Post-Human Trilogy

can hold my breath for four hours apparently.”

“I can’t believe it!” Samantha replied, astonished as she held her hand up over her face. “It’s real? They’re really using them in the field?”

“Well, you knew that already,” Craig said, smiling.

“I did, but…well, it’s different when you’re not limited to test subjects anymore—when it’s someone you know. It’s amazing to think they’re really out there.”

“They are.”

“I have to tell Aldous,” Samantha suddenly blurted, instantly jarring the smile loose from Craig’s face.

“Aldous? Since when are you and old man Gibson on a first-name basis?”

Samantha’s attention snapped back onto the eyes of her husband. “I’ve worked in his lab for three years, Craig. I think it’s about time he finally asked me to stop calling him ‘Professor.’”

“I don’t like that,” Craig replied. “The way he looks at you—”

“Stop it, Craig. You’re being ridiculous. He’s a sixty-year-old man.”

“I still don’t like it.”

Samantha smiled. “You can’t possibly be jealous of a man twice your age, Craig.”

Craig’s train of thought changed as he looked into the eyes of his wife, so clear and bright that he felt as though they were right there next to him. In reality, hundreds of miles separated him from Sam, and that distance would be far greater in just a few hours. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“I’m sure you have a lot on your mind,” Samantha replied understandingly. Her thoughts quickly moved to speculation, and her voice lowered. “Why did they give you respirocytes? Where are you going where you won’t be breathing?”

“You know I can’t tell you,” Craig replied.

Samantha quickly began putting the equation together in her mind. “Wait a second. They’re not sending you into fallout, are they?”

“Sam—”

She could read him like a book. “Oh my God! No! Craig, no! Tell them you won’t go!”

“They don’t exactly ask.”

“You can’t go! Respirocytes aren’t going to save you in there!”

“Sammie, baby—”

“Don’t ‘baby’ me, Craig! I’m not a child!”

“I know, but sweetheart, listen—”

“What can you possibly say that will make me okay with you heading into nuclear fallout?”

“I never said where I’m headed,” Craig began, “and I promise that you don’t know the kinds of precautions that are being taken. You and Aldous aren’t the only scientists inventing new tech for this war, you know.”

“This shouldn’t be happening, Craig,” Samantha replied, her disapproval cemented. “We don’t support this war. We don’t support this ridiculous Luddite government. I’m sick of this! You shouldn’t be there.”

“I’m here to help people, Sammie,” Craig replied. “I’m not brilliant like you.”

“Not brilliant? Craig, you’re a doctor!” Samantha retorted, nearly aghast at her husband’s self- diminishment.

“But I don’t have your inventive mind,” Craig continued patiently. “I can’t help the world the way you can. I can’t help the whole world with brilliant inventions. I can only hope to use the technology people like you invent to save one soldier at a time. That’s the only way my life can be meaningful—like yours.”

“This is wrong,” Samantha answered, holding her head in her hands. This was how almost every conversation ended ever since Craig had enlisted. Tears were forming in her eyes as she became further exasperated. “Risking your life for a mistake won’t give your life meaning. Competing with me won’t give your life meaning.”

Craig was at a loss for a moment. His wife had never openly acknowledged what they both knew: They were in competition with one another. Ever since they’d met in their first year at university, they’d raced against each other toward an invisible finish line, with Samantha always seeming to be the inevitable winner. Now, Craig feared he was racing toward a cliff. “This mission is important, Sammie. If it’s successful, this war will be over a lot sooner than the world thinks.”

“It’s insane,” was all his wife could reply, her eyes still lowered.

“Sammie, put the ultrasonic on.”

“My battery is too low,” she protested.

“It doesn’t matter. I have to go now anyway. Just put it on, Sammie.”

“Okay,” she replied, the earnestness in her husband’s voice compelling her to click the switch on the phone dock.

Immediately, there was a buzz on both ends of the conversation as the dock vibrated ever so lightly, but steadily on the table. Craig leaned in and cupped the back of his wife’s head, pulling her toward him and kissing her. It wasn’t a perfect kiss—there wasn’t a taste or any moistness to it—but the softness of the ultrasonic waves forming the shape of his wife’s lips as she kissed him was priceless. They kissed for nearly a minute, unwilling to end their physical contact before suddenly, without warning, Samantha’s battery gave out.

He leaned back in his hardback chair and stared into the empty place above the table where his wife’s visage had been only seconds earlier. “Bye, Sammie,” he whispered.

3

Craig walked across a sprawling hangar at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico, toward a waiting shuttle bus. As he neared the bus and began to raise his arm to salute the driver, a voice called to him from behind.

“Captain Emilson! Doc! The colonel wants to see you!”

Craig turned to the young airman and nodded. “Where?”

“I’ll take you to him.”

Minutes later, the young airman saluted the colonel as he delivered Craig to the door. Craig stepped in and saluted as well. The colonel waved the young airman away before motioning to Craig to come in. “At ease. Grab a seat, Doc.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” The colonel was sitting at a desk in a room so small that it appeared as though it may have been a converted supply closet; it was obvious that this was an impromptu conversation. The colonel was wearing augment glasses, reading something that was invisible to Craig.

“You wouldn’t believe the phone call I just got not five minutes ago,” the colonel began.

Craig listened intently but didn’t verbally respond; the colonel’s demeanor was deceptively casual, but it was a casualness that only went one way and was meant to demonstrate his power.

“None other than the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And do you know who he wanted to talk to me about?”

Craig’s eyebrow rose inquisitively, but he remained silent.

“You! How about that? The Joint Chiefs are about to assemble in the situation room below Mount Weather, and they’re all talking about you. You wanna know why you’re the topic of conversation, Doc?”

“Yes, sir,” Craig replied.

“See if this rings a bell,” Colonel Paine replied as his eye went back to the projection from his aug glasses. He tilted his head forward to select something and then began reading: “We don’t support this war. We don’t support this ridiculous Luddite government. I’m sick of this. You shouldn’t be there.”

“Holy—”

“Yeah,” Colonel Paine nodded.

“That wasn’t twenty minutes ago—”

“Intelligent algorithms. Our Luddite government likes to use them so we can identify any interesting tidbits that might come up in a conversation.”

Craig didn’t know how to respond. He wanted to deny the assertion that he thought the United States