Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

“Were you ready? I mean, for dealing with the moon?”

“Are you kidding? Yott was the one they wanted. They wanted him there in case the gravity thing went wrong and it needed repairs or they had to build one from scratch. And he wanted me along because he was terrified he was going to screw it up, so they swung it as a bodyguard thing.

“Ugh. I hate going into space. He loved it, of course. I was all tangled up in seatbelt straps and he was off flying around the cabin while I was throwing up everywhere, nobody was talking to me after the third time…

“So anyway we got to the moon chunk thing and landed on it and we were getting ready to do the gravity whatever-it-was when we found out somebody else got assigned to the same chunk. They messed up the paperwork or something because there was this Scandian team there as well and they wanted to set off a bomb and knock it out of orbit or something. I don’t know, I was in the bathroom being sick.

“No one could agree on who was going to get to deal with it. Ground control said hang on until we can figure it out, so we’re all just sitting there like lemons, well I was, they were all arguing. I wasn’t doing anything other than look out the window, and then there was this chimp outside—”

“I’m sorry…?”

“There was a chimp outside.”

“In a spacesuit?”

“Of course in a spacesuit! How else are they gonna breathe in space?”

“Okay. Intelligent chimps. I think you mentioned those before.”

“Yeah, yeah, some wacko anthrobiologist made a load of chimps intelligent, they set up their own republic, lovely guys, except for the ones that wanted to knock over the chimp government and they’d gone into exile and guess where they’d gone? The goddamn moon. We’d landed on their chunk of it, with their moonbase inside it, and they were pissed. They blew the airlocks and killed everyone in the ship.”

“But not you.”

“No. I saw them in time, but no one was paying any attention to me, of course, so I grabbed Yott and stuffed him in a spacesuit and then the airlocks blew and he had to get me in a spacesuit and, well, we were the only ones who made it.”

“Quick thinking.”

“Bullshit. Quick thinking would have saved everyone. And I had to kill one of the chimps as well… I punched in his faceplate. All the air came out like it was some kind of fire extinguisher, and then I could see him dying in there…”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “So we got the hell out. Yott had his gravity rocket so we got away pretty easy. Wasn’t charged up properly, though, so we couldn’t get off the chunk. We hid in the chimp base, a lot of it was wrecked from when the moon blew up, so that was easy too. And then we didn’t know what to do. We sat in there for hours…”

“What happened next?”

“We found out what the chimps were up to. Yott patched into some cables… they wanted to use the gravity thing we brought along to make the chunk crash into Africa and wipe out all the other chimps. They had this madchimp in charge, he’d spend the whole time yelling at people about how he was going to make everyone pay for everything…”

“But you stopped them. Isn’t that right?”

“We figured we were dead anyway so we might as well do something stupid. Yott figured we could use the Scandian ship to do what they were planning to do in the first place. The chimps weren’t using all that stuff because they preferred the gravity thing on our ship, so they weren’t even guarding the Scando ship. And then it was just… get him there without getting killed. He got the ship back online, dropped the bomb, and we got out of town.”

“And it worked?”

“Are you kidding? Of course not. The stupid chimps found out and set off their thing at the same time we set off the bomb. It didn’t knock the chunk out of the way — it just broke into bits. A couple of them made it down and started a tidal wave in the Atlantic. They got most people on the coast out of the way but a couple thousand died. And all the chimps on the chunk. And everyone who went to try and stop it, apart from me and Yott.”

“Do you blame yourself?”

She thought about that for a moment. “More people would have died if we hadn’t done it. They’d have wiped out most of Africa, not just the chimps, I mean that would have killed everyone .”

Her protestation sounded rehearsed. “Is that what they told you when you got back? I mean, did you have therapy?”

“Yeah, right . There wasn’t time, we had to go to work with all the cleanup crews because we were already drafted. But the chimps helped, I mean the ones on the ground, the chimp republic. They sent a lot of aid to say thanks for, you know, saving their species.”

“Did you get any therapy at all?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Things were crazy. Our chunk wasn’t the only one where it went wrong. We were all running around like mad for a year and a half just cleaning up the mess. Nobody had any time for therapy.”

“I see.”

“So that’s it. That’s how I saved the world. Stupid, isn’t it?”

“Not at all. I think you showed remarkable presence of mind, especially for someone who says she isn’t any good at that kind of thing.”

“Yott did the work. All I did was get him there.”

“Could he have done it by himself?”

“No. Neither could I. That’s the point . I can’t do it by myself. I don’t know where to start, I’m no good at this, I never have been. I’m an office manager , not a hero! I mean look…” she held up her polymer-encased arms. “This is what happens when I try to save someone. Someone else has to come in and save me .”

“What if we could help you? I mean, if the ICT were up and running?”

She considered for a moment. “I don’t know. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Katie was often found in the infirmary, having tests done on her stump to see if her arm could be safely reconnected. The technology was highly advanced but not beyond that of Hub — it was simply different. This could probably have been done in a day if the world’s electronics experts weren’t preoccupied with the aftermath of the attack; as things stood, one engineer was trying to figure out the problem remotely in his spare time, and progress was slow.

Her presence in the infirmary did, however, allow us to observe her closely, and we soon noticed she was developing uncontrollable tremors. Her remaining hand would shake, or her otherwise expressionless face would twitch. She repeatedly denied these symptoms existed, despite all evidence.

Otherwise, she kept her own company, and it was therefore a surprise when she presented herself at my office, which I had only just finished restoring to its former state. Coffee was quietly brewing and the place was just about beginning to feel right as Katie chimed at the door and I let her in.

“Take a seat,” I said.

“My request is brief,” she said.

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“I wish to volunteer in the armed forces of the Interversal Union.”

“Katie… we don’t have any armed forces.”

“The Interversal Union has been attacked. It is reasonable to expect it will shortly require armed forces. I wish to volunteer.”

“I can see how you’ve come to that conclusion, Katie, but I’m not sure it’s accurate. Also, I’d feel much more comfortable if we could discuss this while sitting down.”

She sat in as formal a manner as ever.

“I have sat down.”

“Thank you. Let me repeat what I just said: The IU has no military. There’s no one to volunteer to. And I haven’t heard any plans to the contrary.”