

### The End of America

& the rest of the world

Brian Smith
Copyright 2014
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Contents

Aliens

Going Home

Asteroid

Water

Oil

The Survivor

Zeus

The Time Machine

### Aliens

Professor Laurel D. Crosthwaite was a tall handsome man with dark blond hair and light blue eyes. As a military strategist he often travelled to both sides of the Atlantic to take part in meetings, more often than not secret ones. But the purpose of his present visit was rather more unusual. He stood on the podium of the huge conference hall in New York and looked down at his audience. It was the last day of the International Conference on Extraterrestrial Relations. Many of the previous speakers had concentrated on the opportunities humanity could hope for in the event of contact with an alien civilization, very often hopes of technological advancement and peaceful cooperation with other species. But he was an expert on military affairs and as such his speech was much more morose.

"Imagine," he said looking down at his audience, "imagine for a moment a clash between a modern army and the military forces of World War One. What would be the outcome? How would the most advanced navies and armies of 1914 fare in a battle with a single aircraft carrier battle group of today?"

He paused for a moment to let his words sink in and give the audience time to consider the question. From the thoughtful and interested faces he could see that the unexpected start of his speech had had the desired effect of arousing interest and drawing in his audience, many of whom were either disinterested in military questions or even hostile to them.

"I think," he continued, "that the answer is obvious. Of course the captain of a battleship would have confidence in the power of the huge guns on his ship, but what use would they be against a missile fired from a ship or plane a hundred miles away? In fact a single nuclear submarine could wipe out all the world's navies of 1914 without the slightest risk to itself.

The armies of the day would not have done any better. What hope could a cavalry regiment have against modern tanks, machine guns and air power? The result of such a clash would not be a battle but quite simply a massacre. Modern forces would have absolute superiority and the use of weapons that people in 1914 could not even imagine would ensure that there would be no casualties on the side of modern forces. Jet fighters, helicopter gunships, guided missiles, bulletproof vests or even night vision goggles were not even science fiction in 1914.

That is the result of a mere hundred years of technological progress. In the same one hundred years we have barely managed to visit our moon and as for Mars, the nearest planet in our solar system, it's still an unrealized dream to fly there. If a century of technological progress couldn't get us to Mars, how much time will we need to reach the nearest star? How much time will we need to develop a technology that would get us to the nearest civilization in our galaxy? Another hundred years? Two hundred? A thousand?"

He picked up a glass and took a swig of water while his audience were beginning to understand where his train of thought was leading them to.

"Consider then how advanced any civilization would have to be to bridge the vast distances in space in order to reach the Earth. By comparison, our most advanced technology would seem no more impressive to aliens than a stone age flint-stone would appear to us. We may draw the same conclusion as regards military technology. Our guided missiles, jet fighters and nuclear weapons would be no more use against a potential alien aggressor than a stone-age club or spear would be of use against a modern tank or helicopter gunship. Now I know it is sometimes said that there would be nothing to fear from an advanced species as it is somehow taken for granted that advances in science and technology bring about a desire for peaceful co-existence with other. Examples from our own planet are not encouraging. In fact it is very often advanced civilizations that are the most aggressive and cruel to others. Take the late 1930s for example. Nazi Germany was leading in the fields of science and technology and yet this knowledge was used for destructive purposes and mass murder. Indeed, the very fact of their technological superiority meant that the Nazis regarded other people as being inferior and didn't feel guilty about enslaving or killing them. And that, one must emphasize, is within the same species. When we look at how humans behave towards other species the picture gets even bleaker. How many species have we humans hunted to extinction or near extinction? Is there any reason to believe aliens could not be equally brutal and murderous towards us?

While Professor Laurel D. Crosthwaite was going on with his speech a very different kind of meeting was being held several hundred miles away in rural America. Financed by the eccentric oil tycoon, billionaire and lover of antiquity, Arthur Jackson, several hundred speakers of Latin from around the world had come together for one month in New Pompey. Modelled on the ancient town of Pompey in Italy any visitor could be forgiven for thinking he had just come through a time warp. Surrounded by a town wall were narrow cobbled streets that led past Roman villas with colonnaded interior gardens and fountains. There were small merchants selling wine and food, clothes and books, and many other items. At the entrance to each shop a mosaic in the floor advertised what was available. There was a bank where copper and silver coins could be obtained. There were craftsmen who made sundry items such as Roman glass, leather wares and iron tools. There were even a few public buildings that would have been central to life such as a theatre and amphitheatre, public baths and a library. The inhabitants of this extraordinary theme park all spoke Latin and even if their language skills were not up to those of a Roman, everyone was having fun while improving and practicing their spoken Latin. All this Arthur Jackson had paid for. He had even paid for the participants' air fares just to make sure that his dream of seeing a pukka Roman town come to life would be fulfilled.

The only things absent from New Pompey were any signs of modern life: modern clothing, telephones, electrical equipment and the like had all been banned to ensure a genuine atmosphere.

After the arrival of the last participants the town gates had been closed and everyone began their new lives. A blacksmith was pounding away at red hot iron making horseshoes, nails, pots and even armour; a cobbler was cutting leather to make shoes; and legionaries were patrolling the town wall or exercising in their barracks.

Others were preparing a play for the theatre and carefully choreographed show-fights for the amphitheatre to entertain the townsfolk after a hard day's work.

There were even children of various ages from a number of high schools who were happy to offer their students the unique opportunity of immersion in a Latin language environment for a few weeks.

Presiding over his town was Arthur Jackson, the self-elected magistrate whose aim it was to go down in history as a benign ruler, loved and respected by his new fellow citizens. He wore a white toga like that of a true patrician and on his arm a thick heavy gold bangle proclaiming victory in Germania. His hair was dark and curly as might be found in Italy. And even if his pale eyes and skin betrayed his more northern origins this didn't really matter.

On the evening of that day the tired yet happy inhabitants prepared to go to bed early as their new life meant getting up at first dawn. A few oil lamps that still shone from windows gave light in the dimly lit streets and torches at the town gates and other important areas helped the legionaries who had been posted on night watch see in the dark.

At the same time Professor Crosthwaite was enjoying his dinner after a much applauded speech that had ended the conference. From the restaurant window the lights of vibrant New York provided an unforgettable spectacle, a colourful background to the people of that great city; the young mother holding her little bundle of joy, delighted at the first smile and looking forward to many years of happiness; the boys and girls playing with their toys after a day at school; men and women watching TV, going to the theatre or cinema or entertaining themselves in all the other ways that a city such as New York made possible; there were pensioners and veterans who were enjoying the final years of life with the peace and quiet that comes after life's obligations have been fulfilled.

Later that night radar screens at NORAD showed numbers of objects entering the atmosphere above North America. Fighter jets from around North America were scrambled to meet the rapidly descending craft. None of them got nearer than two hundred miles to the alien craft before contact was lost and they simply vanished from radar. Less than three minutes later New York, Miami, Toronto and other cities were reached by the attacking spacecraft. The alien weapons systems targeted the cities and disintegrated the atomic structure that binds all matter. In a split second skyscrapers, cars, people and everything else was turned into huge clouds of dust.

"Run, run, run," secret service agents yelled as they rushed the President and his family out of the White House into a helicopter. The helicopter lifted off and headed out of town at top speed.

"What the hell is going on?" the President shouted into a telephone.

On the other end was General Hawson in command at NORAD. "We're under sudden sustained attack, sir. They're shooting down our fighters and they've taken out several cities."

The President looked out of the window back at Washington DC. The millions of lights were bright in the night. Then there came a sudden purple light from above and everything was gone.

"Mr. President," the general went on, "we've reports of catastrophic losses coming in from all sides and our satellite images show that in about seven minutes half of America's population has been wiped out. You've got to hit them now. In ten or fifteen minutes it'll be too late."

The last President of the United States gave one last order. In a desperate bid to stop the attackers he transmitted the launch codes of the entire nuclear arsenal and authority for military commanders to acquire targets and fire at will. Seconds later the presidential helicopter was reduced to a cloud of dust as the alien craft sought out and attacked anything with an electrical current in it. Towns and cars, planes and ships, power plants and farms – nothing escaped the vicious attack. Hundreds of missiles carrying nuclear warheads left their silos around the country. Submarines at sea fired their deadly cargo.

None of them reached their targets.

The following morning it was all over. Cars, ships and planes didn't exist anymore. All that was left were billions of tons of toxic dust that poisoned the air, rivers, lakes and oceans. Dead and dying fish, birds and other animals were everywhere. The wind blew toxic dust that had once been a great city across the country, covering remnants of highways and building up into slow moving dunes. Across the globe these scenes were repeated a thousandfold showing that the end of humanity had come and that nature, when she had recovered from the destruction, would once again reign supreme over planet Earth.

And yet, in spite of the unprecedented destruction that had swept across the planet, some people were still alive. In the distant jungles of New Guinea and Africa some tribes still unaffected by modern civilization lived their lives as before. Occasional campers, cave explorers and even some obscure religious communities survived. Many of them perished as they tried to make their way back to civilization but only found lethal dust everywhere. Some managed to eke out a living in the wilderness so that new families sprang up here and there.

But the single largest community of humans was at New Pompey. The 643 people of that town thought they were only playing an elaborate game and having some fun during the summer when in fact they had become the only town left not only in America but on the entire globe.

In a stroke of fortune dark clouds came over night that brought rain to the area. For hundreds of miles around the town raindrops began their work of dampening the dust and then washing it away so that nature could breathe freely again. It rained for three whole days leaving the people of New Pompey oblivious to what had happened around them.

But after a fortnight the town's supplies were beginning to run low and guards were on the look-out all day for the supply convoy that was to bring all the necessities needed by the townsfolk till the end of their stay there.

Magistrate Arthur Jackson stood on one of the watchtowers of the town gate and gazed into the distance along the road. The sun was setting and he was beginning to get concerned. There were still enough supplies for two or three days left in the town, but he couldn't understand what had prevented the convoy from coming.

"If the convoy hasn't come by the morning," he said to the centurion in charge of the legionaries, "send out some men on horseback to find out what's going on." The centurion gave a Roman salute and Jackson turned to go back to his villa. On the way he made a mental note to fire whoever was responsible for the delay.

Dawn came and went without any sign from the outside world, so at sunrise the centurion gave the necessary orders and two horsemen set out. The town gates shut behind them and as soon as they were out of earshot they switched to English.

"What d'ya say Jack? Shall we have a nice cold beer at that gas station near the highway? I'm kinda getting tired of warm wine mixed with water."

"Hey, yea man. Besides it'll be fun walking in there dressed up as we are. Ain't we gonna give 'em truckers something to talk about!"

Jack and Chuck had become the best of friends in the fortnight they had spent together and coming from the same town had done much to cement the bonds of friendship.

After a two hour ride they approached the site of the highway and where the lane they were on met up with the gas station. Coming over a little hill the two men stopped their horses.

"What the hell!" exclaimed Chuck while Jack simply stared aghast. He let his eyes wander along the lane to the spot where the gas station should have been. Now there was nothing but a hollow filled with pallid dust. As he looked along the highway the scene was even more incredible. There were a number of craters at different intervals, some larger some smaller, yet all of them filled with the same grey material. There were no vehicles in sight nor any signs of human life for that matter. In fact there was nothing at all apart from stretches of broken and damaged highway.

Jack shook his head in disbelief. "There must be a war going on," he said thinking about his wife and little son back home.

"What the fuck do we do now, Jack," Chuck asked. "Shall we ride to the next town? There's gotta be somebody there."

Jack went over the problem in his mind and slowly shook his head. "No, Chuck, I'll ride on alone. It's a good twenty-five miles to the nearest town. We'd never make it there and get back to New Pompey today. You'll have to ride back and let the others know what we've seen."

Chuck nodded in assent. "All right, man. We'll be waiting for you, so keep out of trouble." He watched his friend ride down the hill and onto the ruined highway before he turned his horse for the weary way back.

Meanwhile Jack rode along the old highway carefully going around each crater he came upon. He had discovered that the dust in it was soft and almost oily to the touch. What it was he had no idea, but he was sure that he'd better keep away from it.

Early in the evening he was still miles away from the town and realized he wouldn't get there before nightfall. Seeing an orchard not far from the highway he turned his horse in the hope of finding a farmhouse to take shelter in. Riding under apple trees he reached up and picked one. The one piece of bread he'd had along was long gone and he was famished. Surely the farmer wouldn't grudge him an apple or two? Yet once again he was in for a disappointment. As he left the orchard he found the driveway leading to the farmhouse or rather where the house had been. Gazing at the dust he shook his head. What kind of war could have such an effect? His gaze followed the driveway and saw some grain silos. He rode to the silos and tethered his tired horse to a railing. He climbed one of the silos. It was brimful of grain. "Who would attack a farmhouse and leave a silo intact?" he wondered. Nothing he had seen made any sense. Behind a silo he saw a wooden shed. He quickly ran towards it and opened the door. There was a bench with tools and some buckets and boxes under it. An old oil lamp hung in one corner connected to the walls by years of cobwebs that generations of spiders had diligently spun. Higher up still hung a shotgun that looked as if it had been in more recent use. He looked around for something to stand on as it was too high to reach. In a corner next to a dusty cabinet was a chair. He pulled it away. Suddenly a desperate scream came from the corner that made Jack jump backwards in shock. There had been an eerie quiet all day and the sudden sound made his heart race. But then the sight that greeted him made him laugh in a way only comic relief can cause after a day of dread. A little boy of seven or eight was crouching there and bravely holding a penknife in front of him. Between his legs an even smaller dog was growling threateningly.

"Please don't hurt me," the boy said after a moment.

"I'm not here to hurt you, kiddo. I'm just looking for someone, anyone who can tell me what happened here."

The boy looked at his unusual clothing with distrust. "Are you one of them? Are you one of the aliens?"

"Aliens? Hell no, this is just a costume. I'm with a bunch of friends and we're playing Romans."

The boy eyed him with tears in his eyes. He was aware of Romulans as they had featured in some Star Trek episodes, but Romans were something new for him. The look of pity in Jack's face finally persuaded him. Bursting into tears he ran forward and hugged Jack with all his might. Jack felt the young boy's body tremble and shake uncontrollably. After a few minutes the lad calmed down again.

"My name's Jack," the older man began. "I've a wife back home and my son is much like you. Wherever he is now I hope there's someone to take care of him just like I'm gonna take care of you. You don't have to be afraid of me. Now can you tell me what happened here?"

