A Plague of Pigs

Her assigned name was Tesira 987, and she had left the Southeastern Quadrant over two weeks ago because there was nothing left to stay for. According to her TelalChip, she was a 14-year-old multiracial bio-engineered female. What she really was she wasn’t sure, but she knew she was different. For one thing, she was alive.

Before

Her birthing mother had been “invited” to The Labs when she was 19. Known as Riza 246, she was given extra rations for allowing the splicing and other procedures they performed on her. She didn’t have much choice. When The State saw someone with desirable traits, they wanted them. So, it was either extra rations and a windowless but functional room at The Labs or the “involuntary contribution” chamber. Her mother chose the former. She didn’t know she’d been impregnated until her fifth month. Riza gave birth to her in The Labs. The white coats said “your daughter’s name is Tesira 987.” Riza had held her close in her arms and whispered “your name is Tess.”

The white coats came every day to run the tests. They were only interested in Tess now, but she never knew what they were looking for. In the 3rd quarter of Year 2049, the Unit Director came and told them it was time to leave. Tesira 987 and Riza 246 were released into the General Population of Quadrant 4 when Tess was 13 years old. She had never been outside The Labs.

The day they were released, the Plague was already spreading.

Outside

When Tess first saw the sky she screamed in terror. She was hemmed in on all sides by the Quadrant towers, but looking up, she could see no end. There were so many people she closed her eyes, clutched Riza’s arm, and wept with relief when they reached their assigned pod on the far side of the complex.

She had never seen the sun or breathed unfiltered air. She had ever seen anyone except for the white coats that ran the tests on her and her mother. Riza had told her stories about life outside The Labs, but Tess had honestly thought they were all there was.

***

Two Birds, One Stone

The Plague had taken the world by surprise. No one thought the end would come from the pigs, but it was fitting in a way. Pork had become humanity’s primary protein as the grasslands for cattle disappeared and the oceans warmed and died. The Avian Flu of 2038 had wiped out the poultry industry, along with most of the wild birds. Pigs, however, were easy and ridiculously prolific breeders. They could be housed in filthy, crowded conditions, and they ate everything.

Everything.

Even before The Pig Plague, the General Population was dying. They were also housed in filthy, crowded conditions. With a severely contaminated water supply, and no fresh produce (only for State Executives) there was a rapid rise in human mortality.

The State supplied the food for the General Population. State-provided rations were mostly pork by-products, and “nutritional paste” packets that were supposed to be all a human needed to survive. (Tess thought they tasted like ass).

The State disposed of the dead. Families could have private ceremonies to mourn their loved ones, but The State came to pick up the bodies for “efficient disposal.”

The pigs were very efficient.

The Plague had begun slowly, and no one was sure whether it had jumped from humans to pigs or pigs to humans. Regardless, it jumped hard, and aggressively spread itself around the globe before the authorities even knew it was there. The incubation period of the virus was over two months, and by the time they figured it out, it was far too late. The Grid went down, and the “civilized” world became a nightmare...no Zombies required.

Tess didn’t understand why she didn’t get the sickness, and stood by helplessly as her mother and then the whole quadrant succumbed. When she realized there was no one left, she simply walked out, and headed towards the hills she could see in the distance once she’d cleared the Quad. There was still forest up there, and without the cooling stations, it was far too hot to stay in the lowlands. She walked for two days, climbing higher into the shade of the hardy survivor trees on the mountain ridges. She was in the forest, and she’d never seen anything like it. In spite of all the death, she had never felt more alive. She was Changing.

ALONE: Year 2050

The crows brought her the locket on the third day. Heart-shaped, and dented, it was nestled among other treasures they gathered, as tribute she supposed, for the old corn she’d been leaving out for them. It joined an old fishing lure, a piece of holo-chip, a pull-tab, a shard of mirror, and what appeared to be the finger bone of a small child.

They were funny creatures, the crows, and they were the only birds she had seen or heard since she’d discovered the old shed last week. Most of the animals who’d survived the Pig Plague had moved higher into the hills, but the crows seemed to come and go as they pleased.

