Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

She held up her left hand with the stump where her middle finger should have been. “You see?”

“And then you had to…”

“I put him down.” She didn’t say how. I didn’t like to ask.

“What about the children?”

She looked up. “What about them?”

“Did they see?”

She took a long breath. This was harder for her. “They heard. They came downstairs.”

“What did you do?”

She looked up at me, eyes full of pain. “Kept the bloody door closed and told them to go back upstairs.”

“I mean… how did you explain it?”

“They were only little. I told them daddy was sleeping, called the coroners, got them dressed and left.”

“How did they react?”

“They knew. They heard the fighting. They saw blood on my dress. And I was missing a finger as well, they noticed that all right…”

“Olivia… what happened to them, in the end?”

She looked back at me. “What do you think happened? They’re dead.”

“I’m sorry. When did they die?”

I’d forgotten her earlier admonition. She burst to her feet. “Stop it! You’re not sorry! You’re not sorry about anything! You’re only sorry you can’t get me crying about it! I’ve had enough of this…”

“Olivia, please…”

She sat down, folded her arms and assumed a stubborn silence.

“Olivia. I don’t mean to push too hard. We can stop there, if you like.”

And stop we did. But I remembered something from her psychomedical history, and called it up on the screen once she left. When she had been found, there had been two revenants still in the pens at Tringarrick. One female and one male.

It would make sense: the two revenants she had not been able to bring herself to kill until she was ready to take her own life could conceivably be her children. I found myself shivering as I realised this, and feeling no comfort in my success at turning the session into something useful for therapy.

The evening meal was subdued. Olivia was in a dark mood. Pew stayed silent. Elsbet was still in the infirmary. Kwame avoided the meal altogether, hiding in his room. Iokan was the only one to try and inject some levity, but he came up against irritation and silence. Olivia excused herself as soon as she could, and headed out to the garden to inflict suffering on plantlife. Pew excused himself as well, leaving Iokan alone in the common room.

Iokan usually made it a habit to stay downstairs after dinner and make himself available for chats and games with the others. This evening was no different, but he was surprised when Kwame joined him. Kwame hadn’t eaten anything that day. He’d taken some tea after much insistence on the part of a nurse, and had gone so far as to nudge food across his plate at lunchtime. The normal procedure would be to intervene after another day of fasting, but for now we were leaving him alone with his troubles. So his emergence into the common room to join Iokan was a pleasant surprise I hoped would produce some benefit.

Iokan smiled as he saw Kwame coming in, and Kwame couldn’t help a scowl. “Good evening,” said Iokan.

“Yes. Good evening,” replied Kwame.

“Haven’t seen you much recently…”

“I have had much on my mind.”

“Well, if you want to unburden yourself, you only have to ask.”

“I… No. It is a private matter.”

Iokan wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Well… how about a game?”

Kwame turned and paused. “Yes. A game would be good. I need some… distraction.”

“A board game, perhaps?”

“No. Something a little more…”

“Exciting?”

Kwame thought about it. “Not… too exciting.”

“No shooting games then.”

“No.”

“A strategy game?”

“Yes. Something that will take a while.”

“I’ve been wanting to try Brentervile…”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a historical game, apparently. Something to do with a war between machines and humans when they met on an empty planet. It lasted for hundreds of years, or so I’m told.”

“How do you play?”

“It’s a real time strategy game. You collect resources, build up your forces, and command them in battle.”

“It sounds like a board game.”

“It’s a bit more exciting when it happens in real time.”

“I see. Which sides can we take?”

“We don’t have to take sides. We can work together against the computer, if you like.”

“I… yes. Let us do that.”

Iokan set the game up and they selected co-operative mode. The game was a very simplified model of the actual war, designed to present an AI/Human conflict as an entertaining experience. In reality, millions had been killed before the entire planet had to be abandoned, but the popularity of the game did at least remind people of the horrible lesson of Brentervile and the risks of AI/Human wars.

Iokan moved the game to one of the walls. “Do you want the eastern or western sector?” he asked.

“Eastern.”

“Any preference for unit colour?”

“No.”

“I’ll give you green, then. I’m blue, and the enemy are red. Do you want to play from a pad, or do you want to use the wall?”

“The wall. I cannot use pads.”

“Of course…” Iokan put aside the pad he’d been using to set up the system, and called up his own on-wall controls to finish setup. He selected the last few options and hit the start button. “Okay. We’re good to go.”

The game map glowed into position on the wall, surrounded by control icons and status readouts. Iokan attended to his own side while Kwame looked across the screen, overwhelmed with information.

“You’ll want to set up some mines over there by the forest — you see where the geology overlay says there’s heavy metal deposits?” said Iokan.

“I see it. How do I…?”

“Drag the control board over. There? You see this?” Iokan demonstrated by pulling the control board image across the map on his side, and Kwame did the same.

“Ah. And I pull the mine from the list?”

“That’s it.”

Kwame dragged a mine icon from the control board and set it up in a favourable spot. The icons were large enough for his disability not to be a problem, and he and Iokan worked to build their base and a line of defence.

“Where are the enemy?” asked Kwame.

“They’ll be with us soon enough,” said Iokan. “You should build a fort on the edge of that glacier. They’ll use that to outflank us otherwise.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“So what’s been bothering you?”

“I am fine.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I am fine.” But his brow was furrowed as he said it. “Should you not place something there?”

Iokan looked; Kwame indicated a gap in the defensive line, conspicuously undefended. “That’s the killzone. We should leave that.”

“Why?”

Iokan gave him a puzzled look. “You’re a military man. You know.”

Kwame looked confused. “I do not…”

“If we leave a gap in the defences, it tempts the enemy to attack. Then you make sure there’s enough firepower behind the line to eliminate anything that gets through. It’s elementary strategy for a fixed defence, all the way back to castle sieges. The computer will probably see through it but it’s worth a try. You’re sure you’ve never heard of this?”

“It… you see… the thing is, I do not remember very much of my training.”

“Oh. It’s one of those things that…”

“Yes. One of those things that has gone.” Kwame looked troubled again. Iokan turned back to the wall and his preparations, but looked back to Kwame with curiosity.

“Have you lost everything to do with your military experience?”