So, It's The End (eBook)

Jill Rosen (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
158 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-8273-4 (ISBN)

Infos

A dystopian Sci-Fi Fantasy story about a group of teenagers racing to protect the last remaining adults on Earth and save the future of the human species from a devastating plague and an even more deadly threat found outside Earth's planetary bounds.

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It's 2070 and the world is in tatters, ravaged by a plague that has decimated the adult population of Earth. Teenagers hold society together, tenuously but bravely, under the leadership of Earth's seventeen-year-old President, Sam. Unwilling to accept their fate, Sam, along with his younger sister Alex and an international team of fearless friends, race to protect the last remaining adults on Earth and save the future of the human species from an even more deadly threat found outside Earth's planetary bounds. This is a novel that combines elements of Fantasy and Sci-Fi. It is an interesting premise given the current climate of dealing with a pandemic, globalization, and digitalization. It taps effectively into the anxiety of these times in a way that is digestible for all.

Textauszug

Chapter 2:
Alex and Sam

Sam looked over at the clock and slowly turned off the alarm. He didn’t know why he bothered to set it—he was always up before it went off. He made his way into the washroom and splashed some water on his face before getting dressed. He peeked into Alex’s room on the way to the kitchen and saw she was still sound asleep. He liked it when she was able to sleep through the night. Alex suffered from night terrors. They were totally understandable given the circumstances, but she needed her rest. Sam tiptoed down the hallway, careful not to step on the creaky spots, and made his way downstairs to the basement. His mother was heating up some eggs in the kitchen and humming a song Sam did not recognize.

“Morning, Mom,” said Sam.

“Hey, sleepyhead! Ready for the first day of your senior year?”

It never ceased to amaze Sam how well Max’s program worked.

“Sure, Mom. Can’t wait,” grumbled Sam in his best teen-angst voice.

In some ways, he was glad he wouldn’t need to keep up the act much longer. At that moment Alex appeared. She was wearing her new back-to-school dress and had swept up her long, blonde hair into a high ponytail. A combination of good sleep and the right costume made her feel like she was really heading off to conquer seventh grade at a brand-new school.

“Are you excited for middle school, honey?” Mom asked as she scooped eggs onto Alex’s plate.

Mom smiled at Alex with pride and anticipation on her face. “I loved middle school. I started to come into my own and get passionate about my favorite subjects and activities. You’re going to love it too!”

Alex sat down at the table, grabbed her fork, and looked up at Mom before taking a bite. “Can’t wait!”

Alex quickly gobbled up her eggs, drank all her water, and packed her knapsack. “Sam, we’ve got to go. We don’t want to be late on our first day!” Alex said with a beaming smile.

Sam often wondered how she did it. The kids said goodbye to their mom and hiked up the stairs to the front door.

Once they were outside and the door was resealed properly behind them, Sam asked Alex, “Exactly when did you get so good at acting normal? For a moment I almost forgot, well, everything.”

Sam quickly glanced over at the garage and felt that familiar gut punch he got when a flash of Dad appeared in his mind. Alex never looked at the garage. While Sam waited for Alex’s answer, he wasn’t even sure if she was still thinking about his question or had moved on to something entirely different.

“It’s just easier. For Mom, I mean. When we diverge from the program, you can sometimes see awareness in her eyes. Just a flicker, but enough to cause her to turn away and seemingly lose her footing. I worry that one day the program will stop working and she’ll break, like Dad,” Alex said as if she knew what Sam was thinking when they passed the garage.

“Don’t worry, Alex. Max is the best VR programmer in the world! His work is solid. Mom will be okay until we find the cure,” Sam replied, doing his best to reassure his sister and keep her current, unusually upbeat persona going. Even if it didn’t last, starting the day with positive energy would help them both.

It was a brisk morning. Sam and Alex kept up a quick pace as they made their way to Headquarters. While they walked, Sam wondered what it was like back in the 2050s when the “roads” they were walking on were still packed with cars and an entire world of transportation existed below their feet. Mom used to say that, back then, the lights of New York City were breathtaking and vehicles and people were everywhere—
aboveground and belowground. It was never silent or dark. Alex and Sam had seen what she described only in movies or pictures, the few that remained. Maybe one of the only good things about the twenty years that followed was the continued, exponential evolution of jets and rockets. You could now get anything, from anywhere in the world, in five hours or less. In most cases, it was within three hours. Air travel was the only kind now and that included personal transportation aids such as hoverboards and jet packs. If Mom only knew how small the world had become.

