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“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. – Revelation 7:9
Date: 04.15.2103
Earth – New Athens, Central North America
“Good morning, Madame Chairman.”
Janelle Brooks stood with Julie Aaronson in the brightly lit atrium of the new capital and shook Madeline Chen’s hand. Outside the world was beginning to wake up from its winter slumber. The mornings were still chilly and the nights definitely required a warm coat.
Inside the atrium, however, it was warm and moist. The room was filled with lush green plants, a stream of water ran through it on the eastern side, and the fresh scent of earth mitigated the lingering chemical odor of the extruded plasticrete that was being shaped in the massive 3D printers. The city was nearly 75% complete; occupying what had once been vast ranchlands in the plains of the Reformed United States of America.
Madeline smiled and motioned to a couch and several chairs, “Please, sit.”
Janelle sat next to Julie on the couch and Madeline chose a chair across from them.
“I understand you have been working together since the outbreak began.”
Julie nodded, “Nearly, we began collaborating about three years ago. She smiled at Janelle and took her hand, “We formalized our partnership last year.
“And you have two children, is that correct?” Madeline asked.
Janelle nodded, “Yes, we both took in orphans during the crisis. We finalized Toby and Karen’s adoptions last year in the same ceremony. They get along well, despite the age difference.”
Julie was staring at the walls of the atrium, which twisted in curves, first widening, and then slowly closing towards the top. Fifty feet above them was an enormous skylight and the morning sun glinted off of the white surfaces.
“This is magnificent,” she said, intrigued by the formations embedded within the structure, “even better than the pre-construction sketches had indicated.”
Madeline Chen nodded, “I am glad that you like it. The architect Shigoro Hitagashi designed this building and most of the others under construction now. I’m particularly impressed with the way the light moves through each of the buildings through the course of the day.”
“And this entire city, it is being constructed almost entirely out of plasticrete, isn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed it is.”
Julie nodded in approval. “I’ve heard great things about the polymer. It’s non-toxic, durable, and extremely versatile.”
Madeline smiled, “I can see you have been doing your homework. Were you also apprised of the health benefits of the new construction?”
Janelle nodded, “We have been following that closely as well Madame Chairman. The HEPA E-20 is being used in all of the buildings, correct?
“Yes. We will have the HEPA filters in every public and private building in this city. That, along with clean energy generated through the solar fields, wind farm and the geothermal applications, and this city will be completely ‘green’ without any of the half-measures we had to take with already established cities.”
“It will give people the highest quality of life that Earth has ever seen.” Julie added.
“Yes, indeed it will.” Madeline paused, “But you didn’t come here to discuss architecture, did you?”
“No, Madame Chairman, I’m afraid I did not.” Janelle answered.
“Well, I have to admit, before we get started, that I’m a fan of your work, Dr. Brooks, as well as yours Dr. Aaronson.”
“Our work?” Janelle asked, startled.
“Yes, I minored in Bioscience in college,” Madeline replied. “But my parents were insistent that I make Political Science a priority, so,” she sighed, “here I am. The widow of a politician and the Interim Chairman of the Terran United Planetary Government. Just saying it out loud makes me miss the hard sciences even more.”
Janelle shook her head, “I had no idea. Well, that certainly will make my report easier to relay.”
Madeline laughed, “Go easy on me, I hate to admit how long it has been since college!”
“Of course,” Janelle said, and queued up the information on her tablet. “I’ve sent you all of these documents, but here is where we stand. Thanks to the iDent chips here in the Reformed United States, as well as the ten variants employed in most of the countries around the world prior to the virus outbreak, we know that our current world population stands at just over fourteen and one-half million, with another half to three-quarters million UPs, four hundred thousand of those are within Chamaral Falls in Mauritius and the rest...”
Madeline blinked, “Did you say...ups?”
“Sorry,” Janelle looked embarrassed, “Unaffected Persons, UPs for short. We started using the term last year and it just sort of stuck.”
“Right, that makes sense. The UPs are all of those who remain in the enclaves and haven’t been infected with the ESH virus.” Madeline said.
“Exactly. In any case, our total world population is hovering at right around fifteen million, one hundred seventy thousand.”
Madeline nodded, “That’s about in line with what I had been apprised of.”
Janelle gestured to Julie, “Dr. Aaronson has been studying the teratogenic qualities of the ESH virus and she has sent you a summary of her findings.”
Julie keyed up her figures.
“As you may know, prior to the ESH virus, anywhere from ten to twenty-five percent of clinically recognized pregnancies naturally end in miscarriage. This number was possibly closer to fifty percent, the majority of those ending in the first days, long before a woman even knows she is pregnant. Additionally, it should also be noted that 80% of all miscarriages occur in the first trimester.”
Madeline Chen nodded and motioned for Julie to continue.
