The End Is Now

My mother said, “Listen, girl! I’m trying to tell you that Carrie is pregnant.”

* * *

Most non-military scientists are not gun people. Ian’s colleagues at Amber Park Biological Research Institute could almost be mistaken for Sweets themselves. But Ian grew up in rural Kentucky, he owns a small arsenal, and he taught me to use it. He drove while I studied his profile and tried to figure out what he was thinking. It was never easy. The firm jaw and gray eyes gave nothing away. Ian hated his good looks because he thought they made people take him less seriously. He was wrong. There was no other way to take Ian.

We covered the fifteen miles from suburban Buffalo—there wasn’t any habitable urban Buffalo any more—to Carrie’s settlement at ninety miles an hour. The old Hummer belonged to APBRI and although Ian had discretion in its use, the Institute would not be happy about this trip. We passed almost no other vehicles. Cars needed gas or biofuels, which need a functioning economy: factories, distribution systems, enough workers to staff both. Sweets didn’t usually work in such industries: “not environmentally friendly.” Those that tried didn’t last long.

“Ian,” I said, “I appreciate—”

“Don’t,” he said, scowling, and I shut up.

The settlement sat on farmland. Dairy cows, apple orchards, a lot of corn. Barns and silos and wells and windmills, all hand-built. From a distance, you could mistake a Sweet settlement for Amish. Up close, you saw the bright and sometimes skimpy clothing, the computers and cells and radios. Some settlements of Sweets—not this one—were buying electronics companies. They didn’t object to machinery if they could figure out how to make, use, and repair it with minimal environmental damage.

As I climbed out of the Hummer on the “village green”—these stupidly archaic terms nauseated me, suggesting that any minute now we’d have a Maypole dance—I could hear the attackers. They were in the community hall, the first structure any group of Sweets built, happily wrecking things. People shouting, glass shattering, wood smashing. No gunfire, but that didn’t mean they weren’t armed. No cops, because even if someone at the settlement called them, they didn’t always respond. The police chief said the department was short-handed (true); the ACLU said that cops discriminate against Sweets (also true). Like God, the boys in blue mostly helped those who helped themselves.

“I’ll check it out,” I told Ian, who got behind the Hummer to cover me. As I approached the window, a bench came hurtling through it.

Inside were only four of them, three men and a woman, all of course late thirties or older. At least fifteen Sweets huddled at the far end of the room, including four children. The adults could’ve jumped the attackers while the fuckers were picking up furniture to smash, their sidearms holstered, but the Sweets didn’t move. They stood frozen, only their eyes darting around the room.

Cowards.

Extreme Involuntary Fear Bradycardia.

Both terms came to mind, and I pushed them aside. “Hey!” I yelled, and fired a shot into the air. The attackers pivoted to face me.

They were a scruffy lot, dirty and maybe drunk. Only one drew his weapon—were the other guns even loaded?—and I snapped, “Don’t try it.” Ian appeared behind me with his AK-47, which was laughable overkill. I said to one of the Sweets, “Was anybody hurt?” and, with great effort, he shook his head.

“Get out of here,” I told the scumbags. “And if anybody in this settlement has been hurt today, or if any of you ever come back here, I swear I’ll hunt you down, each and every one of you. Captain Zap there has your pictures on his cell and we can find out where you live. Do I make myself clear? Do I?”

One by one, they nodded. The only guy with a drawn weapon tried to scowl at me, but I locked my eyes onto his and he lowered both his gaze and his gun. A minute later, they’d all gone.

Slowly the Sweets began to unfreeze, and the adults knelt to comfort their children. Carrie wasn’t there, but I hadn’t expected her to be: If she had been able to call our mother, she hadn’t been confronted directly by an attacker.

Ian, ever the researcher, asked permission to take blood samples. Everyone said yes. Blood tests were the price they paid for people like Ian and me doing for them what they would not do for themselves. Sweets understood that. They were cowardly, but not stupid.

I went to find my sister.

* * *

It started with the volcano. When that mountain blew up in Indonesia, the ash contained a weird compound that affected developing fetuses (and still does). The stuff was as eternal as the dormant genes it activated. Twenty-five years later, researchers like Ian were still trying to catalogue all the effects those few genes have on the half-million miles of nerve fibers in the human brain, not to mention the rest of the body. The short list:

• Cooperative, altruistic personality traits.