After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

The room has been neatly made up, and there are two bags sitting in the center of the bed. My belongings— clothes, a few mementos. I’m ashamed to note that the old blanket, the one I’ve had since I was a baby, is draped over the second bag. I don’t want Eldest to think I’m a baby.

Eldest moves forward, so I go all the way inside the room. He steps around me and sits down on the bed, picking up the blanket and fiddling with it. I wish he wouldn’t. I wish he’d pretend it’s not there, that mangy, holey scrap of cloth.

“When Godspeed left Sol-Earth,” Eldest says, twisting the fabric between his fingers, “we had a clear mission. Our ancestors were to run the ship and, while it traveled, develop new, better ways to colonize the planet when it eventually lands on Centauri-Earth. Originally, the Feeder Level was designed for biological and agricultural research. The Shipper Level was for other scientific research. This, the Keeper Level, was used for navigation and offices for the captain of the ship.”

We have no captain now. Instead, we have Eldest.

“Of course, Godspeed is essentially a biodome. We are a self-sustaining environment, able to produce the necessities of life in a constant cycle. But our original mission was not just to find the new planet in the Centauri star system: it was to take the methods of Sol-Earth—the science and philosophy and everything else—and make it better. Our ancestors were creating a perfect world, an enclosed world, where we could become the perfect people. We separated ourselves from Sol-Earth and Sol-Earth’s problems, and we became a society worthy of the new planet.”

He puts the blanket down on the bed.

“There are three rules on Godspeed,” he says, meeting my eyes.

“I only know two of them.”

“Tell me.”

I don’t know why—does he want me to remember the second rule now, the way Eldest told it to me before he died?

“Rule one: No differences. Rule two: Without a leader, the ship will fail.”

“Rule three,” Eldest says. “No one is allowed individual thought.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What?” I say.

“Haven’t you noticed? The Feeders. How empty, emotionless they are? We have ways to control them.”

Something inside of me lurches, a sick feeling not in my stomach, but deeper, a feeling that makes me want to expel myself from myself. “They’re controlled?”

“They have to be. Elder, you know the size of this ship. You know the importance for control.”

I think back to the “celebration” and remember the way the Shippers seemed to know what the old Eldest was about to do before he did it. “What about the Shippers?”

“We need labor to feed us, and we need minds to keep us moving forward. The Feeders have what they need: strength and obedience. The Shippers have what they need: intelligence.”

The way he says “need” strikes a chord deep within me. “Genetic modification?”

Eldest nods. “Among other things. Whatever it takes to maintain control.”

“You…” I taste bile in the back of my throat. “You’re a monster!”

Eldest smiles sadly and stands up from the bed. On the dresser beside it is a digital membrane screen. With a swipe of his finger, the screen comes to life. Eldest taps on it quickly, scans his thumbprint for access, and taps again.

“This was the ship before the first Eldest,” he says, handing the screen to me. While I look down at it, Eldest walks out of the bedroom, and the door zips closed behind him.

“Locked,” the computer by the door chirps.

I drop the screen on the bed and roll my thumb over the biometric scanner. “Access denied,” the computer chirps.

Shite. Eldest has locked me in here with my thoughts and whatever is flashing on the screen.

I hit the door once, hard; hard enough to make my hand hurt. I pick the screen back up with my other hand.

These are vid feeds from across the ship. The people here are all different—different ages, different sizes, different skin and hair colors. There’s no sound, just visual, but I can tell that there’s vibrancy in their lives, something beautiful and strange that I’ve…I’ve never seen before.

But it’s also terrible.

Because they’re all fighting.

It is worse because there is no sound. The vids switch from camera to camera, flashing different scenes. I recognize some things—the Hospital is the same, but there is no garden, no statue. Instead, there are people— wounded, brutalized, bleeding, broken people. The City has all the same buildings in the vids as there is now, but they are cluttered and filled to the breaking point. Some are on fire—and I think about the new buildings in the weaving district, and how this is the reason why they are new.

And over and through it all: fighting.

Groups form. I recognize some of the same people—I start to seek them out in the vids, watch the way they fight, see who they are fighting with. This is a battle.

A battle for the ship.

Eldest made it seem like the mission of the ship was to separate ourselves from the past—but it seems to me as if the past followed us here.

There are two people who show up over and over again. One is a woman—a tall, dark, wild-haired woman who always wears red. The people who follow her also mark themselves with red—scarves on their arms, bandannas around their heads, even just threads woven into the fabric on the hems.

I look down at the clothes Eldest gave me today. Black—with red stitching at the hem.

The other person who shows up is a man. He has long salt-and-pepper hair that hangs from his skull like a curtain. He’s very, very tall, with a heavy brow and fat lips. His color is white.

Some of the vids are backed up, shot from a distance—and I’m grateful for it. Then I can blur my eyes and see the people as dots of reds fighting dots of white. But some of the videos are very close. I see their faces then.

There are more people in white than red. The man stays in the City, gathering people around him. But the wild-haired woman stays on the other side of the ship, near the Recorder Hall and the Hospital, and though there are fewer people with her, they are fiercer fighters. They are smart and ruthless.

I lean up, my back stiff. I don’t know how much time has passed. I’d forgotten that the door was locked, I’d forgotten even the reason why I was here, and the strangeness of the day I’d just had. I’m focused on the vids.

Because I care.

I care about that wild woman. I care about what happens to her. I want her to win.

This is so strange. To see a battle on the place you thought was perfectly peaceful. To watch a rabbit field through a red-colored film because blood splattered the camera.

When a woman in red—a petite thing with short choppy hair—is killed by a man (a boy? He can’t be much older than I am), the wild-haired woman leaps up and strangles the boy-man with her bare hands. There is such fierceness in her eyes, such murderous passion, that she chokes him long after he stops moving, chokes him until a man in red pulls her off and drags her away.

Even though I’ve come to know their faces, I realize that now I’m knowing their lives. The wild-haired woman is fighting with everything she has, and with the death of the other woman, she has very little left.

The videos are dark when the man in white leads a march across the Feeder Level from the City toward the wild-haired woman’s base behind the Hospital, where the garden is. Many have died—so many that I have little wonder now why there are empty buildings in the City, unoccupied homes. The man in white marches resolutely. He goes right by a camera once, and his face, though marred by shadows, also shows a hard mouth. He doesn’t look happy; he doesn’t thrill in the battle.

He has the same sad look that the old Eldest gave me just before he slapped the black patch over his neck.

The wild-haired woman wakes up too late. She was not expecting the attack. The men and women in white rush over those in red like a violent, terrible wave. Red stands to fight, but white won’t relent, and they are pushed