The shed was more like a cave. Built into the hillside, covered in kudzu, and surrounded by rocks, she would have missed it entirely if not for its proximity to the trail, and the burned-out frame of a cabin nearby. Tess had crouched in the brush, looking, listening, smelling, and reaching out with her newly discovered sense of “knowing.” Once satisfied, she’d approached the entrance and pulled aside the kudzu curtain.

The old wooden door was blocked by the body of the last person who had happened upon it. Desiccated, and light enough for her to push it backwards, she could still see the classic blue-black splotches of the plague. Whoever this man was, he hadn’t run far enough or fast enough.

She stepped over him into cool darkness. It was bigger than it seemed, and there was another door at the far end of it. This one opened with no resistance. It was a black hole. She smelled clean, earthy darkness, and angled her TelalChip downward and triggered its light, briefly wondering when it would die. There was a flight of sketchy-looking wooden stairs leading downward, which she bypassed for a leap down to the dirt floor. She had also discovered she could do things like that.

It was an old root cellar. There were shelves, and glass containers, and big bags of things she couldn’t identify. There was a large pile of shriveled round lumps in one corner. She picked one up, and saw it had fleshy white nodules all over it. It smelled like food so she broke one off and ate it. It tasted way better than that crap they’d fed her in the Quad.

She inventoried the strange things in front of her. Laying hands on a long-handled implement with teeth on the end, she closed her eyes and knew what it could do. There were various other tools, some with very sharp blades, some with weighted ends. As she touched each one she knew its purpose. She placed her hands on the strange jars and knew that they would feed her. Two of the bags were full of old corn. She had seen it in a picture book she'd read at The Labs. It was supposed to be food, so she put a handful in her mouth and then spat out the hard kernels. Maybe not food for her.

There was a tree stump just outside the shed and she threw a handful of the corn on it, hoping she might attract something she could hunt. She had never hunted anything, but the part of her that was waking up knew that she could.

Her only actual experience with hunting had been as intended prey, after encountering a pack of Pogs, the bizarre State engineered pig-dog hybrids. The Pogs were initially released to encourage the General Population to keep curfew. If you were found out of Quadrant after hours, you were fair game. Tess had snuck out to the Quad courtyard shortly after hours, looking for a beloved doll her mother had made for her in The Labs. Riza didn’t hear her slip out the door, and only knew it when Tess came flying back in (doll in hand) and a large snarling thud hit the door right after she’d slammed it shut. The growling, snuffling, and scratching went on for minutes. Tess gradually stopped shaking and got a strange look on her face. She approached the door, and placed her hand on it. The creature on the other side made an odd sound and then there was silence. Riza had stared at her with wide eyes. “What did you do?”

“I don’t know,” said Tess. “I guess I told it to go away.”

After the humans died, the Pogs went completely feral. As hybrids, they were immune to the virus, and thus spent the first few weeks after the big die-off on clean-up duty; devouring anything that had succumbed or was too sick to put up a fight, including the General Population and their former handlers at The State. Even Pogs had their standards however, and after three weeks they left the rest to the flies.

The small pack looked up towards the hills and began trotting. There were old game trails up there, and it was easy going for their muscular, well-fed bodies. There were human scents on the trails, and having recently acquired a taste, they picked up the pace.

Tess Rising

It was the middle of the night. Tess heard the crows scream a warning, and then her little shed was under assault. She recognized the excited barking grunt of Pogs, and knew she was once again their intended prey as they leaped and scratched at the old wooden door. The average Pog weighed in at about 200 pounds, so it wouldn’t last long.

She supposed that she ought to feel terrified, but Tess had a strange serenity about her, and her growing sense of knowing told her that she wasn’t the one who should be afraid. She eyed the sledge hammer and the wicked blades she had brought up from the cellar. She KNEW what she could do with them, and wondered what Pog tasted like.

She and her crows would survive.