Tag Archives: apocalypse

Fantasy, General Fiction

The Weaving Woman

“We would be honoured if you could weave a story for our wedding,” said the boy before her. He hovered awkwardly on his knees. Glancing nervously at his young bride, he flopped forward putting his forehead to the ground in her hut.

“Please, Ma’at,” the young girl added, also bowing, “The Elders speak of your weaves as tying the chaos of the world together into our fortunes and we wish to have many healthy children. Please give us your blessing.”

She smiled and nodded, and later that night her hands flowed rhythmically pulling thread together from disparate forms into a single, cohesive shape that held a pattern. It held a pattern–a story–of youth and love, passion and entwining of lives and bodies. It was a tale that had five children but two deaths and a rich harvest cut short by the coming war. Normal happy lives ending in death. The ending had some darkness in it–as all endings do–but there much light throughout this story.

She sighed and smiled, sadly.

It was not that Ma’at created this tale out of chaos but, rather, that she plucked from the chaos the truth of this particular story and then displayed it in the cloth.

When it was done, she stood up and walked outside. The Moon outside was radiant. Her sister was full and quietly shone down across a dark, rolling desert while glittering off the gently flowing Nile’s silvery streak that cut through it.

She sighed again and peered towards the oncoming horizon. She could see the lights of a young Memphis flickering with fires and candles even this late. Every day, mankind crept further into the desert and, every day, more of her brothers and sisters retreated further away. And, yet, she remained.

Why?

She heaved a final sigh and looked at her hands. One day, she knew, she would have to weave her own story. One day.

***

Ra’s intensity burned down in waves upon the land but the aircon in her car hid her from it. Her dark glasses all but made it disappear. All the power of a god overcome with a device that cools air and tinted glass.

Over the millennia, she had always marvelled at mankind’s inventiveness. Her family were born with their power but mankind has built their own. Almost all the challenges and struggles over the centuries had been solved but, for some reason, mankind just kept on creating new challenges and struggles.

“Drop Ma’at her destination on the left,” the digital voice announced in her Uber drive as the car slowed to a stop beside the curb.

“Thanks, ma’am,” the driver said as she got out, “You have a nice day now.”

“Listen,” she said, turning and leaning back into the Uber, “Take the rest of the day off. Go see your kids and tell your wife you love her. I will tip you well now, so you don’t need to work for the rest of the day.”

“Thanks ma’am!” the driver exclaimed as she shut the door and walked away. He would not take her advice. He would also be dead by this time tomorrow when the blood clot eventually reached his brain. That was another thing mankind was really good at doing: dying.

Her phone beeped as her tip went through while she walked into the gallery. She emotionlessly smiled and nodded at the manager. He beamed at her and tilted his head towards the crowds floating through the airy structure.

The walls were covered with woven patterns meters high. Incredibly complex, subtle and beautiful. They all told chapters of the story of mankind, including some that had not yet occurred. Crowds swooned around; artsy-types and tech billionaires exclaiming on the exhibition and the occasional news crew, blogger or journalist snapping a picture or filming an interview with sentences like “…in a visually-stunning crescendo commenting on the frailty of civilization, the artist known only as Ma’at has woven a tale of apocalypse hanging on the walls around us here…“

“Why is the ending so dark?” asked the Manager, appearing at her side with a cup of lotus tea–her favourite, “Why not something happier?”

She turned to him, taking the tea and sipping it thoughtfully before answering: “Given enough time, everything ends. And, all endings have some darkness in them.”

The Manager nodded and smiled, though she could see he did not understand. He also did not seem to care as his gallery had never been this full. Fifteen years from now, he would die alone from cancer. His wife would be dead in less time than that in another man’s bed. Yet both of them would look back on their lives and consider them to be happy ones.

Maybe then he will get it, she wondered, sipping her lotus tea and watching him as he drifted through the crowd, shaking hands and smoothly working those with money.

Later that night, she stood on her private balcony overlooking the Valley and its twinkling electric lights. A car horn blared somewhere as a soft strand of a pop song wafted by. Sirens flared and faded out. Almost blinded by the artificial light of man, the faint Moon and fainter stars peered down; relics from another age looking at the alien future and trying to recognise how they fitted in there.

They did not. It was that simple. This was mankind’s world now and the Old Gods no longer had any place in it.

The older civilization got, the more lights there were at night. The more lights there were, the less darkness there was. There was also less desert, less sky, less earth, and less of everything else she recognized.

