The Principles of Posterity

Phase One

Chapter One

Time enough to do what I cannot, Eleanor said to herself, wiping the film of condensation from the mirror. She held her gaze for a solid ten seconds—the same ritual after her shower every morning—in order to establish her ability to tolerate herself. Eleanor thought that within that ten seconds a person could tell everything about herself and hide nothing. To look away meant failure, not just in the moment but over the past. On this important day, Eleanor held steady.

The taste of her breath was more putrid on this morning than most. For the past thirty years, Eleanor Bigsby had brushed her teeth twice per day and flossed once—each brushing scheduled with her K-serum shots like clockwork and never missed, because missing a K-serum shot meant death and missing a brushing meant tasting a constant reminder of mortality. At the age of eighty-eight, the taste of mortality was beyond bitter. Aboard Phoenix, humans could live unnaturally long lives—thanks to K-serum and the other inventions of the Elite Council. Yet, no matter how diligently she followed the weekly living procedures established many years before on the spaceship Phoenix, Eleanor’s body and mind would eventually succumb to death.

As she brought the toothpaste-smothered brush up to her teeth, her thoughts strayed to the thousands of C-Fab humans being harvested even now for the purpose of her last set of morality lessons. Not humans. Clones, Eleanor reminded herself, as her arm began the arduous task of moving back and forth and in a circular motion, the loose pale flesh of her underarm swaying in morbid mockery despite her diligent exercise regimen. Eleanor tried to focus on something else, worried that her mind was wandering more than usual on the most important day of her entire life. Brushing teeth and purging the world of foul morals, thoughts, and deeds. Both led to further longevity.

Each and every Citizen aboard the Phoenix participated in the morality lessons, the Id to Ego Games (IEGs), and each and every one of the two-hundred-odd Citizens looked forward to their lessons with great anticipation and morbid glee. They were a reminder of excellence achieved through perseverance and an understanding of the human condition. An understanding of Darwin’s evolutionary process based in a world where the intellect of humans had outgrown nature’s prowess, becoming the arbiter of extinction—the harbinger of doom. Harnessing and learning through the power wrought from the IEGs was what allowed Phoenix to continue while everything else had been destroyed so many years before. The games were the reason for living. Eleanor spit the remnants of toothpaste into the sink and smiled at her reflection in the mirror, the taste of death on her breath—a metallic tinge mixed with corruption—momentarily thwarted once again.

Eleanor injected the K-serum into her left buttock, then donned her undergarments and body-hugging silver jumpsuit. It took a moment to conform perfectly to her flesh and curves, air pressure being released from each of the four valves located at the elbows and knees. Her health readouts began to display on the right wrist-based HUD screen. She found great satisfaction with the numbers: blood pressure, body fat percentage, cholesterol, oxygen level, red and white blood cell counts, and so much more. The final number tallied across the screen: Expected Life Span: 164 Years. Not bad for an old gal from south Texas, Eleanor thought, before heading for the exit to her living quarters. At the full-length mirror next to the door, she gave one more passing glance to her physique and face.

Her silver-white hair was in a ponytail; it still possessed a glossy sheen enviable in any woman over the age of fifty. Her face showed the inevitable lines and wrinkles of old age: deeply etched crow’s feet and frown marks. Still, Eleanor had managed to avoid the loose skin that hung unattractively about the cheeks and jaws of women her age. She’d seen photographs taken on Earth of individuals of all ages, and honestly thought she looked closer to fifty than ninety, compared to her species’ ancestors—as did every other Citizen aboard Phoenix. The restorative powers of K-serum, thank you very much.

The Elite Council had disallowed any form of makeup or masking creams almost fifty years ago (superfluous deception perpetuating the lie of cosmetic beauty and forsaking honesty for pride). Eleanor at first hated the decision, but now appreciated its wisdom (like many Elite decisions). Though her age and eventual death were unavoidable, the dignity with which she’d grown old was apparent for all to see: a face lined by time but still beautiful in its own unique way. She often caught some of the older Citizens stealing lustful glances at her—due more to her fit and trim body than youthful face, but still. Eleanor looked in the mirror at her bright hazel eyes, unavoidably intelligent in their hard gaze. One last round of games, young lady, she said to her reflection, and then exited her room.

She stepped into a long hallway with one wall made of Stalantar glass that faced out into space. The starlit passage teemed with Citizens as Eleanor made her way to the Command Room. Each person’s rank in the Phoenix hierarchy was marked by the color of suit he or she wore, which also clarified how many IEGs each had participated in. Only four people aboard the spaceship wore silver and Eleanor was one of them—the highest ranking among the Citizens. It meant the person had successfully participated in three IEGs over the course of his or her life. After silver were three classifications based on successful IEG completion: red had finished two; blue, one; and green, zero. The IEGs ensured that 75 percent of the two hundred Citizens would advance their moral and social wisdom in time with their age, and their professions aboard ship would reflect this. A large number became engineers, who were responsible for building and maintaining the colossal arenas for the IEGs; others joined respectable guilds like Resource Management, Accounting, Security, and Education. The unfortunate few left behind by failure in the games were ostracized first, then eventually given grunt work like maintenance, kitchen, and janitorial duties. All Citizens were of high intelligence and erudite, or the Council wouldn’t have allowed them to grow old in the first place. Genuine human life was too precious these days to be wasted on lesser minds. The supply of K-serum was always perilously low, and genetic testing now ensured that only environment would dictate who thrived and who died—not some haphazard DNA lottery.

Eleanor relished the muffled sound of so many feet on the Stalantar-floored hallway; each pair of hydro-slippers molded to the exact shape and weight of the wearer’s feet for optimum comfort. She smiled warmly to the Reds, who could afford her respect, nodded in acknowledgment to the Blues, and consciously ignored the Greens. People had to earn the respect of association, or they would have false confidence on pretense and become frail because of their betters’ human compassion. Such silver-lined scales had blinded the eyes of the old world into thinking everything was all right. Until everything wasn’t. That old world—billions of inconsequential lives spent raping, roaming, and destroying the planet—missed out on all the wonders of this new one.

