He wore a watch to cover the scar. Because watches were forbidden on the left hand, he had to wear long sleeves as well. Should a sleeve ride up, say on a crowded subway or during a window day, one could overlook a wrong-handed watch wearer if they weren't explicitly looking.After five years on the run, only those on the payroll were likely to spot his deceit. Still, risks were risks. And for him, all of them were huge.
Something had changed. One of the last Fertiles was captured during the spring. Incredibly, instead of secreting him away in a lab or forcing him into a procreation camp, the government made an about-face and seemed to concede defeat. Not in a manner one might imagine, though, but in the delusion way only a government could conceive. A great ceremony was announced. It would happen during the summer solstice, and it was said that June 21 would mark the day when humanity would be unshackled from fear, unbound by a history of ceaseless, mindless Manifest Destiny and wanton propagation. The propaganda machine whirred to life, telling people that it was time to celebrate the summer of the Final Generation. It was time to forge ahead a new future, one of certainly at last, eternal freedom, total happiness, inescapable purity. Nobody really knew what any of that meant. But sure, they'd go along with it. Humans could only take so much living under the shadow of doom and gloom. Turning their backs to it wouldn't be asking a lot.
That June day, whether it was warm on their side of the planet or cold, there was no question it was a festive, almost raucous atmosphere. People tuned in to the celebration live on their TVs, stood in squares and watched on big screens, and joined revelatory events all over the world. The last Fertile was there, wearing a white gown, waving his arms and smiling. He thanked everyone for their sacrifice, for their lives and for their tirelessness. What did it matter if they'd been unsuccessful? They had each other, right? The Final Generation, the biggest happiest family was no longer taking applications.
And then he was seized. He was no longer smiling. His arms were stretched out where tethers were slid over his wrists before he was strung up for the masses. People around the world watched, momentarily stunned. And then the Authority appeared on the stage. A spokesperson stepped forward, raising her arms and asking for calm.
"Gentle people, we are the great Final Generation. The first humans squatted in caves and gave us fire, they our Alpha. Now, look at us. Great people, we the Omega, have come so far. Do not be saddened by dark thoughts. Remember now that all is part of nature. From nature we came and back to nature we will go. But! We will go as human! Creators, builders, lovers and friends. We are no longer beholden to instinct, no longer driven to spread that seed. We are free. And so, with the world watching, we thank our friend, this man. He symbolizes the last fertile man in the world. We say to him, no more. We do not need your seed."
At that point, she ceremoniously produced a long pair of sharp scissors. Stepping away from the microphone, she held them up to allow the cameras to catch their brilliant, newly minted gleam. Then she strode across the stage, bowed perfunctorily to the bonded man who could only stare back in horror. Pulling an unseen thread, she managed the almost magical feat of removing his entire lower wardrobe in a single gesture. Without so much as a pause, she snipped. Thanks to the wonder of HD, the Final Generation saw everything.
Hand bloodied, she gestured to a couple of stagehands who approached to help with their now bleating and bloody captive. As they tended to him, the spokesperson for all humanity strode proudly back to the microphone.
"It is done! We are free!"
**
He woke in a cold sweat. He was not alone. Someone was in the furniture outlet with him. They were sitting somewhere near the front window, listening to an old portable radio. He could hear static and the occasional drone of an old song. A news bulletin cut a Duke Ellington joint short to tell the world that the last Fertile had been
set free.
Across the outlet, he shivered, angry that the dream had followed him back to wakefulness. He stretched his neck and peered over the back of the couch he called home. Stupid little shit, creeping in on his turf. How the hell had they gotten in anyway? He'd stuffed enough razor wire through the back entrance to bleed a small army.
Gazing down at his wrist, he slid the watch over his hand and stared at his scar. What if it was true? There really was no Fertile left but he. There was no way to know for sure. He'd had a scanner once upon a time, used it out on himself from day to day, almost praying it would spit back the news that he was one of them. But after eight years—the infertility pestilence should have done its work by now—he'd been as fertile as a freshman football team. Well, that joke used to work anyway.
Getting his hands on a scanner now would be suicide. Catch enough Fertiles with a scanner in his possession, and the government gets wise to the hack, puts a GPS on board, patching up one more loophole. Used to be, he'd scan himself for sport after a jack. Get a hot honey lodged in his mind, take her for a good time in his imagination and scan the mess.
The radio switched off. Inwardly, he cursed himself. Somehow he'd managed to be careless again. All he wanted was to be left alone, alone to carve out a miserable existence without being harassed by every hobo with an empty mind and a greedy gut. The government may be playing at a game, acting like all the Fertiles had been exhausted, but they'd inadvertently done him a favor. The reward flyers that used to litter the cities, offering huge sums and everlasting riches to heroic anybodys who uncovered a Fertile were all gone now. The heat had lessened somewhat.