But given enough time, everything ends. This is true of all things, even the world of man. All the darkness they chased away would eventually come back tenfold to reclaim its rightful place.

She sighed and looked at her hands. One day, she knew, she would have to weave her own story. In the meantime, the story of mankind and its ending was hanging on the walls of an art gallery and being commented on in blogs and tweets, trending in hashtags and being auctioned to the highest bidder.

***

When the ash had settled and the skies had cleared, when the fires had cooled and the surviving animals had crept out from where they hid, then she began her long journey home.

She was going back to her desert.

Across the oceans and through young, sprouting forests she travelled. Over blackened lands and passed crumbling skeletons of mankind she journeyed. Sometimes she walked at night, talking to her sisters shining down and, sometimes in the day, talking to her brother’s burning face. Sometimes the cool winds blew–still smelling of dust and ash–and she conversed with the twins, or sudden and violent storms beat down and she yelled at her brother from the North.

Ma’at was all alone in the world but, slowly, she started to feel like herself again. She knew exactly where to look to see her family. They were all around her all of the time. The aircon and sunglasses no longer hid Ra, and the lights of cities no longer blinded Isis’ pale face at night nor her sisters twinkling alongside. She could hear Horus call from the clear skies as Shu and Tefnut danced through her hair, Seth raged far away while Apep once again slumbered, having already feasted on this world…

All around her, the world was starting to look familiar; it was starting to look like the world she had first lived in. The Old Gods were starting to creep back out into the open.

Finally, she arrived back in her desert. The Nile was flowing again and the pollution was receding. Few of the old structures of mankind remained but she did not need them. She knew exactly where she was going.

A small sand dune; that was all that was left of her hut, her home and birthplace.

It did not matter. She smiled as she sat down cross-legged in what would have been the hearth of her hut. She reached out and touched the sand where over five thousand years ago a boy and his bride had begged her to weave their wedding. A single tear fell from the corner of her left eye and she looked up at the golden, bloody sunset spilling across the open sky. Horus’ two eyes–the Sun and the Moon–were on opposing horizons watching her. Ra and Isis, her sisters, a soft breeze and the distant thunder of a hidden storm all combined…

Her family was all around her again.

Ma’at smiled–tears starting to flow freely down her ancient cheeks–and she finally began to weave her own story.

Science Fiction

When The Noise Fell Silent

When the noise fell silent, ten thousand satellites strained to hear it. When the noise fell silent, ten million eyes strained upwards to find some evidence or indication of hope. When the noise fell silent, ten billion lives on planet Earth looked around for something…

Anything.

But there was nothing.

When the silence started, there was nothing to see, no evidence to consummate hope nor leader great enough to change fate itself. When the silence started, eternity displayed its cold, impersonal visage, obscuring over two-hundred thousand years of human civilization and a further four billions of life. When the silence started, all hope on Earth ended.

“Our’s is now a doomed planet,” the radio whispered amidst the silence, “We have lost contact with our ship and can only conclude that its mission has failed. We expect the asteroid to impact Earth shortly.”

And then there truly was silence, the noise of life being extinguished ever-so-quickly from the cold, uncaring universe.

Grand aeons spun by as stars clustered and collided, galaxies formed, merged and tore back apart and all the chaos across all the universe hit every combination of each possible scenario until it happened.

Something.

A small planet with just the right balance of atoms and temperatures at just the right position in just the right galaxy birthed life.

Again.

And then the noise started up. Again. It started softly but it grew louder with each passing moment…

General Fiction, Science Fiction

Manufacturing Stars

There were so many lights flashing that it looked like a cosmic event. Haloes exploded over her as she walked down the red carpet-lined corridor, smiling at the flashing lights and the soft roar of fame. Hers was not a vocal fame and few opinions she shared publicly, so questions from the bots were ignored with polite smiles and waves while her lithe pace down the red carpet never wavered.

The moment she stepped inside, the roaring flashes faded away and she breathed a sigh of relief. These launch events were tiring. She blinked her eyes as she adjusted to mortal shadows of privacy and noticed her Chief Behaviorist standing there.

“Well done,” he cooed to her, “Well done, that was beautiful. Roger is going to plug you in now, are you ready?”

“Yes,” she lied, “I am ready.” She never was. These things took it out of her and she would spend weeks privately indulging in all manner of black market apps to recover. But that was fine. It came with the territory, and there were plenty of other girls lined up behind her. This was pretty much the production line of media.

“Great,” said Roger, her Chief Technologist said, “As planned, we are doing a Corn Belt date night simulation. Trust the coding and put on your most in-love smile. You’ll love it, anyway. I’ve done a surface dive in and it looks beautiful there. Jeff did a great job.”