Phoenix constantly spun 360 degrees on a horizontal axis in order to provide gravity for the humans aboard. This centrifugal force simulated Earth’s exact acceleration for optimal comfort to and strain on the human body. The ship was coming around to the view of Saturn in its spinning rotation, and Eleanor paused to admire the rings of the planet through the Stalantar glass wall on her right. They were beautiful whirling wonders of ice and rock, and at two hundred miles away, the naked eye could discern the movement of the layers—rivers of frozen space dust harnessed by gravity into perpetual, obedient circular motion. Beyond the rings was the pale lifeless planet. Eleanor loved the view because it reminded her that every single one of the original crew members who boarded Phoenix ninety years before was one of the greatest explorers in all of mankind’s history. They’d been docked just off Saturn for almost all of those ninety years, but the magnitude of the view and its wonderful meaning never waned for Eleanor.

Of course, the knowledge that one looked at the ringed planet through the miracle substance of Stalantar augmented the view and made it that much more wonderful. Stalantar was a new element invented by the Elite Council through nuclear fusion in the early twenty-first century. Its atomic genesis remained a mystery to all but the Elite Council. Nothing in existence, including the cold, stark, desolate realm of space, could destroy it. Even diamonds were no match for Stalantar metal. Eleanor often wondered if a massive spaceship created solely of diamonds could be more beautiful than the otherworldly blue-green glint of Stalantar. It was a close call. Stalantar metal had an almost magical quality to it, not only because of its mysterious ingredients and mythical invincibility, but because every time it was poured, the cooled and hardened product had a unique color unlike any Stalantar metal that came before it. The metal would invariably have a blue-green hue, but mixed in would be shadowy grays, or streaks of teal, or swirls of aquamarine. It was as if the substance had a mood—or better yet, absorbed the mood of its surroundings—and expressed it as only it could on that particular day. Stalantar could also be made into glass. The substance was ubiquitous on Phoenix, and an entire section of the ship was a specialized blast furnace where more Stalantar could be created whenever needed.

Eleanor paid no mind to the classrooms, manufacturing bays, excavation vehicle hangars, and Stalantar test labs she passed by on the left as she continued to walk, having eyes only for the wonders of space to the right—the dark sky brightened by the lonely light of billions of stars beyond the ringed planet. Finally, five minutes and almost half a mile later, she reached the end of her walk. The great twenty-foot-high, floor-to-ceiling, teal-colored Stalantar doors to the Command Room swished open as she approached, Phoenix’s sensors recognizing her unique body readout and destination for this day.

The contrast in décor, mood, and architecture between Phoenix’s sleek modern setting and that of the Command Room always startled Eleanor. It was like stepping through a portal into some obscure 1980s backroom law office, complete with a tacky false ceiling instead of Stalantar metal, fluorescent lighting instead of starlight, rough-textured puke-green carpeting, and plastic-wood-paneled walls. The musty smell and gloom of the fifteen-foot-by-ten-foot room tied everything together—anything brighter or more freshly scented would have felt completely out of place. A mahogany table sat in the center, surrounded by four simple wooden chairs. Eleanor noticed deep indentations in the green carpet by each of the table’s eight legs, a sign that the table had been moved a half inch just recently.

Before addressing the three silver-clad veterans gathered around the digital screen on the far wall of the room, she first went to the drink station to her left. On a fold-out, waist-high table resided the elixir of prestige, a luxury allowed to the Citizens by the Elite Council once a day and only during the IEGs. As Eleanor carefully poured herself an eight-ounce cup of steaming black coffee, her head began to swim from its sweet aroma. She brought the cup to her lips, and once again inhaled the unique scent before finally taking a sip. As the hot liquid flowed down her throat, Eleanor felt the often dormant stirrings of genuine glee with her existence. Life can be so beautiful, indeed, she thought. Taking another sip from the Styrofoam cup (also an anachronism from the past), Eleanor crossed to the gathered group that was her team for every Id to Ego Games.

Lady and gentlemen, she playfully addressed her lifelong friends—one woman and two men—standing in a half circle, years of training, hard work, and sacrifice have brought us together for this most opportune of times. I believe it is the perfect morning to begin our final IEGs. She’d practiced the introduction a hundred times in front of a mirror over the past few days in anticipation of this moment.

Patrick Lingrish replied first, toasting her with his own coffee cup. Indeed. I woke up tumescent. I can’t think of a better omen. Is this tingling in my stomach coming from anxiety, anticipation, too much caffeine, or the lingering effects of this morning’s self-indulgence? Patrick’s left fist was clinched, moving up and down in a jerking motion. I cannot answer that riddle, but I do know I’m ready to play. I’ve studied very hard, Eleanor. I think my performance will be especially sharp as a result.

Great. You’re the best at keeping these things to yourself for the sake of the rest of us. Your presence is always a pleasure, Patrick, Cale Bonapart said, slapping his old comrade’s back. Cale was tall and lanky, with worry lines on his forehead, wide brown eyes that held the luster of a man half his age, and smile lines around his mouth. This show of camaraderie due to an overabundance of excitement was a one-time thing. Cale almost always carried himself with an air of earnest dignity and privilege. It would have been deemed unbecoming and even pretentious (and probably was by those aboard ship who didn’t know any better), except Cale was far and away the most brilliant person aboard Phoenix. At least the most brilliant besides the Elites, but nobody alive had ever met an Elite in person. Above all, ability and practical action were prized most aboard Phoenix, and that hierarchy of values bestowed on Cale Bonapart more nobility than any other Citizen.

Get used to it. We’re stuck with each other for quite a long time, as I understand it. Patrick winked at Cale. Patrick was the type of man a person either loved or hated, never anything in between. This was because within three minutes of meeting people, Patrick decided whether he loved or hated them, never anything in between, often voicing the opinion aloud. He had a dark complexion, full lips, gray eyes, and salt-and-pepper hair. Patrick felt only three people aboard Phoenix were worthy of his love, so he wasn’t the most popular on the ship. Yet, it made the three standing around him admire and even adore him all the more, not because of his genuine loathing for everyone else, but because of the abundance of loyalty and respect he gave the few he chose to care about.

