CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Russell:
I hate watching the news. Hate watching the world shrivel up and die. Especially hate it when the End of the World interrupts my VR transmission. I was trying to patch a transmission through to Aditya, but I was having problems. Probably because of the thick cloud cover left behind by that volcanic eruption in the Andaman Islands last month.
Then a special news bulletin jammed its way through.
A 3-D holographic map of the world rolled out across the screen. A horrific patchwork quilt of the inevitable, colors that marked the boundaries between tomorrow and yesterday.
A mana€?s voice played over the scene, silver words framing enameled images.
a€?We interrupt your VR transmission for an update on the Nine-Timer Report,a€? he said in a bright artificial tone. a€?Last night a tour bus crashed in the city of New Delhi, already a known hot pocket chiefly inhabitated by Five-Timers. After the accident occurred, a large crowd of tourists and bystanders died almost immediately, their circuits on overload from the shocka€”a€?
Photos flashed larger-than-life on the screen. Like the aftermath of a medieval civil war. A portion of the once colorful city of New Delhi had disintegrated into brown and gray rubble; the once noble land that had competed with Japan as a leader in technology was crumpling like a handmade paper kite. Cars were stalled in city streets and dead bodies were strewn everywhere. In the distance, a river of dark water was thick with bloating bodies. The Ganges, once a holy river, had become a river of the dead.
a€?a€”this caused a panic, which then spread throughout several city blocks, within which both Six-and Five-Timers froze up as well.a€?
The newscaster stared into the camera. This was big news. Pay attention, world. Somebody Important is telling you Something Really Important. Maybe youa€?d better go check your records and figure out what life youa€?re on. Right now.
a€?They stopped breathing,a€? he said after a long dramatic pause. a€?Wherever they were, whatever they were doing, they just fell over. Dead. This is a new turn of events, something wea€?ve never seen before in the Fifth Generation clonesa€”a€?
They hadna€?t seen it before, but I had. Ia€?d even seen it take place in Third-Timers, when the stress factor was high enough. It was just one of the many elements that played into this bizarre end-times scenario.
a€?Riots and looting began soon afterward and, as you can see from our satellite photos, the panic is spreading,a€? the newscaster continued. a€?Right now, power is out throughout most of the state of Delhia€”a€?
I switched off the Grid, rubbed my temples, glad that there were no children in the photos. No starving babies, no abandoned toddlers, no homeless adolescents. Although that truly was our greatest problem herea€”all the clones after the Sixth Generation were infertile. The DNA broke down sooner than we had anticipated and, on top of that, with each successive generation there were fewer and fewer One-Timers. Before long, there wouldna€?t be enough sources of pure DNA left to go around. The Nine-Timer scenario that everyone had been fearing, a sort of New Dark Ages, could happen anytime. We used to think it would happen in another two hundred years, but we underestimated the popularity of resurrection, underestimated the possibility that large population segments might jump from one life to the next at a rapid rate.
We never guessed that stress alone could short-circuit a cluster of Three-or Four-or Five-Timer clones, or that once it started it could sweep like a blanket of darkness, knocking out several city blocks at a time. Eventually, even whole provinces could topple over like a row of dominoes, cascading into one another, turning off the lights for each other, shutting down farms and factories, cutting off communication and transportation. The Nine-Timer lifespan for resurrection was winding down, slamming to a rapid glue-in-the-machinery halt. We didna€?t even have a system in place to dispose of all the dead bodies. And there would be nobody left to take their place when the last set of clones died.
From its onset, people had advocated that resurrection would improve our world, that we would now have the opportunity to achieve long-range goals.
But those of us who stood behind the steering wheel knew the truth.
Resurrection had almost single-handedly undermined every major religion. We all just pretended to believe in an afterlife anymore. All our tomorrows were man-made, granted and blessed by man. Wea€?d finally found a way to take the Big Guy out of the picture.
Today it was the state of Delhi.
Tomorrow it would be the Middle East.
Immortality. Resurrection. Death.
In the end, only a handful of One-Timers would survive. And I planned on being one of them.