Still sobbing the boy slowly began to speak. "My name's Tom. It was at night. I was already in bed when I heard Jasper barking outside. I told him to keep quiet but he just wouldn't and my dad often gets angry when he hears Jasper barking."

"Doesn't he like Jasper?"

Tom shook his head. "I don't know why but dad always says that Jasper's no good as a farm dog. Anyway I quickly went outside to make Jasper quiet before dad got woken. Jasper wouldn't lie down or do what I told him to. He just kept pulling at my trouser leg, so I followed him into the open on the field. Then everything happened so quickly." Again he began to tremble and looked at Jack as more tears ran down his face. "First it was just a purple light. It came from far away," he said pointing in the direction the highway led to. "Every time it came to a car or truck on the highway there was a strange light and then the truck would be gone. It just took a few seconds to reach us here and then my home was gone, and ..."

Jack took Tom in his arms again and held him for a while as the little boy dealt with the agony and despair of a child who has lost both his parents.

After a quiet restful night that they spent in the shed the sun rose bathing everything in a warm glow. They had a breakfast of apples and corn and then set out to ride into town. Considering all he had seen and what Tom had told him Jack wasn't at all sure whether they would find much there, but they had to try anyway. It was a strange sight, a Roman horseman with a boy sitting in front of him riding along a ruined highway.

It was late in the forenoon before they reached the site of the town. Jack halted his horse. Next to the highway was a vast expanse of the same dust he had seen before. It was clear that the entire town had suffered the same fate as the farmhouse. In the vicinity he noticed quite a number of dead birds and other animals. There was no point in going on so without a word he turned his horse back towards New Pompey.

In the weeks and months that followed the Pompeyans under the benevolent leadership of their magistrate Arthur Jackson made numerous attempts to establish contact, but all to no avail. Wherever they went they discovered the same depressing devastation. The only ray of hope was that much of the agricultural land that surrounded the town was in good condition and so Pompeyans busied themselves at learning how to become farmers. The crop was plentiful and there was far more than they could ever hope to harvest. They were still benefiting from an agriculture that had been mechanized and organized by professional farmers. But they also knew that this was the last time they would live a life of plenty. In the years to come all the ploughing and sowing would have to be done by hand or with the help of their horses.

Two-hundred-and-seventy-three years later Joshua the Mighty sat upon his horse looking down the hill into the valley below. Arrayed on the slope was his army, the bravest, the most valiant of men all of whom were ready to die defending GOD. His people had long kept apart from the society of others, even in the days before the Wrath of God had swept the vile and sordid world of Satan away giving God's people the chance to spread across the empty land – or so they had thought until they encountered the Pompeyans. Joshua spat on the ground.

"What is it, Sire?" his attendant asked.

"Pompeyans," Joshua said as though that explained everything. "The pox and pestilence upon them. They have so many books and not one about God. Their republic is an abomination in the eyes of our Lord. Their language is not that of the holy scripture and they and their ways are that Satan stands for."

Further down the valley the Pompeyan legionaries were marching up in battle formation.

"And yet they are formidable soldiers, Sire."

Joshua spat again. "That they are, young man. And do you know why He spared them when there was the great reckoning?"

The attendant tried to find an answer but Joshua just went on oblivious to the fact that the younger man had taken his question seriously.

"They were spared by our Lord to test us; it is a trial, a tribulation; a way of seeing the strength of our belief in Him and our resolve to do as He would have us do. And today is that day. A day of expiation when we will finally crush the followers of Satan in the Glory of His name."

Seeing that his men were ready he gave the signal and his holy warriors charged down the slope at the legionaries.

It was a long and bloody day for while the legionaries were better equipped and made use of superior tactics, the holy warriors made up for this want with their fanaticism and a total disregard for their own lives. The battle raged and both sides committed their last reserves before nightfall finally put an end to the battle and the two battered armies withdrew to their camps. Strewn across the battlefield were numerous corpses and hacked off limbs, blood and gore were everywhere. It had been a day of immense suffering on both sides. Only the crows and vultures delighted in the unexpected feast.

High above the battlefield, too high for the naked eye to make out, an alien craft flew by. The craft's commander was satisfied. He himself had taken part in the sterilization of this planet and he was pleased that it had worked so well. It was unthinkable that a rival civilization would be allowed to develop in his sector of space. He was proud in the knowledge that he was always thorough in his work. The scenes of the primitive battle he had just seen showed that the planet would not make further action necessary for some time.

"After all," he thought, "this planet was quite valuable with its oxygen rich atmosphere. And since the great Galactic Colonization and Development Co. had bought it the directors expected him to ensure shareholders would not lose any money. A planet containing intelligent life was worthless as it would be protected under law. But a planet showing the absence of electricity officially counted as being devoid of intelligent life. He meant to keep this planet without electricity, even if it meant breaking the law. But then, it was far away from any other civilized place, so who would ever know?"

### Going Home

James Lee had spent a nice time travelling to a certain tropical country and was now on his way home again. His blue eyes shone like two precious stones amid his pleasantly tanned face and sandy hair.

"Would you like anything to drink, sir?" the stewardess asked him.

He sneezed and shook his head. The stewardess moved on repeating her question at every row.

"What a fantastic time," he thought. "But now it's back to work. At least I've something to tell the guys at work." He blew his nose noisily attracting one or two disapproving looks. "Damn," he thought. "Must have caught something on the plane. "

At the airport no one noticed him. It was flu season and as he just sneezed occasionally this was nothing unusual.

He sneezed again at customs. Immigration officer Laura Miller checked his passport and waved him through. She was wearing a surgical mask. Quite a lot of passengers sneezed or coughed and she didn't want to bring anything home.

James Lee sat down near the gate to his connecting flight. "Just forty minutes," he thought, "and I'll be on my way home again. Damn the nose, though." It was running again and he wiped it as best he could with an already wet tissue.

Something bumped against his foot. He bent down and saw a toy ball. He picked it up and looked around. A little boy stood there looking at him anxiously. He smiled. "There you go kiddo," and tossed the ball to him. The boy ran off without a word. "He can't be more than three or four years old," James thought. Suddenly he heard the boy crying and he turned round again.

"How often do I have to tell you that?" his mother barked angrily at him. "Don't put your fingers in your mouth! They're not clean. Just look at that ball of yours and how it's rolling around everywhere!"

Feeling a little guilty at the thought of his own not so clean fingers James walked to a washroom to get a fresh tissue. The noise of the angry mother berating her son followed him down the corridor. "Bitch," he thought. "Can't you be nice to the little kid?"

When he came back he noticed the tearful boy sitting on a seat next to his irate mother. He shook his head and glanced at the display board. "What the f...!" he said. Now other passengers were looking too. The display had just changed and showed their flight was cancelled. A crowd of disgruntled and cross passengers quickly gathered around the flight desk. All he heard was something about weather conditions and flying the next day. He picked up his bag and made his way to the exit. "If I can't fly today I might as well have a good time in town, "he thought. Determined to make the best of the evening he took a taxi and dropped off his bag at a cheap hotel. There was a subway station near his hotel. He caught a train to go downtown. "How miserable folks here look," he thought as he compared their tired, stressed faces with the people he had seen abroad.

After dinner he went for a drink, and that first drink was followed by another and another as he wandered from bar to bar. Later that night he felt a different kind of urge and visited a hooker. He was half drunk and finished quickly. After some more drinks here and there with changing company he went to his hotel where he spent the first half of the night puking and the second half sleeping off his drunken stupor.

Laura Miller, the immigration officer, took off her latex gloves and surgical mask when she finished her duty. "What a long day," she thought and rubbed her eyes transferring micro-organisms from her face to her hands. In the locker room she took out a sandwich and ate hungrily before changing out of her uniform and going home.

The stewardess from James Lee's flight was already sleeping. The next day she would have another long flight; to Europe this time.

The passengers in the seats around James had been luckier than him. None of their transfer flights had been cancelled and they were already safely at home in L.A., Miami, Chicago, Toronto and a few other places by the time James was throwing up in his hotel.

And the little boy with his ball was tucked up in bed dreaming about the wonderful time he'd spent at the beach. And best of all how he would tell his friends about it all.

The next day James got his wake-up call. He yawned and cursed. "Oh hell, man, this headache is killing me." He gulped down some aspirin and looked in the bathroom mirror. "Eyes like two piss holes in the snow," he muttered to himself. His nice tan seemed to have vanished over night and now two bloodshot eyes surrounded by a ghostly pallid face stared back at him in the mirror. "Creeping hangover," he said and coughed. "First thing back home and I've got the flu or something, too."

After some strong coffee he felt better again and hopped on a cab to the airport.

"Just finished your vacation?" the driver said to strike up a conversation.

James nodded and sneezed.

"Ah, it's the flu season here now," the cabbie said. "Gotta be careful. I'm lucky myself. Ain't had the flu in twenty years, always healthy, always on the job," he said and chuckled.

James wiped his nose. "Not so lucky myself. I've just got back from paradise and this is my welcome gift."

The driver laughed and soon dropped him off. "Have a nice day, sir," he said happy with the generous tip.

By the time James got home it was late afternoon. He felt awful, took some flu medication he still had and lay down for a nap.

The stewardess from his first flight was already in Europe. She had developed a slight cold and sneezed a few times on board the plane. She tried her best to hide it but still overheard one of the passengers saying "shouldn't come to work with a cold."

Laura Miller also sneezed a few times when she got back to work. When her second mask got wet she saw that there were no more surgical masks left. "What the heck," she thought. "If I'm sick already it doesn't matter anymore. Plenty of other folks walking around sneezing and no one bothers with a mask, so why should I bother?"

With this rather selfish though perhaps understandable attitude she went on checking passports all day, occasionally sneezing, but always covering her mouth and nose. Of course, to cover her mouth and nose she had to use the same hands that were handling other people's travel documents all day.

The other passengers from James' first flight were by then busy sneezing at neighbours and friends, the little boy was sneezing in his playgroup, the taxi driver, people from the subway train, from the restaurant, the bars, the hotel and even the hapless hooker had all developed a slight irritation in the nose that made them sneeze occasionally. But no one paid any attention. It was the flu season after all.

The next day was a Sunday. "And thank God for that," James thought. "I've never felt that bad after a vacation before. Where're the friggin' pills," he cursed as he went through the bathroom cabinet. His hands were shaking and a cold sweat formed pearls of perspiration on his forehead. "Gonna have to call in sick tomorrow if this continues," he muttered. He found what he was looking for and went back to bed. It was a restless, feverish night and he remembered almost nothing of it when he awoke on Monday morning. The fever had gone and even though he still had a slight cough and runny nose he felt much better and refreshed. "Nothing like a good night's sleep to shake off a cold," he said. Not long after he was back at work, still sneezing but more than happy to tell everyone about his great vacation.

On Tuesday Laura Miller didn't go to work at the airport. She had a fever and stayed in bed. "Good-bye," her son said and kissed her before going to school.

"Anything I can get you honey?" her husband asked.

"I'll be fine," she said and closed her eyes though she was far from sure if she would be fine. She felt awful. Her heart was pounding. Her blood was rushing through her head giving her strange angry sensations.

The door clanged as her husband left for work.

As the morning progressed Laura felt the blood throb in her veins. She turned from side to side feeling angry and getting yet angrier with every beat of her heart. She felt full of energy, full of raw strength. And she knew she had been wronged. Who or what didn't matter. All that mattered was her anger, her burning fury. She got out of bed but she didn't know where she was. All understanding had left her mind. There were photos of her family on the table. They made her angry. With a sudden outburst of violent anger she swept them onto the floor. The sound of breaking glass made her feel good. It was what she wanted. But it was over so quickly. Like a drug addict wanting his next high she quickly picked up a bottle and threw it at the window. It shattered and the sound was delicious feeding her anger, her lust for violence.

The garden was visible through the broken window. She quickly ran outside. She saw someone moving.

"Morning Laura," her neighbour called while concentrating on the flowers he was watering. "Not at work today?"

She heard the words but they meant nothing to her. Only that voice, it was somehow familiar and it made her so angry; it was the anger of a desperate addict who couldn't get his next shot. In a wild fury she shot across the lawn and jumped over the fence at her neighbour. She didn't notice the surprised look on his face, but his shouts and screams of agony were so delicious to hear and the smell of his blood as she bit him and tore at his skin was wonderful.

Someone kicked her off her victim but she felt no pain. In a rabid fury she went on biting and scratching anyone she could reach. She only stopped after someone put five bullets into her.

James didn't watch much TV. So when he went to bed that day he missed the evening news that reported a number of strange and puzzling cases where ordinary people suddenly went out of their minds and attacked anyone they saw.

And had James watched the morning news he would have seen worrying reports about thousands of such cases across the U.S. and overseas; about emergency services being stretched to breaking point; about the CDC looking into a possible pandemic; about officials – many of whom were seen sneezing - announcing emergency measures to ensure public order.

By noonday nobody was talking about anything else than the strange outbreak of violence and when the first case occurred in James office he decided it would be wiser to go home and lie low.

He locked and bolted the door when he got home, closed the shutters and locked himself in his bedroom watching events unfold on TV.

During the afternoon the National Guard was mobilized. The police had already been overrun and hospitals didn't function anymore with too many hospital workers being attacked by their patients.

In the evening the lights suddenly went out. James shook his head in disbelief. "Should've stayed on the beach," he said.

For the whole of that night and the next day he stayed indoors careful not to make any sound or light. The air outside was sometimes filled with screams of terror or barbaric cries of bloodlust. The day after everything was quiet. He remained indoors for another two days but then his food and water ran out. He carefully opened the front door and went to his car. He slowly drove into town. Everywhere the same picture greeted him, that of dead mangled bodies lying on the roads, in doorways, in flowerbeds and shop windows. And there were rats, millions of rats feeding and gnawing.

"There's no one left," he said. "Nobody but me." Dazed he pulled up at a supermarket and loaded his car full of canned food and other things. He drove straight back home. "Shit, shit, man, what am I gonna do? There're just bodies and rats everywhere."

Although James didn't know it, by that time he was the last American left alive. And he didn't know what to do. The city was not some kind of exciting place to explore like he had seen in some films, it was a place filled with the stench of millions of dead bodies.

