magnetic poles like Earth. There are no moons that I’ve been able to observe, but there are certainly other planets in this system.”

  “How did you discover this place?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just one of the places in the folds. I suspect that I can’t explain it any better than you can.”

  “But since your first discovery, you’ve been able to perfect moving between here and Earth, right?”

  “Yes,” he says. “It got easier and easier. Now it’s second nature.”

  “Excellent,” I say. I put my napkin on my empty plate. “Can you show me how to get home?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  * Guest *

  IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG to clean up. Adam gets his water from the lake via a hand pump. It’s the same type of pump he has in the bathroom. The cabin has electricity from solar panels, but he uses it sparingly. I dry the dishes as he washes them. We retire to the living room and the shadows dance in the candlelight.

  “It’s so quiet here,” I say. Even the forest on Llanive was alive with the sounds of crickets, frogs, and bigger animals—Higg squirrels, and the like. This place only has the gentle sounds of wind moving the trees.

  “Peaceful,” he says.

  “I suppose,” I say.

  He still hasn’t explained what he meant by “Perhaps he would show me how to get home.” For several minutes, I thought he was about to elaborate. Then, after a while, it seemed too awkward to ask.

  “You’re unique, are you not?” I ask.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I think the bears must have some sort of device to move around the universe. They certainly don’t seem to have the freedom to move about at will, like you do. And the other people in the forest, they’ve mythologized you because of your ability. The primates moved around with cars and motorcycles. Who else can just slip between worlds in these folds?”

  “What about you?”

  “Like you said before—I probably just got sucked into one of your old paths through the folds, right?”

  “Not exactly what I said, but your point is valid.”

  “So what makes you unique?”

  “I don’t know. Just a skill like any other, I suppose. First, you simply have to know that something is possible. It’s like the four-minute mile. For the longest time, it was thought to be impossible. Then, once one man broke the limit, many others have followed. You could say that the first person paved the way, but it’s not as if the others used the same techniques or employed the same training regimen. They simply knew it was possible, so they did it.”

  “And who told you that interstellar travel was possible.”

  He points to his eyes. “I saw it. Once I witnessed it, I knew I had to figure out how to do it.”

  “So you’re not unique,” I say. “Who did you see?”

  “Not who, precisely. It was a mechanical thing. I was on the beach in New Jersey, shivering as the night air turned cold. This was decades before man would breach the skies with heavier-than-air flight, so I had no misunderstanding that what I was seeing was miraculous. The thing slipped between a ripple of light and emerged into my world. It hovered in the sky for a second and then descended. When it reached my level, it did a slow circle around me. It studied me for a second, and then it flew on.”

  “What did you do?”

  “For a second, I didn’t do anything. Then my curiosity took over. I ran after the thing for a dozen paces and then turned around. The ripple of light was there again. It was like an echo from before. For some reason, I ran towards that. I’ve always had good eyesight. I suspect that what I was seeing was beyond what a normal person could see. If I had any advantage, it was that. I jumped at the ripple, thinking it was something I could catch with my hands. My hands passed right through the light, and then so did I.”

  He stood up and moved to the mantle built into the chimney. Did he place those stones, one by one, and fix them with mortar brought back from Earth? I suppose he must have.

  From the mantle, he plucked a rock and brought it over to me. He held it out, but I was afraid to touch it. The way the light moved through the crystal made it look alive. He set it down on the table.

  “It’s a type of opal, embedded in quartz. There’s a thin titanium coating on it. That’s what creates the colors. There were thousands of them on the mountain where I found myself. And overhead, the flying machines were navigating through the air and picking up folds to other worlds.”

  “Who sent the machines?”

  “Regular people. They had technology you and I have never experienced, but aside from that, they seemed like normal people. I didn’t investigate long. It was very frightening for me. I was a young man, reasonably well educated, but completely befuddled by what I was seeing. It was a strange, desolate world, filled with gray skies and sharp angles. I didn’t explore long before I started trying to find a way home. The area hosted a dozen folds. I could see the ripples in the air. The folds bend the light. I went by instinct and followed the one that felt like home. I was right. I ended up back on my New Jersey beach with this rock in my hand.”

  He was holding it again. When he twisted it, the crystal absorbed the candlelight and then release only of a fraction of it back. It appeared to consume the light.

  “I searched for years for an answer about what I had experienced. If not for this rock, I would have assumed that the whole thing was a strange dream. I became an explorer on Earth. I travele
d west, seeking new sights and experiences. I found my next fold in Arizona. I saw it at dawn, outside my tent. I didn’t hesitate. I was transported from Arizona to a snowy field, with whipping winds, and a strange red orb in the sky. Fortunately, I backed right out of there, or I would have frozen in minutes. I put on every stitch of clothing in my pack and found the fold again. Back on the hard-packed snow, I marked my position with a hastily-made flag and started hiking towards a settlement. I stopped downwind of the place and studied it. The camp was overrun with bears. They weren’t fighting or marauding. They seemed to be working together to build a structure out of ice. That’s when I went back to my flag.”

  “Where was that?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been back to that place since. I learned something crucial that day though. When I got back to my flag, I didn’t see the ripple associated with the fold. After some searching, I found it. It had shifted and was hovering over a patch of open water. I couldn’t even get near the edge of the water. The ice cracked and sent me running back for the snow. I thought I was a dead man. My fingers and toes were already freezing, and the only living creatures I had seen were these giant bears, apparently working together. I went back to my flag and sat down, defeated.”

  “The fold came back?”

  “No. I wouldn’t have learned much if it did. I sat there and meditated. I found that in my desperation, I could completely relax. I’ve always been capable of accepting my fate. In that situation, I was able to coax a fold to me. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in Arizona.”

  “What? You meditated into a fold?”

  I don’t know why the concept is so shocking to me. The whole damn thing is well beyond reason. I suppose I was just starting to get used to a few ideas and this new one has upset my applecart once more.