Rough Beast

Rough Beast

I don’t know you, obviously. You are imaginary. The breath of a chance that someone survived the damage we’ve done to this world and is capable of understanding these words. This moment exists by virtue of us imagining each other. But what are you; a descendant of survivors that I’m unaware of, a clever robot or , equally cliched, an alien archaeologist trying to understand what happened here? Are you something I’m afraid to imagine, an angel or god or some smirking demon viewing the results of its handiwork? I’d like that, because there’d be someone to blame other than humanity. But no, we own this; the X-Virus, the Oxygen Glut, the Short Wars; they’re all ours.

When we imagined the end we thought of it as having one singular cause. It was easier. Seeing the many vectors at work, some intentional, some random, was too much for even the smartest among us. We wanted a simple lone cause that generated all of the effects but it was a cascade of effects making other effects with no cause in sight. We wanted something we could blame when that was the only thing left to do.

Remembering that time almost a decade ago after the first “bubble” hit. Stepping out the air lock of the Hab-Unit and into the warehouse space that housed it. If what I saw over the few remaining internet news services was correct, the local atmosphere held less than five percent oxygen. Without the breathing apparatus on the back of my “spacesuit” I’d probably be unconscious before I made it to the building’s front door and dead within ten minutes of collapsing. As dead as that security guard slumped at the wheel of his car in the facility’s parking lot. I knew the rest of the staff wouldn’t make it in today.

I could stay outside for two hours with the air I carried. Enough to make it to the nearby junction town of Stanhope and see the desolation caused by the sudden drop in oxygen. The dead, human and animal, were everywhere and I was glad that my former employer had been greedy enough to go for the generous tax break that the less populous counties of the deindustrialized North East offered. When I returned to the Hab-Unit I saw images of what had happened in the cities and towns that the Greenland sized bubble of oxygen-less air had moved through. The atmosphere slowly re-balanced to a near breathable composition over the next few weeks. It was a month before I heard any bird song again and what I heard was sparse.

That whole terrible time was years ago. How did I survive? I was a simple hard working human lab rat employed by one of the lesser billionaires on a feeder project relating to the pet obsessions of the Really Big Billionaires. The RBBs with a lemming like unity of mind, had all agreed that humanity needed a Planet B or maybe more accurately they needed a Planet B and could pitch this as being for the good of us all. The nearest available and most suitable planet was a matter of some debate but my Lesser Billionaire hedged his bets and realized that no matter where humanity set up shop next it was going to need long term, low maintenance, reliable life support systems involving closed air, water and food cycles.

My lesser billionaire wasn’t an innovator. He was more of a collector, a tire kicking comparison shopper looking to put together a prototype, general purpose, turnkey life support system. Amid the forests of the western foothills of the Adirondacks we were testing an enclosed habitation system that could keep humans comfortably alive on the Moon or Mars or Titan or, for the truly mad, floating above the infernal bowels of cloud shrouded Venus. That was the idea anyway and I’m living proof that it worked. There just didn’t seem to be anyone left to convince.

Or is there an anyone? Lately I’ve found odd bits of evidence that maybe I’m not alone. Every other day I go on my walkabouts. Often into Stanhope. It’s still a place where desiccated bodies lie where they fell but there is a steady encroachment of plant and animal life and recently signs that maybe someone is scavenging those derelict stores and houses. Outside the convenience store, Ted’s Variety and Milk, near the entrance, I found an opened tin of tuna, years beyond its expiry date with the lid removed in the oddest way.

Whoever they were had used a can opener but not the proper one for a can of tuna, not a butterfly or geared style opener. They had gone all the way around the lid’s circumference using a punch style can opener. I noted their patience and precision as they made a multi-pointed star of the can’s lid to get at the contents. Smart enough to project a pattern of continuous triangular punctures but not smart enough to walk over to the kitchenware rack and grab a geared opener and be done in a tenth of the time. I wondered if I was dealing with a feral child and planned a simple experiment. I walked into the store and picked up a butterfly opener (5.99 w/tax) and a can of tuna (Expiry Date MA 2027) and placed them a foot away from the empty can outside. I kept the radial, pointed star lid as a souvenir. I would return tomorrow.

Walking back I began my daily debate about whether it would ever be safe to ditch the spacesuit, breathe the air and extend my range. Those low oxygen bouts hadn’t been an active threat in years. If there was any residual radiation from those stupid, final Short Wars the suit wouldn’t have provided all that much protection, it never had. It was really an adjunct to the Hab-Unit’s air recycling system. It allowed me the leave the Hab-Unit while still maintaining continuity with the air production system. Yet another proof of concept feature for the no longer existing buyers.