When the power shut down emergency generators at nuclear power plants and nuclear waste storage facilities automatically switched on. The diesel generators provided the electricity needed to cool fuel rods. When the diesel fuel ran out temperatures in the cooling water began to soar. Not long after at hundreds of such facilities across the U.S. alone black smoke was billowing into the sky.

A fortnight later James Lee, the last American, died of radiation sickness.

### Asteroid

Day One

The object appeared suddenly out of the sun. Dr. Phil Leicester of the Royal Observatory in England had to look several times to convince himself he hadn't made a mistake.

"Bloody hell John," he said, "have a look at this."

His colleague came over to see what bit of excitement had interrupted the usually monotonous work at the observatory.

He carefully looked through the lens. "It's enormous. Where did it come from?"

"Straight out of the sun. We would have seen it a long time ago coming from any other direction. But the glare of the sun completely hid it. Come on. Let's try to calculate its course."

After several hours of taking pictures and measuring the object's progress the result was clear. It was an asteroid roughly the size of Italy, long and round with a large top at one end that made it look rather like a mallet.

"It's going to hit us," John concluded. "That damn mallet is going to hit us."

"And we've only got five days left." Phil shook his head. There was nothing more they could do. Observatories around the world had been informed and were watching; governments were in crisis session; news people were in a frenzy; and the religious were imploring all and sundry deities for salvation.

"So that's what it feels like to look death in the eye," John said. "Total extermination thanks to a bloody piece of rock in the sky."

Phil noted the bitterness in his voice. "Go home, John, and take a rest. You need it. And besides I'm sure the Americans will have some kind of back-up plan."

"It's much too big and too close. You know that and I know that. But thanks for the try. I'll see you tomorrow."

Day Two

"Oh Phil, why don't you come home?" his wife asked. "You've been at that observatory all night long. Surely there's no more you can do for now. You need a rest. You need to come home." She sighed. "All right, I need you. But please, Phil, do come home now."

"All right, dear," he reluctantly agreed. Of course his wife was right. There wasn't anything else he could do for the time being and he urgently had to catch up on some sleep.

Leaving John in charge he put on his coat and got into his car. He drove home listening to the news.

It has just been announced by both the White House and the Kremlin that the unprecedented threat from the asteroid called the Mallet will be met with all available resources. Both the US and the Russian governments have begun preparing rockets destined to carry nuclear warheads into space. The aim is to change the asteroid's course so it will miss Earth. Scientists have expressed scepticism about the workability of the plan saying there were too many variables and unknowns such as the asteroids composition. But White House speaker Dan Smith reiterated the government's stance that there was no time for long investigations. "We've got to act now, we've got to be bold, because time is short and it's not going to wait for us."

Meanwhile stock markets across the planet were in free fall today forcing many governments to close them until the end of the crisis.

Phil switched the radio off again. Just two days ago everything had seemed so clear, so easy, so worthwhile living for. But now? He sighed. At home his wife hugged him tightly not wanting to let go.

"Oh Phil," she said at last, "is it all going to end like that?"

"Now, now, dear. You mustn't speak like that. I'm sure the Americans and Russians will be able to deflect it. And next week we'll all be sitting down and having supper again together," he said seeing his two daughters looking at him from the living room.

His wife looked at him with tears in her eyes. Maybe she sensed that he didn't really believe himself what he had said. The asteroid was simply too big. He couldn't imagine any bomb in the world powerful enough to deflect it, almost like trying to change the course of an ice berg by shooting a revolver at it. And John was right, Mallet was much too close to the Earth already.

Day Three

"Do you know yet where it's going to hit?" his wife asked.

Phil nodded. "Somewhere in North America. Possibly the Mid-West."

She looked relieved. "That's far away, isn't it?"

He shook his head. "Not far enough. Nowhere on Earth would be far enough. When it impacts it will create a shockwave of fire that will go all around Earth. No place will be safe.

She still looked doubtful. "It's hard to imagine anything could be that powerful."

"We've had impacts in the past of objects that were not even half the size of Asteroid Mallet and those impacts wiped out sixty to ninety percent of all living beings on the Earth. After the shockwave trillions of tons of ash darkened the sky for years and caused an ice age. Only some small creatures such as rodents survived underground.

If Mallet hits us, Earth will become an icy world. Only rats still have a future.

His wife looked irritated. "How can you say such a thing Phil, honestly I don't know what you're thinking at times. Don't make me upset."

Phil was about to say something in reply but closed his mouth again. He knew better than to argue with her and, after all, it didn't matter. He watched his wife as she busied herself making tea. It was her way to escape from reality, a little ritual of home comfort and safety that kept everything else at bay. "But how much longer," he wondered, "how much longer?"

Day Four

Phil Leicester watched the progress of the American rocket on his screen. He wasn't really supposed to be able to receive the signal but thanks to some of his friends in the U.S. he had managed to sneak in. "And besides," he thought, "no one is going to mind, not now."

The rocket hurtled through space on a collision course with its target Asteroid Mallet. The asteroid was looming large now and both day and night it was visible in the sky, a celestial harbinger of doom. The rocket approached its target carrying the largest bomb available from America's nuclear arsenal. Then there was a tremendous explosion as the hydrogen bomb detonated, a blinding flash of light in the sky that people had been warned not to look at without suitable eye protection. Phil heard the cheers from the American control room through his not quite legal satellite connection. "Well I wonder," he murmured, "Have they really pulled it off?"

Scientists immediately began to measure any change in Mallet's movement, but were soon disappointed. Asteroid Mallet had been given a slight spin by the explosion but was still on the same course as before.

Now all eyes were on the Russian rocket. There would be no more time after it to prepare further missions. It was, quite literally, humanity's last shot. And humanity watched the rocket on TV as it disappeared through clouds into the sky and beyond. Radar kept track of its course, it approached its target and all of humanity united in front of TV sets around the world, held its collective breath.

The countdown to the explosion began, ten, nine,.., three, two, one,..

And then there was a great silence.

"Oh my God," the reporter on TV said. "it's failed to detonate. The Russian bomb has not exploded. We don't know why. Was it a technical problem or did the rocket get damaged by debris? We don't know and it doesn't really matter. The main question is: What is going to happen? Do governments have any back-up plans?"

Phil switched the TV off. He knew there was no back-up plan. Tomorrow afternoon Asteroid Mallet would impact somewhere in the American Mid-West and there was nothing anyone could do anymore. He stood up and picked up his coat.

Where're you going?" John asked.

"Home," he replied simply. "There's nothing left to do for us. Don't waste your time here, John. Spend your last day with your family, because that's all the time you've got left." He turned and walked off without waiting for a reply.

Day Five

Phil was sitting on the sofa at home watching TV with his family. They had stayed up all night so as not to waste a single minute of the short time that was left to them. Like many others they'd decided to have one last party and enjoy themselves. "Let's have a jolly good time," Phil had said. "No point in sitting around morose and full of self pity."

And so they'd had a great party with friends, neighbours and even some strangers who joined in spontaneously. Someone had the great idea of throwing dirty dishes out of the window and so everything went flying, glasses, plates, cups and anything else. "No need to wash dishes tomorrow," someone said as his wife's favourite crockery set, an inheritance from her mother, went out of the window. Even his wife laughed in a crazy drunken way.

But now they were tired, the day had come and TV was bringing cruel reality back into their life.

Reports from all over America show a wave of suicides with many people preferring to take their lives rather than wait for a fiery death from up above. Millions of families have formed suicide pacts and are killing themselves often with gas, with poison and even by shooting each other.

The President has announced that he is going to deploy the nation's entire nuclear arsenal as Asteroid Mallet reaches the Earth's atmosphere in a last ditch attempt to destroy it or at least reduce it in size. He has also asked Americans not to forsake hope and pray for salvation, but this seems to have done little to stem the wave of suicides.

In many large cities street battles have erupted as desperate people are looting shops and stores. They were seen either exchanging gunfire with shopkeepers or killing each other in the scramble for what are considered vital supplies.

Emergency services have come to a standstill as many workers see no point in turning up for duty. This as aerial pictures show the streets of cities littered with thousands of dead people.

Phil switched from channel to channel but everywhere was the same dreadful news. "Oh what the hell," he said and switched it off in disgust. "What's the point in watching this stuff?"

"What's the point of anything now, Dad?" his daughter asked with tears in her eyes. She was young, had only just started life and wasn't ready to die.

Later that day those few Americans who weren't dead or hiding underground watched Asteroid Mallet in the sky. The time of the impact approached inexorably. It came and it went and Asteroid Mallet could still be seen in the sky though, as some thought, not quite so near anymore. It was the great anti-climax. There was no impact, the President didn't get the chance to deploy his nuclear arsenal and the world didn't end.

"I don't understand," Phil Leicester and thousands of other scientists said. "The American bomb didn't deflect the asteroid. So why did it miss the Earth?"

Quickly all the original data was examined and re-examined, and at last the mistake was found: a technician didn't adjust one of the numbers from metrical to imperial.

"What a sad irony," Phil Leicester said when he heard the news. "Mallet never was on collision course, it was always going to miss us."

But his wife didn't hear him. "My crockery set," she said unhappily. "It was my mother's favourite. And now it's all gone, smashed to smithereens because of you and your party."

"My party," he replied indignantly. There was nothing wrong with the party. Can't you just be happy we're still alive?"

"Well, of course I'm happy about that. But without the party all our dishes and my crockery set wouldn't be broken."

He sighed. It really was no use trying to argue with her logic. The world didn't end, they didn't die but she had to be unhappy because of some broken dishes. And she would keep reminding him of them and the party for years to come. He distinctly remembered her throwing dishes out of the window too, but he was sure she had already forgotten about that and would strongly deny it if he ever reminded her. And so, wisely perhaps, he decided to say no more about the matter and hope that it would slowly be forgotten.

Further investigation revealed that the technician responsible for the mistake was dead. Along with his family he had preferred suicide to waiting for the asteroid's impact. And so there was no one left to punish. People in many countries began to pick up the pieces of their lives that had unexpectedly resumed.

But it was too late for America; three quarters of the population were dead, its economy was in utter ruin and the dollar wasn't worth the paper it was printed on anymore.

### Water

In Antarctica summer had begun. The shelf ice that surrounded the continent was all but gone and everywhere millions of creatures were enjoying their new sense of freedom. Penguins were frolicking in the water, jumping over waves and chasing fish. Birds were flying about diving into the water to catch fish. Seals and sea lions either lay on beaches or were hunting in the ocean. And the fish were busy gulping down plankton and trying not to get eaten. Only the polar bears didn't do very much, but that is because there are no polar bears down south; they all live in the Arctic.

Most of the Antarctic landmass is covered in ice, some of it up to two miles thick. It is an ancient layer of ice that was accumulated over thousands of years. Every year snow falls covering last years snow and thus pressure on layers of snow continuously increases every year until the snow is crushed and turned into ice.

This ice goes down deep, very deep. It may sometimes contain vast pockets of water like giant underground lakes. And sometimes the ice is so thick and heavy it may even hold down a volcanic eruption.

But deep down, at the bottom where the ice meets solid ground something else happens to the ice. The pressure from above is so great that the ice becomes liquid. Could one touch it under such great pressure it might feel a bit like oil. And like the oil in a machine it also enables the ice to slowly move and slide across the land into the sea. It doesn't usually move as it is held in place by the continental shelf ice, but for the first time in centuries if not millennia that shelf ice has completely melted.

Jack Bower drew up at the gas station with his SUV. After several hours of criss-crossing the Californian countryside, turning up dirt and dust, and shooting at rocks and some hapless snakes his gas guzzling monster had almost run dry.

"Hi Jack, what's it today?"

"Fill her right up, as usual Mike. Wouldn't want to disappoint our global warming conspiracy freaks."

Mike laughed. "You know about that oil platform that blew up last month?"

"Yea, what about it."

"That was no accident, I'm telling ya. That was the government. They blew it up to scare Americans away from oil."

"Not me, man. Not me. My SUV and me, never scared shall be."

Mike laughed again. "Not turning into a poet are you?"

"I'll tell ya what, Mike, if those east coast pussies want to scare me away from oil I'll have a very simple answer," he said and patted the semi-automatic on the seat next to him. "Always keep it plain and simple is what I say and folks will get the message."

Mike grinned. "That's the spirit man. And you can always count on me too when the time comes."

After paying Jack pulled away from the gas station. "God damn government," he thought. "They've got oil prices up again. There's plenty of oil, I know that, but they just keep putting prices up to keep the little man down. Damn, to keep me down. But I won't be kept down. Oh no. Not me."

And that was the moment a plan began to be formed in Jack Bower's mind. It wasn't really a plan yet, more of a simple idea, but soon a lot more would come of it than even he himself knew at the time.

A few days later Jack was back in the countryside where he often played war games with his pals from the militia. This time he was target practising with his new fifty caliber gun. The range and power of his new gun delighted him. "You're just the thing," he said and patted the rifle when he'd shot up all the cans he'd brought along.

The idea he'd been brooding on had now attained a new kind of reality in his mind, had become more tangible and he was satisfied with the progress.

"You just wait, you east coast pussies. You want to scare me off with your high gas prices? I'll show you something, I will."

Muttering to himself he walked around and inspected the area. He was alone that day. There were few shrubs and boulders around. The land was mostly flat. A few hundred yards away were some mounds and the other direction was the 'nullah' as they liked to call it. The nullah was an empty dry river bed. One of the militia had spent some time in Asia years ago and introduced the term. Hidden in the banks of the nullah, behind some boulders and in a few other places were tunnel entrances. These were the result of decades of weekend war games where all sorts of wars from WWII to Vietnam were re-enacted or where some future wars from their fantasy were diligently prepared.

Jack nodded. He knew all the secrets this place held and was sure it would do. "If the feds want me, let'em try come here."

A few weeks later the President was on election campaign in California. Determined to make the world a better place he had decided to put global warming firmly on the agenda for his second term in office. He had a strong lead in the polls and after his opponent was shown on TV taking part in a witch ritual in church his lead had increased even more. He felt confident he could address at least one controversial topic.

"My friends, my fellow Americans," he began his speech at a rally somewhere in California. "It is easy and convenient to pretend that problems don't exist. We can just close our eyes and not see them anymore. But that doesn't make them go away. That's not the spirit that has made America great. America is great today because those before us did not close their eyes. Those before us stood with their eyes wide open, they worked hard, they gave their sweat and sometimes their blood to find answers to the problems they faced. That is the spirit that made America great.

