BEYOND EXTINCTION Read online

  BEYOND

  EXTINCTION

  Even the concept of truth

  is a lie

  JOHN KEEBLE

  Copyright © 2018 John Keeble

  On Edge Publishing, Cambridge, England

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  For Otis, a good friend who inspired the character Max in this novel

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to Dr Wayne Materi, a career molecular biologist and geneticist, for his invaluable help in matching plot needs with science. Wayne is also known as science fiction writer Paul Anlee, author of the Deplosion series. Literary, fact-based, and fast-paced, Deplosion explores themes in cosmology, philosophy, politics, religion, economics, AI, VR, nanotech, synbio, quantum reality, and beyond. The four-book series is available on Amazon: The Reality Thief; The Reality Incursion; The Reality Rebellions; The Reality Assertion.

  *

  My thanks, also, to a very special group of friends and fellow writers for their encouragement and kindness in reading and commenting on Extinction as I wrote it: Walter Panko, Elizabeth 'Kris' Fischer, Stephanie Shaw, Deborah Sperlak, Michelle Moore, Pam Duffield, Frances A Hogg, Jean McCord, Kathy McCullough, René Fedyna, Lesley Sudders, Sharon McIntosh, Eduardo Cervino, Tom Larsen, Dwight Greene, Su Terry, Robert Horowitz, Kristen Sawyer, Steve T Beardsley, Donal MacErlaine, Finn O'Gorman, J Cary Riggs, Jeremiah Reardon, Jeannie Alvin

  *

  Cover: Elizabeth Mackey ([email protected])

  EXTINCTION: The End

  We control the world by controlling realities

  Chapter 1

  A honey bee labors through the fragrant southwest English air, over the trimmed lawns of Dorset, lingers at the delphiniums to feast on the nectar, and flies on around a seventeenth-century cottage garlanded with hollyhocks and primroses.

  Jack Janis feels her pass, follows her with his eyes and memories and fears and then absent-mindedly sips his second gin and tonic as he turns his attention back to his mediamat. He sits, as still as the lizard basking in the 107-degree sun by his pond, fragments of his life floating unbidden past his mind's eye.

  "A natural bee," he says with wonder. A symbol of all that has been lost from our world.

  Max, Jack's three-year-old golden retriever, is following his own trails with yelps and twitches as he sleeps in the shade of the sprawling horse chestnut tree. It is nearly noon and Jack half expects Alice Algafari to call in, as she said she might, to talk about the village's amateur dramatics troupe.

  Today, for once, he is not in a writing mood, not up to the daily struggle, and instead he filters his thoughts into some kind of cohesion. He should be bitter about his losses, but he is wildly optimistic about his future. He has been robbed of his past but handed the means of a vibrant new life of ease and plenty – and time and resources for his writing. If it lasts in this changing world.

  Jack is not yet forty, has two degrees in genetic destructionism, and an insatiable drive to delve into the unknown. Though he has an IQ in the top one percent of humans, he is unemployable in his field of expertise. The numan kids surpass him on every heading: education, IQ, work output, even employment cost. The numans – "new men" – are so like humans in some ways but so different in other ways that make them frighteningly more efficient. Where and how did they originate? How have they, in less than half a century, come to dominate the planet?

  He shrugs off these disconcerting thoughts. Now that he is over the pain of being forced out of his job and his home by numan expansionism, he can see new doors opening here in quiet, pastoral Abbotsford. And no one ever expects a job or a home – or even a marriage – to last for life, do they?

  "Hello Great Writer," he hears, feeling her hand briefly on his shoulder and seeing Max leap up from a deep sleep. Jack grabs Max by the collar and gets dragged off his seat towards Alice Algafari, looking entrancing and moving just out of range of Max's enthusiasm.

  "What a lovely dog," she says, beaming at them both and unperturbed by Max. "I hope you don't mind me coming in to find you. I did buzz your phone but got 'Jack has left me in the kitchen. He's in the garden playing with his mediamat.'"

