Нэнси Кресс - The End Is Now

The smoldering fire now warms only metal, wood, and leather.

“Oh Peter,” says Elena. “Oh my poor Peter.”

I feel Elena’s arms encircle my head, cradling me on her lap. With her other hand she is patting down my body, feeling for the extent of the damage. Somewhere, a bird sings to the dawn. Faintly, I hear the trickle of blood flowing into the grass and the whinny of a nervous horse.

“You are very damaged,” Elena says.

“As long as my relic is intact,” I respond. “I can be repaired.”

“The Empress will hunt us.”

“She will,” I say to Elena, my eternal daughter. “But we are not running blindly. We leave now in search of something special.”

“What do we seek, Peter?”

I lock my eyes on the curve of her porcelain cheek. Elena was once a mindless doll, but now we are more than things . . . we are avtomat.

“We will find our own kind, Elena . . . even if it takes a thousand years.”

Daniel H. Wilsonis a New York Times bestselling author. He earned a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he also received master’s degrees in robotics and in machine learning. He has published over a dozen scientific papers, holds four patents, and has written eight books. Wilson has written for Popular Science, Wired, and Discover, as well as online venues such as MSNBC.com, Gizmodo, Lightspeed, and Tor.com. In 2008, Wilson hosted The Works, a television series on The History Channel that uncovered the science behind everyday stuff. His books include How to Survive a Robot Uprising, A Boy and His Bot, Amped, Robopocalypse (the film adaptation of which is slated to be directed by Steven Spielberg), and Robogenesis. He is also co-editor, with John Joseph Adams, of the anthologies Robot Uprisings and Press Start to Play (forthcoming). He lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. Find him on Twitter @danielwilsonPDX and at danielhwilson.com.

Words were coming out of Eileen’s mouth, but they didn’t make sense. The voice in Ray’s head, the one screaming that they had to fill the bathtub, had to stockpile more food, was making it impossible for him to understand.

He grasped Eileen’s shoulders. “I don’t think grocery stores are safe. Too much risk of exposure. What if I—”

“Did you hear what I just said?” Eileen asked.

She’d always reminded Ray of a cartoon ladybug, and now more than ever, with her eyes big and round, her face framed by red curls. Ray realized it was an odd thought, given the situation.

“Not really, no,” he answered. “I think I may be in shock.” The walls looked strange, like they were advancing and receding, advancing and receding. The virus was in Los Angeles. It was spreading like mad. They should have prepared better.

“I said I’m having an affair with Justin.”

“What, what—” Ray stuttered, utterly lost. Maybe Eileen was in shock as well. “You’re not making sense.” He turned toward the bathroom. “We have to fill the bathtubs.”

“No, Ray, listen to me.” She grasped his shoulder, turned him around. “I’m having an affair with Justin.”

“An affair?” They didn’t have affairs. They weren’t the sort of people who had affairs. They were the good guys, the couple other couples wished they could be.

Only, Eileen was having an affair. She’d just said so.

Ray thought he was going to vomit. “You’re telling me this now ?”

Eileen looked at her feet. “I want to face what’s coming with a clear conscience. I don’t want this lie between us.”

It was hard for Ray to breathe, like there was something pressing on his chest.

Her eyes welled with tears. “I’m sorry.”

Ray swallowed, trying to flatten the lump in his throat. He wasn’t going to cry. He wanted to cry, but he wasn’t going to. He also wanted to find Justin Schneider and smash his teeth in, but he wasn’t going to do that, either.

“Do you love him?”

“With everything that’s happening, I honestly don’t know what I feel.” Eileen looked up at Ray, blinking rapidly. “If you want me to leave right now, I’ll understand.”

“That would make things easier for you, wouldn’t it?” said Ray. “If I kick you out, you can go to Justin with a clear conscience.”

Ray had a flash of her in Justin’s arms, kissing him. Ten minutes earlier that image would have struck him as absurd. Billions of people were dead, or lying paralyzed, waiting to die, and Eileen had chosen this moment to clear her conscience.

“I’ll tell you what: I’ll make it even easier. I’ll leave.” Ray spread his arms wide. “It’s your house, after all. Your parents paid for most of it.”

Eileen stiffened. Ray thought he saw something cross her face—hope, relief that she was fighting to mask. Suddenly he couldn’t stand the sight of her. “Just go away so I can pack in peace.”

She reached out. “Ray, I’m—”

He pulled away. “Just go.”

There was nowhere for her to go. The virus could be anywhere. It lived on surfaces for days; one cough from someone who was infected and you were dead.

Red-eyed, Eileen looked around, and finally headed into the garage.

He had to do something to blunt the pain rising in him. There was too much of it, heaped on top of the terror. Ray staggered to the kitchen cabinet over the refrigerator—which served as their liquor cabinet—and pulled down a bottle of vodka. For the first time in his life he drank straight from the bottle.

It helped a little. Just a little.

Trying to think about nothing, Ray went upstairs. The walls in the stairway were covered with eight-by-ten photos of him and Eileen. He watched his feet, not wanting to see them.

After packing clothes and toiletries he went to the basement and brought up a brown backpack filled with survival gear they’d bought at Target two months ago, back when the possibility the nodding virus would reach Los Angeles had seemed so remote.

He had no idea where to go. Walter would take him in, but Walter and Lauren didn’t need Ray sitting in their living room while they dealt with this.

When everything was packed and in the car, he couldn’t bring himself to get in and drive away. Not yet, at least.

He went back inside. In the living room, newscasters updated the situation in breathless tones just shy of panic. It was in all the major U.S. cities now. It was everywhere; there were paralyzed people in a billion houses, in a million hospitals. Any minute, Ray could join them. He wouldn’t know he had it until the nodding began, and by then it would be too late. It was already too late, if he had it. But they’d stayed indoors, hadn’t left the house in three days. Surely he was clean.

Somewhere outside, a siren wailed.

He went to his collection room to calm himself. Being surrounded by his Batgirl memorabilia comforted him. He’d owned some of the pieces in the collection—the lunchbox, the action figure—since he was nineteen. They reminded him that he’d had a life before Eileen, and could have one after.

If he didn’t catch the nodding virus.

If he did, he would sit frozen until he died of dehydration. The thought set his pounding heart racing.

He looked at his wall of autographed photos from the old Batgirl TV show, trying to dampen the fear threatening to swallow him, but this time they provided no solace. They were nothing but glossy paper marked with black ink.

The frame closest to the edge of the wall held nothing but a manila envelope. He’d kept it because Helen Anderson had personally written her return address in the top left corner before returning one of the photos he’d mailed to her to be autographed. The postmark was 1998; nearly twenty years ago.