Hellen Martin, standing between the two men, shook her head at them before stepping forward to give Eleanor a big hug. Hello, she said in a simple greeting, famous and beloved for her ability not to mince words. This attribute was especially appreciated during social events, when she was usually in the company of Patrick Lingrish, who was boisterous enough for three people. Hellen was reserved and thoughtful. She had big dimples that formed whenever she unleashed her rare wry smile, mid-length silver hair up in a bun like Eleanor’s, and a gently aging face innocent of indulgence but guilty of a small amount of stress. She respected few people, but showed respect to all by not imposing herself on them for any more time than she deemed necessary. Eleanor had always considered Hellen the most self-aware person she’d ever met.

Gently breaking free of the embrace with Hellen, Eleanor put on her serious face. She was the de-facto leader of the group, the person of highest command when they became a team during the IEGs, and it was time to get ready. Let’s start focusing, Patrick. Obviously, we’ve all participated in the games before, but nothing compared to this. Weeks of trials and tribulations. Weeks of some of the hardest life lessons imaginable. Is everyone ready?

Bet your ass, Patrick said.

Affirmative, Boss, Cale answered.

Yes, Hellen said.

The first Id to Ego Games the Citizens of Phoenix participated in usually took place between the ages of twenty and thirty and lasted a week; the second set of games approximately ten years later were held over two weeks; and the third (which, of the population aboard Phoenix, only the four in the room had ever completed) covered eighteen days and were not initiated based on a specified time frame, but on the measured emotional and cognitive adeptness of each participant the older they grew. Eleanor, Patrick, Cale, and Hellen had been sixty-eight years old for the team’s venture into the third IEGs. For the fourth games, the waiting period hadn’t been based on Eleanor and her teammates, but rather on the time frame for completion of the multiple massive arenas that would be utilized for their final IEGs. It had taken twenty years.

Eleanor nodded to each in turn and took another sip of coffee, weighing her next words. She decided to be blunt. We’ve all done the appropriate prep work for these games, and therefore know exactly what we’re getting ourselves into. In previous IEGs, we played with the C-Fabs’ lives, but never with their mortality. The first amendment in the C-Fab Bill of Rights is being nullified for these games: the Right to Life. The Elite Council believes it prudent to allow us to play God, and I am not about to question their knowledge or authority. Of course, by making the statement, she already had. People are going to die directly because of our own decisions, but through their deaths we will achieve a greater understanding—

Not people, Eleanor. Hellen interrupted her quietly. Clones.

Excuse me? She would have sounded perturbed had it been anyone else interrupting her, but Eleanor respected Hellen enough to sound only bemused.

You called the C-Fabs ‘people.’ I believe it is important to maintain the distinction between us and them, especially at this critical juncture of our own personal development for which the clones were raised to further and advance. Hellen held such control of herself that one could never read her facial expression or body language unless she consciously allowed them to, and at the moment, Eleanor read concern in her old friend.

Patrick watched the exchange with a slight smile, keenly interested and amused. Cale looked worried, and so did Eleanor. She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever heard Hellen speak out of turn, and the fact that Hellen chose that moment to interrupt Eleanor said more about Hellen’s mental disposition than Eleanor’s.

Of course. Of course. I apologize. Eleanor nodded gracefully to Hellen, who accepted with a nod in return. "Clones will die. If this makes any of you uncomfortable in the slightest, or if you wish to consult with Jeremiah privately before we begin, now is the time. There will be no turning back once the games have begun, and any failure on our part during the proceedings will mean not only unnecessary death for clones, but also a summary termination of our own status aboard Phoenix. Speak now or forever hold your peace." She hoped that last line might incite Patrick’s frat-boy humor—still prevalent even in his old age—in order to lighten the mood.

She was successful.

I object, Patrick said. Cale is rumored to be plagued with an insufferable malady: he passes wind in his sleep. An intolerable defect, even though it is involuntary. He’ll endanger our prestige as the new Elite Council once we succeed in these games. Jeremiah won’t be able to keep from gossiping with the rest of the Citizens, letting them know that the most esteemed of their rulers suffers from acute flatulence. If you can’t control your own asshole, Cale, how can you be expected to rule over a ship full of them? There will be rebellion within the first year.

Cale sighed, but refrained from anger. What in God’s name do you think—

Which God? Patrick said, eyebrows raised and encompassing the circle of four friends with a circular motion of his coffee cup, indicating each of them. He gave his huge smile, one full of so much charisma that it would have been the envy of any movie star from times past.

The other three couldn’t help but acknowledge his wit, Eleanor laughing and Cale joining in despite his frustration. Even Hellen smiled crookedly, amusement and a small release of tension in her deep brown eyes.

Small talk resumed among the team members, tinged with a hint of nervousness unbecoming of a group so senior in status and mind. Eleanor feigned interest and sometimes joined the conversation, all the while studying her partners to discern their demeanors. All four of them looked and acted the same age, which they were, but for some reason Eleanor never saw them as senior citizens. There was a popular saying aboard Phoenix that eighty was the new fifty, and Phoenix’s fifty was like Earth’s forty.

Eleanor’s eyes kept sneaking back to Patrick’s face; her mind returning to old memories of her former lover. He must have felt her looking, because he suddenly stared intently at her with inquisitive yet knowing eyes. Eleanor actually had to consciously maintain her fixed gaze in order to avoid the indignity of aversion. Ladies my age shouldn’t be prone to fluttering hearts, blushing cheeks, and shy eyes, Eleanor admonished herself. Yet even now, she still felt a lustful attraction to the man and his gray eyes, ten years after they’d mutually agreed to break off romantic relations.

Is everything all right, Eleanor? Patrick smiled in appreciation of his suave question before the last word left his mouth.

She returned the smile with a knowing smirk of her own and took another sip of coffee to buy time to think of an appropriate reply. Just as the perfect retort began its dance from her mind to her tongue, Cale diverted her with a question.

Where is Jeremiah? I’m quite ready to begin, he said.