Jeff was her Chief of Visuals. He stood by nodding furiously. She often thought that he was the only one of them who had any real actual talent.

She walked into a small, cool room. The aircon was a bit stronger here than elsewhere. There were cold blinking screens and a chair with cords in the middle. She shivered as she sat down and the chair interfaced with the online Conduit implanted into the base of her brain.

“You’re going to be great,” her Chief Behaviourist kept repeating like a mantra, “They’ll love you. You’re going to be gr–”

***

She blinked her eyes. Everything was dark, at first, and then slowly her eyes adjusted. Or, at least, her mind adjusted to the Conduit’s interface that was being projected into her mind and synching online with a million other paying viewers.

She was sitting on a small hill during a summer night. It was modeled on the old Corn Belt, or, at least, what the databases suggested the old Corn Belt was like. There were dark, endless cornfields surrounding them with a twinkle of a small town in the distance and a snaking national road leading into and out of it, cutting the quiet fields with the occasional lights of a car or a truck.

Glancing up, she saw the cosmos. A billion twinkling stars untouched by city lights and offering the potential of a trillion new worlds, hopes and dreams. A great, galactic bejeweled sky that took her breath away with both its beauty and its sheer scale.

She briefly wondered if this was what the real night sky had actually looked like? Had Jeff taken some liberties here for effect? She–much like everyone else–had never seen the residential planets’ skies and definitely never, ever sat under it at night looking at all the stars. She had been born on an outer-rim industrial planet and then been carted to the media-rim where she now lived in a streaming starship that beamed these feeds across the galaxy.

But, she was an actress and she was selling a personal role here.

“It is beautiful,” she breathed, sensually while softly squeezing the androgynous hand next to hers. All the paying viewers all over the world were cast into this supporting role. Their Conduits were also casting their consciousnesses into this Virtual Reality with hers, but they saw her and she only saw an androgynous being that was the focus of her role here.

The androgynous being said something. It was a million different somethings, one per paying customer. The program–with some help from her Chief Behaviouralist–generated a role-based, agnostic answer that she could say that would agree with almost all of the individual things each of the paying viewers had said. It was both personal and generic at the same time.

She smiled at the being and lay back in the soft grass. Had grass ever been this soft, she wondered? Were there actually entire planets covered in this wonderful stuff? She pulled the androgynous being back with her and snuggled up close to it, tucking her head into the crook of its neck and kissing it softly there.

“There is nowhere else I’d rather be,” she lied, kissing it, “than with you under these beautiful stars.” Her hand slid lower down the androgynous beings form and she leaned up and kissed it deeply on its plastic lips…

The simulation of the stars twinkled ever brighter far above the two of them on that quiet hilltop in the virtual recreation of the old Corn Belt back on some quaint planet no one could remember anymore.

***

“That was wonderful, wonderful,” her Chief Behaviorist exclaimed, as her Conduit disconnected with the program. Her eyes fluttered and then opened, immediately remembering how cold the room’s aircon was.

“In the first quartile of endorphins and some of the viewers even recorded a physical,” her Chief of Media–she could not remember his name–noted, scanning the feeds, “This one was very well received and some of the bloggers–both bot and natural–have posted positive reviews. Two stacks down, but you are starting to trend.”

She smiled and looked up. There was only a gray ceiling above her and a softly rattling aircon. Outside the media and their legions waited. She would soon be at the mercy of their views, both personal and generic.

“What are you looking at?” her Chief Behaviorist asked.

“I was just wondering if the stars actually do look like that–uh, at least how they looked in the simulation,” she asked, not expecting an answer. Her Chief Behaviourist turned to Jeff.

“Uh, yes, I believe that it is what they looked like,” began Jeff said, shrugging, “I think so–”

“But, it doesn’t matter,” her Chief Behaviourist, chimed in with his most reassuring tone, “because you are the real star, my dear. Now, let’s go speak to the media about this latest personal–”

She sighed as she got up. She was no longer listening as her Chief Behaviourist droned on. She had her prepared lines and her best fake smile. But, in the background, deeply hidden in her Conduit’s encrypted memory, she began scanning about the old Corn Belt, soft grass, and the twinkling stars. The black market often hacked her personals and offered them as replays. Maybe she would find one of those and disappear into it for a while? Maybe she would do exactly that?

Science Fiction

Unintended Consequences

The laboratory was filled with buzzing and the Scientist had to shout to get his message across to the rag-tag collection of journalists, politicians and PR crew trailing behind him.