Do we have the same spirit today? I say yes because I believe in America. I believe in the greatness Americans carry in their hearts.

There are many problems we face today just as we have always done. But there is one problem, one challenge that stands out from the rest: Global Warming.

It may not sound like much, but it is the gravest threat this country has faced since Pearl Harbor.

How can this be, you may ask.

Does it really matter if the world gets a few degrees warmer? Isn't it a nice thing if we have warmer weather in New York and Chicago? Don't folks in Alaska also deserve some palm trees and sunshine?

I've got to tell you, it does matter. It's not the question of getting warmer weather, it's the question of getting more weather; more storms, more hurricanes, more floods, more heat waves. It's a question of more folks getting hurt or even killed. It's a question of trillions of dollars in damages caused by this weather. It may even be a question of maintaining our territorial integrity. For when the seas rise and cover our land, our farmland, our cities, what army could defend us then? It would be too late to do anything.

That's why I'm asking you now, my fellow Americans. Take my hand and let's face this challenge together. Let's do it for a better more prosperous America tomorrow!"

Jack Bower watched the speech on TV. "I knew it, I just goddamn knew it," he said to no one in particular. "It's a goddamn conspiracy. It's ZOG and those Bilderbergers. They want to take our freedom away. First it's oil and then our guns. But not with me, not with me."

He clenched his fists crushing a beer can he had just emptied. He looked around. Everything was ready for D-Day. It had cost a lot and he'd even had to borrow from his militia pals, but it was for a good cause. Of that he was sure. Now his SUV was armoured and he'd even sewn a suit made of material from bullet proof vests.

"Oh yea, I'm ready you tyrant," and he shook his fist at the screen where a smiling President was waving to a cheering crowd.

He switched off the TV and lay down to sleep for a few hours. It was better to be rested before undertaking such a difficult and dangerous mission. "After all," he thought, "when my day, my hour of glory has come, I'll give them something they'll never forget again." And with this pleasant thought on his mind he fell asleep.

In the early evening Jack Bower was ready. He was in the position he had been dreaming of for weeks and months. He was lying flat under a camouflage net on the top of a little hill some three quarters of a mile from the interstate. His SUV stood on the other side of the hill. It would take him no more than a minute to reach if he ran down the hill. But that didn't matter now. It was hot in his self-made bullet proof suit and sweat ran down his face. He was all wet inside the suit, but that didn't matter to him either. There was only one thing that mattered to him now. He looked ahead through the telescope of his fifty caliber rifle.

Soon, soon the President's campaign bus would be coming along the interstate driving westward and creating ideal light conditions. The people on the bus would be looking into the sun while he had the sun behind him with his target nicely illuminated by the evening sun.

Then it came. He could see it from far away. It drew nearer and nearer until he could make out flags and banners. When it was near enough he pulled the trigger. The supersonic projectile left the mouth of the rifle and sped across the land. It entered the bus through the windshield and tore through the driver's chest. The bus veered out of control turning towards Jack. His second bullet penetrated the middle of the windshield and tore all the way down the aisle ripping through several people standing there. The bus tipped to one side and slid across the asphalt before it came to a halt. The driver of the secret service car following the bus never knew what hit him. Moments after the bus had overturned another bullet came through the bulletproof windshield and killed him. Jack reloaded and fired again. He fired several more times until the bus caught fire forcing everyone out.

A cruising helicopter finally made out Jack's position and a sniper opened fire.

"Damn bastard," Jack thought. He tried to return fire at the helicopter but the sniper was too good. He took some hits but was saved by his suit. Forced to drop his gun he ran down to his SUV and drove off with the helicopter in pursuit. The SUV worked hard across some rocky terrain until they reached a dirt track. All the while the sniper kept firing but the steel plating of the SUV absorbed all the shots.

He turned onto a country road. Soon the flashing lights of a state trooper appeared in his rear mirror. "Well, well, got company, have we?" he said with a grim smile.

The chase went on for several miles at high speed. The solitary car was joined by another and then by another. Then he noticed first one news helicopter in the sky soon to be followed by more. "Hey man, I'm on my own favourite show now," he laughed.

Up ahead was a road block. "You want to rip up my tyres, do you?" He went on at full speed with the patrol car close behind. At the last moment he slammed his brakes causing the patrol car to slam into him and the two police cars behind to crush the patrol car.

He laughed crazily. Before the SUV came to a full stop he put his foot back on the gas and turned off the road driving around the road block. The officers shot at him but he just returned a middle finger.

"Now the real fun begins," he grinned as he approached the militia's training ground. The police vehicles were not so close behind him anymore as they had become more cautious. He turned off the road back onto a dirt track. "Surprise, surprise," he said. "You've got no idea where I'm going and no idea what's waiting for you or you'd have your pants full already."

He pulled up alongside the nullah and dropped down the side. After firing at the pursuing police car from under his SUV he watched the helicopter as it turned to one side. Seeing Jack outside his armoured vehicle the sniper saw his chance and the helicopter drew closer.

"That's right baby," Jack said. "Come and get me. I'm right here."

He noted that the police cars had stopped and the officers were taking cover behind their vehicles. He grinned.

"Oh goodie, goodie. It's just you and me," he shouted at the helicopter.

The helicopter was quite close now, the sniper getting ready for a killing shot. Suddenly Jack put his hands into the sand and pulled out the RPG he had hidden there. In a trice he brought it up to his shoulder, aimed and fired. The pilot saw the RPG blazing through the air and tried to evade it but it was too late. The RPG hit the cockpit. The helicopter started falling to one side and hit the ground some fifty yards from the nullah and burst into flames.

"The sweet smell of victory," Jack said. "Live on TV. I just love it."

He looked back at the police on the ground. "Trying to flank me, eh? Two can play that game."

He fired a few more rounds under the SUV and then slid down to the bottom of the nullah. He entered a tunnel through a concealed entrance and then quickly closed it again before anyone could see where he had gone. He fixed a light to his head and moved along the tunnel. At a crossing he took a right turn and went along a straight tunnel until he saw the hatch he was looking for.

"Here we go," he said and switched off the light. He slowly lifted the hatch and peered out. He was behind the police cars.

"Not five yards away," he thought.

Some policemen were still pointing their guns in the direction of the SUV while others were involved in a flanking movement to get him from the side.

Jack almost laughed. "Funny to see you guys from behind. Now just look what Uncle Jack has got for you."

He quietly drew the hatch to one side. Then he pulled the pin from a grenade and tossed it through the open door of the nearest car. It exploded and turned the car into a ball of fire. He quickly closed the hatch and moved through the tunnel system to a different vantage point.

"These tunnels are great," he thought. "Thirty years of work have come to this day, this day of victory."

He walked up an incline and after a few minutes he was right under the top of the hill. He opened a small hole and peered out. More vehicles had arrived including some large black cars.

"So the feds have come, I see. Well it's a pleasure meeting you gentlemen.

He saw several of them inspecting his SUV.

"What do we have here, then? You didn't really think I'd let you have my SUV, did you?"

He pulled out a small radio transmitter, switched it on and pressed the one button on it. The SUV exploded into a huge fireball. Several people were killed instantly. Others lay around wounded yelling in agony or calling for help.

"Now what do you say to that? The feds calling for help. I said I'd show you pussies. And you don't even know where I am. So near and yet so far. Well, let me help you a little."

He aimed an AK47 out of the opening. He waited till people were back on their feet and then opened up. He held the trigger until the last round was gone.

"He's up on the hill," he heard someone shout.

"Yea right, wise guy. Come and get me."

But no one had the stomach to run up the hill against automatic fire and instead those who could move sought shelter in the nullah. A number of rifles appeared over the ridge and began to return fire at him.

"Now ain't that great?" he said. "Just where I love to see you."

He reloaded the AK47 and fired in the direction of the nullah so that there was no doubt in anyone's mind about his position. Then he closed the opening and moved back down the tunnel again. This time he reached a point a bit further down the nullah. He opened a hatch and saw men and women in different uniforms and in plain clothes shooting over the ridge at where they though he was still hiding.

"Oh this is beautiful," he said. "All lined up like a bunch of cans ready for taking pot shots at."

He slipped off the safety catch, aimed and opened fire. The effect was instantaneous. Bullets ripped through their backs and several people rolled down screaming in agony. Only two of them managed to scramble over the ridge and run away past the parked cars towards the road.

"I'm superman," he shouted after them. "I'm invincible, you pussies. You can never get me. Just run away back home and hide under your beds." He laughed savagely and vanished back into the tunnel system.

Many thousand miles away something very different was happening. For several years cracks had been appearing in the west Antarctic ice shield. The shelf ice that had always restrained the ice shield wasn't there anymore allowing the cracks to widen, imperceptibly at first but then at an ever increasing rate. And then, one day the breaking point was reached. The area where the cracks appeared was not strong enough anymore to hold the ice together. The enormous ice mass began to move towards the ocean sliding across the layer of oily liquid ice at the bottom. It moved very slowly at first but kept gathering momentum and after a few hours the entire ice shield slammed into the ocean.

When there is a seaquake the result can sometimes be a tsunami. A huge wave that travels across the ocean at high speed and that can be thirty or forty feet high when it crashes into a shore.

If a volcanic island exploded or an asteroid plunged into the ocean the result would be a mega tsunami.

But when a trillion trillion tons of ice hit the ocean the result is beyond words.

A mile high wall of water raced through the ocean that destroyed everything in its way, swept across islands and washed hundreds of miles inland where it hit a larger landmass. The wave and the rise in sea level dislodged the east Antarctic ice shield and caused a second tsunami. The devastation caused around the world was without precedent and made the second world war look like child's play. Whole nations such as Holland, England and Bangladesh vanished under the sea. Low lying agricultural areas everywhere were on the sea floor. In one day the global sea level rose by over three hundred feet. Any land lower than that was covered by water.

Waves now lapped at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. When Jack Bower was celebrating his 'glorious victory over the feds and other conspiracy freaks' as he called it, the water came rushing up and engulfed California. It came pouring into Jack's tunnels and drowned him like a rat.

### Oil

I am writing these words on an old style of typewriter. The keys are all metal so I can see which letters I am hitting, but part of the body used to be plastic; it has long gone. There was a time when I could have written quickly but now my eyes are tired and weary and my thin bony fingers don't move easily anymore so that I can only push one key at a time. I am a sere old man.

The story I am about to tell is not a pleasant one I fear. I have just begun my return trip from New York or maybe I should say what used to be New York. The city has been empty for some thirty years now and it is much too dangerous to enter it. The glass panes from windows all fell out a long time ago, of course, but now there is an ever present peril of falling debris as steel is rusting away year after year and old concrete is slowly yet inexorably disintegrating. The only part of New York still accessible is Staten Island and our unforgettable Lady Liberty. She is as beautiful as ever. It was wonderful to see her again, just like in old times. Well, almost anyway. The memory of a million bright and colourful lights that once turned night into day in New York is both a pleasant and a painful one. Pleasant because those truly were the good old days, and painful because of all that has happened since.

But I digress.

I am sitting in the compartment of a train, a steam train fueled with wood and greased with animal fats, on my way back to the small town that I call home now. My story is not a special one; I am an ordinary person. It will be about love and pain, a simple man's life. But above all it will be a story about the law of unintended consequences.

"Good morning Mr. Griffiths. How are you?"

"Pretty pukka, thank you Mitch," I replied. "And yourself?"

"Pretty pukka, too," he replied with a grin.

I smiled too. When I arrived in New York from England I found a job as a replacement teacher at a local high school within days. On my first day at work someone asked me how I was and I replied with a cheerful "pretty pukka" which in England would be understood as meaning "pretty good". Since then it has become somewhat of a joke with my students.

I like working at my new high school. The kids are nice and I get along well with my colleagues. But most of all I'm happy with my new home. When I go home to my flat – oops I meant to write apartment – Jane is waiting for me. She is a biologist and, more importantly, she is going to be my wife. We've arranged our wedding for autumn. It's astounding how many things can happen in a mere fortnight; I've left my country, found a job in America, fallen in love and arranged to get married. It's mind boggling really.

"Quick marriage – long regrets" an older colleague warned me yesterday. Maybe that's what happened to him. I don't care. I'm floating through the universe on my own pink cloud.

What happens after I get home? Hey, none of your business! Get your own girlfriend and find out.

Anyway our wedding day came and went, we went on our wedding trip and twelve years later we had a wonderful family with three adorable kids Tom, Lucy and Laurel. At least I think they're adorable, but that's the prerogative of every father.

Jane seems to be happy with her job, something to do with microbiology. "How are the germs today?" I usually ask her when she comes home.

"As happy as can be," she usually replies.

"All right but don't give me any unwanted gifts," I say. "Don't you worry, they're not that kind of germs," is her reply and we leave it at that.

She doesn't really like to talk about what she's doing. I don't mind. I'm not very fond of germs anyway. I get more than enough at work. Yes, I'm still at the same school. Have you noticed how just one person gets sick at first and then goes to school coughing and sneezing to make sure everyone else catches the same nasty disease too? It's called the flu season and people exchange more 'gifts' during that time than over Christmas. Personally I prefer Christmas gifts. Maybe I'm just destined to become a grumpy old man after forty years at one school who can't appreciate the fun in life.

At least that might have been my destiny, but it came very differently. The hand fate dealt me was nothing I could ever have expected, not even in my wildest, or should I say, most drunken moments.

One day Jane came home from work with the word 'news' written all over her face. "I'm on TV tonight," she said with a big happy grin.

But push her as I might, I couldn't get one word out of her what it was about.

"Just wait and see," she said, "and you'll know what I've been working on all these years."

So we allowed the kids to stay up rather longer than usual and at the right time sat down on our sofa to watch the news.

"Hello. My name is Mike Callum and I welcome you to a new edition of Science Today. Today's guest on the program is Dr. Jane Griffiths from New York.

Hi Jane, good to have you with us."

"Thank you Mike, it's great to be here."

"Now then, Jane. I understand that you are going to show us some bacteria today that are capable of performing something truly remarkable."

"That's right, Mike. But first let me say something about the background to my research. As you know oil is a very important thing in our lives. We need it to power all sorts of vehicles, to produce electricity, to make rubber and plastic, and even to make some medicines. It would be difficult to imagine our lives without oil."

"My Ford Mustang certainly wouldn't be happy without it," Mike laughed.