Speak of the devil. His deep baritone announced the Voice’s presence. The Elite were never seen or heard aboard Phoenix, choosing instead to have Jeremiah represent them in all endeavors with the Citizens. He was their voice, ears, and muscle all rolled into one. He was a large man—standing six and a half feet tall and weighing more than 250 pounds—yet lithe and dexterous. His full lips always wore a smile that sometimes extended to his black eyes. The smile left only when he chastised a Citizen. (Physical punishment was not allowed unless extreme circumstances warranted it; the nonaggression principle ruled Phoenix above all else, with draconian laws to uphold it.) Eleanor believed Jeremiah did not take pleasure in his policing power, at least not of the sadistic kind. Rather, he was only a man that enjoyed doing his duty and doing it well. She secretly admired him, but kept that to herself, since it was popular on Phoenix—as in every other human civilization throughout history—to dislike those that had the power to tell people what they could and couldn’t do. He controlled the Peacekeepers aboard Phoenix, a squadron of ten individuals, still formidable because they were the only ones allowed to carry weapons aboard ship and communicate via the radio devices implanted in every Citizen’s head.

Please, finish the refreshments and take your seats at the table. Phase One is ready to begin. Jeremiah’s voice bounced around the room, its tone demanding immediate obedience. Eleanor tossed the rest of her coffee in the garbage bin next to the drink station and sat down first, in the seat closest to the doors. Patrick sat beside her, while Cale and Hellen took seats on the opposite side of the table. As soon as all four were seated, their own personal IEG consoles extended from inside the table. Their simple QWERTY keyboards came to rest two inches above the mahogany table in front of each of them.

Eleanor adjusted her blue-backlit keyboard, slowly pushing it downward to a level she was more comfortable with. Above the glowing keys was her HUD, a ten-inch-by-ten-inch, see-through flat screen to visually depict both the goings-on in the gaming arenas as well as her keystrokes and manipulations. Behind and through her HUD she saw Cale working diligently to adjust his own digital apparatus.

If everyone is comfortable, it’s time to get you acquainted with our Phase One development stage. Please pay attention, ladies and gentlemen. Over twenty-six thousand C-Fabs have been grown for these games. Many were enhanced with intelligence and emotional maturity. We’ve chosen a rather complex scenario for some of our most experienced Citizens. Jeremiah’s praise fell on deaf ears; they were all too excited for the games to begin. Well then, without further ado, allow me to introduce you into our Game Day augmentation scenario. The morality of perspective, ladies and gentlemen. Live and learn. Take the lead, Eleanor. Jeremiah turned and exited the room without another word.

Let’s begin, Eleanor said, wasting no time on pageantry for everyone’s sake.

The Game Day Protocol began playing out in real time on the screens in front of the teammates. Each was in charge of specific parts of the estimated three-hour event. The first hour was comprised of the primary clone, Howard Tomlinson, navigating the various entertainments and social interactions that took place during a tailgate leading up to a college football game. The thirty or so clones involved in this stage of the event—including Howard and his good friend, Keith—had been preprogrammed with memories and emotions from past lives that would govern their present actions. They were young, fully functioning men and women living their present lives through preordained nature and programmed experience-based nurture. Giving a smile or taking umbrage, sipping a soda or chugging a beer, joining a conversation or anxiously waiting outside one—all these actions and interactions between the clones in the arena took place completely by personal choice in the moment. Choices dictated by personalities and agendas established by the Elite Council. As long as the Protocol went as planned, Eleanor wouldn’t step in to manipulate this early stage, because any such manipulation would be redundant or even damaging. The Council had built the clones to specification in order to fully realize the potential for moral edification later in the Protocol, when the world-altering event was set to transpire.

On her screen, Eleanor watched Howard talk with a group of girls, and smiled to herself. The first hour was going smoothly, with nary a hitch to be programmed out. Periodically, Eleanor glanced through her translucent screen at Cale, seated on the opposite side of the table. He wasn’t smiling or enjoying the Protocol, with good reason. For him, the Game Day events were far more personal.

Chapter Two

The Howard Protocol: Game Day

The crisp autumn air smelled of distant fireplaces and fall foliage. It smelled like his childhood, bundled up and bouncing around on the trampoline under the changing leaves of the centuries-old sycamore tree in the backyard of his parents’ home. It smelled like football fields, sweating teenagers, and the recently cut, browning grass staining his clothes as he slid across the turf after being tackled by strangers on the opposing team from a neighboring town. It smelled like tailgates, barbecue, beer, and asphalt, and the sweet perfume wafting off beautiful coeds wearing game day dresses, mingling with bearded youths loving an excuse to begin drinking at nine in the morning. The day smelled like college, like life, like anything and everything was possible, because everyone in the football stadium on this day could stop trying to earn the future for a few hours and instead celebrate its possibilities in the present.

Howard Tomlinson turned his attention from the overcast sky to the football field and the camaraderie of the thousands of fans. His pledge brothers were on every side of him, boisterous and already drunk before the fast-approaching noon kickoff. His fraternity’s seats were situated about halfway up the stadium, between the forty- and fifty-yard lines. Howard had turned nineteen years old only a few weeks before, but that didn’t stop him from taking a clandestine sip of the whiskey-filled flask one of his fraternity brothers offered him as the collegiate teams began to line up for the opening kickoff. It was October 28, 1999, at Oklahoma Tech’s football stadium in Canyon, Oklahoma, and he couldn’t think of a single place in the world he’d rather be than at this game and in this moment.

As the opening kickoff chant reverberated around the stadium, Howard slipped the flask back to his best friend, Keith, with his right hand and slapped him on the back with his left. Keith—short, portly, amiable, and baby-faced—smiled at Howard in reply before letting loose a loud whoop! directly into his face. Howard felt the warm fingers of the whiskey invigorate his six-foot, trim body, his mind already sending tendrils of pleasure to accompany the warmth. With a full head of short blond hair and bright brown eyes, Howard was considered an ordinary handsome by recently met strangers, but when he returned Keith’s smile, one could see an abundance of charisma and joy flushing his face that made it easy to understand how Howard hardly ever left a party without female companionship.

