Lee Kerr - Welcome to the Apocalypse

‘Leave us,’ she says to everyone, as she releases her grip on him but still keeps her narrowed eyes on him, as if she’s ready for this debate on the fate of the world that no one can really win.

Everyone quickly obeys her and walks away, even the general, who gives Larry one small nod that silently tells him this simply isn’t his fight.

She steps in front of Larry and kneels down, her movements slow and pronounced, like she needs to know he is giving her his all. ‘Do you think this is the first time we have met these beings? And do you think we called them lurkers last time they attacked us?’

He shakes his head. ‘You’re saying they have attacked us before?’

She nods back. ‘These creatures have been keeping us in check for centuries. The Mayans, the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans. Do you really think all of these great civilisations would just have fallen to pieces of their own accord? Do you really think they could all just suddenly turn to dust, and not one of them would endure?’

Larry looks into her blazing eyes. ‘No one alive truly knows what happened to them.’

‘But you know something happened, don’t you? You know that they existed and that some of their secrets still survive today, like the depths of the pyramids, the predictions of the Mayans and the wisdom of the Greeks. These creatures who attack us are our greatest conscience, our biggest enemy and the strongest opponent to our collective progress. They come out every 10,000 years or so to keep us in check, pushing humanity back into the darkness for more generations than we could ever count, burying our precious past with the dust of our ancestors from countless millennia.’

‘You’re saying all this was planned?’

She nods. ‘Knowledge is power, Mr. President, and so much of the past has been kept from the public. People only ever believe what they are told and trust me when I say that planet earth is coated with more millennia of dust than you could ever conceive. Sure, you are allowed to know that Stonehenge exists, allowed to walk the Great Wall of China. But why do you think they built that wall in the first place, and how did they ever get those stones in place if they weren’t half as capable as we are? The clues are everywhere but most people don’t see them as anything more than curiosities. There are many dead civilisations buried on top of even older ones, all were powerful and all were destroyed as easily by the lurkers.’

‘But why would they do this?’ Larry asks, desperate to know their purpose, unable to accept the simple storylines from the many movies that never really prepared anyone for this darkest milestone to face humanity.

‘Why not? And why should they bother to tell us? Do you tell a pig why it must die? Do you ever sit it down and explain that its death will serve a bigger purpose – that it will be chopped into something that will never again look like what is was when it lived, breathed and walked this planet?’

He shakes his head, seeing these as very different things. ‘Humans have superior intelligence, whereas pigs don’t understand what is happening to them.’

‘How do you know that these things don’t see us as primitive as we see cattle? And do you really believe we are that intelligent, especially as individuals? I am part of a bigger group and we have been preparing for this while everyone goes about their daily business. Why else do you think we invented nuclear weapons, or travelled to the moon? On this next judgement of our entire planet, we will still lose but we are getting closer to defeating them.’

‘I have one question,’ Larry says, staring back at her. ‘So why aren’t we winning?’

She nods back and stands up, looking down at him with what Larry almost thinks is a glimmer of respect. ‘The survival of our race will always be a very long game. One day we will reach distant stars and spread far beyond this one small planet. Maybe they are here because they don’t believe we are ready, or perhaps they have always been here since the day that mankind lit its first fire, their only task being to keep us at bay, keep us small in such an endless and unknown universe.’

‘You think they hate us that much?’

‘Perhaps it’s their job to hate us, sent down here by whatever we believe to be our God, or maybe they fear us. Perhaps it’s easier for them to dominate the galaxy if they stop us from growing into what we could become. Maybe it’s their role to crush our progress every time we get close to a certain population size. Ten billion people ready to leave this planet and spread themselves across the universe could be a scary thought to other civilisations.’

Larry isn’t shaking his head anymore, isn’t interested in giving an opinion or an answer. He only wants to hear what Lopez clearly believes is right in every version of this world that she knows. ‘But what gives them the right?’

‘What gives you the right to crush a termite’s nest before it gets too big, too close to your home? They build such amazing things, working together to create underground labyrinths and stunning surface architecture; it’s especially incredible when you consider their size. But you still don’t want them to find your foundations and let these little creatures destroy all that you have built, and so you pour boiling water into the mound, put chemicals down there until they are no more, and then you think nothing of it until the next year.’

‘You’re not seriously comparing the human race to cattle and insects?’

She leans closer, her face nothing but serious. ‘You think that we’re better just because we evolved first? Do you really think that every other species on this planet was put here just to service our needs? We are being exterminated now, just as we exterminate pests and anything else that gets in the way of our stability or progress.’

He slumps downwards, his whole body aching, his mind exhausted by all he is being forced to endure. He is getting so many answers to a question he never wanted to ask in the first place. ‘And you’re saying we will be defeated again, just like before?’

‘I told you, it’s a long game. Some of us will survive: they don’t seem to want to enslave us, or even eat us, but they do seem to want us to forget. And so we will forget for now, as our billions of bodies fertilise and re-energise the soil around the world. Although, I know that this time will be different. This time we have the power to damage them as much as they hurt us. We will leave even better clues and we will make sure that in our next life we will grow back before they do. We will help those who forget to somehow remember, not just what happened but to look to the stars for escape. You have a role to play, because you are our leader now and everything hangs in the balance of your limited wisdom. The Egyptians marched an army of millions to attack them, the Chinese built the biggest wall ever imagined, and now it is our turn to strike a blow at our mortal enemy.’

Larry looks away from her and down to it, to the new addition to his commanding chair. He saw it when he came back from the restrooms, after he was distracted by the update from the world map that showed how less than 20% of the planet remains untouched. That red button sits under a small layer of glass but it is no less imposing.

‘Those soldiers will fight upstairs for you to survive long enough to make the right decision; to do what must be done. Whilst men and women went about living, collecting the badges of holidays and houses, writing about love – despite most of us knowing little more than lust – some of us were doing more. Fate has now made you one of those people who will do more, whether you like it or not.’

He looks back at the button and wonders whether it will even work. Not just if it will actually do the job she claims it will, but if it will actually fire the many missiles needed.