He thought he heard something to his left, reached into a cut in the couch's seam and pulled the broken mirror shard from within the upholstery. He'd wrapped a strip of fabric around the end to give the glass a sort of hilt, and he clutched it tightly.
"Squatter's paradise," said a mousy female voice over his shoulder. He took start, falling from the couch and dropping the makeshift glass blade onto the concrete floor where it promptly shattered. A piece ricocheted up from the floor and cut his cheek. He lay there wincing, listening to his heart thump wildly, and finally tasting the acrid bite of his own blood on his lips.
"I thought I was clumsy," said the voice. He heard her coming closer, stepping from dusty couch to tattered chaise to wobbly end table, and at last coming close enough that he could smell her perfume.
"Go on!" he shouted, trying to sound gruff. The sound of his voice echoed through the furniture outlet, and for a long moment there was no reply.
"Well, are ya okay?"
He closed his eyes and exhaled deliberately. He forced his weary body to mobilize, pushed himself up, careful not to run his hands through the broken glass, and climbed to his feet. There before him in the dingy light was a figure that did not match the tiny voice it seemed to have produced. She was tall and thin, but full of sharp edges. Her shoulders were bony, and though her long arms seemed stringy the way they hung haplessly at her sides, in evidence were strong sinews of lean muscle running up and down them. Her hair was shaved along the sides, with the longer stuff pulled into a ponytail, except for what hung in wispy strings over the left side of her face.
"I'm not looking to take the pork," she said flatly. "So, let's just dispense with that notion right quick and we'll get along much better."
"I don't want to get along with you or anybody else," he returned.
"Yeah, I could tell that from the way you decorated your entryway."
He was about to launch into his madman's rant, hoping it might give her the idea he didn't want to be her buddy, or share a smoke, but he paused at mention of his razor wire nest. She'd somehow managed to get past it.
"Guess you forget about the air vents in the woodshop next door."
Fuck. He had forgotten about them. "Look," he said. "I don't suppose there's any chance you'd just make your way back up that vent like a stringy little rat, and leave me alone?"
"And leave one hobo to all this? Man, you hit the jackpot. Get to choose a new bed each night, and you want to keep it all to yourself?"
"I see," he replied. "In that case, Pick one you like. The white chaise near the eastern side of the store is a particular favorite of mine. A reclaim I think, because it's already been worn down in just the right places. If it weren't for my bad right shoulder, I'd still be using it."
"Mighty neighborly of you," she said.
"Yes, and when you're good and comfortable, feel free to sleep peacefully. I'll just slip over there when you're sound asleep, and slip my cock into your virgin asshole and rape the living shit out of you." He stood there, his chest heaving, hoping that his words sounded menacing, that she'd turn tail and run straight from that store, out of his life forever.
But she just smiled, nonplused. "Cool. Long as you're okay with getting this slid under your skin." She produced a long blade that gleamed in the dirty light. It looked like a samurai sword broken in half and perfect for concealing down one's trousers. "See," she said sweetly. "Got me a cock of my own. Hope you're into that."
He hung his head.
"Ah, don't be so down about things. I'm a good roommate, and I can tell a harmless hobo when I see one. You, you're about as dangerous as a soft peach."
He sank down on the couch nearest him and turned his back on her. "Fine. Go nuts. Just leave me alone."
But instead of doing that, she plopped down on the end of a coffee table nearby.
"I'm on the outs with my father. Was putting myself through college when the teachers stopped showing up. Kind of hard to attend the lectures when there's nobody there to hand out grades. So, I took a hike too."
"Why are you still talking to me?" He lay there, hardly resting. His mind worked a mile a minute, calculating exits she couldn't possible know, plotting his escape should it become necessary.
"Lonely, I guess." She cleared her throat. "And no, not for anything more than an ear to bend. I'm sort of a wayfaring stranger, just trying to make sense of it all. I mean, this is supposedly the last run for our lot. I just want to see if there's anything out there worth doing before we expire."
He rolled over and faced her. In this light, she wasn't terribly hard on the eyes. The loose strands of hair seemed to match her over all personality, provided she wasn't merely playing an assigned role. Still, she'd said something he never seemed to understand.
"Why now? Why is it now when there's no future, people suddenly give two shits about carpe mother-fucking diem?"
She was thoughtful a moment. "If you ask me, I think we're all tied together. One big long rope, person to person, living to dead. One life to the next. As far as I can see, when all the Fertiles dropped off, it was like cutting the cord and letting us all tumble down into darkness. It used to be like somebody was holding on up there, pulling us as a species into the future, however uncertain. Now, there's nobody on the other end. We aren't going anywhere. Can you believe it? Not a single one of us left to carry the tether ahead into the great darkness of tomorrow."