Alex’s chirpy voice interrupted Sam’s musing. “You are going to have to start training me on the higher-level missions. You’re about to turn seventeen.” Alex glanced down at her feet as the words left her mouth. She really didn’t want to think about that, but the only way she could deal was to prepare, to take action.

As they entered the front doors of Earth Headquarters, Sam turned to Alex. “Don’t worry. We will start. However, I’ve got at least another year, maybe longer. The goal is to succeed before then. I know we can do it, Alex. We’re close.”

Sam turned to look at Alex as she nodded, waved goodbye, and walked through the double doors to the Research Division. He knew she wasn’t convinced, but he hoped his words inspired some confidence.

The truth was, they really had to succeed before then. Although they were lucky that the Green Revolution and automation boom of the 2030s and 2040s had kept at least the must-have infrastructure running until now, the remaining solar panel networks and wind turbines around the world would soon need repair or replacement. Even more pressing, the automated factories that created most of the world’s food cubes and medicines were on their last legs. Without the necessary manpower, knowledge, and technical experience, they could not rebuild in time.

Sam took the stairs up to Central Command. He had just taken over as Earth’s president after Tyler was programmed a few months prior. Tyler had actually made it to his nineteenth birthday. It was a big risk holding off that long, but he had wanted to do as much as he could to ensure all missions were running smoothly and nothing would be lost during the transition. After The Virus exploded in 2050, it quickly became apparent that it was immediately taking out the adults. It took a bit longer to realize that “adulthood” actually started anywhere between eighteen and twenty years of age, depending on the person. So Humans were 100 percent safe if they were under eighteen, but anything over that was borrowed time. Tyler had rolled the dice for one whole year.

Age turned out not to be the only prognostic factor. Some adults did survive. After analyzing all the case reports, scientists in the Research Division concluded that adults who were deep underground, on space missions, or even on submarines survived, as long as they stayed where they were. For twenty long years, surviving adults tried to figure out how to leave their “safe zones” and be outside without succumbing to The Virus. Space suits didn’t work. Gas masks didn’t work. Ultraviolet blockers didn’t work. The only certain thing was that exposure to some combination of Earth’s atmospheric materials was fatal for adult Humans infected with The Virus. And every Human was definitely infected. Every one. That was another very odd thing. The Virus had not infected any other species on Earth. This was what Alex and the Research Division were in charge of—studying The Virus so they could find a way to fight it.

Alex used Mom’s research and notes to guide her. Before The Virus, a middle-school kid would not have seemed the likely choice to head up a research lab; however, as Humans only had seventeen years to live, children needed to learn fast. Alex and Sam’s parents’ professional roles were what had saved them in 2050. Alex and Sam’s parents were both infectious diseases research students interning for the World Health Organization, or the WHO, when The Virus hit. They were only nineteen years old. As word spread among their fellow students from around the globe that adults were dying everywhere, Alex and Sam’s parents frantically looked for any anomalies or signs of survival that would point to a cure or a way to stay alive. Messages started popping up on the WHO website about adults who had made it. Their mom and dad quickly gathered and reviewed all the information they could about these survivors and knew what they had to do.

The common thread running through all of the adult survivors’ stories appeared to be that they stayed put. They avoided postinfection exposure to the elements, including air and light. The people sending messages to the WHO were scientists in air-locked labs, workers in underground vaults, NASA astronauts in orbit, sailors on US Navy submarines, and troops who took refuge in bunkers as they saw their fellow soldiers dropping like flies. As soon as she connected the dots, Sam and Alex’s mom grabbed their dad’s hand and they ran together to the biochemistry building on the New York University campus, where their infectious diseases lab was located in the basement. It was a satellite research location for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and was fitted to safely store and work with the most infectious and deadly viruses and bacteria. As such, it was fully sealed off from the outside world.

The year 2050 brought the end of the world as all had known it. The number of adults remaining in each state, province, and, in some cases, country, could be counted on both hands. Those adults were 100 percent...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 6.1.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-8273-2 / 1667882732
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-8273-4 / 9781667882734