Нэнси Кресс - The End Is Nigh

We could have done the back-of-the-envelope calculations for ourselves, but they did it for us: almost a billion people vaporized in just eleven days. Talk about efficiency.

And of course, there were all the people who’d gone ahead and taken care of matters themselves.

You’d think there would have been vomiting and sobbing all around, but the music played on, and everyone clapped and cheered.

“Thanks to your hard work and vigilance,” said our top-top manager, who reported directly to the Department of Transition, “We’ve provided real incentives for our citizens to respect the guidelines established by our interstellar visitors. Because of you, we can expect to see nearly eighty percent of our pre-contact population make a successful transition to Xyrxiconia! Give yourself one more round of applause, folks!”

We’d done it.

We were almost there.

After the last headquarters meeting of all time, we flooded into the nearby bars for drinks.

Sara Grace and I found ourselves sitting across from two guys, partners like us. We shouted over the noise of the bar and we drank and drank and drank. “Here’s what I think,” the one guy said. He leaned in close to us, partly because what he was saying was controversial, and partly because it was the only way he could make himself heard. We could see the pores on his nose, the crinkles around his eyes. “Here’s what I think. I think they’re conmen. Intergalactic fraudsters. How many aliens actually landed? Didn’t we hear it was something like a few hundred thousand? Maybe half a mil? It was just one ship, right?”

“It was a generation ship ,” Sara Grace corrected him. “They’d been living on that thing for ages. It was huge.”

“But still,” he said. “Say it was a million, tops. They’ve got ray guns, right? They’ve got those universal translators, whatever. We’ve practically got that shit ourselves. They’ve got technology and weapons. But we could still take them. We’ve got numbers. We’re spread out.”

“But they don’t want to fight us. They’re here to help.”

“Or maybe that’s just what they said. You know the number one rule of being a conman? Offer the mark something he really, really wants .”

“Like heaven.”

“But maybe they’re really here to help themselves to a new planet. Maybe their whole goal was to trick us into getting rid of ourselves, do the work for them. Decimate our own fucking population so they can move on in, help themselves.”

Sara Grace was staring at him in open-mouthed horror. I wasn’t. I’d thought of this already.

His partner wasn’t appalled, either. He looked bored. Irritated. “You know what I think?” he said. “I think there aren’t any aliens. Alien conmen? It’s ridiculous. Aliens don’t understand human psychology. Humans do. I think it’s a government plot. Eliminate excess population. Exert control.”

“But of course there are aliens,” Sara Grace said. “People have seen them.”

“People? What people? Do you know anyone who’s actually seen one? Or is it all just rumor and somebody-who-knows-somebody-who-said?”

“There was that one in the picture. Everyone saw that.”

“Photos can be faked. They wanted a world full of scared, docile, delusional bootlickers. Well, congratulations everyone, it’s finally here.”

We clinked our glasses and drank.

On Friday at 11:55 a.m. the aliens held a press conference. Or rather, their human mouthpieces held a press conference, speaking on behalf of the aliens, who were hunkered down somewhere cool, dark, and safe.

They thanked us effusively for our cooperation and congratulated us on a successful interplanetary transition period. They suggested that at least thirty minutes prior to the appointed hour all citizens should retreat to their homes, where they should wait calmly and quietly for the final transition to begin.

“Congratulations, once again,” transmitted the human avatar. “There will be no further instructions. This is our final message.”

The Department of Transition rented a vast convention center where we could spend the final hours. We did our last check-in at 2 p.m., then headed over. They herded us into infinite ballrooms stuffed with big screen televisions and an endless spread of hors d’oeuvres.

Sara Grace and I found a spot on the sidelines. It was 3:27 p.m., and it was almost the end of the world—very soon now. We sat on folding chairs and I watched the talking heads on the television babble about the moment to come and Sara Grace nibbled at a small plate of cheese and crackers and tried not to throw up. She was still disturbed by last night’s conversation. She hadn’t slept at all.

“I miss my family,” she said. “I wish I was home.”

It went on and on. In other places it was night. The citizens sat in their darkened living rooms with one candle lit. In other places it was morning. The city streets were as silent and deserted as they’d ever been. From around the world, the video feeds flooded in.

Around 4 p.m. the anchors started going off the air. By 4:30 p.m. all the channels were static and the screens went dark.

“I need some air,” Sara Grace said. She put her uneaten plate of cheese and crackers on the floor and left it; I’d never seen her do anything like that before. “Come on,” she said, and took my hand and dragged me out through the crowded ballroom and into a frigid hallway.

We found a secluded spot, a tiny conference room with a table for eight. It was empty. The clock on the wall read 4:39.

“It might be fast,” I said, looking at it. Tick-tock, tick-tock .

“Or slow,” she countered. We sat on the ugly carpet, backs against the wall, out of sight of the glass panel set into the door.

“If we get there,” she said, “to Planet Xyrxiconia, do you think we’ll recognize each other? Different bodies and all?”

“Yes. I like to think so.”

“I guess the real challenge would be finding each other. What if everyone reincarnates on their own private island?”

“Be a hell of a lot of private islands. A planet of archipelagos.”

She giggled. “Oh well,” she said. “I guess we never get as much time as we want, no matter how long it is.” She looked at me, long and wistful, and I don’t know who started it, but we were kissing. Kissing hard. Gasping for breath. Unbuttoning each other’s shirts, groping blindly, crying a little and still kissing and touching as hard as we could, stretched out on the floor beneath the whiteboard, longing for more.

I think I knew in my heart of hearts that I could’ve been anyone, that it didn’t matter, that we weren’t in love or anything—at least she wasn’t in love with me; I just happened to be there.

I didn’t care.

There was a burst and clatter at the door, and we pulled away from each other, quickly, guiltily. The door came swinging open and another enforcer strode in.

We licked our lips, wiped our mouths, moved to button our shirts, and she stared at us, her hand moving uncertainly toward the mister hanging at her side. There was a long, tense, unbearable moment.

Then she pointed at the clock.

It was Friday and it was 5:13 p.m.

We straightened our clothes and followed her out into the hallway where the enforcers were congregating in anguished, heaving clusters around the windows and gesticulating toward the ground below. We could only see their backs, but we could hear: the clatter of gunfire, the moan and wail and scream of sirens, the low rumble of tanks.

It was 5:15 p.m. on a Friday, and it was almost the end of the world.