Jane smiled. "But sometimes things go wrong and oil becomes a problem. This could be a comparatively minor incident such as the diesel tank of a bus running out or it could be a huge disaster where an oil tanker at sea breaks apart and millions of gallons of oil pollute the environment. We all know what that means from TV: dead fish, dead birds, black beaches and more. Cleaning up the mess is often impossible and extremely expensive. It can take an eco-system decades to recover from a major spill. But now we have come up with a new kind of solution. It has been known for quite a while that a certain kind of bacteria can feed on oil."

"You mean they could actually eat up an oil spill?"

"Not yet, Mike. They work much too slowly to have any practical value. But in our lab we have been able to take these bacteria and change them. We have genetically engineered them so they work much faster. Now, in fact, they're truly voracious."

"All right, Jane. You've prepared an experiment so our viewers can see how this works."

"That's right, Mike. Here is a jar. First I pour some dry sand into it and then I add half a cup of oil. You can see the oil seeping through the sand. If this was on a beach it would be very difficult and expensive to clean. But now look what I can do. I take this syringe and inject a few drops of this clear liquid containing the bacteria inside the sticky sand."

"All right, Jane. Now we filmed this over two and a half hours and as you can see in fast motion the bacteria literally eat their way through the oil until nothing is left. That's just fantastic. But isn't there a danger that these bacteria could get into an oil well for example?"

"No, Mike. That's impossible. The bacteria have a very short lifespan with an extremely high reproductive rate. That's why they were able to eat up the oil so quickly. But it also means that without any more oil they quickly die from starvation. They're also very sensitive to oxygen. If they get exposed to oxygen they die quickly. That's why I had to inject them into the oil."

"Well, Jane that opens up great possibilities. Thank you for being with us today..."

"That's wonderful, sweetie. I had no idea you were working on anything like that. It's incredible."

Jane was beaming. "And you know what," she said. "It may soon be put to practical use. An oil platform in the gulf has blown out. Millions of gallons are gushing into the sea and the government has asked our lab if we can help.

A fortnight later beaches from Texas to Florida were covered in thick black oil. It was a disaster without precedent. And so Dr. Jane Griffiths and her bacteria were called to the rescue. She and some helpers travelled from beach to beach and injected bacteria rich liquid into oily sand. It worked like in a dream. Never before had oil polluted beaches been clean so rapidly. Of course they didn't really get clean as fresh oil kept being washed ashore, but the bacteria were there eating up any oil that came their way. In fact there never was so little oil that the bacteria had a chance to starve to death. They spread into the ocean and started consuming oil and tar balls in the water. Their performance exceeded everyone's wildest dreams.

And so Dr. Jane Griffiths, my wife, was celebrated and feted as a hero across the country.

But when you fly high, too close to the sun, your wings can get burnt and you fall down. That's what happened to Jane, my dear poor Jane.

You see, while the bacteria were busy digesting all that oil they multiplied to an incredible extent. They had a very short life cycle. And they came into contact with many other bacteria. All this helped them to exchange DNA with other bacteria and to mutate. They didn't really change that much or become evil or anything like that. They just didn't want to die. Who does after all? They were now able to stay alive a long time after the oil was gone until they found their next meal; and they were quite happy to mix with oxygen and let the wind blow them to the four corners of the Earth. It's the law of unintended consequences. And what followed was our worst nightmare come true.

One day not much later we were all at home. From the thirty-sixth the view is great. Especially when you have those big modern windows that reach from the floor to the ceiling. "Don't lean against the window, honey," my wife said to Tom. But he didn't listen. "Oh Mum. It's safe, look!" And he pushed against the glass. Of course he was right. The windows were safe. They were built to withstand storms. Why wouldn't they be safe? Why not indeed, if it weren't for the rubber seals that held the glass in place. Tom had pushed against the glass many times before. Only this time it fell out. For a brief moment he stood in the empty frame trying to regain his balance, but then he was gone. For ever.

The bacteria had widened their menu to include products made from oil such as rubber and plastic.

Soon windows everywhere were falling. Electric cables were bared and caused short circuits. Anything made of rubber or plastic began to disintegrate. Cars, buses and aircraft stopped working. There was no electricity anymore. No food supply to the cities. That had always come on trucks, but they didn't work anymore either. If the food doesn't come to you, why then you have to go to the food. That's what we thought. It's what everyone thought.

We packed a few essentials in a rucksack and left our home for good. Not that it mattered. Who wants to live thirty-six floors up when there's no elevator? When there's no glass in the windows to keep the wind out. Only Tom was staying in New York. We left three days after his funeral.

It's a really long way from the city to the country when you have to walk. Especially on roads covered with broken glass and jammed with all sorts of vehicles that were just left wherever they had stopped working.

There were people around us everywhere; long throngs of hungry eyes, staring, looking for food. But there was none.

"Daddy, my feet hurt." It was Lucy, our youngest. She's just four. Her feet were bleeding, so I carried her.

When we reached the first farm there was no more food to be had. Only the farmer was still there, murdered by the food crazy mob. We spent our first night in the country sleeping on grass, the children between Jane and myself. It was the beginning of our new life.

"Daddy, I'm hungry Daddy." Laurel woke me up the next day. Actually it wasn't day yet. There was just a faint light in the east. First dawn.

"I'm sorry, Laurel. We'll have to walk on until we find something. There's nothing here."

We set off and by and by others awoke too, till the road was crowded again.

Then there was a shout. "That's the bitch! There she is!" He walked up to Jane pointing his finger in her face. "You goddamn bitch! You took my life away! I want food! Give me my life back!"

She tried to say something but he spat right into her face.

I pushed him back with one hand while carrying Lucy on my other arm. A crowd was forming around us.

"Come on quickly," I said to Jane. We tried to walk away but the man kept following and shouting, working up the crowd into a frenzy. In films this is the time when a hero appears on the scene to rescue the proverbial damsel in distress. There was no hero.

People kicked and punched me and others dragged Jane away. Lucy and Laurel were screaming "Mummy", but no one heard or even cared.

I later found her poor battered body. We gave her a simple burial. I was alone with the children now. And they were terrified of other people.

How many weeks can you walk with two young children? There was little food; occasionally some fruit on trees, usually just grain growing in the fields.

"Are you looking for a place to stay?" a kindly voice asked one day.

I turned.

"Oh please yes," Lucy burst out before I could say anything.

"You'd better come with me then," the kind voice said again. He was an elderly farmer.

"Thank you, sir. It's very good of you," I said.

"I also had young kids once. You'll have to work, though, if you want to eat."

"Whatever you say, sir."

"And stop calling me 'sir'. My name's Jake." He held out his hand.

"I'm Steve," I said and shook his hand.

We walked to his farm. It was a small place and I could see a number of other people working in the fields harvesting the wheat.

"Here's another one, Mary," the farmer said to his wife.

"Oh Jake," she said with reproach in her eyes.

There were too many already I suppose. But when she saw Laurel and especially Lucy her heart softened.

"Oh very well, then. A few more won't matter, I suppose.

She gave us a little soup each and promised to look after the kids. I had to go straight to the fields and help with the harvest. Cutting grain stalks with a kitchen knife is backbreaking work. But at least we lived.

After the weeks on the road the time with Jake and Mary was wonderful. It was a pleasant mild autumn and we slept on the hay in the barn. We were protected from the cool night air and the hay was warm. An Indian summer for everyone.

But every autumn is followed by winter. That winter we didn't think of snowballs and other winter fun. It was cold, bitterly cold. The only warmth we had was from a small stove in the kitchen. We took it in turns to spend some time there. Soon the inevitable happened. First one man got a cough, then another. It spread quickly. Lucy got pneumonia. She died. Poor little Lucy. So young and yet her life was over already. Don't expect me to write many words about this. I can't. It's too painful.

Now I only had Laurel. I think he is the only reason I stayed alive then, because he needed me.

In the spring I faced the difficult choice of staying or heading out into the unknown. Mary decided the question for me.

"After that winter there isn't much left for sowing," she said pulling me aside. "That means a small harvest this year."

She looked at Laurel and I understood.

We set out the same day heading south. The desperate crowds from the year before had gone. The lack of food and the cold winter had done away with them. Travelling was easier, sometimes a farmer gave us a lift on a cart and we didn't starve.

"Where're we going Daddy?" Laurel asked me day after day.

"I don't know lad. We've got to find a place of our own. A place where we can live. Until then we'll have to keep on going."

And then we found that place. The little town of Wymore had its own newspaper, still printed with an old printing press from the early 1900s. It was old, but it worked. And they needed someone to typeset.

I worked there for thirty-five years. Now Laurel is doing my job. I'm on my way to Wymore now. The steam locomotive should pull into the station soon, right on time and I'm sure Laurel will be standing there waiting for me.

It was good to see New York again one last time. It has brought back many nice memories. But it has also reminded me of poor Tom who never left the city, of Jane who is lying somewhere by the roadside, and poor little Lucy who is buried at the farm.

I wonder if Laurel will print my story.

If he does he should call it:

The Law of Unintended Consequences

### The Survivor

Chuck was not your average guy. There was nothing unusual in his appearance, he was of middle height, stout with dirty blond hair and pale eyes, and he invariably wore jeans and a T-shirt or camouflage wear. He wasn't particularly wealthy or educated. He liked his guns and was a member of the local militia, but in the part of rural America where he lived that was nothing unusual either. What really set him apart from other folks was his will to Live. He was a Survivor. If there was any danger or emergency anyone could think of he would prepare for it. Foreign invasion? He was in the militia. Alien attack? He had explosives and weapons ready for a guerrilla war. Feds confiscating guns? He had some buried in steel drums. Global warming and rising sea levels? He moved to the mountains. Doomsday bug wiping out humanity? His house could be sealed and was well stocked with supplies. Nuclear war or asteroid impact? He was the proud owner of a bunker, twenty feet under his garden with a solid steel hatch and supplies and air to last for a fortnight.

He never went anywhere, not for fun anyway. The folks next door might go to Florida and enjoy themselves at the beach, but not Chuck. If he went anywhere it was for survival training or maybe a gun show. That's where he met his wife Lara. She was a survivor of a different sort. She was into guns and the Bible and where Chuck prepared for worldly disasters she prepared to meet the Wrath of the Lord as she liked to put it. She was sure the End of Times was nigh, and that only those who believed and at the same time prepared for Armageddon would survive. Chuck merely paid lip service to her religious convictions. He wasn't really interested but decided that an additional insurance policy could do no harm, in particular if it kept his wife happy at the same time. And as for Lara, she was delighted to have met someone so dedicated to survival and the coming battles that she was so sure of. They pitied the people and relatives they knew who wasted their time going abroad or having fun at weekends. Yet at the same time they were also proud in the knowledge that they, Chuck and Lara, were destined to survive and that their progeny would people the Earth when all others had perished and long been forgotten.

One Saturday morning Chuck was busying himself as usual on that day of the week. After their eco breakfast that his wife insisted on for reasons of health and to protect the environment - though he did at times wonder what the point was of protecting the environment if she expected the end of the world soon - they set about their different chores to prepare for the worst. For Lara that meant reading scripture and praying which she interrupted at certain times to tend her ecological garden and to feed the hens they kept. For Chuck growing vegetables and keeping livestock was only important for reasons of autarchy. He wanted to be as independent as possible from outside food supplies in case the economic system collapsed and the nation was faced with starvation. His family at least, he had decided, would not go hungry. The first thing he did every day at dawn was to go to their little byre where their only cow had spent the night. He milked her. Having his own milk every morning gave him the satisfaction of knowing that a large corporation had not profited from him at least. After breakfast he let the cow out on the meadow and began to inspect their supplies of food, arms and all other necessities they had in store. He had seen all the things, he knew everything by heart, even the best before dates on packets of food, but he still insisted on checking everything again the following Saturday. The high point of his inspection was the opening of their underground shelter. He opened the steel hatch by hand though there was a hydraulic system that was strong enough to push several tons of material aside if the exit was blocked in a nuclear attack. The hatch opened onto a narrow staircase that led down to several large rooms that functioned both as shelter and as their main storage. Copious quantities of food and drinks aside, the shelter boasted a generator and air tanks that could not only supply anyone taking shelter with fresh air for a fortnight but that could also keep the generator running for the same amount of time. There was also a large sofa-bed in the main room and sundry communications equipment. Chuck tested each item of equipment one by one to ensure everything was in good working order.

When he had finished checking everything he sat down in an armchair feeling both reassured and satisfied that everything was in order. He let his mind wander. It was one of the things he liked to do, imagine a catastrophic scenario and how he managed to bring his family through alive against all odds till in the end they were amongst the happy few who had survived to build a new world. He sat engrossed in his reverie. The phone rang. It was his son Jack.

"Hey, Jack. What's up?"

"I'm on my way to you, Dad. The Chinese have launched a nuclear attack. I'll be there in five minutes."

Chuck was electrified. The moment he'd prepared for had come at last. All the years of hard work had finally paid off.

"Drive like hell, then. We'll be expecting you."

He got Lara into the bomb shelter and waited for Jack at the entrance, all the while scouring the sky for any sign of a missile hurtling towards Earth. A cloud of dust heralded Jack who pulled up moments later. They hurried down into the safety of the shelter and closed the hatch just in the nick of time. Less than a minute later an enormous nuclear warhead exploded just five miles away. Chuck breathed a sigh of relief. His family was safe! He had done it.

The phone rang. Chuck snapped out of his reverie. This time the phone was really ringing. He recognized the number immediately. It belonged to his son Jack.

He picked up the receiver with thoughts of doomsday still on his mind. Some people said there was a special bond between parents and their children that made telepathy possible under grave circumstances. Could his reverie have been more than just imagination? Was doomsday just around the corner? Was the end nigh?

"Hey, Jack," he said apprehensively. "What's up?"

"Hi Dad, I'm just calling to let you know I'll be spelunking with some friends, so don't expect to hear from me for a few days."

Chuck breathed a sigh of relief. "Where are you?"

"We're right outside the Silvermine Valley cave. We're planning to go down to the great lake, camp for a night and then make our way back via the Glenhill caves. Shouldn't take more than five days so if you don't hear from me by coming Friday you'll know where to look."

Chuck nodded and thought back to the time when he had first taken Jack spelunking there. "All right then, kiddo. Have fun and take care."

