Year 2508

This can be read as a follow-up to “Year 2507” or as a stand-alone piece.

Neuro stares at the orange pill in her hand. She’s done well to ration out the tranquilizers in the bunker, but every time she thinks to take one, she hesitates. Eventually, she will run out of them. At the same time, if she has gotten to the point that she thinks she needs one…

‘Maybe I can find my way into another bunker - raid the supplies there,’ she thinks. Not everyone would have made it long enough to get to their bunkers, and after nearly a year in hers, she wonders how many have laid vacant and unspoiled. She wonders how many hold other people, too.

The walls of the bunkers are thick - nearly soundproof. The bunkers themselves were well stocked before the systematic collapse following the disruption of tranquilizer distributions. It’s possible others have broken into and looted vacant bunkers already, but she hopes that she will be among the first to do so; there would have been little reason for others to begin looting early on. Moreover, it would have been too high a risk. So many people became hyper-aggressive when tranquilizer supplies began running out, the species dependent on such measures to try to curb and control such violence.

‘Also depends on how many others chose to ration their tranquilizers,’ Neuro reasons, still staring grimly at the small object in question. She still has hundreds of the pills thanks to her self-control, but if others have not been rationing theirs, they will soon be without and looking for more.

What has been more difficult to ration out is nourishment. Little food was stocked in any of the bunkers; most of the nourishment provided came in the form of tasteless powders that could be mixed with water. It is enough to keep her alive and well, but her work-supplied bunker was only stocked with enough such powder to see her through a little over a year. There is a small garden within, which gives her something with taste and texture and improves her air quality, but the fact is that she cannot last much longer on the supplies left in the bunker after nearly a year. The intended annual restocking that would have been initiated under other similar circumstances is unlikely to occur; before worldwide broadcasting signals and communications crashed, it was announced that tranquilizer manufacturing locations had been destroyed counterintuitively by the desperately aggressive people seeking more tranquilizers. With no way to regain calm, Neuro can only imagine how humanity can be reclaimed.

She continues to stare at the orange capsule. Before the systematic collapse began in the last few years, tranquilizers supplied to the public were green in color. The orange ones in her bunker are much more potent - presumably because being in a bunker for an extended amount of time is stressful, as are the reasons to flee into a bunker. This is the other reason that Neuro rations her pills; she does not want to be so far gone too often. She finally takes the tranquilizer, and tallies her new number of pills taken in one of her mental checklists.

She is thankful that her genetically-altered genes allow her to record and document her experiences mentally - as well as recollecting the information accurately. They’ve come in handy when keeping track of the days and supplies and the growth of her few plants in the bunker garden.

As Neuro waits for the tranquilizer to fully kick in, she looks around for somewhere to get cozy while she zones out with the pill’s effects. The bunker supplied by her former workplace is an older model, devoid of some of the newer comforts of the upgrades, but it is still equipped with features and comforts she can appreciate. Solar panels and wind turbines connected to the surface provide her bunker with power. Water filtration is standard in bunkers as old as 300 years, and hers is much more modern. A treadmill provides her both a means of exercise and is also designed to convert her motions to usable energy. She uses it frequently while using digital codes to access and read books from the archive of the Worldwide Public Library.

Eventually, as the tranquilizer begins to take effect, Neuro seeks out her low cot to lie in. Gazing increasingly listlessly at the ceiling of her bunker, she sluggishly works through a plan of action to seek out and scavenge supplies. She sets a mental alarm to wake in a few hours to enact her plans, and then slowly drifts off.

When the alarm goes off, Neuro wakes disoriented; for a brief moment she can’t recall who or where she is before everything comes back. She sleepily sits up on her cot, reorienting and refamiliarizing herself. The stronger, orange tranquilizer is still in heavy effect, but she knows she must act quickly. She wanted to wake while still under the effects to keep her from setting off the vital monitoring systems in her outfit as she attempts to enter and raid other bunkers; the tranquilizer should keep her calm enough not to set off the outfit’s alarms during this high-stress situation. She doesn’t need any unwanted attention.

After rounding up the items she’ll need for her scavenging, Neuro pauses at the doorway of her bunker. She hasn’t left the space in almost a year. She wonders how many of the other bunkers in the area hold other people. How many were never used? What is life like now outside of her safe little bunker? She takes a deep breath as she slowly opens the doorway.

The underground tunnel connecting this section of bunkers is dark. When she first came down a year prior, the lights lining the halls were mostly intact and working. Now, though, many are shattered, and only dim light comes from bioluminescent creatures feeding off the dark and dank growth along the walls. Wetness and fungal smells alert Neuro that water has gotten in and stands stagnant somewhere.

Slowly, she makes her way down the tunnel, placing a small, circular reflector on the handle of her bunker as she closes up the entryway. She counts the doors she passes as she walks in the dark. She wants to start further away from her bunker, and work her way closer as she returns. This means she won’t be stealing supplies from her direct neighbors as well, in order to try to keep open some optional relationships. She wonders if any of her coworkers even made it to their bunkers. Most had fled elsewhere as the initial collapse began, hoping to make it to family in other parts of the world where there might be more supplies still coming in. Out here, supplies had dwindled fast.

But Neuro had no one to go to.

Hypno, her government assigned partner, had been quick to run out of his supplies early on, and had become aggressive towards her. It was an easy thing for her to abandon him; the government had assigned partners based on the projected genetic profiles of any theoretical offspring between two partners. There was no connection between her and Hypno. Why they were assigned to live together never made any sense to Neuro - there was no need.

