Post-Human Trilogy

“James!” Thel sobbed in return. She was above him, leaning out of the entrance to the apartment she shared with her younger sister. She looked faint and, with no nans to prevent her from falling victim to shock, she stumbled off the ledge.

James raced up to catch her in his arms and then guided her back into her apartment. It was luxurious inside, as all homes were now. With no limits to the size of new buildings, it became possible for massive numbers of people to live in spacious apartments, even in places as densely populated as New York City. James put Thel down on her couch as she sobbed and held her hands to her head.

“She was…she’s…in her bedroom,” she related to James in a weak voice. “There’s…almost nothing. Oh God.”

James didn’t say anything in response. The pain was beyond words. He’d experienced it too. Everyone was gone. Everyone. The loss was complete—inescapable—blackness.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Thel uttered before holding her hands to her mouth.

“Don’t!” James responded, holding her head back as the vomit rushed into her mouth. “We don’t have any food. You need to keep it in, Thel. I need you to swallow it down.”

Thel did as James asked her, choking back the vomit and wiping tears from her eyes.

“You’ll need those calories. We don’t have a replicator. There’s no way to eat.”

“James, what’s happening? What could have done this…and why?”

James stood and walked to the entrance of Thel’s apartment. The magnetic door was still disengaged, and the wind blew through his hair as he reached the ledge. Like Vancouver, there were fires in the city and robots fighting those fires and cleaning the streets, but other than that, there was nothing—not even people. No people. That was the future. But in a way, it was also like looking back in time.

“It was definitely the nans, but other than that, I’m not sure yet.”

“Is it everywhere? Is there…anyone left besides us?”

“I’m not—”

“James, tell me what you’re thinking! I know you have an idea. I can see it in your eyes!”

She could see right through him.

“I think something went wrong with the download.” He turned to Thel, who was still sitting on the couch, ghostly white and streaked with tears and sweat and vomit. “I think there was a virus in the upgrade.”

“How? There are so many safeguards. It’s impossible…isn’t it?”

James shook his head. This he really did not know. “Thel, we need to rendezvous with the others as quickly as possible. We’re not safe. None of us should be alone.”

9

Rich Borges sucked his lips back against his teeth, a habit he’d had since he was old enough to experience stress for the first time. Stress became a frequent visitor when the Governing Council identified you as a gifted scientist. Decades of trials and tests were all one had to look forward to before they finally deemed you fit to participate on a real project. Rich was fifty-four years old before he was chosen to replace another scientist during the Martian terraforming project. That was over fifteen years ago. Ever since then, his life had been far less stressful. He got along beautifully with Commander Keats and, as a result, was handpicked to participate with the small group who were working on Venus. Added to that, the nans usually regulated his mood enough to keep his anxiety problems in check. But now, without their assistance, he was coming apart at the seams, reverting to that old familiar sucking and the grinding of his teeth that used to accompany every exam situation. A twisting feeling roiled in his stomach as he wondered if he knew all the variables.

As he traveled up the west coast of North America from his home in San Francisco, past Oregon and Washington State, right through Seattle, he wondered what those variables were. He hadn’t seen a soul. His huge family was gone. He was a great-grandfather, the patriarch of a family with nearly one hundred members, but they were all gone. He’d checked on them all. Some of them were erased completely, no sign of them. Others were just red stains on carpets or couches, impossible to identify, the sickening smell of blood permeating everything. He was a patriarch no more.

During his training days, Rich developed a wicked sense of humor. It was a coping mechanism. Being funny made it easier to deal with stress. If you always focus on making people laugh, you’re less focused on your own fears—on your deficiencies. It also put other people at ease. If they felt less threatened by you, by the clown, they wouldn’t look as hard for your faults. Rich felt riddled with faults. He was Swiss cheese.

All those faults were coming to the surface now. He could barely keep his eyes open as he headed north past Seattle. He would be in Vancouver soon, a city he’d seldom visited before today. He didn’t know the city well; all he had was his atlas. Thank God my city shares a coast with Vancouver, he thought. He would have been hopelessly lost if he’d had to travel a more complicated route. He was totally dependent on the automation of daily life and he knew it. And now he was left to his own devices. Completely free. Terrifying.

Rich was relieved when Vancouver appeared in the distance. Soon the rest of the group would return, and he wouldn’t be alone anymore. It was too quiet. Disconnected from the Net, disconnected from millions of voices, it was like being dead. Was he dead?

It wasn’t as easy to find Commander Keats’s house as one might have thought. Rich had noticed that James often believed the people around him were as perceptive as he. Most of the team members had never been to James’s house, yet he expected them all to know the way back. How? Was Rich supposed to notice something about the Commander’s street that made it different from the thousands of other city streets? The house looked like all the rest of the houses—metallic, an igloo shaped bunker with some grass out front and a few big trees in the backyard. Not much to go on. Was Rich supposed to know the types of flowers in the front garden? James would probably notice that type of detail. He’d know all the Latin names. Having a photographic memory must be wonderful. But what about everyone else? Rich, like almost everyone else before today, had a 149 IQ—he was brilliant. But not that brilliant. Not brilliant enough to think his way through this. Not brilliant enough to stand over the remains of his whole family, his children, his grandchildren, his great- grandchildren, and comprehend it all.

And now he had to find that one goddamned house. One house! And I can’t even do that! He stopped in a neighborhood that looked exactly like the fifty neighborhoods he’d just been in and sat on a tree stump. He disengaged his magnetic field and took off his helmet and gloves and struck a pose reminiscent of Rodin’s Thinker. It was sunny outside now, and the subdivision he was in was built on the side of a mountain. He was looking over water that sparkled like he’d never seen water sparkle before. He’d thought San Francisco was the most beautiful city in the world, but he had to admit now that it couldn’t hold a candle to Vancouver in July. Why hadn’t he come here before? He thought that maybe if his family were still alive, he might have brought them up for a vacation. The camping must be amazing.

They’re all gone.

Suddenly, the silence was replaced by something else. A hum—electrical—not far away. He turned to his left and saw the source: a street-cleaner. But it wasn’t cleaning the street. He’d never seen a street-cleaner that wasn’t cleaning a street before. It seemed to be coming toward him.

Alarmed, Rich stood quickly. “What the hell?”

The street cleaner stopped. What was it doing?

Suddenly, another hum. This time it was to his right. The same thing. A street cleaner coming toward him. He’d never noticed how ugly they were before. They must have weighed a couple of hundred kilograms with all of the equipment they had to carry—all of the cleaning fluid they needed to transport. They were modern—functional. The A.I. had designed them. Aesthetic appeal was apparently not one of the parameters in their design. They looked like robotic hunchbacks. A large head was always close to the pavement, held by a skinny, giraffe-like neck—always, except for now that is. Now, the neck held the head and its glowing red eye two meters into the air, craning it toward Rich.

“What do you want?” Rich took a defensive stance and the second robot stopped as well. They didn’t leave.