The suit and breathing apparatus was still keeping one of the ways I could die at bay, maybe. Months before the Oxygen Glut, the Transdemic hit. An ugly portmanteau of transgenic and pandemic, it was one of the trigger events for the chaos that followed. For years work had been done on harnessing the virus as a delivery system for gene therapy. It was seen as the perfect agent for targeting specific parts of the body at a cellular level. Some genius at some bio-tech firm probably working for another lesser billionaire had the idea of coming up with a viral toolkit, a Swiss Army virus that could be both platform and operating system for any genetic engineering project. Sadly, this operating system went open source while still pre-Beta.

A few years after we told ourselves that we had the previous pandemic under control, a laboratory breakout much like the ones fueling the then current conspiracy theories surrounding the last plague really happened. Putting the random back in random mutation the X-Virus (is there ever to be a cure for popular journalism’s imaginative deficit disorder?) spread faster than anyone could have predicted. It appeared to have an affinity for vertebrates and it saw species as just another inconvenient fiction to be transcripted around and remodeled without any plan. Some of its work was pure horror movie surrealism while others happened beneath the skin as new types of painful cancers. That’s when the decontamination unit was added to the airlock. I cycled through that airlock with a few minutes to spare and settled in for the night still undecided about keeping my spacesuit.

I walked out to Ted’s Variety and Milk at mid-morning. The unopened tuna can was where I left it as was the butterfly opener. I entered the store thinking maybe I should have a look at the canned goods as a possible protein source for the food processor back at the Hab-Unit. So long as I can be reasonably certain that the X-Virus never got in them then they’ll be safe after decontamination and could extend my thinning stock of food sources at the facility.

I was at the back of the store when I heard the flapping of wings and a raspy caw. A raven had landed near the tuna can then flew off to return a minute later with two companions, a large wolf-dog hybrid with a raccoon riding up at its shoulders. The raccoon dismounted and waddled up to the tuna can. Briefly, it looked at the butterfly opener, inspecting it, dropping it and then entering the store. I hid behind the snack food stand as it went over to the housewares section and stopped in front of the kitchen gadgets. The raven flew in and landed on the shelf opposite then flapped over to the rack and knocked over a punch opener. The raccoon retrieved it off the floor and waddled back outside to start working on the tuna can lid. It knew what to do as it levered its weight to puncture the metal. The dog sat patiently on its hunches.

The raven continued hopping about in the store and was now in the pet food section. It made a distinct short double caw. The dog entered in response and joined the raven in front of a large box of dog kibble. Grabbing the box in its jaws the dog went to were the raccoon was working. The raccoon looked up and stopped to waddle over to the box, tear open the cardboard box top, rip into the bag and spill the kibble onto the sidewalk. Grabbing a handful the raccoon went back to work on the can. The dog chowed down while the raven continued its reconnaissance of the store stopping at a cheap trinket display stand.

I didn’t want to be seen. I didn’t want to scare them but I couldn’t hang around much longer if I was going to stay in this spacesuit. It was a serious walk back to the facility. I headed out the back way through the storeroom/office. You’d think I’d be used to it but the air dried corpse of the guy in the chair by the desk surprised me. Sorry Ted but I’ve got go.

Out the back way I turned into the street and hid behind a rusting pickup truck to watch them at work. The dog was still happily snarfing down kibble, the raccoon was devouring the uncanned tuna when the raven emerged from the store with something shiny. Hanging from its beak was a silvery, fine chain at the end of which swung a heart shaped locket. The raccoon looked up and seemed to immediately know what to do. It took the chain from the raven and turned back to the can opener. Without opening the clasp and with care it threaded the chain through the bottle opener end of the punch and let the locket act as a stopper. It then put the chain over its head and let the chain sit like a bandoleer. The raccoon had two new tools; a punch opener and a tool belt.

The raven squawked. I thought I was spotted but they were looking down the street at three approaching figures; another raven flying low and a medium sized dog with a raccoon loping beside it. This second group joined up with first and began exploring Ted’s. What was I looking at? Had our mucking about with the environment and reprogramming the basics of life triggered some new phase where the species was no longer the apex unit of evolution and life now recognized itself? Or had humanity been some brief interruption of a process that was now resuming. It was time to stop playing spaceman. I pulled off my helmet and chucked the suit. It was time for a man to finally land on the Earth.