Earth Keepers

by Jorge Alejandro Lavera

  Years ago, he’d traveled with a friend who had a diesel truck and he remembered some of the details, hoping that this one was similar. He pumped the accelerator several times and hit the ignition. The engine vibrated gently, and it started. He heard the soft ‘clack clack clack’ typical of diesel engines. He looked at the control near his left hand and turned on the lights, which illuminated the parking lot very clearly. He released the hand brake and put the automatic transmission in gear. He pressed the accelerator very gently; the truck responded perfectly, moving very slowly. He turned to aim for the exit and noticed that the hydraulic steering system made the turn without any effort from him. His vision from the height he was at was perfect in all directions. He moved forward and carefully took the vehicle out on the street. The glass was polarized, which he hadn’t noticed, but now with the full sunlight, it came in handy. He turned off the lights and headed home. He went the wrong way, against traffic. Sofía looked like she was going to say something, but she kept quiet.

  They arrived in no time. There wasn’t anyone on the streets and of course the traffic lights weren’t working. He left the truck at the entrance of their house, put on the hand brake and left the engine running.

  “Let’s get our stuff.”

  They made a few trips, first bringing out the suitcases and backpacks. Juan Carlos also grabbed a hose and with Sofía, carried the bottled water they had. They also grabbed blankets, a carafe heater and a saucepan.

  “If we end up on foot, we’ll have to leave almost all of this,” said Sofía.

  “It’s true. Let’s hope that the truck is as good as it seems. Can you think of anything else we should take?”

  After thinking about it for a few minutes, Sofía commented:

  “If we stop, are we going to sleep in the back of the truck?”

  “Yes, that’s the safest until we arrive.”

  “How about if we bring pillows, then?”

  “Good idea.” And they took their pillows, too.

  “Everything ready?” asked Juan Carlos. He checked everything once more, checked the mirrors, the seatbelts, and announced: “We’re going.” And he headed out slowly.

  THE FUN IS OVER

  Somewhere in the ocean, November 26, 2027

  The soldier reclined on his cot, closed his eyes and concentrated.

  “Is it true we’re not going to have any more humans?” he thought, communicating instantly with his fellows hundreds of miles away.

  “I’m afraid so, at this rate there won’t be a single one left in a few days.”

  “They can’t all disappear. There must be some isolated ones, that don’t get infected.”

  “Sure. There are some bunkers, and maybe some ships...like yours...”

  “But there are just a few here. I’m talking about millions, not a few dozen. What do we do about this? This isn’t funny.”

  “Yes, it’s a disaster. What are we going to do now?”

  “Be bored, apparently.”

  “And right now. It can’t be...things were going so well. I couldn’t keep up entertaining myself with all the conflicts caused by humans,” he thought, sighing.

  “So much work creating humans, eliminating another species so that our people prosper. And then suddenly we end up with nothing.”

  “Speaking of other species, do you think it was them?”

  “I’m sure it was. The humans could have done something like this accidentally, but we’d have seen the virus spreading geographically. This was a concerted attack. No human faction would kill themselves.”

  “Where are they?”

  “We’ll look for survivors. Where there are a lot, there will probably be a few of them, maybe to finish the job.”

  “We must stop them.”

  “Do you think it’s worth it?”

  “Ah, come on. Humans are the best we’ve done in thousands of ages. If I had known it was so fun to create an intelligent animal with the characteristics of a plague, I’d have done it several million years ago, on the first planet I went to.”

  “Okay. You’re in the best position to find survivors.”

  “You’re right, I’ll deal with the issue immediately. See you soon.”

  And with that, he opened his eyes and returned to his tasks, with a half-smile on his face.

  A LANDING

  MSC Grandiosa, November 26, 2027. 7:30 a.m.

  Leora had barely slept, but the stress of the morning kept her alert from adrenaline. She’d been watching the city for an hour through binoculars. Finally, from the bridge she took the microphone and activated the internal communications system. The ship had a system for announcements that was heard throughout the ship, including through speakers in all the cabins. A bead of perspiration ran down her temple, but she dried it with her sleeve.

  She activated the microphone and spoke in a strong, clear voice.

  “This is your captain Leora Shapira speaking. As the crew explained to you yesterday, there was an epidemic of some sort which has caused an extreme mortality rate. You can look to the coast to see there is no activity.” Leora paused. “Observe the total absence of vehicular movement and towards the north, a fire that we could see last night. Nobody went to put it out,” she said, pausing again, this time longer.

  “There is no contact with anyone on land. Cell phone communications have been cut. There is no electricity. Everything we see indicates...that the city has collapsed. The lifeboats are available for whoever wants to go down to the city, but remember...once you leave, you may not return. If there is an illness, we can’t risk bringing you back on the ship. Now look around you. The ship is still completely functional, we have provisions and all kinds of luxuries for several days until we have to abandon it. My intention is continue heading south, towards safer lands, where we may find someone. We know from the radio that there is no one here or further north. And although there may be none to the south, either, we will have the possibility of getting off the ship in some place where we can maintain ourselves until we decide what to do. Buenos Aires without electricity won’t have gas or running water, either, which makes it uninhabitable. Whoever still wants to leave the ship, I invite you to come up to D Deck. If you don’t know where that is, please ask the nearest crew member. You may carry hand luggage.