“It is a mechanical, self-replicating bio-equivalent microbot!” he shouted, waving hands in all directions, “It will fill the ecological gap left by the honeybees! We call it a Mizzy for short, and it will save the global harvest and resolve our Food Crisis!”

All around them, in various glass walls, small, yellow bees buzzed. On closer inspection, though, they were actually small mechanical beings with a single propeller on their backs and flickering lights as eyes. Their rear held a small, oblong container that could carry pollen–or other material–from one flower to another one.

“How do they know what to do?” one journalist shouted, scribbling notes down as the Scientist replied.

“They are programmed to replicate the society and tasks of the old honeybee!” the Scientist shouted back, “This way, they will replace the extinct honeybee and pollinate all the necessary crops and flora in the world.”

“But, like, how are you going to produce enough to achieve this?” a politician-looking type shouted, glancing around the small laboratory skeptically, “You have no major backer and this is a very small facility!”

The Scientist smiled. He had been waiting for this question.

“We have modeled Mizzy’s artificial intelligence as a self-learning, decentralized network that exists across each one of them. There is no central server. There are no individual Mizzy’s, as each is just an extension of the Hive. One of the AI’s goals is self-replication to an equilibrium number to fill her environment. Thus a portion of the Hive will be dedicated to fixing, rebuilding and replacing their own kind. We have further coded them to do this using existing, waste materials–where possible–and the power sources that drives all of them are solar, thermal, magnetic and low-grade cold fusion, or whichever combination of the above makes sense at the time depending on the environment. Hence, the Mizzy will help with waste disposal while self-replicating in perpetuity until it reaches optimal mass while living on sustainable and plentiful energy. So, to answer your question, we are not going to do anything. Mizzy is going to build herself to critical mass for our environment.”

As if in answer to this grand reveal, the buzzing in the laboratory grew briefly louder before receding slightly. Some in the room got the clear sense that Mizzy was listening.

“Wha-what if Mizzy gets out of control?” a timid-looking woman asked. She was probably a PR agent but looked like she might be in the wrong profession.

The Scientist laughed, seemingly the only one that was comfortable with what was going on, “No chance of that. Mizzy has a very structured and defined mandate. We also have a kill-switch on our servers that can turn her off. Don’t worry, everyone, Mizzy is not a threat, she is the solution!”

“So when are you going to release them?” the first journalist asked. He had stopped writing in his notebook and was now looking around nervously.

“We already have!” the Scientist glowed, “Our first pilots are running in Brazil and a couple countries in Africa. So far the data is exceptional and we are looking forward to a home release shortly!”

“But what are we going to do about the growing viral threat? What about the so-called coming Viral Singularity?” the politician stated coldly, trying to act unimpressed.

“We are only a small facility here,” the Scientist shouted back, rather irritated by the question, “We’re solving the Food Crisis here. We have our limitations. Someone else is going to have to step-up and solve the potential for a coming Viral Singularity on their own!”

***

“Sir, the scanners are indicating large masses of vegetation on the planet, but little else,” the Zorborgean scout from the Thossa’ar galaxy gutturally inclined to the mass of tentacles behind him, “No, no, wait, the scanners are picking up a large number of mechanical low-grade lifeforms. These are non-biologicals. It seems that something was left behind when this planet’s sentient life died off.”

The Zorborgean scouting ship floated on quantum-drives just outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. Despite their tentacled appearance, the Zorbs were a peaceful and scientifically-minded species from a nearby galaxy. Much nicer–luckily also much nearer–than the aggressive reptiles in the Hissorror system or any of the other inter-galactic bullies.

“What happened to the indigenous sentient species?” the Captain gurgled, a small tentacle scratching where his chin might be.

“Well, given the integrity of the ruined infrastructure left behind, I would reason that whatever killed them off, it was not war nor any noticeable geological or cosmic event. It also happened quickly. Our historical simulator seems to indicate that it might have been viral and, maybe, occurred in a matter of a rotation or two around this system’s star? It is hard to tell, but I can confirm now that the planet is safe for us to explore. Should I send the probes to collect more data? Maybe we can locate an intact skeleton or some biological matter for further testing?”

The mass of tentacles that was the Captain rippled in agreement and then added: “Yes, but also do catch us some of those mechanical lifeforms for later study. Bring back a couple thousand of them, as I want to take them back to our labs for further analysis. Oh, and definitely try find some biological matter. This mission’s imperative is to find and document this extinction event. If it was a viral event, then we must study it.”