“In the first few months of the ESH outbreak, I noticed a sharp spike in miscarriages and stillbirths, even among women who had entered their second and third trimesters. Now I wasn’t sure if this was a side effect of the virus entering the system during the pregnancy and perhaps killing only the fetuses that were not AB negative, so we did extensive testing once we saw the trend in some of the refugee camps. There was no correlation, many of the fetuses we tested were AB negative blood types, so they should have survived the ESH virus.”
Julie stopped, sipped from the glass of water sitting in front of her and continued. “My next theory was that the shock of the ESH virus invading the maternal host was detrimental to the fetus. This took some time to disprove, a full year in fact. The ESH positive women who attempted to get pregnant were continuing to miscarry in record numbers.”
“The percentage?” Madeline asked, straight to the point.
“Over ninety seven percent, Madame Chairman, in the...”
“Ninety seven percent of pregnancies in ESH positive survivors end in miscarriage?”
“No ma’am, ninety seven percent of pregnancies miscarry in the first trimester. Overall, we are looking at closer to ninety nine point six five percent of all pregnancies ending in miscarriage. Worse, this might not end with the first generation, or even the second.”
“What?” Madeline Chen stared at Julie, her face turning pale.
“There’s more. From what Dr. Brooks and I can tell, and this is in the process of being verified by a team outside of Munich, the embedded herpes virus markers indicate that there will be a far higher infant mortality rate as well. Possibly as many as seventy-five percent of those babies who survive until birth may die before their second year.”
As if it weren’t enough that the survivors were hanging on by threads in refugee camps all over the world. All of them waiting as the massive machines printed new homes which promised to clean the air still reeking of death, and protect them from the illness which had ravaged every corner of the globe.
The cities, filled with unending scores of the dead, were unlivable. The stench had faded, but the environmental hazards remained as millions of decomposing bodies filled the buildings, streets and tunnels of the cities. Many of them had been razed by incendiary devices, starting with the cities of Guiyang and Hong Kong. Lagos and Kinshasa on the African continent had also seen fit to cleanse by fire, as had Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia.
“I...I don’t know what to say,” Madeline said softly.
“We have to take action, Madame Chairman, now.” Janelle said, “As it stands, Earth’s population is smaller than it has been in over three thousand years. And if we don’t do something about it, that number will be halved within three decades.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Put simply? We need an organized breeding program.” Julie added, bulldozing through the shocked look on the Chairman’s face.
“If we don’t institute it now, and promote genetic diversity and a benefit-based breeding platform, we will lose the opportunity completely.”
There was a moment of silence as Madeline Chen scrolled through the reports, her lips moving slightly as she read the proposal.
“You are suggesting a massive change to how human families exist,” Madeline exclaimed, paging through her tablet. “This is reminiscent of a caste system in concept.” Her eyes widened at a particular passage. “A system which rewards women for having more babies than they can take care of?”
Janelle nodded, “I know, it seems like a lot to take in. Especially since we were all raised with the threats of population control and large families faced more taxes rather than less. But please understand, Madame Chairman, I first obtained my master’s in social science before going into the biosciences. We have spoken with others extensively as well for this report. If we don’t change how we think about reproduction immediately our species is likely doomed to extinction.”
“There are artificial wombs,” Madeline began.
“Yes, and those are failing at a spectacular rate. We have hopes that, given time and advances in technology, we will be able to ferret out the failure points, but right now, the artificial wombs can successfully produce lower life forms, but not humans. We don’t know why yet, but the children come out developmentally and psychologically stunted. Imagine a generation of children like that.” Janelle warned.
Julie chimed in, “By focusing on and rewarding those who are able to have children, we maximize their breeding potential. No human is exactly alike, some may have better success than others at carrying a fetus to term. Please keep in mind that those miscarriage numbers are averages and do not represent the individual so much as the whole of the breeding population tested at this time.”
Madeline’s face still carried a look of horror, “And this next bit,” she said, stabbing at the words on her tablet, “You want to lower the age of reproductive consent to sixteen?”
“For at least twenty years, yes. We need to maximize reproduction potential.” Janelle said, adding forcefully, “Look around you, Madame Chairman, look around at this empty world and tell me you think that everything is going to right itself on its own. That this beautiful new city will actually have children. We are at a tipping point and we must act, now.”
An hour later, Janelle and Julie were escorted back to the waiting shuttle. It would take them back to Genesis, Mississippi, the first of the new cities to be built and one of three new survivor cities in the North American continent. Madeline Chen, while Chairman of the Terran United Planetary Government, counted the three cities in her territory.
“She thinks we are nuts.” Janelle said, grim-faced.
“That she might, but the reality is there, in black and white. It might stomp all over our American sensibilities or the message of ‘one child is enough’ that we have all been hearing these past twenty or more years, but damn it, we don’t have time for that,” Julie fired back.
“The entire UPs population aside, we have just under four point five million women of breeding age left, and in twenty more years, that number will drop to less than one point five million women if we don’t do something about it. We are facing an extinction level event.”