  “For those who decide to stay, your stay on board will be completely free from this moment on. However, you must comply with the rules of the ship and follow the crew’s orders, like them or not. Whoever stays on the ship and causes problems or doesn’t obey orders, will be arrested. Decide now what you want to do. The boats will leave in an hour and then we’ll take the ship back out to sea.”

  Leora cut the microphone.

  She went out to the observation deck where she had been last night, where she could hear the conversations and discussions that were taking place everywhere. She took her cell phone and put the timer on a countdown for one hour. Then she leaned back on the railing and rested awhile, getting some air.

  Suddenly out of the corner of her eye, she thought she noted a movement. She got the binoculars, looked carefully and yes, finally saw what had caught her attention. A red truck, traveling south on the freeway. She barely saw it for a few seconds between buildings. Finally, it went out of view. Seeing a single truck in a city of millions didn’t give her much hope, though. Well, those who got off here would soon know.

  An hour later, she was on the bridge discussing the route for leaving the river with the navigator, when the alarm on her phone went off. She sighed and went to D Deck.

  When she arrived, she was met with a small crowd that was there waiting.

  “How many people, Giuseppe?”

  “Three hundred sixty-four, Captain.”

  “How many of the crew are insisting on going?”

  “How did you...twenty-five, Captain.”

  “Get three boats and start the evacuation. Are there officers among the deserters?”

  “No, Captain.”

  “Divide
the crew up among the boats, but no crew member of essential positions. Only cadets and crew without rank. The crew members should take care of the handling of the boats and the disembarkation.”

  “Yes, Captain. Um, Captain...”

  “Yes?”

  “Permission to accompany the evacuees...”

  Leora’s jaw dropped.

  “Do you want to die, Martino? Because if that’s the case, I don’t have a problem shooting you in the head myself, right now,” she ended, almost shouting.

  Several passengers and crew members turned, hearing the argument. Leora saw that there were families among those who wanted to go.

  “Captain...”

  “Captain, nothing. You’ve trained for years for the position you’re in now, and now that the ship needs you, you’re not going to escape at the first opportunity. You’re going to do your duty or be treated as a deserter.”

  “Captain, with all due respect, if the company doesn’t exist anymore, I don’t have to answer to anyone, nor do I have much possibility of moving up. What’s the point?”

  “It’s more important to you that you won’t have a ship to do your duty on when it’s time? If that helps, I can name you Chief Clown in charge of the trip. I swear, I’m more tempted to send you ashore, where you’ll be dead in a week with all of these people. Look at the coast. Do you think you’ll find lots of survivors waiting for you with open arms?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Good God, think for a minute, Martino. In this city, there is no electricity, and there is certainly no gas or running water. The only thing you’ll be able to drink, if you can find it, is bottled water. You will only be able to eat what you find canned. To cook anything or boil water, you’ll have to make a fire with any wood or coal that you find. And all that without mentioning that the city is full of corpses lying there where they died. You can’t see the bodies from here? You can see them clearly with binoculars. Take them. No, seriously, take them and look towards the coast.”

  Martino had turned red, partly from anger, partly from embarrassment. He took the binoculars and focused on the coast. He scanned it slowly. Leora saw his face change.

  “All those bodies that you’re seeing, if they’re not a source of contagion of the virus that killed all those in sight, will be for another dozen diseases. Dysentery, cholera, plague, choose one, and if it isn’t now, in a few days, this city will be a hotbed of deadly diseases.”

  Martino lowered the binoculars and white-faced, handed them to the captain.

  “Come on, swallow your pride and live a few more days here. I know you don’t want to die.”

  A bunch of passengers and crew members who were getting ready to get on the lifeboats had heard the whole dialogue. Some laughed and looked disdainfully at Martino. On the other hand, a few more than a dozen people took their things, and sneaked away from the boats to go back inside the ship. A pretty little girl of about five years old approached her.

  “When I grow up, I want to be the captain of a ship.”

  Leora looked at the girl and smiled. She didn’t have and couldn’t have children. She’d looked into adopting, but someone who wasn’t part of a stable couple and whose work had them traveling all the time was quickly disqualified.

  “Well, if you study very, very hard, someday you’ll surely be one. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  “Leonora.”

  “Well, that’s the perfect name, I’m a captain and my name is Leora, what do you think?” she smiled and ruffled the girl’s hair and light brown curls.

  Leonora beamed.

  “See, Daddy? I told you one day I could be a captain.”

  A man close by with a woman, scowled.

  “What’s your dad’s name, Leonora?”

  “His name is Claudio, Captain.”

  “You can call me Leora. Now go with them, because surely they are tired.”

  The girl smiled from ear to ear and left with her family.