Another roar of camaraderie erupted from the crowd as the band began to play its raucous kickoff tune. Howard turned to high-five in turn each of the five freshmen pledge brothers sitting around him, every single one of them decked out in blue-and-white coats or hoodies in celebration of their school’s colors. The Jumbotron on the southern end of the field played an animation that had preceded every kickoff at Oklahoma Tech for as far back as Howard could remember: the school’s cowboy mascot firing dual pistols into the air while a pixelated, amorphous blue-and-white blob of a character stumbled forward to kick an oblong brown dot resting on a yellow dot.

Keith took a swig from the flask, and then turned to Howard with a sardonic smile. What was that bullshit you were talking about at the tailgate? Running cars on static electricity or something?

Howard tried to mask the unfettered joy he felt at being asked about one of his pet theorems, even if the question had come with a trace of sarcasm. It’s actually a wonderful idea I’ve come up with. All you have to do is—

Talk about it to a bunch of freshmen sorority girls wearing short game day skirts and they miraculously dissipate, Keith said, visibly thrilled that Howard had stepped into his punch line.

For a moment, Howard took umbrage at the slight, but then he remembered where and what and how drunk he was, and only mirth remained as he slapped Keith on the back again. I’ll give you Texas Methodist and ten points, Howard yelled into Keith’s ear from only six inches away, as the crowd noise grew even louder.

Hell no! I wouldn’t take TMU and thirty. BCS or fucking bust! Go, Tech! Wooohooooo! Keith yelled back in his face, only half-mimicking a crazed fanatic, while really wanting to hope and believe in the glory of his team, his college, its alumni, his fellow students, and his close friends.

Howard laughed, then turned to the field as the Tech kicker lined up to start his advance on the teed-up football. OoooooooTttttttttUuuuuuu! the crowd chanted in unison. When the foot met the ball, sending it twirling up into space, the real-life cowboy mascot fired his twin six-shooters into the air. Howard followed the ball’s arc across a blue tide of upraised arms, past the top end of the press boxes on the opposite side of the stadium, and into the gray cloud cover of the autumn sky. The ball reached its apex and started to fall back toward the ground, gravity playing its vital part in the sport.

In his peripheral vision, Howard noticed something exceedingly peculiar. All of TMU’s green-uniformed players were slumping down to the field in mid-stride like rag dolls, limbs splaying out in odd, grotesque positions. His line of sight traced back to the other end of the field, where the Oklahoma Tech players had fallen to the ground in the same fashion. Howard caught only the end convulsions of these players’ falls: a lifeless head bouncing violently off the ground, or a body slowly slumping over after sliding into an awkward arch of a resting position, knees pulled up all the way into the chest. It was as if someone had accidentally flicked off the power switch for the conference football game.

The sudden occurrence was so bizarre and surreal that Howard couldn’t properly fathom what he was witnessing. Instead of panic or shock, he reverted to emotions from early childhood: anger, disappointment, and frustration. This was not because Howard was an impetuous young man—quite the opposite—but because, when faced with such disconcerting proceedings, his mind and conditioning grasped for emotions felt the last time he’d seen something that defied all previous experience and explanation. For the briefest of moments, Howard became a five-year-old boy again. Why are they doing this? he said to Keith, eyes never leaving the motionless bodies on the field. I don’t understand, he pouted. Yet, this state of transference lasted only a couple of seconds before Howard’s logic and reasoning began to function again. He was a nineteen-year-old young adult, capable of registering and processing utter horror.

Howard’s mouth dropped in dismay as every single fan in the entire stadium slumped over lifeless, bodies falling for no reason. Like a choreographed wave of unconsciousness, the masses were tumbling forward or slouching sideways onto the seats in front of or to the sides of them. Every. Single. Person. One woman a few rows over fell head over heels into the folding seat in front; her head stuck into the crevice of the lower seat as her body continued its tumble before stopping with a sickening jerk and bounce, now at an impossible angle to the trapped neck and head. A great weight slammed into his back and made Howard almost careen into the rows below him, where the bodies of his pledge brothers lay like inanimate sacks of meat and bones.

Where before chants and bellows and shouts of glee bounced around the stadium unhindered—voices joyous and drunk—now only silence reached Howard’s ears. With a catatonic stare, he watched the football slowly roll to a stop in the white-painted grass of the northern end zone. Only when he felt Keith’s lifeless, heavy body slump into him did Howard begin to scream.

Panic rose in Howard’s gut and the acrid taste of bile flooded his mouth, forcing him to stop his hysterics. He moved away from his seat in order to allow Keith to tumble to the ground. Forgetting the rest of the crowd in the stadium, Howard leaned down and turned Keith’s body over, which was lying facedown on the cold, hard cement floor. Keith’s eyes, just moments before full of anticipation and bright with drink, had now rolled up into his head. Howard put a trembling finger underneath Keith’s nose and felt no air passing in and out.

What the fuck is happening? Howard whispered aloud, too shocked to fully register the situation around him. He shook his friend’s shoulders, but stopped when he saw the eyeballs rolling back and forth with each shake. Then, Howard turned and vomited his shot of whiskey, as well as the barbecue and beer from the tailgate he’d been at just half an hour before. The vomit blanketed the backs of the slumped bodies in the row in front of him. "Oh my God. Oh. My. God."

Howard’s vision was blocked by tears as he stood up. Through the shimmering wetness he saw a figure stumbling through the bodies a couple of sections to his left and about thirty feet down. Wiping his eyes with both hands, Howard tried his hardest to focus past the mass of lifeless bodies to the only other living person. It was another college-aged man, short and wearing glasses. With dulled faculties of observation, Howard numbly registered that the kid stood out not only because he was actually moving and alive, but also because he wore a plain orange long-sleeved shirt instead of blue and white like the rest of the fans. As he watched the bumbling exodus of the only other person alive, the fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. Adrenaline washed over his body, and one single overbearing thought began to permeate Howard’s mind: I have to get out of here.

