Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

“Yeah. I guess.”

“I won’t say you didn’t contribute to Katie’s choice. But it was a choice she made herself.”

“I suppose she did.”

The nurse finished her scan. “You’re fine. You should probably avoid spicy food for the rest of the day.”

“Huh. All the problems are upstairs, right?”

The nurse smiled her regret. “Not really my department.”

“Do you mind if we have the room for a moment?” I asked.

“Of course,” said the nurse, and left. I sat down on a chair.

“Is she going to make it?” asked Liss.

“We should be able to save her, yes. But it’s going to be difficult.”

“Huh.” She fell silent and looked down at her toes.

“Is something else troubling you, Liss?”

“It’s just…”

“Yes?”

“It’s stupid.”

“That’s okay.”

She looked up at me.

“What if it was me?”

“You can’t take the blame for what Katie did—”

“I don’t mean that! I mean… everyone who died on my world. Because I don’t know how they died! I don’t know why! And, and…”

“Is this because of what Katie said?

“Yeah. No. I don’t know.”

“Well, she… did raise an important issue.”

“No shit.”

“It is a mystery. Do you think she had a point?”

“Well if I were the police, I’d want to talk to me. But… I don’t know! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do…”

I took a breath. “I think I need to give you some news.”

She looked at me with sudden hope. “You found something? I mean, did the ICT find something?”

“No. It’s not that.”

“Oh.”

“It’s about you.”

“Oh, crap, are they going to lock me up…?”

“No. It’s to do with the sexual compatibility test.”

She was puzzled. “Er… what…?”

“They had a surprising result. It impacts on your therapy, so they asked me to give you the news.”

“Okay…”

“We know what species you are.”

She struggled to make sense of that. “I already know what species I am…”

“No. I mean we found a match. You have the same genetic structure as a species we already know.”

“Wait. You mean I’m not… you mean I’m not from — what do you mean?”

“I mean we discovered that you are, almost certainly, a member of a species we know. The Quillians. They’re IU members.”

“I… but… how?”

“I’m sorry. I really don’t know why they didn’t spot it earlier.”

Her eyes went wide, then her face fell. “Oh, crap .”

“Liss?”

“It’s my fault. I gave you fake samples when you found me. So you wouldn’t be able to use my DNA against me…”

“That would explain it, yes.”

She shook her head, trying to absorb the news. “You’re saying I’m from another world? Another universe? ”

“Maybe. We don’t really know what it means.”

“Have you asked them what happened? The, uh, Quillians?”

“No. Your medical records are confidential unless you choose otherwise.”

“Fuck.”

“I think there are two good things here.”

“Oh, great. I can get pregnant and rebuild the species, only I wasn’t even a member of the species in the first place!”

“Yes. You can get pregnant, and…”

“And what?”

“The ICT have something else they can investigate.”

She thought about it.

“Shit. You think it might have been them?”

“Probably not. But it’ll give the investigators somewhere to start.”

She looked like she might throw up again. “Oh crap. Crap. Crap!”

“I’m not saying it was them. Just that you might be the same species. I can’t even begin to think how many reasons they might have had for being in your universe. But if they were there… maybe they know who else was?”

“Shit. I don’t know. I can’t… If it’s some big IU species, how are they going to be able to do anything?”

“If they’re guilty of a crime on this scale, or even if they just have a lead, someone’s got to look into it.”

“Balls. Do you think any species is going to let everyone think they committed genocide? They’ll walk out on the IU first. And then anyone with something to hide will go, and then you haven’t even got an Interversal Union. You really think they’re going to let that happen?”

“That’s a lot of things to assume, Liss.”

“That’s how people act.”

“So if the ICT can’t do it, did you want to investigate them yourself?”

“I don’t even know where to start…”

“Okay. So on the one hand, you’re assuming the ICT will fail. And on the other, you’re assuming you’ll fail if you try the same thing. It seems like a very negative attitude…”

“We’re not talking about self-esteem here! This is a whole species! You think I should take them on, is that it?”

“You don’t have to. You can give this to the ICT, and you certainly should even if you look into it yourself. But whether or not you take any action is up to you.”

“I don’t know… I just… what if I get it wrong?”

“Well, if you feel you’re guaranteed to fail, then of course, maybe you’re justified in not starting.”

She opened her mouth to protest, and then stopped. “Seriously. Reverse psychology? You want to try that on me?”

“If it makes you look at what you just said and re-evaluate it from a more objective position, certainly.”

“Yeah, yeah, all right, I know what you’re going to say. You don’t succeed if you don’t start and all that motivational bullshit. Hey, it’s only a genocide of three billion people, not really all that important or anything…”

“It’s up to you, Liss.”

“Great.”

I stood up. “I’ll let you think about it.”

I left her there, dangling her legs off the bed and looking troubled.

Kwame was too nervous to go inside, though he did his best to hide it. I couldn’t force him, so we had to wait as he prevaricated. Two medics were with us, a necessary precaution given what lay in wait. Kwame asked after their families. He asked for the latest news on the ICT. Eventually, he asked me about Katie. I told him how she was doing: all the pieces of her body and brain were now in a medical lab in Hub Metro being painstakingly reconnected.

“But she will be brain-damaged?”

“Very likely. We have enough scans to be able to put her brain back together the way it was, but we don’t know enough about her species to fix any problems if it turns out something’s missing.”

He sighed.

“Are you bothered by what happened at the session, Kwame?”

“She would not have taken such an action if we had not been so… angry.”

“She took that decision herself.”

“Yes, yes. I know. Perhaps… she decided she could not wait for anyone else to do it.”

“I’m sorry?”

“She is guilty of genocide. I do not know what she was thinking… but is it possible that she judged herself?”

“I think you may be projecting your own situation onto Katie’s.”

He sighed. “We share a similar problem.”

“And how are you feeling about your problem at the moment?”

“I think… I think she is braver than I.”

“We can go in any time you like.”

“Yes.”

“If you want to find out, this is what’s going to help.”

“Yes…”

He looked at the door. Just an ordinary door in the centre, one of the ones leading to the empty areas we didn’t need. Until now. The space behind the door had been remodelled into something Kwame would recognise. The medics were with us because we knew what it was he feared: the flashbacks he would almost certainly face once he went inside.