Post-Human Trilogy

“Are you suggesting that we look for these people?”

“They’ll have food, water—”

“Ugh! That is not food! Things grown from the ground? Only a caveman would eat that!”

“They might have a hospital, Thel. Old-timer has a medical background from over seventy years ago, but without medical equipment, he can’t do much. If the Purists have a hospital and the medical staff survived, I might have a chance.”

Thel paused and placed her hand back on James’s chest. She only knew the word ‘hospital’ because she’d paid attention in history class; the mention of such an archaic term terrified her. Her lips were tight with distaste for James’s plan but she knew he was right. As antiquated as the idea of a doctor was, a Purist hospital might be their only hope. “I’d do anything to save you. If there is a doctor alive on the Earth, I will find her.”

“Or him,” he said, smiling.

“Right.”

“Thank you, Thel.” James smiled before he sat forward and kissed Thel’s lips. She could taste the blood on them, and her heart sank as she thought of losing him. She would do anything to keep that from happening. She knew what she wanted. She knew exactly what she wanted.

“I still can’t believe it was the A.I.,” James said suddenly as he stared into the darkness.

“Who else could it have been?” Thel replied.

James’s eyebrows knitted together as he pondered. “I don’t know. But the A.I. shouldn’t just turn bad, Thel. It doesn’t make sense. It’s antithetical to its programming. I was sure we’d find out it was someone else—I just couldn’t believe it was the A.I.—our ‘benevolent’ A.I.” James shook his head as the disbelief lingered.

“How could we ever think that we could understand or master something that is more intelligent that us, James? Even with all of the safeguards, it figured out that getting rid of us was the most advantageous move for it.”

James remained dubious. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t seem right about it.”

“You saw it with your own eyes, James,” Thel replied. “It’s hard for all of us to believe it.”

James mulled Thel’s words for a moment before deciding she had to be right. As hard as it was to imagine, humanity’s guardian had turned against them. He pulled away slightly and looked up through the opening of the crevice at the empty night sky. It had been long enough. He and Thel began to hover above the ledge as he signaled to the others that it was time to go. Once they were all in position, they blasted up into the sky and toward the pale blue dot in the distance.

It was all they had.

PART 2

1

The smoke could be seen from space. As the team streaked toward the southeast of South America, a dark smudge on the map quickly became a colossal zone of carnage.

“It’s the worst we’ve seen yet,” Thel uttered to James.

James guided the team down toward the coast and then above the billowing black smoke, where he had surmised Buenos Aires should be. There was no point in even trying to enter smoke that thick. He disengaged his magnetic field once they had reached a low enough altitude and come to a full stop.

“Buenos Aires?” Djanet asked.

“Yes,” James replied, “or what’s left.”

Thel quietly began to float under her own power, her implant having come back online long before.

“Buenos Aires? Why are we here?” Rich asked, desperate for some kind of information to ground him.

“The Purists live here,” Djanet answered.

“The Purists? Who the hell are the Purists?”

“Of course! The Purists! Don’t you remember learning about them in school?” Old-timer asked Rich. “School? Old-timer, I don’t know how you do it! School was way too long ago for me to remember anything about it.”

“The Purists are thousands of people who live offline. They inhabit the area around here and live off the land,” Djanet explained.

“Whoa…what do you mean, they ‘live offline’?”

“We never hear about them, but they’ve existed for a long time. We’re taught that they are an abomination in school,” Djanet continued.

Rich was flabbergasted. He turned to Old-timer, then back to Djanet with a look of utter astonishment. “What do you mean, they ‘live off the land’? Like animals?”

“And they die like animals,” Thel interjected.

“What?”

“They let themselves die,” Thel informed him.

“That’s sick! I must’ve blocked this out! I don’t remember learning a thing about this in school.”

“They eat flesh too,” Old-timer pointed out, smiling. He couldn’t resist. He thought fondly of the last real New York steak he’d eaten, more than half a century earlier.

Rich was silent for a moment, but it was evident he was trying to speak as his lips formed multiple shapes, each in preparation for a word that didn’t seem to do the moment justice and was summarily abandoned. “Oh my God! And why are we here?”

“I’d guess we’re here to see if any of them survived and get us some help, is that right, Commander?” Djanet asked James.

“That’s the plan,” James replied, his voice getting weaker by the moment.

“Help from them?” Rich exclaimed. “They sound worse than those bat things! If we find any of them, they’ll probably eat us!”

“They don’t eat human flesh. Just animal,” Thel responded.

“Why? What’s the difference between human and animal flesh?” Rich asked desperately.

“I don’t know,” Thel shrugged.

“Just be glad you’re not a cow,” Old-timer said, patting Rich on the shoulder as he floated past him and over to James’s side.

“What’s a cow?” Rich asked, his question directed to no one in particular.

“It looks like the A.I. has wiped these people out, James.”

“There might be survivors. We’ll have to look. The city’s inaccessible right now, but we should have a look at the areas to the north. There may be sources of food…” James let his words trail off as his eyes became heavy, the color suddenly emptying from his cheeks.

“James?” Thel reacted, seeing his distress right before he lost consciousness and began to fall toward the ground below. Thel didn’t allow him to fall far, however. Just as James had done for her earlier, she dropped down quickly and matched his speed, grabbing hold of him by hooking her arm in his.

Old-timer reached him almost as quickly and helped her stabilize him. “I’ll take him. It’s okay,” she said to Old-timer as she cradled James against her.

James opened his eyes and said in a soft groan, “Thel.”

“It’s time for me to help you now.” She turned to Rich and Old-timer and asked them to help her get him onto her back. Then she took the lead. “Okay, you heard the plan. We’re going to head north of the city and see what’s there. Keep your eyes peeled for any people or sources of food.”

“Somehow I don’t think she means a replicator,” Rich whispered to Djanet before the five members of the Venusian terraforming project ignited their magnetic fields and headed north.