He moved to the left, first stepping over Keith’s body and then those of his pledge brothers. After only a few steps, Howard realized how difficult movement was among the lifeless limbs and bodies. Folded-over torsos, extended arms and legs, and even heads blocked his path. Howard was trying to step and climb over bodies without touching them, but after making his way across only five feet and three seats, adrenaline and panic made him start to push and shove the bodies out of his way. He fought back another wave of nausea when he felt the index finger of his left hand push into the soft, squishy eyeball of a kid named Bryce who’d been his pledge-class study partner. When Howard took a second to look up, he saw that the other young man had made it out to an aisle and was now staring straight at him with a dazed look, rocking back and forth on his heels.

Howard raised a hand and yelled, Hey, wait a second! I’m coming. The short man just kept rocking on his heels and staring at Howard.

Shoving another body from his path, Howard started forward again. He was about five seats away from the aisle stairs when he felt a slight kiss of wind against his left cheek. The day had been perfectly breezeless until that moment. Howard only had time to briefly look up and see that the young man was gone before a great gust of wind hit him. The tumult registered first, then Howard was somersaulting over the row just below him. Eyes wide with terror, he tried holding on to anything his hands could reach. They grasped the shirt of some anonymous body just before Howard was whipped another two rows straight down, practically flying through the air. He raised his eyes in time to see a red-and-black Nike shoe slam into his face as his arms swung wildly on both sides. The powerful blast of roaring air sounded like a train racing through his skull. Just as he began to rise again into the current, Howard grasped the back of a blue seat. He flung himself to the side as a body flew just past his face, one arm whipping out wildly to hit his stomach and knock the air from him. Howard barely maintained his grip on the seat back with his right hand while reaching forward and grasping it with his left. Fighting the angry windstorm, Howard was able to get into a crouching position against the upturned seat bottom.

His shirttail whipped violently behind him, and the front of the shirt pressed tightly against his chest. The bodies of the unconscious or dead or whatever they were flew overhead or tumbled awkwardly down toward the field in every direction. Fingers and feet slapped his head as they swooped by. Ducking lower, almost to a prone position on the cement floor, Howard looked to his right toward the field, and what he saw there made him lose control of his bowels. A great widening circular abyss of a mouth had opened in midfield. Thousands of bodies were dropping into the pitch-black maw. It was incredibly hard to simply draw in each breath. Howard felt the onrush of fainting symptoms for the first time in his life; he was dizzy, his head swimming as black spots began to block his vision. No! Some instinct of self-preservation pushed the thought into his struggling and panicked consciousness. Calmness surged through his body, his eyes regained focus, and his mind became sharp all at once. Move forward or die now.

He started to crawl toward the aisle, squinting against the dust and debris flying into his eyes. The constant loud thwock of bodies hitting the seats all around him, coupled with the shrieking wind, was horrific. Moving forward inch by inch, foot by foot, Howard was almost to the aisle when a head (he couldn’t tell of what gender) smashed into the sharp edge of a cement step, and blood spattered across his face, masking his vision. Somehow maintaining composure, he wiped the blood from his eyes and pulled himself to the steps.

The entire field was a black hole when Howard, belly pressed firmly against the steps, began to head down toward the closest tunnel entrance, only about ten feet away. No more bodies were flying past as he slithered downward, right hand, then left, grasping the step in front him, eyes open to a slit, and mouth closed against the swirling dust. Looking up for only the briefest moment, he saw the last of the crowd on the opposite end of the stadium fall over the rails guarding what had been the field from the stands, and into the pit. Howard grasped the cement edge of the tunnel with both hands and pulled himself into its mouth just as the roar of the wind grew even louder. He pushed up onto wobbly legs and stumbled toward the indoor walkways of the stadium. As he passed into the covered area, he looked back to see blue seats flying through the air underneath rolling pitch-black and lightning-lit clouds.

Chapter Three

Charging forth into the well-lit yet dank cement walkway that represented the internal organs of the football stadium, Howard couldn’t quite escape the sound of wind and crashes of thunder from behind that provided him with a constant reminder that utter chaos still reigned on the field. When he reached the main corridor, Howard bent over and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath and sanity. Gross and intense images of arms, faces, blood, bodies, and more blood flashed unwanted before his eyes. Still breathing hard and on the verge of hyperventilating, he fell to one knee, lifted his hands to his temples, and let loose a savage scream born of adrenaline, panic, fear, and anger. As soon as that scream ran its course, in his mind’s eye, he once again saw dead eyes and lifeless faces, and Howard could do nothing but scream a second time, falling onto his side and curling into the fetal position.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" he whispered into his forearms, his whole body shaking. Howard did not know how long he stayed in that position, but he sprang out of it in an instant when he felt something touch his upturned shoulder. Whipping his arms about in a savage defensive gesture, Howard felt his palms smash into something that was part squishy and part metal. A grunt of hurt and surprise echoed through the cement chamber they were in, and since it sounded human enough, through his PTSD-like breakdown, Howard found the courage to slowly glance up. He saw a small figure in jeans and an orange shirt sprawled on the ground, working to get into a sitting position.

Howard’s face must have been stretched taut into a mask of savage terror, because the look the young man gave him after putting his glasses back on was a mix of both pity and fear.

Just calm down, man. Calm the fuck down, the man said, putting his hands out in front of him in an easy-does-it gesture. I’m cool. We’re cool. Everything’s all right. Easy.

Something clicked in Howard’s mind, and the memory of this same young man in the stadium came back to him. He sat up straight and pushed himself a foot backward against the wall; above his head was the aluminum counter of a pretzel, soft drink, and hot dog stand. He could tell his senses were heightened to stay-alive levels because Howard noticed first the deep purple-and-red indentions on the bridge of the man’s nose where his glasses resided, then the blackheads covering the nose, then the buckteeth between wormy lips under a fuzzy mustache that looked like it belonged on a thirteen-year-old. The smells of baked dough and salt and mustard—and beyond those a tinge of mildew—entered his nostrils, combatting the fleeting scent of vomit. His ears still heard the angry wind whistling through the tunnel from outside, but also registered his haggard breathing and the snotty wheezing of Orange-Shirt in front of him. Howard’s hands were flat on the cool cement; a tiny pebble dented the skin of his right ring finger and it trembled uncontrollably. His mouth was dry. His tongue tasted of metallic bile and a faint hint of alcohol.

