Amy went bustling around the kitchen as she does every morning. She was attempting to get her family prepared to face the day. This was aided by the fact that there were several small service robots performing menial tasks so that she could focus on the more important aspects of her morning. She had just stepped away from the central control panel of the entire home. This panel was, on the outside, not very impressive. It was simply a touch screen computer embedded into the wall. Its inner workings were the most remarkable thing developed in the past trillion years, as said by the inventors of the computer. Amy mostly used it to set alarms for her family. She set an alarm for herself, her husband, their two kids, and anything and everything else. She never understood how the alarm never woke anyone else besides the targeted person. Any minute now her husband, Grant, would step lazily out of the shimmering teleporter. She had set his alarm to go off twenty minutes after hers and it had been almost half an hour. It took him exactly ten minutes every morning to get himself ready. Right before Amy left the control panel she punched in another code hastily. Like clockwork, the teleporter glowed brighter and the shape of a human figure stepped through. It opened its mouth wide and made a growling noise. Grant was simply yawning. Amy wiped her hands unnecessarily on a dish towel and went over to hug her husband good morning. A service robot waited patiently for them to finish and then extended a platform toward Grant with his breakfast on top. Grant accepted the meal with a thank you and the robot wheeled itself away uttering a mechanical “You are welcome.”
The kids, Greg and Elisa, all but rocketed straight out of the teleporter. It had barely even given the signal that someone was coming through before both kids were already thanking the service robots. They got to sleep in later than the parents because the service bots did everything for them. Everything they needed for the day was compacted into a digital camera-sized steel box. All they had to do was say what they needed and it came out. The service bots put everything into the boxes sometime in the night. After scarfing down his breakfast Grant said good-by to his family and strode over to his personalized storage unit. Each family member had his own and each always carried the key that would unlock it. For the kids the key hardly ever left their handheld storage units. Grant placed his hand against an LED screen. It scanned the carbon prints and unlocked a drawer where his key was located. Grant did not want any other person inside of his unit. He put the key in the lock and the door opened silently. He reached in, blundered around a little and emerged again with a primitive looking backpack. He put the pack on, stepped casually out of the house and engaged the boosters. The pack whisked him away and left his family searching the skies for him, but he was probably already at his office. The children were not old enough to fly jetpacks and had to travel in a more primitive way. The teleporter only worked between the two levels of their home and could not transport them to school. Instead they had to walk to the central control panel, input the coordinates into the module and they were whisked there. Amy yanked them back. “Ah-ah-ah. Don’t forget your pills.” The children groaned. These pills protected all people from every known disease but they tasted extremely bitter. They choked them down any way, just because they did not want to fall ill. Then they were gone and their mother did not yank them back.
The rest of the day passed by with tranquility and ease. But Amy was sitting in the house in silent anticipation. She hadn’t told her family what she was getting excited about but she knew that once they realized what the holiday was, they wouldn’t be able to contain their excitement. She bit her lip nervously and watched the service bots utilize their special functions, making the entire house shine and sparkle. The tallest one only came up to her waist and seemed to be the leader of all of them. It sent signals out to the other bots via a complex set of encoded languages. She was counting down the minutes before her children and husband returned to the abode. They all got home at the exact same time every day. She stood and made her way to the control panel. Just as she stood in front of it the holographic images of her children appeared on the screen. “Incoming travelers,” the machine stated simply. Amy stepped back and her children appeared. They greeted their mother and looked out the window just in time to see Grant land. Almost immediately after he stepped foot into the house an alarm sounded. Everyone could hear it. An announcer’s voice reverberated in the house, “Exactly forty-five years ago today marks the launching of the Life-form 1, the first spacecraft launched with only one passenger: a humanoid robot. Its mission was to travel to the farthest reaches of the Universe and collect samples from the only known hospitable planet in that solar system. After years of data collection, it will return in exactly one hour and counting. End of transmission.” The kids stared into blankness, misty-eyed with mouths hanging open in awe. They lived within walking distance of the spaceport and might be able to see the small spacecraft land! The children pressed their faces up against the glass until their mother reminded them that the craft would not be here for another hour. They had to find something to entertain their minds for a while. Greg and Elisa sprinted to the teleporter and up to their rooms. They jammed virtual headsets over their eyes and had quite a bit of fun jumping through virtual rings of fire or floating through a virtual ocean. Before they knew it, fifty-five minutes had passed and they rushed back through the shimmering light, across the house, and jammed their faces against the glass once again. Their parents whirled around and smiled at their excited children. All of the inhabitants of the house heard it at the same time and saw it a few seconds afterwards. A high-pitched screaming filled the air and lashed the insides of ears. It continued to wail in that insistent shriek. Then, out of the sky, came the craft tailed by a trail of billowing smoke. Something was wrong! The craft wasn’t hovering over to the spaceport as it was inclined to. It was shuddering in the air and was about to plummet to the ground. With an impossibly loud wail it dropped out of the air under the mercy of gravity. Never before had the family been witness to such a loud crash. Dust billowed up from the impact and made it impossible to see. But with the help of all of the service bots in the area that were specialized in air purification, the air was made crystal clear in a matter of moments. The air was now filled with a cloud of anticipation, everyone waiting to find out what was going to emerge from the craft. Then a release hatch unlocked and two figures stood silhouetted by the light from the craft. Everyone present asked themselves the unspoken question, Two figures? The Life-form’s trademark was that the only occupant was the humanoid robot. All too soon the figures sped down the ramp and were face to face with Grant and Amy. Amy hid behind her husband in fright. The one figure was clearly the robot and the other… was a human? It was built in the exact same manner as Grant and seemed to have emotions as well, showing confusion right now. And then it spoke. “Where am I? This guy never explained it to me.” He gestured towards the robot. Grant, trying to remain as calm as the humanoid seemed to be responded, “This is Aptener.”