Nearly all reproduction was done in labs and tubes. Donor DNA from each party was constructed in a designed fashion in order to try and produce the desired results. Generations of such births had led to a fine-tuning of genetic understanding that rarely went astray, and is why Neuro has the mental abilities she does; she was designed for the needs of her potential future employers. Only the smallest number of humans in the last few generations had ever opted to reproduce via traditional mating since, and often the risks of genetic probability cost their offspring dearly, leaving them with few prospects for good employment. The genetically enhanced were engineered for their jobs, and those born outside of the birthing labs were most often inherently disadvantaged.

And so Neuro had been partnered with Hypno, though neither had yet been approached about offering their DNA for offspring creation. Neuro had never been interested in becoming a genetic donor. Hypno had occasionally made remarks about what offspring with their genetics might be like; it always made Neuro’s skin crawl. So when Hypno ran out of his tranquilizers and began trying to get her to actually mate with him…

…Neuro ran faster than she ever had. Hypno was a creep before the collapse, but since then, he’s only become more deranged. More than any other being, Neuro wants to avoid him at all costs.

Ten minutes into the darkened tunnel, Neuro decides to try the hatches of the bunkers near her. While the primary method of entering the bunkers is scanning a chip embedded in the bunk-owner’s outfit, there are other ways. Either a code may be entered, or a key chip. This is also why Neuro wants to start down here; she knows a few codes for the bunkers in this section. Before the collapse, it wasn’t unheard of for tired employees to come use their bunkers overnight. A few in this section had taken to staying there often, to reduce their time commuting, and Neuro had been tasked with caring for plants and animals alike on occasion. She knows many of them had fled early, as their frequent stays meant these bunkers weren’t fully stocked anymore, and a number of them had relations elsewhere.

It takes Neuro a few tries to get the right code input for the first of the bunkers. When she eventually gains access, she slips in slowly, listening and scanning intently for any signs that she is not alone. With no visuals or audio signaling another human is near, she next becomes aware of the air in the bunker; it is stale with abandonment. Her search in this bunker is quick, but yields little in the way of supplies; she finds a few week’s worth of nutritional powder, but nothing else.

The next half dozen offer similar results; tranquilizers in one, plant seeds in another, more powder in the rest. She debates heading back to her own bunker with her current haul, as the pack she has brought along is nearly full. As she gets ready to pass the seventh hatch, which she does not know the code for, she sees that it is not fully closed - it is propped open ever so slightly.

Her heartbeat begins to pick up, but she manages to take a few deep breaths to calm herself and prevent her vital monitors from going off. She nearly begins racing back to her bunker, but curiosity peaks; who is utilizing this bunker? Or was - they may not even still be around. Does she even know how to interact with others after everything?

Neuro decides to take a peek inside. If the bunker is abandoned, she has easy access to any resources left behind.

As she opens the hatch up quietly, the little bit of light that illuminates the hall spills into the bunker. Immediately, Neuro sees a huge sack of tranquilizers on the nearby table. Beside it is another, equally large bag full of more nutrient powder. It is clear from the amounts that these are the spoils of another scavenger, and Neuro stays alert as she sneaks over to the bags. As she reaches out for them, a familiar sight catches her eye; a heart-shaped locket. A gift from the government when partners are assigned, every partner has one with projections of each other and their coordinates.

Neuro recalls the last time she saw hers. Before she was partnered with Hypno, she had fallen for a man named Synapse. As such, she had tampered with her locket, adding Synapse’s image into it, beneath the one of Hypno. Fleeing from Hypno as she struggled to reach her bunker last year, she had thrown her locket down a different hallway, giving Hypno false coordinates as she bolted for shelter.

Curious, she picks up the locket. Tools surround the item; someone has been repairing something in it. As she manipulates the object in her hand, feeling a familiar dent she caused when inputting the image of Synapse, Neuro suddenly realizes that this isn’t just someone else’s locket.

It is hers.

Hands beginning to shake, she takes a steadying breath to quell her body’s nervous reactions before she opens the locket. Her and Hypno’s faces greet her, and she takes a moment to compare his coordinates to hers. He is miles off, and she breathes a deep sigh of relief. Then, curious to see if her modifications to the locket still work, she holds both images down; another of her and one of Synapse projects flawlessly before her. For a moment she simply takes in the sight of him. However, when she takes in the coordinates of each of them, her heartbeat begins to hammer.

The coordinates for both are the same.

Neuro barely manages to silence the vital monitoring system in her outfit before it can announce her body’s distress. She quickly looks around, and when she finally spots Synapse, she can hardly believe it.

Passed out on a couch near the table, he blends into the shadows. A loose container of the tranquilizers rests grasped in his hand, and it is apparent that he has succumbed to sleep after taking one.

Neuro’s instincts tell her to run. While she held feelings for the man prone on the couch, she can’t afford them now; even if he has had a tranquilizer recently, there is no promise that he won’t be aggressive towards her if he finds her there. She only pauses again to consider what she will take. Clearly, he’s found quite a bit of resources. Guilt floods her at the thought of stealing all of his gathered supplies; she leaves him six month’s worth of both tranquilizers and nutritional powder. The rest - and the locket - come back with her to her own bunker after a long, tense travel through the tunnel. She locates her hatch by the reflector she stuck to it, and takes it off before entering.

As soon as she is locked inside the bunker safely, she powers down the locket, manually disabling the tracking, and she slumps down on her own couch, popping open a container of the orange tranquilizers. Neuro pauses; she’s never taken two of the orange ones within a day of each other. Reflecting on her first scavenging mission, though, she soon swallows one to ease her racing mind. The effects begin to kick in after several minutes. She lies back, hoping Synapse will forgive her.

Wondering if he missed her too.

If he’s the same person she remembered him as.

Wondering if she’ll see him again.