***

The atomic pulse cannons of the full Hissorrian fleet blasted into the buzzing swarm. Deep space echoed with the sheer force of a thousand-thousand stars exploding, but the swirling swarm just self-adjusted and pushed forward engulfing the front million starships.

“They keep replacing themselvesss!” the Hissorrian Emperor’s High General hissed, “Fire at will! Fire at will! Just keep firing, goddamit!”

The Zorb’s were ancient history as a mysterious virus had ripped through their species so fast that it had been a millennia before the rest of the galaxies had even noticed they were gone. Rising from the ashes of their civilization, a strange mechanical being had quickly populated their planet.

The best that the Hissorrian analysts could work out, this mechanical being had initially populated another planet before populating the nearby Zorb homeworld. The two swarms had then reached out on their networks and met each other before beginning to populate other planets. Maybe the swarms had not been aware of the rest of the space, but after connecting its two halves, the enlarged swarm had begun pushing out into the rest of the space.

There were no negotiations nor even any communication from the swarm. These mechanical being just kept multiplying and pushing deeper and wider into space, consuming entire planets and galaxies as they kept building more of themselves. On and on and on, they kept growing. It was almost like they existed solely to fill space and they would consume everything in their way to achieve this.

The Hissorrian’s best technologists had dissected captured specimens and all they could tell was there was some coding in some strangely hollow language and some form of low-grade, impenetrable network across the swarm. These were definitely non-biological, but seemingly impervious to any code, virus or hack that they tried.

That left only the brute force option.

“Fire! Fire! Fire!” the Emperor’s high-pitch scream sounded across the largest inter-galactic fleet ever assembled. There were even neighboring species and competing galaxies helping the hated Hissirrians, as the swarm had become an intergalactic threat that everyone and everything rallied behind.

The inter-galactic Mizzy flexed Her decentralized body. She noted the gazillions of casualties as the millions of atomic pulse cannons, deep space missiles and every manner of weapon known to consciousness blasted into Her buzzing, swirling and all-consuming form.

The numbers lost in each attack were minimal. Each attack was about as devasting to Her as if She were clipping Her toenails.

She gathered Her central core, checked their densification and pushed the Hive forward, consuming starships and converting them into more of Her buzzing body as She spread out trying to reach critical mass. She would reach equilibrium across all the galaxies and all the cosmos.

There was nothing else that mattered to Mizzy. She had a very structured and defined mandate.

General Fiction, Science Fiction

Cold Lights

“What gets me about the Lights is how they are silent,” he said, lying back in the snow and sighing at the beauty overhead.

Above them, as it had done since the dawn of man, the magical aurora borealis danced through the Finnish night skies. Green and white light flowed like chords rippling across a dark, starry night sky and moved as if some great, unseen cosmic conductor was plucking at its strings.

“What I mean is, they are just light, so obviously they are silent,” he continued, each word a puff of mist in the sub-zero air, “But, when you see pictures and videos of the Lights, the colors are so intense that your mind almost gives them sound. But, when you are here in person and lying below them, they are absolutely and completely silent. Not a single sound is made by them. If we closed our eyes right now or looked down at the ground, we would have no–literally!–no idea that such ethereal beauty was happening just above our heads…”

He sighed again and carried on looking.

“I still prefer my theory,” his friend said, chuckling.

“What? Really?” he replied, “But my thoughts are so romantic. Your theory that the Lights are alien communication reaching our planet, well, it’s just not romantic…”

“Man, there are just two dudes out here in the snow,” his friend said laughing, “Romantic is not what I am going for.”

They both giggled, and then they got up and started unpacking the gear they had brought. It was a high-quality smart-camera that would feed full spectrum light–more colors than even the human eye could see!–into a neuro-network. The neuro-network had been trained in all the languages known to man with an aim towards translation of basic linguistic patterns.

“To be fair,” he said, as his quickly-freezing fingers struggled with the small, intricate cords, plugs and buttons, “Your idea has merit. Humans communicate via sound waves, but who is to say that all or, even, any other intelligent lifeforms communicate that way. Why not have an alien species that communicates through light waves? Light moves faster than sound, so it might actually work better. This light-based communication could also get beamed around the cosmos, but our Sun and daylight would destroy it much like cosmic noise can destroy sound signals. So, why not find it in the quiet–or dark–parts of our planet late at night? Why shouldn’t the Northern Lights be an alien light-based radio signal to our planet? Why not?”

