The End Has Come

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Scott Sigler is the New York Times bestselling author of the Infected trilogy (Infected, Contagious, and Pandemic), Ancestor, and Nocturnal, hardcover thrillers from Crown Publishing; and the co-founder of Empty Set Entertainment, which publishes his Galactic Football League series (The Rookie, The Starter, The All-Pro, and The MVP). Before he was published, Scott built a large online following by giving away his self-recorded audiobooks as free, serialized podcasts. His loyal fans, who named themselves “Junkies,” have downloaded over eight million individual episodes of his stories and interact daily with Scott and each other in the social media space.

PROTOTYPE Sarah Langan

My transfer orders arrive nine months early, and I’m not happy about it. Can I have more time? I request.

Radio silence.

So Rex and I pack my best prototypes, break down my lab, and wait. He licks too much, but otherwise he’s a good dog. The second-best I’ve ever had.

A few hours later, a sand ship’s masthead pokes up from the desert horizon. I pull Rex close. He’s been showing his age lately, shitting in odd corners, eating just half his food, needing his name called more than once. I’ve overlooked it until now, just like I’ve overlooked the bald patches on his scalp, poor guy.

The rig floats closer. Its sail, about eighty feet tall and Mylar coated, is embroidered with a Kanizsa Triangle, the emblem of the Pacific Colony. A Class C driver waves from the deck. He wears a modern sand suit with liquid stitching; much better than I’d expect for his low rank. The colony must be thriving.

I bend down next to Rex and take his jaw between my thumb and third finger. Turn his head to one side. I cleaned his breathing apparatus just yesterday, so it doesn’t make those bark-sounding exhales that dogs are known for.

“They have no respect for the past in the city. No one there knows what they come from. They’re not like us, Rex. We don’t belong there.”

Rex laps my thumb. I lean into his wet nose. “You think we’ll be okay?”

Rex nods. People think I’m crazy, but I know he understands me.

The ship pulls astride my laboratory’s dock. Rex and I walk along the clear, sand-proof gangway, and board.The hull’s enclosed in porous, wind-resistant plastic, with holes about ten microns wide. It’s great for short trips, useless for long-term survival.

Pretty vehicle for Nevada, I say.

My driver shrugs. Class Cs are literal half-wits. They follow orders and that’s about it.

He drives. What he lacks in social graces he makes up for in creepiness. Most of us add a little personality to our suits. His is shining black with just a single C-Class insignia across his left breast. He looks like a six-foot tall, man-shaped oil slick.

We head up a wide dune, pumping the wind-powered engine as we crest, then letting momentum ferry us down. Sand spits from the spiked wheels like fountain water. Its grit drifts, little by little, inside the ship.

“’S okay, boy,” I say. But we both know it’s not.

A mile out, we pass a giant crater that used to be Lake Mead. It was man-made, its edges smoothed, its color indigo-dyed blue. I’ve seen pictures and every time I pass, I imagine how it used to be. Did people marvel, or did they take for granted man’s dominion over nature?

This whole area used to belong to the American Air Force. Nukes were tested to the north and east. The Underground’s still radioactive. I picked this abandoned military base for my lab because it’s as far away from the city as my superiors would allow me to go. Some of the hangars survive, still stocked with planes. Rex and I like to sit in this one B-2 together, looking out over its needle nose. We imagine flight.

I spend my days testing lighter and more graceful Above Ground suits in my lab. It’s the kind of engineering that requires A-Class creativity. If I wasn’t so good, I’d have been decommissioned long ago. I’m past retirement. I’m probably the oldest person in the entire colony.