Dystopian future. The Heart-shaped Locket

“This is the place,” The leader of the explorers declared as they all stared at the huge mansion they found at the end of the estate. Since the decline of the human population, there has been a total disregard for estate value to the extent that was simply baffling and disgraceful. Adora wouldn’t be surprised to find the whole house occupied by one rich old man just hanging onto the last seconds of his life.

“It looks massive. I thought the other houses were big but this one is a monster,” Mina said, arching her head to look at the construction.

“So do you think he’s home? This Mr Ajuma?” Kane’s asked. He was the third member of the party and the only man in the group.

“Let’s go find the answer, shall we?” Adora invited as she took a step close to the intimidating gate. The rest followed. She rang the bell but no one responded. The house was apparently run by and artificial intelligence because a computerized voice came through the intercom after the second ring.

“Mr Ajuma is occupied. What may I help you with?” Ask the automated voice.

“Tell him we need access to his house. We have some questions that he might have answers to,” Adora told the AI.

“Sure thing,” he responded but came back seconds later to say that the owner of the house did not reply. “Do you wish me to leave a message with him?”

“We have a business that cannot be delayed. What is he doing? Why wouldn’t he reply?” Mina asked before Adora could respond.

“I am sorry I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Let me initiate an override for the system. We have the warrant code that allows us into any AI control environment for reproductive matters,” Kane said.

“Did you say reproductive matters?” The AI asked.

“Yes,” they chorused.

“In that case, do come in. I recently received a memo from the Central unit to yield to all reproductive matters. Mr Ajuma is in the shower,” the AI said before a loud click indicated that the gate was open for entrance.

“How long will the shower take?” Adora asked as they strolled into the enormous compound.

“I haven’t the faintest idea. I have alerted him to your presence,” The AI replied.

“How long has he been in the shower then?” Adora asked.

“27 hours, 35 minutes and 31 seconds as of now.’

They all trying to look at each other normally. The AIs were programmed to take care of the houses and the occupants and to automatically call the emergency care line if the house occupant were not responsive, no matter how trivial the matter may be. It was clear Mr Ajuma shower was many hours too long. He could be dead. No. He was most definitely dead, Adora decided as they enter the house.

“You should call the emergency care line right now,” she instructed the AI.

Upon entering the house, Adora went straight to the bathroom on the first floor indicated by the AI. Her colleagues followed. They found the old man immobile in the giant floor hot tub in his bathroom. Mina checked his pulse.

“I say he has been dead for at least a day now,” Mina said, then took out her mobile x-ray device to scan his whole body. She checked her findings. “Looks like his heart just stopped beating. He must be more than 150 years old. Poor dude. What’s next?” She asked without much display of emotion.

Since the reproduction of humans ended with the virus in 2040, humans of different ages have been dying since while scientist scrambled for a way to prolong life. There were currently less than a million people in the whole world, 800,955 people to be exact. It was the end of the world as everyone knew it. That was why her group were here today. They trying to recover the heart-shaped locket of the dead scientist who had released the virus back in 2029.

Olaedo Madu was her name. She took her own life after seeing the havoc her virus wreaked on the female reproductive system and humanity at large. People still believed if she was still alive, she would have helped to find a cure sooner or find a way to slow down the decay but Adora thought otherwise. Adora believed the poor woman took her own life because she couldn’t find a cure. Yes, she took the easy way out but knows she single-handedly put an end to the human race could not have made life easy and giving her life history, humanity wasn’t much to write home about in her regards.

“Let’s search the whole house. This is going to make our job hard because this house is just too huge,” Adora lamented.

“Tell me about it. We need back up to search this monstrosity. I could never understand why people would want to occasionally get lost in their own home,” Kane said with clear disgust.

“Yes. Wait Jade is calling,” Adora said.

“I’m surprised she waited this long to call,” Mina joked.

They all laughed. Jade was the working mind that had instigated the search for the heart-shaped locket, insisting that it might hold the answer to move forward in the quest for a cure. Everyone had taken the suggestion with a grain of salt but since she commanded a lot of respect in the science community and since they didn’t want to leave any stone unturned, the government had allowed search. That was six days ago.