The following day, it was Sunday night to be precise, Chuck was sitting in the living room watching the late night show. Lara had already gone to bed and he was sitting alone with his third beer wondering how Jack was getting on in the caves. Despite the cozy armchair his beer and the telly he felt a pang of envy at not being part of Jack's little adventure. And besides he had a weapon's cache and a store of milk powder and food hidden away in one of the caves that he wanted to check again. It was one of the few things he had never told Jack about so he couldn't ask him to do the checking as with some of the other caches that his son helped him with. "You never know, after all," he used to say to himself. "You never know what could happen next."

What exactly might happen next he didn't elaborate on but the risk of having one person in possession of all his secrets, even if that person was his own trusted son, seemed too much of a risk to Chuck.

All the while the host of the late night show was rambling on interrupted only by the sporadic laughter of the audience. Suddenly the show was cut off and a new picture appeared: EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM

Chuck sat bolt upright. "It's the Chinese," he said. "It's them goddamn Chinese. I knew it. I just knew it," he said to no one in particular with the reverie from the previous day still fresh on his mind.

"This is the Emergency Broadcast System," the speaker announced. "A massive solar flare has been detected. There is a high probability that Earth will suffer a direct hit. All satellite systems are expected to be lost and it is possible that there will be severe damage even on ground level. You are advised to seek shelter if possible. Gather as many supplies as you can. Go to a safe place such as the basement of your building or a tornado shelter. Take a battery powered radio and listen for further announcements."

For a second Chuck was too surprised to do anything. Then he sprang up and ran up the stairs yelling for Lara. "What the fuck do they mean by solar flare?" he thought. Falling asteroids and evil aliens aside he had never given outer space much thought. He pulled his wife out of bed and tried to explain things to her on the way back down even though he didn't really understand himself what was going on.

"Is the end nigh?" she asked him when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"It could be, well I don't know, the TV guy just said seek shelter and there could be lots of damage."

"It is Judgement Day," she said with confidence. "We must have faith, Chuck."

"Of course, honey. But let's empty the fridge quickly and get down in the shelter. We can pray there," he said hastily seeing her reach for a Bible on a shelf.

She nodded and then hurriedly emptied the contents of the fridge onto the tablecloth and then carried the whole lot out of the house and down into the bomb shelter. Chuck sealed the steel hatch and breathed a sigh of relief. "We made it," he said and congratulated himself at his foresight in building an advanced shelter with an independent life support system.

"Trust not in steel and concrete, Chuck," Lara said. "Is Pride not the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins? Let us kneel and repent and pray to the Lord for His forgiveness!" She grabbed his arm and pulled him down to his knees with a determination that would brook no contradiction.

Two hours later Chuck's knees were in agony.

A fortnight later the shelter's oxygen supply was almost exhausted. In spite of all his efforts Chuck had been unable to establish any contact with the outside world. His communications equipment registered nothing but static and even the external camera didn't work.

"Now what the heck is wrong with all this stuff?" he muttered to himself. "Solar flare my ass. I bet it was the Chinese. We just got nuked and the feds were trying to cover up."

Lara shook her head disapprovingly. "It's judgement day, dear. The world we knew has gone to make way for a better place. Rejoice, Chuck! Rejoice for salvation is near!"

He sighed. Well, I hope you're right, but whatever it is, one thing's for sure. We can't just stay here and wait any longer. I'll have to go outside myself and see what there is."

He walked up to the hatch and grabbed the handle. It was cold and very stiff. It moved a little and then got stuck. Chuck considered whether to engage the hydraulics system but decided that saving energy was important so he gave the handle one more try. He took hold of it with both his hands and strained against it. Suddenly the handle moved all the way. The hatch popped out like the cork of a champagne bottle after shaking the bottle. It flung open with such unexpected force that the startled Chuck was pulled out with it. The air from the shelter rushed out with such force that Chuck was thrown up into the air several feet. The solar superflare had burned up planet Earth and blown its atmosphere into space leaving behind a ball of rock. A billion stars shone through space onto the dark desolate landscape around Chuck. He gasped and suffocated and fell to the ground dead.

It was the one thing he hadn't prepared for.

### Zeus

Once when  Zeus was being particularly overbearing to the other gods, his wife  Hera convinced them to join in a revolt. She drugged  Zeus, and when he swooned the gods bound the sleeping  Zeus to a couch taking care to tie many knots. This done they began to quarrel over the next step.  Briareus, whose life Zeus had saved, overheard the arguments. Still full of gratitude to  Zeus, Briareus slipped in and was able to quickly untie the many knots.  Zeus sprang from the couch and grabbed up his thunderbolt. The gods fell to their knees begging and pleading for mercy. He grabbed  Hera and hung her from the sky with gold chains. She cried in pain all night but, none of the others dared to interfere. Zeus couldn't sleep that night because of her weeping and the next morning he agreed to release her if she would swear never to rebel again. She had little choice but, to agree.

Zeus

Zeus then went back to his old ways, commanding the other Gods to do his bidding and, most irksome to Hera, continuing his affairs with sundry Goddesses.

Hera pretended not to see and was full of smiles when Zeus looked at her, but all the while her cunning mind which still smarted from the

Briareus

humiliating failure of her revolt, was seeking a way to have revenge.

Then one day, it was about the time that Alexander's invincible armies were charging across the Persian Empire, Hera came to a decision. "Iris, my voice's trustiest messenger, hie thee quickly to the drowsy hall of Hypnos, and bid him send a Dream to Zeus of being in a banquet with Dionysos and Aphrodite, and let Dionysos replenish his chalice with wine so that it is never empty, and let Aphrodite weave a passionate love dream around him from which there is no awakening."

Then Iris, in her thousand hues enrobed traced through the sky her arching bow and

Hera

reached the cloud-hid palace of the God of Sleep. Around him everywhere in various guise lie empty Dreams, countless as ears of corn at harvest time or sands cast on the shore or leaves that fall upon the forest floor.

There Iris entered, brushing the Dreams aside, and the bright sudden radiance of her robe lit up the hallowed place; slowly the god his heavy eyelids raised, and sinking back time after time, his languid drooping head nodding upon his chest, at last he shook himself out of himself, and leaning up he recognized her and asked why she came, and she replied "Hypnos, quietest of the gods, peace of all the world, balm of the soul, who drives care away, who gives ease to weary limbs after the hard day's toil and strength renewed to meet the morrow's tasks, bid now thy Dreams, whose perfect mimicry matches the truth, in the likeness of a banquet to appear to Zeus and feign the presence of Dionysos and Aphrodite to fill him with wine and his heart with passion. So Hera orders."

Hypnos did Hera's bidding and not long after Zeus fell into a deep sleep whose delightful and unending dream kept him from knowing that he was no longer awake.

Freed from his supervision the Gods began to forget about human affairs and rather chose to live among their own kind. The rise and fall of the Roman Empire saw people abandon the old Gods whose temples were turned into churches. The middle ages bore witness to the fanatical hatred and violence with which the new creeds had taken control over human affairs. Even later, closer to our own time, people forsook the belief in the divine altogether and found faith in their own ability to control the world and shape their destiny.

Six runners - in full Greek battle gear - raced the six miles up Mount Olympus, home of the gods, with their shields and long spears clanking. It was the opening to the annual Prometheia festival in which the dodecatheon, the twelve main Gods of ancient Greece, was celebrated. During the three days of the festival there were public prayers, two marriages, and a naming ceremony, where followers, who considered Greece to be a country under Christian occupation chose an ancient name - like Calisto, Hermis or Orpheus - and 'cleansed' themselves of their modern Christian ones.

It was the first time Chara had joined the festival and she was enthusiastic. "I love the energy this place has," she said to her boyfriend Leonidas. "It's going back to the roots. It makes me feel the continuation through the millennia."

Leonidas didn't answer her. He had only joined the event out of love for her and because she had asked him very much, well, and if he was honest with himself, he was also a bit curious. Deep down, however, he felt very ill at ease. As a devout Christian it felt wrong to attend a festival that celebrated the ancient pagan Gods. He was a fighter pilot in the Greek air force. He was of medium build with dark hair and brown eyes and his interest in outdoor activities had given him a swarthy complexion which stood in stark contrast to Chara. She seldom spent time in the sunshine and her tender features, her pale skin and silky hair lent her a degree of beauty that Helen of Troy would have been proud of. She taught Art and History at a secondary school. People sometimes wondered why she was together with Leonidas, a man she didn't seem to have much in common with, but she didn't mind. "Let people think what they will," she said. "I love him and that's all that matters."

The following Sunday Leonidas attended church service where the priest railed against the Prometheia festival and denounced its followers as 'miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion'. This made Leonidas feel even more guilty and he decided to help Chara get away from the pagan Gods. In his eyes her interest, indeed her adoration of them, was as bad as being addicted to heroin or cocaine.

Meanwhile, high up in a place no mortal could espy, mighty Zeus was stirring in his sleep. Any dream may lose its attraction when it has been dreamed too long, and even though Dionysos and Aphrodite themselves were granting Zeus everything he desired, he was beginning to tire of their presence after more than 2300 years. His dream was in a land without time and he didn't realize how long he had slumbered, indeed he didn't even know that he was merely living in a dream, until worshippers at the Prometheia invoked his name and shook him free of his dream. No one had called his name for such a long, a very long time, that a single person calling to him almost came as a shock. He sat up in his divine bed and understood that none of the things that had passed between him and Aphrodite were true. He knew that he had been cruelly deceived. Vexed he called for Hera, but there was no reply. In fact no matter who he called the result was the same. But his greatest surprise came when he gazed down to Earth and didn't recognize the world anymore. The stench and noise of modern transport made him irate. He took a deep breath and inhaled the history that had passed since he fell asleep. The lost centuries appeared before his eyes and he was wroth. But when he saw how He and the other Gods were derided and ignored, how humans prayed to strange deities he had never heard of, and how many mortals worshipped no one at all, he was incandescent with rage. He took his mighty sceptre and shook it with a violence he would not have thought himself capable of. The largest and most powerful flash of lightning ever seen left his sceptre and struck the White House. It was blown to smithereens.

"I will teach you to incur My wrath," Zeus shouted and shook his sceptre again. This time lightning struck the entrance to the underworld leaving the gates wide open. Hades, the Lord of the dead and ruler of the underworld, heard his furious brother shouting. With the gates to the underworld flung open he saw his chance to escape the nether realm and retake the land of the living. He let loose Cerberus, the three headed hound that guarded the underworld so that the dead could not return to the land of the living, put on his helmet that made him invisible and strode forth to investigate.

With Hades and Cerberus gone from the underworld the dead rejoiced and thronged towards the exit themselves. Ere long the entire underworld was on its feet and billions of ghoulish wanderers were headed towards the land of the living in the vain hope of regaining their own former existence. Even in the Tartarus, the nethermost part of the underworld where the most evil beings are sent, news spread. The first to leave was the many headed hydra that was once defeated by Hercules, and behind the vicious serpent came an army of terror.

When Hades emerged from his shadowy realm he saw part of what had enraged his brother Zeus. People digging treasures from the earth without the least sign of gratitude or even sacrifice to the Gods. Pestilential vehicles that poisoned the air all around and made so much noise that the mortals couldn't hear the Gods anymore. There were people flocking to strange cults around the planet worshipping non-existent deities, and far and wide temples that had once honoured the Gods lay in ruins. Where were the people who had once sacrificed black sheep to Hades with their faces averted lest they attracted his attention? Hades decided to let the dead come out of the underworld unhindered to teach mortals a lesson and to enrich his realm with the sighs and tears of the mortals.

When Zeus saw Hades he looked at his brother suspiciously. "I suppose you were in the plot with my dear wife, too," he said angrily.

"I know nothing," Hades replied. "All I know is that the mortals have gone mad."

"When were they ever sane?" Zeus replied. "Have you seen Hera? Have you seen anyone?"

Hades shook his head. "No one, brother. Ah, it's been a long time, such a very long time since we were together. It's good to see you again after all. What about the mortals?"

"Let them do what they do best - die. I want Hera and Hypnos. Who else could have tricked me in so vile a way."

"She will come to you soon enough, brother. You know her weakness for the mortals. Behold the Earth! See what Cerberus and Hydra are doing. See the unending number of the dead sweep across the land of the living. Soon the mortals will be but a distant memory."

Zeus nodded. "Your council is wise,

Hades

brother. Let's enjoy the spectacle and wait for wicked Hera and the others."

When Cerberus emerged from the underworld it was nighttime. Not far from the entrance he could see strange lights moving at high speed. Cerberus bounded across the countryside and came to a halt in the middle of a road. The driver of a bus braked hard and managed to stop just a few feet away from Cerberus. For a moment the two simply looked at each other in surprise. Then Cerberus pulled one of his three heads back before smashing through the glass and biting off the driver's head. Screams of terror filled the vehicle and passengers moved to the back of the bus trying to get away from Cerberus. By then the bus became engulfed by the swarming dead who smashed the windows. Ghostly hands reached into the vehicle and pulled their screaming victims out. Teeth and claws of the dead ripped through the flesh of the living and minutes later Hades shadowy realm had new subjects. Onward the ghoulish army marched. When they encountered a police car a few shots rang out, but what can bullets do to those who are

already dead?

Hydra set off in a different direction after leaving the underworld and came to a town where the monster serpent wreaked havoc.

Cerberus

The very same priest who had railed against the 'miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion' was holding mass in a church beleaguered by hordes of the dead. "It is a punishment from God for our sins," he said. "It is a punishment for homosexuality and divorce, a punishment for abortions and a revived paganism. Let us pray and repent our sins and the Lord will save us."

At that very moment one of Hydra's heads peered through a window. It smashed through the glass and grabbed the priest with its jaws. Hydra took a bite and tossed the body to another of its heads where the same gruesome spectacle was repeated until there was nothing left. At the same time its mighty tail smashed open the church door to let the dead pour in and overwhelm the terrified worshippers.

Hydra

Outside the town Leonidas was on duty at the air force base when the alarm came to scramble. Within minutes his squadron was over the town. The streets were full of fleeing people. In some areas there was carnage and after that everything was quiet. All that could be seen was a peculiar grey mass that was pouring through the streets. Leonidas spotted the Hydra. Its many heads were busy slaughtering the inhabitants and its scaly necks were awash in bright red blood. Leonidas fired a missile. It struck one of the heads. The head exploded into a shower of blood and brain. "Got you bastard," Leonidas cheered. Moments later two new heads grew back just as his plane passed over the hydra. One of her heads flung itself upwards and snatched the jet out of the air. It crashed into the ground exploded into a huge ball of fire.