  "Damn phone," Jack says while hanging on to Max. "It knows more about me than I do." He holds out his free hand, quickly drawing it back as he realizes it is covered in Max slobber. "Thanks for coming, Miss Algafari. I'm sorry I didn't hear you."

  "It's a pleasure to be here. I'm always trying to encourage more support for The Players." She hesitates, still smiling, as he wrestles with the ebullient Max. "Why don't you let him go?" she says. "He can say hello to me and then he will settle down."

  "Okay. If you are sure. Are you ready?" She laughs and nods, and he lets go. Max cannot believe his luck as he rushes at her and Jack cannot believe how quickly she has him calmed and under control.

  "Amazing," he says as Max sits at her feet and twists his neck to gaze lovingly up at her gazing lovingly down at him. She's so lovely.

  Alice, still Miss Algafari to him in socially correct Abbotsford, drew him into the Abbotsford Village Players a few months ago when he decided he needed to get out, join local organizations and start building a new social life. Everything about her reaches into his dreams: her enigmatic smile, from her sensuous lips to the warmth and kindness of her hazel eyes; her strong elegant hands, butterflies in the air as she emphasizes a point until landing, captivatingly, on the welcoming warmth of his bare arm. Her scent, too, enslaves his attention as soon as she moves anywhere near. And as much as he loves her fast mind, it is her slim body, always bright with life in simple human clothes, that tantalizes his senses. Even her height is perfect, at a couple of inches fewer than his six feet. I wonder what it would be like to kiss her lips.

  They have found a few things in common – enough for him but maybe not enough for her. They are both in their late thirties, with similar education, but she has kept her job as a genetics researcher and analyst while he has been thrown on the science scrapheap. She always laughs at his jokes and he supports her view that The Players should try a pantomime for the christian winter festival at the end of the year – even if he did shy away from playing a lead part dressed as a woman.

  She eases herself into the garden chair near Jack and Max claims his place between them. Mary, the house servant, trundles out with iced drinks and Alice takes one from the proffered tray. She sips it, pulls an impressed face. "This is good. Your servant met me at the gate. She said you were drinking gin and tonic, so I gave it a try. I'd never heard of it before."

  "Bit old-fashioned. Like me. But refreshing on a hot day. In November, when the seasons switch, and it's not quite so hot, I'll introduce you to an old alternative – whiskey mac."

  "I hope I'm still here to try it," she says.

  "You're leaving Abbotsford?" He hopes she cannot hear his disappointment.

  "I've got to go on a course. Not sure when or for how long. My boss – you remember Galen, he was at The Players' fundraiser – wants me to take a senior organizational role that means specific training."

  Jack's smile fades and he looks away.

  "This is so relaxing," she says, clearly in no hurry to talk about The Players, and that suits Jack perfectly. "You must love living in your cottage and this beautiful garden."

  "I do. It's even nicer to have a guest to share it."

  They realize, as their hands touch, that they have been stroking the ears on either side of Max's enormous, beautiful head. "This is his heaven," Jack says.

  "Mine, too."

  An hour and another gin and tonic later, after some friendly talk about how Jack can get more involved with The Players and about his efforts to grow edible bananas in his garden, Alice tells him, "I think I should go
and let you get on with your writing."

  "Why not stay for lunch? I've got a casserole in the oven. I bought a couple of bottles of imported Shiraz. We should test one. Just to make sure it's worth fifteen pounds a bottle."

  "Fifteen?" she protests playfully. "Fifteen! It will taste like vinegar."

  "No, it won't. It was a special sixtieth-anniversary offer at Perry's store. Same vineyard's Shiraz that they sold for fifteen pounds when they opened for business here in 2017 – today's bottle usually costs sixty pounds."

  "I'll believe it when I taste it," she sniffs, a reprise of her upper-class wife role in The Players' spring offering.

  "Great," he says.

  "Is your kitchen a good cook?"