“Apa-who?”
“No, this is our home planet of Aptener. You are from the blue-green planet; the only planet with insufficient data in our records. We sent this robotic probe down there to bring a sample and here… you… are. Pleasant surprise. Was it your fault the ship crashed?”
“No sir, it ran out of fuel. I guess you guys didn’t account for the extra cargo. I mean, he did pick up tons of soil and plants, and water samples, so many things I hardly fit on board. Good luck toting all of that out.” And then his face crinkled up, he turned his head, and sneezed. Grant, Amy, Greg, and Elisa all gasped collectively. This was the start to the civilization’s downfall. Even though the sneeze did not hit anyone directly, the particles were still in the air and the gasps brought the disease closer to themselves. “Sorry, I have a bit of a cold,” the figure said.
“Sorry?” Amy sputtered. “This is what we have trying to prevent for millennia! You have infected us!” And just as she uttered the last words Amy fainted .The virus was already beginning to spread. A man fled across the street, clearly already plagued. He turned a sickly color of green and the life expired from his person. It was impossible how this protected planet fell victim to a tiny sneeze. The pills didn’t help. Nothing would help. Surprisingly, Grant’s family was still fine, besides Amy. The kids ran to the teleporter and found refuge in their rooms. Grant stared at the alien with animosity. He took him by the collar and carried him all the way down to the hospital. Grant threw him into an office and shouted at the doctor, “He spewed some kind of virus on us. It is spreading all rapidly. We will all die. Fix it!” The doctor sat, dumbfounded and scared. He rushed around all of sudden, took a blood sample from each man and testing the impossibly fast, even taking into account the advanced technology involved. The doctor stared over his glasses at the men. He pointed a finger at the alien and shouted, “Death!” Grant, scared and possibly affected by the virus, picked the man up by his collar again and beat him, punching him with all his might. In the face, in the stomach, in the chest. The man started to bleed profusely. He grunted and wheezed, his last breaths being forced out of him. That was the end of the alien who brought the plague, but the virus was just beginning to spread. Some, like Grant’s family, had some immunity to the disease, but it would not last. Grant, having come in direct contact with the alien, was now definitely infected. His eyes rolled back in his head and his stomach dropped. He was soon to meet his doom. He still had some control over his body and fled out to the streets, hoping to manage to find his way home. The streets were now enveloped in carcasses of the dead. The people who were still alive yet terribly infected were feasting on these corpses. It was a disgustingly horrible display and Grant had to avert his eyes up to the sky so he could make it home without being sick. He burst through the door and breathed for the first time in what seemed like centuries. His house was perfectly fine compared to the rest of the world, or at least within five miles. As soon as Grant thought this, the control panel whirred to life and many images appeared. Grotesque images of former people were on the screen. Rotting and scabbed people stepped into Grant’s own house. Now he was terrified. He wondered where his wife had gone, but in a few seconds he didn’t care. One of the infected grabbed Grant’s arm and it came right off. He was indeed infected and his health was depleting quickly. He felt no pain even though one of his limbs was just taken. He found that his senses were heightened beyond what he had ever imagined. He realized why so many of the infected had flocked to his house. He could smell fresh flesh and he wanted it. They wanted it too. It was no matter that the flesh belonged to his own family. There were three separate pieces of flesh in this area. Two of them were hidden and small. The children. The other was single and not hidden at all. His wife. His brain had been infected which caused him to not care what he was about to do. He stalked up to the teleporter, while all of the others stayed behind, searching for the kids. The scurried over to the storage units and started bashing them with their heads and hands. They could not feel pain and the metal lockers were crumbling under the weight. Grant searched around for the scent. He caught a glimpse of himself in a cracked mirror along the hall. His skin had turned green and not only was he missing an arm but chunks of his flesh were starting to fall off. His left eye was receding into his head. Grant almost got sick right there. The tiniest bit of human compassion left in him came through for the last time. He did not want to do this; he wanted to die instead of kill. But then it was gone and the most horrible feeling came over him. He hunted down Amy. She was here. He busted through a door and there she was, sitting in a shadowed corner. He lunged for her. She screamed but knew there was no way for her to be saved. Her last thoughts were of her children. She hoped they would survive this outbreak of the disease that would be named after the home planet of person who began to spread it: Earth kill. Downstairs two metallic bangs as loud as gunshots resounded and Greg and Elisa screamed their last breaths. No one survived.
No comments:
Post a Comment