R. Ruggiero - Reckoning

With one billion dead, almost every single person on earth is going to feel this newfound confusion, pain, and fury when they learn this wasn’t some malevolent act of Nature… but a calculated act of Man. A man who lived in America. In Portland, Oregon. It slowly dawned on him that a grief-fed rage would consume the world just as the Brushfire Plague was receding.

The realization stunned him. His stomach turned and saliva filled his mouth. He fought back against the presage to vomit. How did I miss that? Cooper knew the answer before the question had finished flashing through his mind. The truth blinded me to everything else. His fists became tight balls and his nails dug into his palms. He grimaced, trying to steel himself to the decision he’d made just hours before. His heart and mind roiled in a tug of war over right and wrong and what he had done.

“Damn the consequences, the world deserves to know the truth,” he shouted defiantly, his voice thundering across the walls.

“What?” Jake asked and only then did Cooper realize he had yelled what he’d been thinking.

“Nothing, son. Nothing,” Cooper responded laconically, his eyes downcast.

Jake continued, “Why? Why’d they do it?”

Cooper’s unwavering penchant to the truth led him to do his best to relay the thinking that had driven Ethan Mitchell to his deadly act of destruction, “You’ve heard of global warming, right, son?”

Jake’s eyebrows raised in confusion, “Yeah. What has that got to do with anything?”

“Well, this guy, Ethan Mitchell, believed that we weren’t going to deal with it and that it would have eventually wiped out civilization.”

“What?” Jake mouthed in disbelief.

“I can’t fully explain it. But, he believed that, left unchecked, global warming would have heated the planet so much that agriculture would have become near impossible, weather would have become extreme, sea levels would have risen so much that it would have put many major cities underwater. In short, civilization would have ended. So, he thought it was a better idea to intentionally kill hundreds of millions now to prevent this.”

Jake shook his head in disbelief, “But… but, that’s wrong.” Cooper watched as his son struggled to understand. “How could he decide something like that all on his own?”

“That’s exactly what I told him.” Cooper weighed his next words carefully. Then, he decided to go forward. “That’s exactly what I told him, right before I killed him.” His words trailed off.

Jake looked up at Cooper, his eyes wide open in shock, and “You killed him?”

“Yes, I killed him. What he did was wrong. So wrong, that he deserved to die,” Cooper’s words rolled off his tongue, slowly, deliberately.

Jake absorbed the words even more slowly and a long silence hung in the air. His eyes searched his father’s face for understanding or meaning. “How do you feel now?”

“Empty,” he said flatly. He paused, drawing a deep breath. He continued with tired words. “It had to be done. He deserved it. It wasn’t his right to decide the fate of so many. But, it isn’t bringing your mother—or anyone else—back.”

Jake simply nodded, with vague understanding. “Well, I’m glad he’s dead.” His son spat on the ground, acting the grown-up. Cooper did not like the snarl that latched onto his face when he did so.

“There’s something else you need to know. It’s more important than any of this.” Jake nodded once more, sitting up straighter, readying himself for what was to come.

“Last night, I told the world what I learned, too. I told the world everything. And, I very much fear the consequences. “

Jake interrupted him, “What consequences? The truth is always the right thing. You’ve taught me that.” His last words were laced with the certain truth of childhood.

Cooper nodded slowly, “That’s right. The truth is always right. But, I’ve also taught you that the truth isn’t always easy. And, this truth is probably the most difficult of all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it, Jake. Think of how sad and angry it made you to realize that your mother didn’t just die—but that she was killed by this terrible act. The whole world is going to get very, very angry. Our country already teeters on the edge. There’s already been so much chaos and violence. I fear there will be much more.”

Jake’s eyes slowly morphed from being clouded with confusion to the clarity of understanding. His voice trammeled, “Then, why’d you do it?”

Cooper’s eyes wrinkled and his lips curled into a skeptical smile, “Son, I’m not sure I had much choice.” Cooper paused and rubbed the stubble on his chin, “But, I guess I did have some choice. At the end, I have faith that we will get through all of this… even knowing the truth. It might be painful and likely worse in the short-term, but the world must…it must know the truth. What we do with it is our choice. I couldn’t deny the world that choice. Otherwise, I’d be just as bad as Ethan Mitchell. You understand?”

Jake’s mind sorted through his father’s words, “I think so. I think so, dad. I just hope it doesn’t get too much worse. It’s already been very, very bad.”

Cooper began to nod in agreement, but a furious pounding on his front door caused his heart to race once again and his mind to doubt his son’s hope would be proven true.

As Cooper neared the door, there was no mistaking the familiar timbre of his friend, Paul Dranko’s, voice yelling from the other side, “Cooper, it’s me, Dranko. Open up, brother, open up!”

Cooper yanked the door open and burst out laughing as he caught Dranko in mid-yell, his mouth twisted half-open, “With an adorable face like that, I can see why you’ve always had trouble with the ladies, my friend.”

Dranko scowled and brushed past him, “Screw you. I had problems with the ladies because no one wanted to believe our precious civilization would ever hit a bump in the road…until now, of course.” Cooper knew this was true. Since he had known Dranko, the man had been consumed with all manners of theorizing and preparing for the myriad ways that civilization might collapse. For Cooper, it had been an endearing idiosyncrasy. He could only imagine the problems it had caused Dranko in the pre-Brushfire Plague dating world, however. Now? Well, now Cooper understood very well that Dranko’s preparations had saved his life and those of many around him.

Cooper turned to follow his friend inside, closing the door behind him, “Just look on the bright side…” Dranko’s cocked eyebrow interrupted him, but Cooper bludgeoned onward, waving his hand, “Yes, I know! For a dyed in the wool pessimist like you, looking on the bright side is damn near impossible. But! Try it out. Just imagine how all of the beautiful women whom you dated over the years are, right now, wishing they had stayed with that crazy bastard who was preparing for the end of the world!”

Dranko returned Cooper’s beaming smile with a deepening grimace, “Like I said, screw you. You’re an ass. Are you ready to get down to what I came to talk about or do you want to discuss my romantic life’s prospects in the post-Plague world?”

“Fine, fine,” Cooper said, turning serious. “What have you got for me?”

“First, how’s Jake doing?”

“Fantastic. Still a little weak, but he’s looking good.”

Dranko clasped his hands together in excitement, “That’s great news. Great news, brother!”

“Don’t I know it? We got lucky. Very lucky he caught it as the strain was deliberately mutating itself to a weaker form,” Cooper answered.