When Chara saw footage of the hydra on TV she immediately understood what it meant. In spite of growing up in a culture that for hundreds of years had treated ancient Greek myths as no more than figments of imagination she instinctively knew that those ancient stories had to be true. The devastation and death caused was so massive and advancing so rapidly that there was no time to think about things in any case. Chara grabbed a few belongings, dashed to her car and drove to Mount Olympus. Many of the others present at the Prometheia festival were there already.

"What does it mean?" was the only thing she could say.

"The meaning is simple, isn't it?" a man said. "Our forefathers were right about the Gods. They feared the Gods and we can see that they had good reason to."

"But why now," a young woman asked. "Nothing happened for the last two thousand years. So what's wrong now?"

A heated debate broke out which was quickly interrupted by a woman wearing white robes. Chara recognized her as one of the priestesses from the Prometheia festival.

"That," she said forcefully, "is the wrong question. "We must ask ourselves what we can do."

"So what can we do?" Chara asked.

"Simple," the priestess replied. "We must do as the ancients did. We must make a sacrifice. We must sacrifice to propitiate the Gods and we must continue to sacrifice until they are propitiated. It is either that or we're all going to die. We have all seen on TV what is going on. We have seen how useless our weapons are. Let us do now what we can do before it's too late."

The priestess gave instructions and soon some of the group were building a makeshift altar for the sacrifice, while others were gathering wood and another group went to find an animal to sacrifice. They returned with a sheep which they quickly put on the altar and held down. The priestess spoke a prayer begging the Gods for mercy while the sheep bleated pitifully. Then she cut its throat. Bright red blood gushed out and ran across the grey stones of the altar. They then lit a fire and put the sheep on it. Everyone prayed and begged the Gods to accept the sacrifice.

The smell of the sacrificed sheep rose up into the air in a column of dark smoke. High up the pleasing scent of the mutton wafted around the noses of Hera and some other Gods and Goddesses.

"A sacrifice to us," Hera said. "Now there's something I haven't smelled in a long time."

"So it is," Ares, the God of war said. "Now that you mention it we've neglected the mortals for rather too long, I fear. Riding about with Hermes in his chariot is most amusing but I think we'd better take a break. And just look down at the mortals, what a war they're fighting!"

"That's no war," Aphrodite said sadly. "Behold the gates of the underworld! They're wide open and death is ravaging the land. There's no love left anywhere."

"But who made the sacrifice?" Hera asked.

"There on Mount Olympus," Ares said. There's a small group of mortals begging for our help. What shall we do?"

To Zeus we must go," Aphrodite said. "He's the only one who can send Hades back to his own realm." She saw the worried look on Hera's face. "Oh, I know it won't be easy but there's nothing else we can do now."

"Very well," Hera nodded slowly. "To Zeus we must go and beg for his mercy."

"What about the supplicants on Mount Olympus?" Ares asked.

"I'll fly to Hercules and ask him to stand guard there," Hermes said.

While Hermes flew off in search of Hercules the other Gods went straight to Zeus.

Hades was the first to spot them coming. "See, brother, it is as I said. Let the mortals perish and Hera will come to you soon enough. Here she is hurrying to you with the other Gods close on her heels."

When Hera reached Zeus she threw herself at his feet. Before he could blow into a rage she admitted everything she had done, how she commanded Hypnos, the God of sleep and dreams, to do her bidding, and how she and the other Gods had wiled away the centuries while Zeus was sleeping and dreaming.

Her openness and contrition surprised Zeus who was used to her scheming, her lies, complaints and accusations that often made their relationship unbearable for him.

"My Lord," Aphrodite said giving Zeus her sweetest smile. "Is it not enough that we have been separate for all these long years. Let us turn this reunion into a happy event that we can all enjoy." She slipped her arm under his and gently pressed her body against his. Hera was beginning to seethe with indignation at the Goddess of Love flirting so overtly with her husband, but then she decided to pretend not to see. "After all," she said to herself, "I can always get my own back later."

"Then what do you suggest?" Zeus asked. He quickly fell under Aphrodite's irresistible spell and forgot about his anger.

"A feast," she said. "A feast to celebrate our reunion."

The Gods and Goddesses made merry and many a chalice of wine was emptied and many a kiss given before anyone remembered the mortals and the predicament they were in. By that time the small band of worshippers on Mount Olympus who were guarded by Hercules were the only people left alive on the Earth. Hades was sent back to his shadowy realm with all his subjects. Chara and the others, the 'miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion' as a priest had called them, were left to repopulate the Earth. Never again would they neglect the Gods.

### The Time Machine

One day in early autumn in the not so distant future Henry Purcell walked to the main entrance of his villa. He breathed into the DNA breathalyser that served as a lock and the front door swung open automatically. Security cameras watched and ensured that no unpermitted person entered with him before closing the door again. He stepped through the derober which removed his streetwear and shoes and proceeded through the main hall to his study where the butlerbot had already placed a nutrient drink on his desk. Henry Purcell loved new technologies and if there was any kind of new gimmick available, irrespective of how useful or silly it might be, he would buy it. That aside he did a good bit of inventing and building himself which was partly the reason he preferred nutrient drinks to traditional meals. "Why," he would say to himself, "why waste an hour on a meal when sipping a drink had the same effect?" To him eating like sleeping might be a biological necessity but hardly something desirable. He was a man of action, a man of work, a man of the world economy who constantly strove to better his own life by earning more, acquiring more and inventing more. Few things were more loathsome to him than time lost being idle.

There was nothing to be said about his appearance. After all, who cares what a robot in the factory looks like as long as it does its work well?

It should come as no surprise that an important area he was interested in was how to make things more efficient so people could save time. On the day he strode into his home he was working on solving a critical question of transport. Transport was slow and expensive. Even on Earth it took much too long to get from one point to another, but in space the distances were prohibitively huge. What was the point of building a spaceship if the voyage to even the nearest stars took decades? There had to be an alternative and he, Henry Purcell, was not only determined to find it, but was indeed on the verge of a major breakthrough. To be more precise, after years of calculations and research he had built a prototype transporter that, if he was correct, should transport itself and anything in it to any destination in the universe in a split second provided the computer was given the correct destination in a three dimensional grid.

The only problem was that for travel to be reliable the precise location of a destination had to be known. This made travel to more distant parts of the galaxy impossible. Nevertheless it would make an enormous difference to travel in the vicinity of our solar system. He decided that as a first test flight, if one could call it a flight, he would transport himself to the international base on Mars. Here was a destination whose exact location was well-known and that was large enough to make sure he would arrive inside it even if there was a slight deviation from the destination. As an additional security measure he decided to wear a space suit.

At long last the great moment had come. Henry Purcell entered his transporter, did a final systems check and re-calculated all the data required for his destination. Everything checked, everything worked. With the confidence of someone who had flown a thousand times before he activated the transport program. The light vanished and he felt like someone in a coma, his mind worked but he couldn't move. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the light came back. His first sensation was one of feeling light too. "Of course I'm light," he said to himself. "I'm on Mars. Gravity here is just 38% of that on Earth."

Delighted he opened the hatch and looked out. A bleak, forbidding landscape greeted him. Rocks, stones and dust all the way to the horizon, all in the same hue of rusty brown. "Death and damnation," he cursed. "Where's the international base? It has to be here." He quickly got out of the transporter and looked around. There was no sign of human activity anywhere. No buildings, no vehicles, not even any vehicle tracks let alone an entire base. And yet the area looked strangely familiar to him. To his left was a nullah, an ancient watercourse, and on the far side a long hill with a gentle slope. Just behind him extended a vast plain. Then it struck him. It looked exactly like the place where the international base was located. He got back in the transporter and accessed the computer for images of the base. "Just as I thought," he said. "I'm in the right place, but what's happened to that infernal base? It can't just have vanished."

He focused his mind on everything that had happened and on the information available to him. There had to be a mistake somewhere, but what was it. Slowly a suspicion emerged and began to take shape in the back of his mind. He activated the communications system and searched for any signals but drew a blank. Then he redirected the receiver towards Earth. He found a faint signal which the computer amplified.

"ongoing rescue efforts at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant......it is reported that radiation is expected to spread in a northern direction due to prevalent winds..."

"Chernobyl? When the heck was that? Computer, what year was the Chernobyl disaster?"

"On 26 April 1986."

Henry Purcell sat dumbfounded. Then it struck him. "But of course! How silly of me. I forgot one of the parameters. If the transporter goes via an area where there is no space then there can be no time there either. I'll have to recalculate everything."

But without access to his main computer that was easier said than done and time was running out as the oxygen supply in his suit was limited. He did the best he could and activated the transporter to take him back to his point and time of origin.

When the light came on again he felt the strong gravitational pull of Earth. "Good old Earth," he said. At least I made it back again. How could I be so stupid to forget about the time factor!" He opened the hatch but instead of his workshop there was a vast expanse of desert. The undulating dunes continued all the way to the horizon. "Now what," he cursed. "Don't tell me I'm back in the age of dinosaurs." He took off his helmet and breathed the hot arid air. The energy gauge of the transporter was low. "Not enough left for another trip now," he said. He deployed a solar panel and stepped out of the transporter. "Might as well look around while I'm waiting. The scorching heat was unbearable. He turned round to look in the other direction and was met with a breathtaking view. Resplendent in all its glory stood the great pyramid at Giza complete with its white marble exterior and gold peak that radiated like a heavenly fire in the glare of the sun. Mouth agape he stared at the unexpected sight. "This is certainly turning out to be more exciting than I'd bargained for," he said. He took off his space suit and walked towards the pyramid. He found walking across the hot sand slow and arduous. As he came round the pyramid he saw a canal stretching from its base into the distance. People clad in ancient Egyptian garb were milling about, oblivious to his presence. But when he came nearer he was spotted by one man who immediately started yelling and pointing at him. When the crowd became aware of him people moved towards him, slowly and yet he felt menacingly. He turned with the intention of leaving again but found that his way was cut off. The crowd drew ever tighter around him like the noose around a neck. He held out his hands open to show he was harmless and smiled. "Hi," he called out and kept smiling. "Hot day today, eh? I wish you wouldn't all keep staring at me like that..."

But if he had hoped to appease the crowd he was disappointed. If anything, the sound of his voice enraged the crowd who began shouting at him and even pushing him angrily. Then suddenly he felt a blow to his head and he collapsed.

The next thing he knew he was lying in a wooden cart with his hands tied behind his back. His head felt like someone had hit it with a sledgehammer and he could feel a trickle of blood running through his hair and every beat of his heart was pounding in his head. He lay still for a while, the cart rumbling across the uneven track. Peeping out of one eye he saw the silhouette of a man walking beside the cart against the glare of the sun.

"Hell's bells," he cursed under his breath. "Now I've really landed myself in it. Instead of being feted at the international base on Mars as the hero who made space travel quick and easy, I've become a prisoner in ancient Egypt. Time travel's supposed to be impossible anyway." He began to re-examine the equations and calculations for his transport project but nothing seemed to make much sense and he slowly drifted off into an uneasy slumber with numbers, pyramids, equations and Egyptians whirling around his mind like in a grotesque maelstrom.

Several weeks later Henry Purcell, inventor and respected scientist, found himself in the unenviable position of being a domestic slave in a large house in Alexandria. After his capture he was taken to court where he understood nothing and was sentenced to slavery. He was not even taken to a slave market but brought immediately to the house he was serving in. The only silver lining in his deplorable condition was that people there spoke Greek rather than Egyptian and as he had studied ancient Greek at school he was able to understand basic things from the very beginning which enabled him to make fast progress in the language. His days were filled with menial tasks that he found degrading, but as his mind was preoccupied with the problem of how to incorporate the time factor into his calculations so that he would be able to return to his own time safely, he often made a mess of his domestic chores and was regarded as having little intelligence. "Here's the gormless one again," was a comment often made by the other slaves and servants who more often than not had to sort out the mess he made.

One day he was sweeping the floor in the main hall. He was so absorbed in his train of thought that he forgot to move on and kept sweeping the same patch over and over again. The majordomo watched speechless and with growing anger. Never in all his life had he had to deal with such an extreme case of absent-minded incompetence. Suddenly Henry Purcell had the broom ripped from his hands. The furious majordomo yelled at him and started thrashing him with the broom, which fortunately was no more than a bundle of light twigs tied together. Henry Purcell retreated to the yard of the estate where the majordomo threatened him with far worse than a mere broom if he dared show his face inside the house again and left him standing without further instructions. For Henry Purcell this turn of events was unexpected but not altogether unpleasant. Being freed from his onerous domestic duties meant he could concentrate all the better on his own problems. He sat down with his back against the wall. While he was thinking his hands played absent-mindedly with the sand beside him. His hands slowly dug into the loose sand and then let it glide through his fingers. It was then that he made a discovery that would ultimately destroy the world – a piece of chalk.

Delighted with his find he stood up and began writing equations across the walls of the building. He was left undisturbed for several hours which meant that he was able to cover a large part of the walls with equations, numbers and mathematical symbols. Later in the day when the majordomo had recovered from his rage and had some time to spare he remembered his gormless slave and decided to see what he was up to. When he discovered his gormless slave writing all across the walls he was dumbfounded. Slaves couldn't write, most people couldn't write their own name, and someone who could write so much had to be important. It slowly began to dawn on the majordomo how mistaken they had all been in their judgement of 'the gormless one'. Not knowing what to do he did the only thing he could. He went to the master of the house and explained the matter. The master came and watched Henry Purcell in silence for some time. "Friend," he said, "what is it you are writing?" But Henry Purcell was too absorbed to notice him. He took the chalk away and repeated the question. Torn from his thoughts Henry Purcell was somewhat irritated but he understood that the speaker was someone of importance. It was a simple question and yet a hard one to answer. "I am calculating the relationship of time and space in a space-time continuum if that continuum is circumvented. It's a rather long story," he added hastily seeing the perplexed look on the other's face, "but it's vital to me, in fact it's a matter of life and death."

"I've never met or even heard of anyone like you. You must come from very far away."

"Yes, that's true in a manner of speaking," Henry Purcell said. "What's your name?"

