Part 1: Alteration

Her mother was in the next room, but Alexis had to watch her on television. She stood at a dark lectern, and said “Good evening” to the world. Though she was dressed in her usual sharp business suit, she seemed somehow decomposed. Her dark brown skin was cast with a gray pallor. Pearls of sweat on her brow glinted and danced for the cameras. The auditorium was several times larger than necessary for the fifty reporters who seemed more interested in hobnobbing than listening. Mother was still a moment too long—a stalled breath to gather herself. Alexis had seen her mother stand before dignitaries and world leaders with a frosty composure. Had it been Alexis at those microphones, there would be no end to critique and comment on her undisciplined expressions.

A gasp, like a swimmer sucking air, and then, “My corporation has a cure for the Human Infertility Plague, and in this press conference, I will outline our plans to make the cure available to everyone.”

Now the reporters were caught, every ear perked, every eye fixed. Without seeming to move, the press corps crept up on the stage, cameras and digital recorders extended to gobble up her words.

“But first ...”

“I must explain.”

Alexis turned the overstuffed chair to get a better look at the monitor. In her fourteen years, she’d not seen her mother—the scientist, inventor, industrialist and philanthropist—the least affected. Seeing it now was like a peek into an other world. Doctor Rayne Natasha Osi had worked for years in pharmaceuticals until she believed she could breed virus to deliver medicine, and that was before she started programming quantum gates to govern genetic mutations. Mother didn’t understand problems because solutions came so easily to her. And she stood before a mob of second-rate reporters, shaken and cowed when she held the salvation of humanity.

“The Plague that has prevented human conception is human-caused. I know, because I caused it.”

She stood still as stone while a wave of cacophony broke over her. On the unforgiving hi-def screen, Alexis saw her mother’s nostrils flare, and a quaver in her hand as she grasped the lectern’s edge.

“Please,” she whimpered. “Let me explain.

“First, if there be any backlash or blame, let it be aimed at me. Anyone who aided me did so unknowingly. I alone brought this upon us, and I make no apology.

“Time, I think, will illuminate my reasons. History will understand, but I don’t expect anyone to understand me now.

“I was the product of rape. My mother was brutally attacked by a group of men who said they were ‘curing her’ of her homosexuality.

“When my daughter was conceived, her father deserted us. It wasn’t his choice, he said, and therefore it wasn’t his responsibility.

“And as I languished in these very personal pains, I began to understand that the world is not cruel—the world is merely indifferent. Cruelty is a device of men. These things that I thought were pains that defined me are repeated throughout our race daily, and horrors I’d not imagined are visited upon people all around me.

“War, they say, is mankind’s way of thinning the herd. Children are trained to combat as soon as they can fire a weapon. Famine has driven once-civilized cities to into barbarianism. There are too many people fighting for too few resources, and as the world’s supply dwindles, we will fight harder for them. Unless the killing is stopped, our race will end.

“I devised, created, and released the plague that many have touted as the end of mankind. It will not, however, end us; it will save us from ourselves.”

Mother reached for a remote control, but as she lifted it, it wriggled from her fingers to clatter across the stage. She looked at it with dejected horror until a stooped aid scurried out and fetched it for her. She smiled quickly before thumbing the lights to dim. A screen behind her displayed a huge picture of a small, plastic medicine cup. Lines along the cup’s side marked 55 milliliters of clear liquid within. “Behold,” Rayne announced, “the elixir that will curb the plague. My companies around the world have already produced eighty-million doses, and they are being distributed as we speak. A single dose of this elixir will revert a woman to her ‘normal’ fertility for about six days.

“I do not want to control the world’s population, nor threaten humanity’s continued existence. I have published the procedure for creating the elixir, and published it so it will not be lost.”

“How?” Someone shouted from the front row, “How do we get it?”

She nodded with waning strength. “That is a good question. Starting this week, one will be able to acquire it at a corner pharmacy in South Africa, most of Europe, the United States, and Canada. Other regions are opening rapidly. A single dose costs about twenty-five US dollars, and that covers only our costs involved in manufacture and distribution—we seek no profit from this.”

“Why?” Rang out another shout. The screen changed to a jittery hand-held, and focused on a man among the reporters. His shirtsleeves were well-pressed, and his wool slacks had a crisp, expensive air about them, and all of the pretension of his wardrobe failed to cloak his shattered compose. His eyes were puffy and red. Spittle flew from his mouth as he yelled. “What gives you the right?!”

Rayne looked wounded. Her voice was all gone, leaving only hollow breath, “I cannot explain further but to say, by controlling the quantity of life, I hope we can better control the quality of life.”

“What a load of CRAP!” he screamed. “Can you reverse it?”

Her laugh was slurred like she was slipping into a doze. “I cannot. If I knew how, I would not tell it, and I will not be compelled to try. I have been dosed with a potent neuro-toxin that will leave my brain invulnerable to any persuasion of reason or technology. Nothing can be done now to alter this change in human evolution. I have made this mark on the world. Like surgery, it is painful now, but upon healing we will be a better race for it.”

But Alexis didn’t hear the last part. She drifted to her feet, cold and numb and moved without any action of her will. An aide stepped to block her, but Alexis ducked and weaved, slipping neatly though the half-hearted grab. In the drab hall, she ran the two dozen steps to a set of wide double doors. She pushed them, and the doors splayed out to crash on their hinges. Alexis drifted through the chaos in the auditorium. The stage where her mother stood was littered with people. At the center most were on their knees, and hunched farther back ... like a crater made of men.

She stepped nearer, closing the long empty space between herself and the spot where her mother had been. Slowly realization formed out of gossamer thoughts ... the web-feed was on a time delay. Her mother had spoken of poisoning herself several seconds before Alexis heard.

Hadn’t that always been the way with mother? When had anyone heard her when she spoke? Why did here ideas always need a thick dollop of time to be understood?

When the crowd saw Alexis there, blank faced and pale, they turned on her. Men and women all bobbed their heads like buzzards over a carcass, each calling out louder than the next and clawing their recorders toward her. She couldn’t understand them. Alexis wanted only to see her mother.

As she stepped they stuttered back as if they feared to be too near her. An arm’s length radius surrounded her and she advanced on the stage. The pressure of a hundred eyes felt like walking through the sea. She rose over the stage steps, and looked down. Rayne was there. She was laid on her side. Alexis needn’t have seen the gray pallor nor the glassy cast of her eyes to know that her mother was gone ... there was a smell of death, like lilacs drying on desert sand.

Half a dozen breaths later, a gentle hand rested on Alexis’ shoulder. The weight of it near bent her in half, but she remained upright. Her eyes turned to see a familiar face there. Her mother’s assistant and best friend, Bernice, usually wore a proud collection of laugh-lines, but now she was merely desiccated. She held out a hand, a folded noted delicately proffered. It bore her name in her mother’s hand. Alexis barely opened in enough to read: “I’m sorry” and “preparations have been made” before she folded it. Now was not the time. Later, she resolved, when the questions are quieter. When the world has peace.

Re-creation

Re-creation is a serialized story after the style of Issac Assimov’s Foundation. Each part is only a few pages long, and each tie into the quandary created in part 1, but are otherwise independent.

Please enjoy my work. Comments are welcome, as is criticism so long as it’s constructive—comments meant to demean or insult will result in my most wilting glare aimed in your direction.

Part 1: Alteration
Part 2: Control
Part 3: Conservation
Part 4: Eugenisists
Part 5: Concentration