  "Yes," he replies casually, as if he had not annoyed every appliance by slaving in the kitchen before she arrived. "My kitchen is an excellent cook, but I felt like cooking it myself today. Mary, the servant, is watching it while it cooks. In fact, they are all watching it – my kitchen is a cauldron of egos. The food chopper, the oven, the refrigerator, the dishwasher. They all want a say. And my damned phone always tries to get the last word."

  He waits for her to stop laughing and adds, "Okay, let's go and see what we have all created." He gets up, and she takes her cue. They head for the door to the kitchen, Max with them. The door opens for them and Jack says politely, "Thank you, Hubert. Please remember Miss Algafari and let her enter whenever she wishes."

  "Yes, sir. I hope you enjoy your meal, Miss Algafari. It seems to have kept my colleagues in the kitchen occupied all morning."

  The aroma of cooking animal meat envelops them, Jack sniffing appreciatively, Alice taken aback.

  "Pmeat or animal meat?" Alice asks hesitantly.

  "Animal. Bought the last of what Perry's had."

  "Thought it might be." She smiles, and he knows he has made the right choice.

  *

  At last, recognition. Mark Milner contemplates his future. He is only thirty-five years old and he is already a senior film editor at the Numan Broadcasting Corporation, formerly the British Broadcasting Corporation.

  Mark is proud to still have work despite artificial intelligence replacing eighty percent of human jobs – education handled by AI "personal assistants," transport and production purged of humans and worker numans alike, even mass media writing and comment sanitized by digital origination and control. But Mark's skills are in demand. He still earns. He is not living on starvation-rate federation handouts while numans scoop all the cream.

  Numans are clever. I'll give them that – but I don't believe their propaganda. No one knows where they came from, but they didn't just evolve from humans in Africa. They're not even black. In any event, I've learned to live with them. I can make a good life for Chrissy by doing things the numans can't do. I can add a human touch to their video editing.

  Mark walks into the ultra-speed elevator and experiences that strange pseudo-gravity as it carries him from his floor, twenty-six levels below ground, to the bosses' eyrie thirty-two floors above ground. Numans think the gravity sensation is the same stationary, rocketing up or plummeting down. But to Mark, as one of the few humans still working for the NBC, it feels like being gripped in sticky rubber. Acceptable but not realistic.

  His whole working life seems like that sometimes: acceptable but not realistic, until he remembers his valued position in this esteemed organization. Sometimes, it is no more than difference: numans are small, with slightly darker skin tones, eyes that flash with colored rimming on the irises. Occasionally they have shocking blond hair but usually it is dark. They always wear gowns sewn with symbols and patterns, and shoes that wrap around the feet as they are slipped on. Some even have communicator arrays latticed into their gowns' arms or shoulders. And they all have endless supplies of emoney. It will be different when I'm a team leader. I'll have money to spend on meals and drinks.

  Mark hums happily to himself. He has known about his appointment with the NBC Numan Resources Assistant Director for the past eighteen hours but he has not told Chrissy. I'll confirm that I have the job, and the extra pay, and then tell her. It might make her a little happier with our life here.

  He can do the job. I'll be a great team leader. I'm always popular. I can chat up anybody. Everyone likes my wavy hair, my sparkling blue eyes and my smile. He might not be tall or heavily built but many people, especially women, like the slight, charming type of man. I can dazzle the Assistant Director. The Mark Milner charm never fails.

  The elevator stops and Mark steps out, adjusting his eyes to bright natural light. This light is not possible! We are at Stansted Drone Zone Media Park south of Cambridge in SubFedEngland. The air is never clear. It's either the smog from the human slums in London blanketing everything or storms raging in from the North Sea.

  A numan receptionist catches his eye. He is rigidly self-contained, slim and coldly superior in his NBC uniform robe with its weave showing his rank, family affiliations and achievements – a typical support-staff numan. The numan film cutters are a lot easier to get on with; we are all the same down there.

  "I'm—" he begins.