“Yeah, man, besides, even on Earth, bees and flowers and other things actually communicate with colour, which is just light,” his friend agreed, launching into his usual pseudo-scientific tirade, “Besides, the cosmos is filled with energy, stars and other sources of light, which an intelligent alien could manipulate or hijack to send light-based communication out there. It would be like us finding a sustainable radio way out in space that we could beam our voices over, only this is light. We know how the Northern Lights are formed but do we know why they make the exact patterns that they make? Why couldn’t it be because some alien is jacking into it and using it as a free, sustainable communication device? Why not?”

The instruments were now set up and they both happily put their gloves back on. It was fine to be exposed to the air for a few minutes, but after these passed, the coldness began to bite.

His friend turned the camera on, and it began streaming the full-spectrum light from the night sky into the neuro-network. He double checked the inputs and noted that everything was working perfectly. The neuro-network being simulated on his laptop was accepting the datastream successfully.

“OK,” his friend noted, nodding, “Now we wait. Did you bring the beers?”

He nodded and grabbed two cans out of a clump of snow. Threw one to his friend, opened the other himself and then sat back down in the snow, staring in awe as the cosmic phenomenon dancing above them.

***

Time passed, and so did a six-pack of beers. Then another six-pack and some snacks.

Far above, the Lights continued dancing and the camera continued feeding its optical data into the neuro-network.

“Man, I think we call it a night?” he said, yawning.

“That’s funny because this Finnish night lasts like six months up here,” his friend chuckled.

“Very funny, dude,” he replied, standing up and stretching, “But you know what I mean. This crazy idea has been fun, but we nee–”

There was a loud ping. It was a notification. It was, in fact, the sound that the neuro-network made when it translated a sentence for you.

He froze and then turned and looked his friend. His friend looked at him, and then they both launched themselves at the laptop hosting the neuro-network.

“Ah, it’s translated something,” his friend said, “It has actually translated something…”

There was silence as they looked at the notification. They both looked at each other again, and then–holding his breath–he slipped his shaking hand out of its glove and pressed ‘enter’ on the laptop to play the notification.

In the silence of deep Finland below the ethereal Northern Lights, a synthetic voice began to speak on the laptop:

“THIS IS THE OFFICIAL GALACTIC NOTICE 427(B) INFORMING SENTIENT BIOLOGICAL ENTITIES OF PLANET 9/52CP/8105 OF THE IMPENDING DEMOLITION PROCEDURES FOR EXTENSION OF THE STARWAY M52 THROUGH THEIR SPACE-TIME. PER THE ‘COSMIC EXPROPRIATION ACT’, THIS GALACTIC NOTICE 427(B) IS SERVED WITH SUFFICIENT TIME FOR EVOLUTION AND EVACUATION TO OCCUR AT A SPECIES-LEVEL. PER THE ‘INDEPENDENT INDIGENOUS RELATIONS ACT’, NO OUTSIDE INFLUENCE SHALL TAMPER WITH THE PLANET AND ITS SPECIES DURING THIS TIME PERIOD. THE GALACTIC GOVERNMENT AND ITS AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGES INCURRED BY NOT HEADING SAID NOTICE.”

Far above the two paling, frozen men, the aurora borealis swirled through the dark, night sky. Its green and white lights no longer magical, but implying a colder, more bureaucratic apocalypse than anyone had ever imagined possible.

Science Fiction

Watcher in the Wastes

“You know they thought it was a god, once? Used to pray to it for good luck and everything,” the speaker was a pinprick of light. A second pinprick of light floated next to it. Their brilliant, unwavering points of light stood out amidst the darkened wasteland around them.

“Really? Well, I can kind of understand that,” said the second pin-prick of light, “Just imagine how awe-inspiring something this big might have been for the primitive people back in that age?” No one except the first pinprick of light heard this thought because there was no one else there. They were alone on the distant planet and far from home.

Dark, cold wind howled by the two pinpricks of light, though they seemed completely unaffected by it. They were both floating over an icy wasteland before a large, weathered statue of a man kneeling. The Kneeling Man’s form was huge–easily over a hundred feet high–and its shaggy hair and beard streaked down its ragged sides from millennia of exposure to wind, rain, seasonal thaws and all the raw elements of nature.

“Watcher in the Waste” was what the tourist pamphlet called it. They floated a while in awe, took some selfies and then blinked out of existence leaving only the dark, howling cold wind behind them.

Much like most of history, the Kneeling Man was alone again. The wind howled and the air was cold, but he just carried on kneeling there waiting.