Madeline Chen sat for a long time in silence after the two scientists’ departure. Her Comm link had flashed, indicating she had messages, but she had set it to “Do Not Disturb.” The other people would wait, just until she could digest these grim details.
There were hours of meetings left in the day, and reports from the salvage missions going on in New York, Washington, and San Francisco. There were hundreds of people working their way through the cities, recovering what art they could. The loss of the Greater Los Angeles basin to El Nino-fueled wildfires had spurred recovery efforts. The art and historical artifacts that had been lost in southern California was mind-numbing, but there were other far older areas of the world in which there were even more historical and literary treasures.
Madeline had been told that there were frantic efforts going on in Rome, Cairo, and other ancient bastions of humanity. They couldn’t save everything, not even a fraction of it, but the salvage teams were doing their best.
She paged through the messages on her tablet. The packs of dogs, wild now that their owners were gone, roamed the cities. It had become such a problem, especially for the recovery teams, that the remainder of the military were dispatched to cull their numbers down. The situation was nearly as bad for the formerly domestic cat populations, but cats were far better at caring for themselves than the dogs. And they didn’t hunt in packs like their canines counterparts. The only good news from that quarter was that the rat population in New York City had finally been eradicated.
She reviewed the documents Janelle and Julie had prepared for her, scrolling through them on her tablet, words and phrases jumping out at her. What they were suggesting was nothing short of fascism. An enforced registry and breeding program? Women spending their lives as living hosts for babies? It was shocking and she struggled to wrap her mind around it.
And then there was the space expedition side of it. Dr. Aaronson, whose nephew was captain aboard Calypso, had actually suggested that they send the rest of the UPs to the Gliese 581 system. As if they could just whip up a spaceship! Not a single piece of the ship could be built by ESH survivors, not without risking contamination and death of any UPs who climbed aboard the vessel. It was insanity.
They had learned the hard way, over and over, that to approach an Unaffected Person and make contact, regardless of stringent safety procedures, was to introduce death into their midst. They had lost hundreds last November when a settlement in the Appalachians was exposed, and again in northwest Washington a month later.
There had been no discussion of possible cures or retroviral therapy in the proposal. No ideas on how to eliminate the ESH virus and re-integrate the UPs population in with the surviving population here on Earth. And worst of all, no hope for eliminating the teratogenic effects of the virus on fetuses.
Madeline felt ill.
She had been so strong since Gary had died. He had treated her like a fragile, glass doll for the entire course of their courtship and marriage, but Madeline had survived when her husband and billions had not. She had flown over the wreckage of the Reformed United States, as well as much of the rest of the world, and seen the devastation. Empty cities, heaps of the dead whose putrid smell was carried on the wind even now, four years later. The highways filled with cars, and more bodies, whose decaying effluence had poisoned waterways and soil, filling even the green cities with contamination. The world was now overrun with every kind of animal except for man.
She had survived it all. She was stronger than she looked.
Her tablet beeped, a message scrolling into view.
Transmission Packet
TUPG to acting Chairman
/BEGIN TRANSMISSION
Faint signals detected from mars. three survivors remain. all esh positive. more updates to follow when signal booster is in place.
/END TRANSMISSION
A glimmer of hope. The Mars colony had been declared a full loss, but apparently they had been wrong. It was something to hold onto, a tiny victory in a sea of loss.
The spring sun poured through the windows, warm, reassuring, but Madeline rubbed her temples slowly as she felt the beginnings of a migraine forming.
She had been set with an impossible task. Somehow she had to convince the rest of the world to listen, and follow, this daring plan. She would probably be vilified. But if she did not take action, the future of the human race was doomed.
Madeline’s hands strayed to her flat belly. No child had ever grown inside of her. Gary had always treated her like a delicate doll, capable of breaking if handled wrong. In many ways, she had been just that to him, a doll to be displayed, almost worshiped. He had loved her, and she him, but never had the subject of children ever been more than a thing that other couples did.
Perhaps it would help if she announced that she would do her part as well. At the age of thirty-nine she was on the outside edge of fertility and the chances of carrying a child to term were riddled with more than the average number of problems. Despite this, her willingness to commit to the breeding program would go far in helping others accept the radical changes on the horizon.
Madeline imagined an embryo taking root inside of her, turning her flat stomach into a round bubble of life. It certainly couldn’t hurt to try. For the first time, the idea of having a child brought a smile to her lips.
Outside of the enormous white building whose twisting spires were reminiscent of a double-helix strand of DNA, a city continued to rise from the plains. Set between Missouri and Oklahoma, in what was once endless prairie, the latest in technology dictated every street, sidewalk and building. Soon the ESH survivors would come here, to this new city, and settle into life again.
But for how long? The city plan included schools, daycare centers, and playgrounds. Madeline thought of these, sitting in her atrium in the city center. For the first time she wondered, would they ever see children fill them again?