We’re cool, right? Orange-Shirt said again.

Howard, unable to recall the necessary muscle memory for speech, continued to look incredulously into the wide brown eyes of the man. After a few more seconds, Howard nodded sharply.

Great. That’s great, man. Orange-Shirt’s ensuing laugh was high-pitched and maniacal. I’m Ben Voight. What’s your name? Ben inched forward on his hind parts and held out his shaking hand.

Howard reached out and grasped the hand hard, then promptly began to emit body-wracking sobs. Tears and snot flowed freely from his eyes and nose, but he stopped his outpouring only to drag in great breaths. Ben sat and stared at Howard, looking on the verge of breaking down himself, wanting to comfort Howard, but scared to touch him again.

I’m Howard, he was finally able to say after partially stemming the deluge.

After another nervous titter, Ben said, It’s nice to see you can talk, Howard. I was afraid you’d lost your mind. Ben’s voice was shaky with nerves, no matter how calm he tried to sound.

For some reason, a snip of rancor emerged in Howard in response to that last comment. It was a small, welcome respite from the panic. Yes. I can talk. He slowly raised himself from leaning against the wall and stood up. What the fuck just happened out there?

Everybody died, Ben said slowly, rising to a standing position himself. This time Ben’s eyes never quite came up to meet Howard’s. Subconsciously, he responded to something in Howard’s voice that had always made boys like Ben submit to bigger men’s dominance in self-imposed subjugation, a defense mechanism so that his physical betters would know from the start that he wouldn’t be a nuisance for them to have to swat down.

Despite everything, Howard recognized this response from Ben and immediately felt bad about the aggression in his voice. A displacement of fear through an act of aggression. He was scared shitless and still recovering from the horror a few moments before, but he still found himself feeling empathy for Ben’s plight. He just saw the same things you did. He’s just as scared. Now do something about it.

Everybody died. Right. Let’s get out of here, Ben. You want to stick with me? Howard asked the question in a measured voice, fighting the waves of panic and nausea by focusing on his breathing after speaking. Find a problem and act on it, Howard told himself. Progress toward a solution, and keep the mind occupied.

Yes, definitely. Let’s get the hell away from here. Ben sounded relieved, though his voice still held some amount of trepidation.

All right. The only thing for us to do is—

A loud screeching noise entered the tunnel mouth from the stadium behind them. It echoed throughout the hallway chamber, making both men jump, to the point of losing what little control they had over their own minds and bodies. As the sound continued, Howard peeked around the corner of the wall by the refreshment stand and saw a metal door sliding over the entrance to the stadium. Below the closing edge, he glimpsed the black maw of the open field one last time before the entire entrance became completely closed off. Howard gave another shiver as he remembered all those bodies falling and tumbling into the pit. Those dead people all going down…

Howard! Ben’s whispering voice cut into his thoughts again. Let’s get moving, right?

When Howard looked back at Ben, he realized there were two reasons for him to be whispering. First, the hallway was now deathly quiet, since the hellscape of the stadium had been cut off. Second, the fluorescent lighting above them had gone out, plunging both of the men into a blackness that lasted twenty feet in either direction until the next section of lights.

Right. Let’s move. Just as he spoke, the section of lighting to their left went dark, plunging everything that way into blackness, up to a blind curve in the tunnel. Howard grabbed Ben’s shoulder and pushed him toward the right, and as they began walking, Howard thought he heard—just on the very edge of earshot—moaning and a scratching noise coming from way behind to the left. Ben must have heard it too, because without saying another word he started jogging in front of Howard, who quickly followed suit.

As they reached the next set of fluorescent fixtures on their floor of the stadium passageway, the lights above went out.

I usually hate game days, but this one in particular is reserving itself a very special place in my heart, Ben said, as the two of them started to move faster.

At least we were only playing Texas Methodist, Howard deadpanned in reply.

The next set of lights in front of them went out even before they reached them, and a loud scraping noise, like a thousand fingernails on a chalkboard, screeched from the blackness behind. Without another word, both of them started sprinting full-out toward the fading light in front.

The lights ahead continued to flip off, each with a dreadful, distinct click of finality. As the tunnel curved, Howard and Ben continued their sprint toward the light. The scraping grew louder, now accompanied by violent crashing noises and a ghoulish moaning not unlike the wind in the stadium, but more sinister and direct. The hallway was being plunged into blackness faster than the two ran, and they could only perceive the hint of light ahead of each curve.

Twenty seconds into their flight, Ben smashed loudly into some impediment and gave a painful grunt. The sound of metal and plastic projectiles skittering across the cement floor echoed throughout the chamber. Howard skidded to a halt in mid-stride and turned to grope for Ben on the ground behind and to the left of him. Fucking memorabilia stand, Ben mumbled, just as Howard got his hands under the short man’s arms and lifted him to his feet.

"Move!" Howard yelled into Ben’s face as he started toward the fading light. The moan of their encroaching doom was now as loud as the scraping sound, almost on top of the men, sending waves of goose bumps across Howard’s body and giving his legs further incentive to run. He could hear Ben’s footsteps only a half second behind him, as well as the out-of-shape man loudly sucking air.

Howard felt the beginnings of panic again when another faint click turned off another set of lights well beyond the curve in front of them. Howard and Ben were running blindly into darkness, and whatever was pursuing seemed to be right on top of them, with its otherworldly creaks, groans, scrapes, and moans of destruction that Howard somehow knew meant their instant death if it caught up.

Howard heard Ben yell, Oh, thank God! At the same time, he noticed they were catching up to some light. As they rounded another corner, the two men’s hearts leapt into their throats when they saw a solitary figure standing in a two-foot-wide patch of light, behind it nothing but an eternal stretch of blackness. Neither of them stopped, though, because whoever or whatever it was couldn’t be any worse than what might catch them if they slowed down for even a second. Their strides brought them closer, and Howard could see the figure was human—a young lady with long blonde hair, wide hazel eyes, and an O-shaped mouth emitting a high-pitched scream of terror. She was staring behind them.