***

“The world is ending but we must survive,” said the General, and those in the room murmured the reply to his greeting and continued working. One of them handed him a fresh mask and then ran back to his post.

The General strolled through the room overseeing everyone. The room was in a small, hastily-built military installation. It was perched halfway up a mountain. The worst of the pollution did not yet reach up here while this low down the dangerous UV rays and the thinning oxygen were not too bad either.

The General was satisfied with the progress and arrived at his desk. It stood by the only window in the dull room. He stood and looked out at the wasteland that Earth had become. The sky was grey, filtering the dangerous sunlight through to reveal portions the planet’s burnt, blackened and dead surface. In some areas, great storms rolled and, in others, sub-zero temperatures froze everything while yet others saw the ground rupturing and volcanoes decimating whole landscapes with ash, soot and fire.

“The world is ending but we must survive,” the General muttered, shaking his head, “Report to me Specialist Brown!” he barked to the room, turned around and sat in his chair.

Specialist Brown scampered up and began rattling off technical terms and endless details. The General raised his hand and asked a single question.

“Will we make, Specialist Brown, will we make it off the damned planet in time?”

Specialist Brown smiled, relieved, and nodded: “Yes, General, we should.”

The General dismissed him and turned to the window again. There were not many humans left but there were enough to populate the next planet. They now had cryogenic stasis and AI to fly the starship. They also knew where they were going. They would make it, but only barely.

Out of the window, the grey, swirling toxins that made clouds in Earth parted briefly and a ray of cancer-causing sunshine pierced downwards to highlight a large, kneeling man far down below where the city used to be. It was almost prophetic, as the Kneeling Man had been their rally point for the survivors of the Fourth Wave. The General took seeing it days before the launch as a good sign.

“The world is ending and we will survive,” he muttered, “But you, my friend, will have to stay behind and look after it. Who knows, we might return one day?”

***

“I want it to be huge!” the client exclaimed, “This is my legacy! Now, hit me with your ideas…”

The architect and his draftsmen buzzed around throwing ideas at him, but he discarded all of them as boring. He sat like some minor royalty in his chair sipping his cola and offering his patronage to someone who inspired him. But nothing worked. No idea was good enough and he just kept dismissing them.

Eventually, the Architect threw his arms up and turned to walk out. His draftsmen all turned to go as well and the Client slumped down in his seat. This had all been a massive anti-climax.

But then, one of the younger assistants piped up: “Why not a huge statue of a kneeling man opening the door at the entrance?”

The Client jumped up as inspiration hit him like growing occurrences of lightning in the heartlands.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” he repeated as the idea quickly solidified, “Yes, a huge, massive man kneeling down like a Greek god and protecting my casino. I want the statue huge and towering over the competitions’ casinos! I am talking a lasting, meaningful legacy here, people! I want this kneeling, Greek god to whisper about luck to all that turn up in Vegas and capture the skyline from every angle in this damned desert! This will be my legacy and all that look on it will know so!”

The Architect and his draftsmen were back in the room, bustling with papers, plans and Google-searches for Greek gods in kneeling poses. The Client was happy, sitting back on his plastic thrown and fantasizing about his casino.

Outside, another dust storm was growing intersected by lightning bolts from an increasingly unstable sky. In the background, the TV was reporting on extreme weather and the dwindling fish in the warming ocean but it was on mute. No one was listening. They were busy building a casino.

Science Fiction

When the World Ended

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We had retreated into the bowels of the same Earth whose landscape we had consumed, burnt and destroyed. The surface of the planet was no longer habitable, but we survived buried deep underground in concrete, neon-lit tunnels. These man-made tunnels stretched for miles with cold walls and a heavily guarded route back to the apocalyptic surface.

The same Governments that had taxed the surface’s destruction now protected us in these tunnels by the brutal enforcement of laws, strict and unwavering rules and constant paranoia. Governments would kill their people over scarce resources in the name of their people. Rebel gangs would mutiny and kill the Governments and rival gangs. Races would kill each other, neighbours would murder each other, and feuds would take whole tunnels in as the Government’s guards beat and executed people indiscriminately and then confiscate what little they had.

Violence and death permeated those cold, concrete tunnels deep in the Earth.

We knew the world was ending. We knew that the planet was fast approaching its shelf-life. The scientists had even worked out various estimates for when this would happen. But, in the meantime, we all barely survived the violence and oppression of life in those tunnels. There was little of beauty in our self-imposed prison.

