The End Is Now

I run my hand along the steel casing. We’ve pulled its articulations so that it’s exactly Troy’s height: 6’2”. Its face is carved like a human face, with camera-lens eyes that in monkeys have provided successful peripheral and central vision. Small flaps under its sharp chin open and close to intake air. The air is drawn into its chest, where it’s filtered and if necessary, converted to oxygen, then returned to the head, where it circulates through its organic brain.

I’m thinking about Troy’s mom, for some reason. Did he dream of her, watching him from the very chair in which she died, for the rest of his life? What dreams will come now?

Jim injects the calorie solution. Marc inserts the battery within the robot’s chest, then screws it closed. We’ve got plenty more suits. Plenty of parts. I can hear the crowd outside surgical. The settlement is excited. It’s something to take their mind off the Aporias.

It occurs to me that whether we succeed or not, the human race is over. Something new and quite different is about to grow from these sterile halls.

We wait. There’s no “on” button. Either Troy’s nervous system will take to the suit, or it won’t.

I find myself nauseous. This is drastic and insane. Unkind. Troy’s gills open.

Soundlessly, his articulations freshly oiled, he stands. “Troy? Can you hear me?”

Troy’s camera-lens eyes look down. He stands straight, but his shoulders hunch just slightly. The left half of his face seems slower and slumped. It doesn’t react as quickly to stimuli. But if he could sneer his sneer, he would. It’s him.

“Are you connected? Can you hear me?”

The cyborg’s mouth opens. He makes this gagged sound: “Mmmmmm!” I think he’s trying to scream.

“How bad is it?” I ask. I touch his cold, left hand. His parietal’s not connected, and he can’t possibly feel my heat through his metal. Still, he grips back. It’s an oddly human connection, and one I’ve been missing for a long time.

“Troy,” I say. “I’m with you. You’re not alone.”

The lights flash and go bright—he’s online. “Mmmmmm!” he screams. The lights flicker. Troy collapses. His gills go still.

Failure.

* * *

It’s minutes before impact. I’m between the steps and the missile again. Calling Jay. It doesn’t go through. Then I’m looking at pictures of them, my family. Scrolling, scrolling.

I look out through the flashing solar lights and there they are: my family. Jay’s carrying both kids. With the Aporias’ scrambled gravity, they must be light as feathers. I’m running toward them. We’re hugging. I’m crying. I’m smelling them, tasting them. Even Jay, his sweaty musk, his calmness in the face of calamity that I’ve always found infuriating until now.

Behind them are a line of others from the Bluebird: Jim’s family; Marc’s ex, who’s shockingly gorgeous and apparently still in love with him; security officers; Air Force cadets; Troy’s sixty-eight year-old father, for whom I have so many questions.

We hurry back inside to the settlement. There’s room. There’s even food for another year. Maybe, if we crack into the dirt and learn to eat worms and extract water, that will be enough.

* * *

We don’t feel Aporia Minor for about two minutes after she strikes. Strangers and friends, we’re cramped tight and terrified on the cafeteria floor.

Everything shakes.

We wait an hour, then two, for the hot rain. It doesn’t seep through, but something goes wrong, because the vents cut out. Electricity winds down. Everything goes dark.

No one but the children make noise—chatter and cries and occasional giggles. I imagine the surprised birds up above, the char of their wings. It’s not the asteroid, but the impact plume that springs into space and comes back down again, spreading globally, that will get them.

Someone has the idea of passing out buttered bread and water, and then everyone’s sharing what they have. Hands touching, saying words of gratitude, we eat in the dark.

Ten minutes later, cell phone lights start working again. I stand and everyone is quiet. “I’d invite you to conserve your energy until we figure out how to get the power back on.”

“We need someone to reboot the Network,” Jim whispers. “We’ll run out of air.”

But then, suddenly, the lights do return. The vents hum.

I’m holding my kids, standing with my husband, and everyone’s clapping, like we’re the First Family. They’re smiling with hysterical gratitude. I look to Marc, full of smiles, his girl in his arms, the happiest man in the post-apocalypse, then to Jim, who knows better.

* * *

We’re up, headed to surgical. Jay and the kids won’t let me go alone, so they come along. There’s Troy, standing in the doorway.

He’s made himself taller. About seven feet.

“You know what’s strange?” he asks. His deeper-than-usual voice booms through the Network intercoms. They can hear him in the shelter. “I’m not sad anymore. I don’t feel anything. I can see now, why you never liked me. It all makes sense.”

It occurs to me that having no “off” button was a really bad idea.