Then, the woman moved forward and disappeared below the floor, her head bobbing up and down for a couple of beats before it vanished. Steps, Howard thought, as they reached her position. He grabbed the black-rubber handrail of a dormant escalator and threw himself after her. Howard plunged downward two steps at a time, thankful for the light at the end of the escalator, which the blonde had reached with lightning speed. Howard was halfway down, now bounding past three steps at a time, when he felt the entire escalator lurch violently to the side with a terrible screech of metal tearing on metal. Somehow he kept his balance, but a body slammed into his back, sending him tumbling head over heels toward the bottom.

His equilibrium dashed and swimming, with no premise of right-side-up perspective, Howard could only register that he was falling crazily toward the floor. His head slammed into the cement at the bottom, and as it ricocheted back up, his vision caught Ben’s body sliding across the floor in front of him. With amazing dexterity, Ben jumped catlike to his feet and raced back to Howard. This time it was Ben pulling Howard up, and before Howard knew what was going on, he was being thrown down another flight of immobile escalator steps. The world was full of the sound of crumbling cement and mangled metal and a terrible groaning and moaning, like a thousand-strong chorus emitting a harmonic drone of terror mixed with a death rattle.

Below him, the blonde girl was already at the bottom and looking up toward them. Gray light that Howard registered as natural washed over her. Somehow Howard’s feet were still flying below him, but not fast enough, because once again he felt Ben slam into his back, sending him sprawling down the steps, with only gravity’s sure hand as his guide.

He must have lost consciousness for a few seconds, because the next thing Howard knew, he was being pulled by his shirt out past a set of redbrick pillars with a gray, incand/.escent sky above them. Ben was nowhere to be seen as Howard’s eyesight panned back toward the bowels of the stadium. Just then, he heard a loud crash and saw the grooved steel escalator steps they’d just been on fold up like an accordion as huge chunks of cement tumbled all around them. A great cloud of black smoke rose out of and dominated the gray dust of the destruction, and Howard smelled absolute death coming from it. He looked directly above him and saw the frightened face of his blonde, hazel-eyed savior, grunting with purpose as she continued to drag his body away from the destruction.

Stop! I got it! Howard yelled up at her with a disembodied-feeling voice. She didn’t hesitate for a moment, letting him go and turning to run farther away from the stadium. Howard got to his feet with as much haste as he could muster and turned to stumble-run after her. About fifteen yards away, standing on a green lawn under sycamore trees with colorful changing foliage, were Ben, the blonde, another girl, and another guy, neither of whom Howard recognized. As he reached them, not a single one even glanced in his direction, staring straight back at the stadium instead. Howard turned and fell backward onto his ass with resolute finality, exhausted and brain-dead. Then, he watched as the remnants of the gigantic football stadium were swallowed up by an expanding black hole. Stranger than watching an entire building dropping out of existence was the complete lack of sound it made in its disappearance. Where before Howard’s world had been filled with incomprehensibly loud scraping, crashing, and moaning, now there was only the faint rustle of wind in the trees and the exasperated breaths of his fellow survivors. When the black hole swallowed up the last of the stadium’s ticket booths, it finally stopped expanding—about ten yards from where the group stood.

Chapter Four

No one said a word. There was no screaming, shouting, stomping, or hysterics of any kind. Every single one of the five survivors simply stared into the gulf of the hole, transfixed in stupefied silence. Howard was the first to turn his glance toward the others, and their dumbfounded looks of genuine shock reminded him of Morpheus’s speech to Neo in The Matrix, just before Keanu Reeves chose between the red and blue pills: they looked like people accepting what they saw only because they expected to wake up. Howard sympathized with that, wished it were true, but knew from the aches and pains and dread permeating his body that this all was very real.

Your face is covered in blood. His blonde savior broke the silence, addressing Howard with a simple, matter-of-fact tone. Everyone else jumped at the sound of her voice and again began to show signs of conscious life.

Howard wiped his hand across his face and looked at it. Oh, he said, as the liquid oozed down his fingers to fall in fat drops onto two broad brown-and-yellow leaves. It was starting to clot and dry but still remained runny. Blood. My blood? No. Others’ blood. Dead body blood. Faces and feet and hands flying, scraping, and dead. Dead. A stadium of dead people with their blood on my face. Howard jumped to his feet and began to wipe it away using his shirttail, with hard-pressured swaths across his face. When he finished the cleansing, Howard looked down and saw a huge, red, running stain that covered half his shirt. For some reason, it reminded him of the filth left on a midwife after delivering a stillbirth. Oh, he said again, when he looked up from his shirt to see that everyone was staring at him.

I think you’re all right. None of it is yours, so far as I can tell, the blonde said.

Howard gulped. Right. I’m fucking fantastic. He deadpanned the words and had a queer smile afterward, trying extremely hard not to break down into hysterics. Um, thanks for saving my ass back there. My name is Howard. Thinking of nothing else to do, he extended his right hand to shake hers, realizing a second too late that it was smothered in red.

She took it anyway, in a nonchalant fashion. I’m Sara Moore. You’re welcome. She was thin-faced, with prominent cheekbones, a button nose, hazel eyes, and full lips. Despite everything, or perhaps because of it, Howard found himself drowning in her austere beauty, staring unabashedly into her searching, intelligent eyes.

Tomlinson. That’s my last name. He held on to her hand, shaking it up and down.

That’s good. She was finally able to break his grip with an awkward tug.

Howard was about to apologize for something when a booming female voice erupted above them. Hello, survivors. This is Eleanor speaking, your guide through the remaining trials of this day.

The haggard group’s members started whirling their heads about, trying to find the source of the voice. It seemed to be in and around everything, heard perfectly in each ear, as if addressing each person from two feet away. Even as if she were addressing them from within their own heads. It was beyond perplexing, but set within the context of the past twenty minutes, it became accepted by each individual as another quandary in