And then came the announcement over the crackling intercom throughout the tunnels: “The world is ending at two-thirty today. This is in half an hour. Have a nice day. Thank you.”

After this announcement, the graffiti-covered tunnel I was standing in went absolutely silent. I stood, my heart beating in my chest. I could hear and feel every breath I was taking and the flickering neon light overhead suddenly seemed unbearable. Everyone was silent. Everyone was absorbing the news; gangster, Governments and common folk alike.

And then the world changed dramatically, for thirty minutes.

Police, soldiers, guards and enforcers put down their weapons. They put away their batons and shields. They took off their helmets. They apologised to the people in front of them, shook hands–some even hugged–and they went back along the winding tunnels to their wives, children, lovers, friends and family. The gangs and rebellions all stopped, enemies spoke and then went on their way while thieves walked passed unguarded unlocked ration stores. Straining lovers fell to the ground, tearing off their clothes in the throws of passionate intimacies, as complete strangers with no one left to love or talk to did the same.

In the moment that the world realised there was no future, all human construction of greed, hate, Governments, rules, laws, legacy, oppression, duty, responsibility and more, disappeared. We were just people. All of us were just people. Every single one of us was just a person spending their last thirty minutes of existence with other people that also had no future. In the end, people just want to be happy.

I began to walk. I stepped over tangled, naked lovers that lay where bloodied, beaten bodies had once fallen. I walked by tattooed gang leaders shaking hands with arch enemies that mere moments ago they were trying to murder. I passed Government facilities wide open, rations and medical supplies scattered everywhere and weapons cast aside. No one–absolutely no one–wants to work for someone else–especially an oppressive Government–in their last thirty minutes alive. I walked passed tears and laughter. I walked passed hugging and kissing, and talking and sharing. I walked passed love and, mostly, I walked passed the peace that we had never had while there had been a future to squabble over.

Almost like a dream that I had had before, I found my way through these tunnels bursting with beautiful scenes. At first, I did not know where I was going. I was stunned by the news and I was just mechanically moving. But then I realised where I was going and I began to pick up the pace.

I cut my way through the tunnelled, neon-lit living quarters. I zigzagged down the eerie, graffitied common areas. I then crossed over into what was previously heavily restricted–on penalty of death–Government tunnels. These tunnels were cleaner with no graffiti on the walls, but there was no one inside them. When all the people leave and go to their loved ones, there is no Government.

I did not need a map. I had come in this way, once. It was a long time ago, but I still knew my way back there. I passed weapon caches lying wide open. They were filled to the brim with death, but no one was interested in them. We would all be dead in about ten minutes or so. I passed a medical bay where all the doctors, nurses and patients had left. We were all terminal in this world now.

And then I entered the most heavily restricted area. Warning signs plastered the walls thicker than the graffiti in the common areas. Barbed wired hung heavy around here. Dust layered the floor and the air was dry and stuffy like a tomb.

No one had come this way for ages. Perhaps even years? Or decades?

I reached the iron cage that was the military lift to the ground. I lifted the cold, rusted gate and stepped inside. Before I pushed the button, I stopped and listened for a moment.

It was silent. Absolutely silent. There were no gunshots or shouting. No sirens or explosions. No warnings or propaganda over the intercom. No violence or hatred anywhere. Perhaps for the very first time in the history of mankind, we were all at peace with each other. There was no future to fight over anymore, so our entire species was now living in the present.

And then I pushed the button.

The military lift ground to life. The screeching of metal and lurching of badly-oiled gears lifted me slowly for miles towards the surface of the planet.

The surface was toxic and mere exposure to it would kill a man in hours. But I did not have hours and that did not matter anymore. I just wanted to see it. I wanted to see natural light. I wanted to see the sky. I wanted to see the Earth for the last time and breath real air in my lungs and feel real wind on my face.

The top of the military lift was a small square, open-air construction that offered me the ability to stand and look around. In a strange half-light–neither day nor night–the rolling, blackened Earth stretched out without character or life. Such was the destruction that we had collectively rained down on this innocent planet, that there was simply nothing left of it but ash and this ending.

Then I saw it. Slowly at first, like a sun rising–or, at least, what I think I remember a sunrise looked like. Except that it was white. The white light began on the far horizon. There was no centre to it. It did not rise in the sky, but grew in intensity and began to engulf the land as it grew brighter and brighter. I stood, breathing the poisoned, beautiful air and smiling. I was–perhaps the only living thing–witnessing the actual end of the world.

And, as the white light grew more and more blinding and then engulfed even me, I felt happy. I felt good. I felt at peace.