  Leora didn’t express anything with her face, but her eyes revealed that internally, she was smiling.

  The lifeboats were orange and white. They had a dome of plasticized canvas that enclosed them completely. They were designed to be used for prolonged time in high seas, even in a storm situation. The crew members first lowered them a little to boarding height and opened the tarps that covered the domes of the three closest boats. Then they distributed life preservers to each person who was going to leave, checked that everything was on right and then sent them to the corresponding boat. In general, each person carried a small backpack or small hand luggage. In the end, they were pretty full, but they still had enough room, far from the maximum capacity of one hundred fifty people each.

  Leora went around to each boat once everyone was on board. In general, the crew members lowered their heads, though some greeted her respectfully. Some passengers greeted her with an inclination of the head, others looked at her belligerently. The tarpaulins were closed, and a sailor took the role of pilot in each boat. Leora signaled and an operator manipulated the controls of the pulleys to lower them. They went down gently until they were in the water. Other crew members, from the boats, disengaged the pulleys that held them to the cruise ship. The engines went on, and they began to move away from the ship to head towards the port, looking for a safe place to disembark.

  Leora told those who stayed on board to get back to their duties, and she went back up to the bridge.

  “Tonio, lift anchor and reverse engine at minimum speed. Be sure not to deviate from the canal.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  The navigator followed her instructions. You could hear the vibrations of the anchors going up and then the engines running smoothly. The boat began to move backwards very slowly, although it picked up a little speed helped by the current of the river. At that rate, it would take several hours to get to where they could turn around, but given the situation, Leora couldn’t see what the hurry was.

  DOGS

  Buenos Aires, November 26, 2027. 8:10 .m.

  They had to leave slowly and then advance cautiously. While there wasn’t anyone driving, there were a lot of cars in unexpected places, some of them with doors open and some with bodies inside.

  The day started getting warm early, so they traveled with the windows open. Moving slowly, they could hear the silence. The only sounds they heard were the purr of the engine and the wheels on the asphalt. He headed southeast, passing through the streets of Buenos Aires.

  “Do you think we should look for survivors?” Juan Carlos asked.

  “Do you think we could help them if we found them? Do we stop our trip if we can’t take them with us? And if we have another encounter like we did this morning? Or what happens if we find a baby?”

  “A baby?” Juan Carlos thought about all the babies who, if they didn’t die from the sickness, must have already died of hunger and thirst, and shuddered. “If we find a baby, we shouldn’t save it?”

  “Dad, and if we found a dozen babies? Do we forget about the trip and start a daycare? I don’t want to be selfish, but I think we put ourselves in danger if we find anyone.”

  “In any event, it doesn’t look like there was anyone. It’s dismal.”

  He turned south to the highway and headed for the entrance ramp. Luckily, they were driving carefully, because at a hundred and fifty feet, there had been a two car crash and both were blocking the road. One of them was sideways, blocking the ramp completely.

  Juan Carlos stared and saw no way to get through them. Move the cars? They were embedded in each other. He saw no way to pass, move, or turn. He thought for a moment, put the truck in reverse, and very carefully returned to the ramp entrance, went out to the street, and went to the exit ramp in the opposite lane. He went up through it and this time found no obstacles. He drove on the highway against traffic at no more than twenty-five to thirty miles an hour, slowing down and dodging, when necessary, the few vehicles stopped on the highway. The elevated highway gave t
hem a great view of the outskirts of the city. Juan Carlos noted the smoke from a fire towards the north. There wasn’t any indication that anyone was going to put it out.

  Towards the edge of the river, for a second he could see the port and very far out, a cruise ship that must have been several blocks long. He wondered if there was anyone alive on board and stepped off of the accelerator, but remembered what they’d seen up until now and decided to ignore it.

  From the lane they were traveling in, he could see that there were more and more cars until nearing a toll booth, he saw that on the other side it was completely bottlenecked, the same as on this side passing the toll. He slowed down, cautiously turned into the emergency lane in the middle and switched sides on the highway. Now there were far fewer cars, so their speed was increasing. After an hour of travel, they were finally just leaving the big city to enter an area of fields and small towns.

  It had been years since he’d driven, but his problem was always other drivers, never the control of the vehicle. He drove for four more hours without stopping. Sofía made him listen to different songs on her MP3 player that she had managed to connect to the player in the truck. When the highway signs indicated they were less than thirty miles from Azul, Juan Carlos by habit activated the GPS on the truck. To his surprise, it worked. He waited a few seconds for it to load and saw on the map that they were getting close to a place called ‘Estancia Los Manantiales’ (Spring Water Ranch), which sounded like a good place to stop for a while. A marker on the route indicated ‘RN3 346’ meaning they were on National Route 3, and from Buenos Aires they had traveled over two hundred miles, almost a third of the trip. He slowed down. Ahead to the right he saw silos and other buildings, to the left an entrance marked by a pair of pillars.

  “Are we going to visit the ranch?” Sofía looked at him questioningly.

  “According to the GPS, there’s a ranch just here. We can stop and see what’s there...”