  "Milner, from media editing," says the receptionist. "I know who you are and who ordered your appearance here. Follow me."

  "The windows..." he tries to say as he trails after the numan.

  "They are not windows," says the receptionist flatly. "They are the latest in surround-screen illumination which is being fitted in the above-ground levels where senior staff run the NBC."

  Mark considers the gulf between the higher-level managers and the below-ground staff. That's reasonable enough. Top people always get the best of anything going. I expect they will catch up with us sooner or later.

  The receptionist turns into a cul-de-sac of open media suites, each with its moveable floor screen. In the center, one suite dominates. A figure sits in front of a mediamat. The quality, cut and patterning of his robe mark him as very senior, the equivalent of a commander in the military or spookpolice. A wave of insecurity ripples through Mark. This is the Assistant Director; he probably is a commander in the spookpolice.

  At the last moment, the receptionist shunts Mark into a suite in a crowded corner away from the Assistant Director. A numan official, a junior wearing a dreary robe, ignores Mark and carries on reviewing something on his mediamat miniscreen.

  Mark shuffles awkwardly. He does not know whether he should stand or sit. And the receptionist has melted away as if he had never existed.

  "Do you want me to sit, sir?" he asks.

  "No. This will not take long, Milner."

  "Yes, sir."

  Mark waits, eyeing the immediate area and the surround-screen illumination. It's accurate enough: the drone zone view, Cambridge to the north, London smog to the southwest.

  "Milner," says the official, his cold brown eyes on Mark.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "I have reviewed your application for team leader status. We have had our eyes on you since the BBC was reinvigorated as the NBC."

  "I am delighted, thank you, sir. I've been doing my best to produce good results."

  "Your re-editing of the educational documentary Natural World introduced serious political errors," says the official. "The censorship and public order departments complained to us. We intended the documentary to show the natural and inevitable process of dividing the world into federations governing themselves without controversy or conflict."

  "Yes, sir, but..." protests Mark. My voice! I sound so weak!

  "You said the World Council reorganization was politically motivated. In particular, you claimed the Numan Military High Command took control of independent states and regions and reorganized them as dependent federations answerable to the political control of the World Council and the military control of the Military High Command."

  "But sir, that was the official definition in the BBC style book, which was still in use at that time," Mark says.

  "In addition," continues the official, an executioner g
oing about his business, "you recently claimed to have found errors in two immigration promotional videos. For example, you changed 'FedOz,' the correct NBC term, to 'Australia,' the unnatural and defunct term propagated by the BBC."

  Mark, alarm rising in him, can see his error. He should not have changed FedOz. He had his doubts when he did it but... "Yes, sir, but I can explain," he says urgently. "I spent a lot of time – some of it my own time, after my other duties – and reported to my team leader in depth because the errors cast doubt on both videos. You see, they were not believable."

  My team leader was content! He said he would take my report and the edited videos to his boss. He must have agreed. He likes me. He wouldn't do anything to damage my chances in the NBC.

  "We read your report and evaluated your editing, which did not accord with our assessment of the videos. We disregarded your tampering and gave the videos to a numan editor who understood what he was seeing and who produced first-class edited films. Your team leader recommended him for promotion and his appointment will be announced later today."

  "But sir..."

  "Your job application reminded us of your presence, and the risk posed by letting you have access to our video editing. We have decided to terminate your employment as of this moment."

  This can't be happening! There must be some mistake. My team leader was very content when I found the unbelievable propaganda. I was just making it more believable! "But sir, if I can..."

  The receptionist, who had vanished only minutes earlier, is back at his side, gripping his elbow. The official glances at them and tells the receptionist, "Eject this human animal."

  "No! You can't do that to me! There must be a mistake!" Mark looks around desperately, fearful and angry. No one looks up. The Assistant Director is drinking tea. Pressure, just short of pain, increases with the receptionist's grip on Mark's elbow and he allows himself to be led to the elevator. I'll go to my mediamat and appeal. This is not fair!