“Yes, Jade. No, we haven’t. We did find the man who was supposed to have it dead in his bathroom so that’s something,” Adora informed her, trying to inject humour into the grim conversation. Jade did not appreciate it and she said as much.

“I’m sorry. We were about to request for backup,” Adora said.

“How many people do you need to conduct a sweep of the house in less than one hour?” Jade asked.

“This is a pretty big house. There’s got to be like at least 20 rooms and a big garage basement too so like maybe 30 people?”

I will authorize 60,” Jade returned surprising Adora. She didn’t think it was possible to get that many people together on such short notice. They would have to fly in some of them from different parts of the world to make up a team of 60. The whole Biafra Country did not have enough people operational to do the search required at the speed needed. According to data, the country had 20 people under the age of 60 and only five from the Homefront generation. But if Jade said she could do it, Adora wasn’t in a position to question her.

“Of course. How soon?”

“Very soon. Keep me updated and Adora. Thank you for your hard work,” Jade said before the line went dead.

Adora was a little surprised by the display of gratitude from her supervisor. Jade was a working mind who was always all about science and seriousness and hell-bent on finding a cure before her brain expired. Being a working mind met her body was gone but her brain was being kept alive for research and teaching purposes using chemicals and electricity of advanced nature. Adora had always admired her dedication and diligence but her respect for the biologically dead scientist went up when she acknowledged the hard work of Adora and her team.

True to her word, the backup was there in no time to join the team of three to search the house. Emergency care service followed soon after. Adora couldn’t help but think if the body had been discovered on time, he would have been examined to see if any part of him would be of service to humankind. Adora wondered if he had done it on purpose, locked himself up in his bathroom and slowly fading away.

According to a worldwide bill passed many years ago, every human on the verge of dying automatically assumes the government as their power of attorney. The government would usually break the person down into parts to donate to other humans who might need that part. This was to make sure there was no unnecessary death or a waste of human resources. Parts of the body like the heart, lungs, liver, bones, even skins were harvested and sometimes just preserved for when it might be useful. Adora has been one of those who protested the POA bill but nothing came from that. In the quest to restore the dying human race, the government has become a monster no one could recognize. They had to become ruthless and single-minded to a scary point.

“I found something,” one of the searches shouted from what could be the entertainment centre, not very far from the gaming room where Adora was.

“What’s that? Let me see,” Adora said as she walked over to meet the searcher halfway.

“It’s a locked chest,” he closed and placed it on the poker table in the middle of the room.

“A chest. Mina, come take a look at this now,” Adora spoke into her phone which was also her wristwatch. The device was connected to the whole team. Mina who was on the other side of the building replied that she was on her way and was in the same room as Adora in no time.

Adora instructed her to scan the chest just as Kane joined the team.

“It looks like our search might be over. I see three lockets and one of them has an internal lining that is heart-shaped. This could be what we’re searching for,” Mina announced.

“Can you detect anything within the locket?” Adora asked.

“Not really. I can’t scan clearly that far but that’s not to say there’s nothing there. The locket is made of solid gold and that’s hard to see through.”

“There is yet hope for the human race. Kane, I want you to work on getting to those lockets. I have to call Jade and update her. Let’s all pray that it has the answer.”

Adora walked away to make a call to her supervisor. It appeared Jade was on standby because she picked the call even before it could rain.

“We found a chest that has three different lockets inside it and one of them according to the scan, is heart-shaped,” Adora informed Jade.

“That’s wonderful news. I want you to get to those lockets and bring them back to the lab as soon as possible. Do not try to open it. Just head straight to the lab,” Jade instructed and Adora could almost swear that there was a tiny bit of excitement in her computerized voice.

In little time, Kane was able to break into the chest and extract the three lockets inside which was placed in a bubble-wrapped container and placed into a suitcase before being locked with a code. Their work was done here. It was now up to the scientist to determine the usefulness of their finding and to cure the women so that they might be able to bear children again and replenish the human race and if the search yielded nothing, Adora and her team intended to keep searching. That was their speciality, retrieving.

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What do you think would/should be inside the locket? This is the third and last instalment of the short story adhering to the guideline of the challenge. Please share your thoughts and suggestions.