"My name," he said in surprise. "I'm the master of this house, Eratosthenes is my name. Everyone knows me in Alexandria and beyond, I'm the Chief Librarian at the Great Library."

Eratosthenes the Chief Librarian at the Library of Alexandria! This time it was Henry Purcell who was flabbergasted. "I can't believe this," he thought. "Eratosthenes, the man who first proved the Earth is round, the man who calculated the circumference of the Earth and the distance to the sun, and all that 200BC! And I'm standing face to face with him." He looked at Eratosthenes in awe. "Yes, I've heard of you, of course I know you. I just had no idea this was your house."

"Come with me," Eratosthenes said kindly. "Let us go and talk."

They went to Eratosthenes' study where Henry Purcell told him about everything, where he was from, his own time, how he had accidentally discovered time travel, and most importantly that he had to work out exactly how to incorporate the time factor in his calculations so as to be able to return to his own time.

Eratosthenes thought matters over for some time and shook his head slowly. "You should never have done this," he said with a frown. He looked out of the window where the leaves of palm trees swayed in a gentle zephyr. "Nothing good will come out of it, that's one thing I'm sure. What I don't know is how to help you. Never in all my time at the Great Library have I come across anything that might help. Yet help you must have for it is impossible for you to stay in this time. It is imperative that you return to your own time as soon as possible and never use your invention after that." He looked at Henry Purcell with piercing eyes, not sure whether to believe his incredible story. "There is only one man alive who might, just might be able to help you. He is a friend of mine. His name is Archimedes."

A fortnight later Henry Purcell was standing on the deck of a Phoenician trireme. The wind was fair and the ship was making good way towards its destination, the city of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. Henry Purcell wasn't very keen on trusting his life to an ancient ship that took him ever farther away from his transporter, but he had little choice. He was so used to having powerful computers helping him with mathematical problems that doing so without one would in all probability take him years. And if Archimedes lived up to his reputation as the world's greatest mathematician ever he might just be able to get the help he needed. Armed with a letter of introduction from Eratosthenes he was sure Archimedes would do his best to help. He wondered why Eratosthenes was so categorically opposed to time travel. The predicament he found himself in was more than just problematic, of course, but that had nothing to do with time travel in principle, it was only a question of doing things properly. And yet Eratosthenes had made him promise never to use his invention again apart from one final trip back to his own time. It was an absolute condition Eratosthenes had imposed in return for his help. Just then a shout arose. "Pirate ship!"

Henry Purcell looked about and saw a ship pursuing them in the distance. He was on a merchant ship and the only hope they had was to outrun the pirates. Naked feet pounded the decks running hither and thither, some getting arms and others manning the oars. The sound of a drum began to fill the ship. Long rows of oars dipped into the sea and propelled the ship forward. Faster and faster the drum beat and ever faster the oars moved in and out of the water, but it was not enough. The pirate ship gained on them, slowly at first but when the oarsmen aboard the merchant vessel began to tire it became clear that they could not get away.

"Pox and pestilence," Henry Purcell cursed. "That's the last thing I need. If those pirates capture us I'll never make it back to the transporter."

Several men began to assemble at the stern armed with bows and arrows while others prepared buckets of water.

"What are they doing?" he asked the captain.

"When the pirates are near enough we'll try to shoot burning arrows at their sail. If it catches fire we may be able to escape. But they'll be doing the same, so we have the buckets to put out any firebrands."

When the pirate ship was near enough an arrow came flying across to test the range. It hit the stern of the merchant vessel low down. One of their own archers shot back but the arrow fell a few feet short into the water at the bow of the pirate ship. On the deck of the pirate ship Henry Purcell could make out men armed to the teeth with swords, axes and other nasty things that he preferred not to think about.

The captain shook his head sadly. "We're lost," he said. "Their arrow carried farther than ours. They'll set our sail ablaze soon. There's no escape."

"Yes there is," Henry Purcell said suddenly. "It's just a question of mathematics."

The captain sighed. "I know that you're important and you know famous men, but here all their wisdom is of no use."

"And I tell you it is," Henry Purcell said with determination. "The mathematics of ballistics states that a missile travels farthest if it is launched at an angle of forty-five degrees. Your archers are holding their bows in the wrong way. Here let me show you." He walked over and directed an archer how to hold his bow. An arrow was let loose and flew high up into the air. They all watched it with bated breath and when it hit the enemy sail a loud cheer arose on the merchant ship. They quickly fired burning arrows in the same way and minutes later the pirates' sail was ablaze while the pirates' own arrows were still falling short. It wasn't long before the pirates had to give up their pursuit and the Phoenician merchant ship was able to sail away.

Henry Purcell was the hero of the day. Overjoyed the captain and his crew gave him profuse thanks.

"I will never forget what you have done for us," the captain said to him. "You saved our ship, our cargo, our freedom and even our lives. If there's anything we can ever do to repay our debt you must come to me and we will help you."

Henry Purcell was not a very emotional person and found himself embarrassed by the outpouring of gratitude and joy. "Thank you," he said quietly. "I'll be quite happy if you get me to Syracuse safely and quickly."

And that's exactly what the captain did, for they arrived in Syracuse the very next day. Henry Purcell bade his shipmates a heartfelt farewell not expecting to see them ever again and set off in search of Archimedes.

Thanks to Eratosthenes' letter Henry Purcell received a warm welcome from Archimedes who found the idea of time travel intriguing but concurred with Eratosthenes that it was something not to be tried.

"Why not?" Henry Purcell asked a little taken aback at the vehemence with which these two eminent scientists spoke against his discovery.

"Why not, you ask? But have you never thought of all the things that could go wrong even if the utmost care was taken? Why you might accidentally travel to the moment my mother was born with your machine causing the house she was in to collapse and to kill her. And what would the world be without an Archimedes?" he said with evident pride. "In fact the number of things that could go disastrously wrong is so large that the number itself verges on the infinite. Every single time you use your machine you increase the risk exponentially. That you as a mathematician should not have realized this is astounding. Have you no brains to think at all?" he exclaimed visibly vexed at the other's lack of reasoning.

Crestfallen Henry Purcell slowly nodded. "I suppose you're right," he said. "I hadn't really thought it over as I'd never intended to travel through time, I only wanted a faster way of getting from one place to another."

"Oh, I know, I know, or I'd have beaten your head in with this crown the moment you set foot in my house, but you must promise me only to use your machine for a last trip back to your time and then to destroy it. This thing must never become known to anyone else."

"All right then, I agree. One last trip only," he said looking at the crown. "I say, is that not the king's crown?"

"What? Oh yes, yes it is. It's nothing important really. The king thinks that the goldsmith who made it for him cheated on the amount of gold used. The king's quite right, the goldsmith did cheat. Silly to try to cozen a king. I've had it here for a while. The problem was quite simple to solve really but sometimes it's good to let the king wait a bit. His gratitude will be all the greater if he feels the problem was bigger than it really was."

Just then a messenger arrived from King Hiero II requesting the presence of Henry Purcell.

"Whatever you do," Archimedes said quietly, "don't tell the king the truth. If he thinks he can travel through time he'll have us tortured to death to get his hands on that invention of yours!"

The king it turned out was interested in hearing news from Alexandria, in particular from Eratosthenes. With what he remembered from history class Henry Purcell made up a story of new discoveries by Eratosthenes that kept his majesty spellbound.

Archimedes meanwhile decided that the best way to approach the problem of time travel was to have a relaxing bath where he could let his mind wander freely. He immersed himself in the warm water with the pleasant sensation of heaven engulfing his body that launched his mind into a tempest of thoughts. Numbers and equations filled his brain as he busied himself trying to understand the mathematical concepts he had learnt from Henry Purcell. "Be logical! Keep it simple, just like the crown!" his mind suggested. He closed his eyes and thought and thought. Then it struck him. The solution was simple. It had been there all along. In fact, Henry Purcell had told him without realizing it. Archimedes jumped out of the bath and in his excitement forgot to put anything on. He ran out of the house stark naked and headed for the royal palace shouting "Eureka! I have it, I have it!"

The good people of Syracuse watched their most famous citizen in bemusement as he ran through the streets, thus not only giving them something to talk and laugh about for years to come but also ensuring the lasting fame of his exploit. At the palace the surprised guards let him run through the gates and all the way to the king's grand hall. Shouts of 'Eureka' rang through the palace and when he reached the king's hall he took Henry Purcell by the hands and danced with joy. The king, thinking that the mystery of his crown was solved happily looked at Archimedes, while Henry Purcell alone understood the true reason for Archimedes' extraordinary appearance.

"Well then," King Hiero said finally. "What about my crown?"

Archimedes suddenly remembered where he was and what everyone else had to be thinking. "Ah yes, the crown. It contains less gold than you gave the goldsmith."

"You are sure?"

"Yes, your majesty. The goldsmith cozened you."

"And where is my crown?"

"Oh well," Archimedes said with embarrassment. "I suppose I was too excited about solving the problem to remember to bring it." He looked down his nude body. "I seem to have forgotten other things as well."

The king laughed. "Never mind. I'll send some guards to accompany you back home. You'll give it to them. And you," he said to Henry Purcell, "may also leave."

And thus one of the most famous and enduring stories about science in the ancient world was concluded and yet only two men knew the truth about Archimedes' run in the nude.

"You know," Henry Purcell said, "even two thousand years from now people will still be reading about how the famous Archimedes ran through the streets of Syracuse stark naked when he solved the riddle of the king's crown."

"Ran through the streets over such a simple matter?" Archimedes said in disdain. "How could anyone believe that?"

"To be honest, I too read the story and believed it. But then, how could anyone have guessed the truth?"

"You're right," Archimedes said after a brief pause. "And people must never know the truth. Anyway, I think there is something you want to know," he said and explained how he had solved the riddle.

Several weeks later Henry Purcell was back in Alexandria after an uneventful journey. He immediately returned to the house of Eratosthenes where he was eagerly awaited.

"Well," Eratosthenes said, "how did everything go?"

"Splendid," Henry Purcell replied. "Actually the answer was there all along right before my eyes, but it took an Archimedes to spot it," and he related everything that had happened since his departure. "And now I can only hope that my transporter is still where I left it and hasn't been damaged by anyone."

"I'm afraid it's not there anymore."

Henry Purcell went pale. "What do you mean? Has it been stolen?"

Eratosthenes smiled. "Relax, my friend. I had it moved to my house for safe keeping. We couldn't risk anything happening to it now, could we? And a very heavy thing to move it was too. My men hardly managed and it cost me quite a sum to ensure they'd keep their mouths shut about it. So very soon you should be safely back in your time. We can only hope that your actions here haven't caused any damage into the future that we don't know about yet." He looked at Henry Purcell very sternly. "And don't you take any detours on your way home or ever use this infernal machine again just because you know how to use it now. It isn't safe and never will be, do you understand?"

"Why yes, certainly," he said somewhat abashed feeling like a schoolboy who was being admonished by his master. "Can I just ask you for one small boon before I leave?"

Eratosthenes looked at him askance. "Well then, what is it?"

"Take me to see the Library of Alexandria. It is still famous even in my time and seeing it would be a dream come true."

Archimedes thought for a moment. "Oh very well, I suppose no harm can come from it after all the things you have seen and done here."

After a tour of the library Archimedes took his ecstatic guest back to the transporter. They stopped at the entrance where they said their fare wells.

"Meeting you and your friend Archimedes has been the greatest pleasure and privilege of my life. I'll always remember you."

Eratosthenes smiled and embraced him. "Have a safe journey, my friend. And remember, no detours and no other trips. Destroy this thing when you're back home."

Henry Purcell entered the transporter and closed the hatch. He keyed in the correct data and prepared for launch. "How proud Mum and Dad would be if they could see me now," he said to himself. His parents had died several years before without knowing how successful their son would become. The thought of his parents gave him an idea. He would see them one more time before he returned home and destroyed the transporter as he had promised. "Just one little detour won't matter," he told himself. "I've been through so much already, what should go wrong now. I'll just see them and then be on my way again."

He entered a new set of flight data and activated the transporter which vanished into thin air right before the eyes of Eratosthenes.

Two thousand two hundred years of history passed by, yet to Henry Purcell it was no time at all. His transporter emerged in the town of his birth where he had grown up. He had decided to see his parents when he was still a toddler to make sure they wouldn't recognize him. "Better safe than sorry," he said to himself feeling a bit guilty at not having heeded Eratosthenes' warning.

It was early in the morning, the time around dawn. Henry Purcell watched his parents' house in the twilight. A light came on. His mother was in the kitchen getting breakfast ready. Then his father came in carrying little Henry Purcell. Half an hour later his father left for work and not long after his mother left the house. She held her little son's hand. When they came through the garden gate the little boy dropped his ball. It rolled to the feet of the adult Henry. He picked it up and handed it to the little boy. "Thank you," the little lad said and touched his hand.

The moment their hands met a rupture occurred in the space-time continuum that went all the way to the time where Henry Purcell had first travelled in time. He watched his mother walk down the road with her little son and felt tears welling up in his eyes. He quickly returned to the transporter and prepared to go home at last. "My very last journey," he said to himself.

The rupture in the space-time continuum ended the laws of physics in Henry Purcell's own time and the universe reverted to the state it was in before the Big Bang.

Henry Purcell activated his transporter and flew into oblivion.

The End
By the same author

Captain Kim Pottinger has been based on Mars for several years and he is feeling bored with the red dustball. All that is about to change when newly arrived Dr. Larry Wathen goes with him to find out why a team of scientists investigating Cydonia, an area famous for the Face and some pyramid shaped mountains, cannot be reached by radio anymore. Of particular concern to Kim is that his girlfriend Jane is one of the missing scientists. The discovery they make shatters their understanding of both Mars and Earth. But when things begin to go awry they wonder if they will ever return to Earth...

What is the truth about Mars? A gripping adventure story that began thousands of years ago on Earth in a land long vanished beneath the waves.

The Mars Conspiracy

ISBN-13: 978-1499620160

www.briansmith.de

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/525960

Jeremiah, Master of the Temple, is an unscrupulous fraudster, liar and holy man. One day he has a very unusual chance meeting with Sycko, a troubled young man. Jeremiah persuades Sycko to join his temple where he is confronted with all the ingenious ways that Jeremiah comes up with to cheat people and get at their money until one day things begin to turn ugly...

ISBN-10: 150062098X

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/525741
Find out more about the author and his books.

www.briansmith.de

