Upon This Fragile Thread

Kate sat on a cot in the basement of her store, a flickering flourescent bulb causing a mild strobe effect that gave the room a sense of the unreal. One could pretend it was all a dream, or a sad drug trip, rather than the grim reality they'd all been forced to face in the past few days.

She had been fortunate. After 9/11, her boyfriend at the time, Zack, had converted the unused basement of her shop into a survival shelter. A series of large yacht batteries would provide power for decades if need be, and there was enough food to last even longer. Zack had been a bit strange, and something of a prick, but she felt grateful to him then, and hoped he was okay.

When the riots started, she led the customers in her shop down to the basement shelter. They assumed the authorities would restore order soon, but they hadn't counted on the severity of the riots. Before the phones went dead completely, one of the customers had managed to contact her husband. He was holed up in their house with their son, keeping the rioters at bay with a shotgun. He'd told her not to count on help from the police, as many of the rioters were in uniform. Or, the remnants of uniform, anyway.

That was one of the first things the rioters had done; tear their clothing to shreds, or simply discard them completely. They were part of a growing movement called The Prehistorics, and their mission seemed to be nothing less than the total eradication of all human civilization. Fortunately, in escewing the trappings of modern civilization, they were restricting their choice of weapons. Rocks and sticks were all they would use, so a few people armed with guns were usually able to fight them off. The problem was, more people joined them every day, leaving less people to fight them.

It was the Video, of course. That's what had started this whole thing. The damn Video. It had been broadcast over the Web the previous week, and the result had been rapidly escalating anarchy.

The sound of tearing paper roused her from her reverie. She looked over at Dave, one of the customers who'd taken refuge with them. He was slowly tearing pages out of his Bible, crumpling them up and tossing them in the corner. She couldn't blame him. After the Video, religion meant nothing.

The woman who'd called her husband held her little girl close. The little girl had been weeping intermittently since they'd taken refuge here, and her mother had spent most of her time comforting her. Kate smiled. There was something the Video couldn't change: a mother's love for her child.

Unfortunately, it had changed most everything else. No one could say for certain who it was who had leaked the Video in the first place, but all evidence pointed to a NASA employee. He had been part of a secret project devoted to deciphering and decoding data that had been stored on a strange collection of disks found on the moon over 30 years ago.

Once the Video had been leaked, top NASA officials had verified its authenticity, and revealed its source. During one of the manned flights to the moon, astronauts had discovered a cave, and the remains of an alien being inside. The being had not been dead long, and it was later determined that it was the astronauts' breaching of its environment that had caused the alien to asphixiate. The astronauts found an elaborate collection of highly advanced recording devices, along with what they assumed to be the storage media. They brought the disks back to Earth with them, along with as much of the equipment as would fit. Later missions retrieved the rest. Attempts to decipher the data on the disks led to reverse engineering of the equipment, which in turn led to many of the advances in digital media over the recent decades. Finally, after many years of hard work, scientists managed to decipher the data. What they found shocked them so profoundly that they decided to destroy it, thereby keeping it from discovery.

But one of the scientists, likely a low-level technician, stole a copy of the data and broadcast it worldwide. It seemed the alien had been recording the development of the human race from its earliest existence, to what purpose no one could guess. With the release of the Video, the people of the world were given a definitive account of human history, from their earliest days up to the late 1960s. It disproved every pre-existing historical account, both religious and scientific. It proved beyond all doubt that the greatness of human civilization was a lie, and the true history of the world was so disturbing that most people immediately lost their minds.

Others did not. They saw the footage, and were understandably distrubed by it, but believed that the world they lived in was real enough, despite the fallacy of its origins. They were determined to continue living their lives, the revelations of the Video be damned.

Unfortunately, such people were few, and becoming fewer. In the wake of the Video, houses of worship around the world were burned to the ground, religious leaders were lynched, and the great holy sites were either destroyed or vandalized. The Vatican was still burning, as far as anyone knew, and the Middle East had been laid waste when Israel, India and Pakistan emptied their nuclear silos. The Prehistoric movement had started up soon after, and was growing exponentially each day. With all of human history proved a lie, they decided to revert to a time before history and start the process of human development all over again. Kate wondered how long they would need to hide until the movement burned itself out and reason was restored to--

She noticed then that Dave had stopped tearing his Bible. She looked up and saw that the mother and her daughter were crouched next to his body, eating pieces of his flesh. They were naked and smeared with his blood, a wild gleam in their eyes. In the far corner, Lila and Jack, two others who'd taken refuge with her, began tearing at their clothes. She gasped in horror, drawing the attention of her savage companions. The mother picked up the large can she'd bludgeoned Dave with and, with a low growl, began to creep toward Kate. Jack looked on her with an animal lust, while Lila began grooming him.

Kate knew reasoning with them would be futile, so she did the only thing she could to stay alive. She smacked the can away from the young mother, and clawed deep gouges in the other woman's face. Then, ripping her clothing to shreds, she tore a hunk of meat from Dave's corpse and offered it to Jack, assuming a submissive posture at his feet. Jack ate it hungrily, allowing Kate to join Lila in grooming him. The mother and her daughter would join them later. After that, they would destroy the lights and the batteries, finally venturing outside to add their small tribe to the growing mob.

Kate would eventually bear Jack three children, before dying a few years later from exposure during a harsh winter.

Lost Time

Chen Michaels took his wife and two young sons on the maiden voyage of his prototype time-traveling starship. The family immediately became lost, and wound up sailing the timestream across numerous galaxies, from one madcap adventure to the next, always with an eye toward their proper time and place. For a while, these adventures gave the family a sense of purpose. Chen actually posited the theory that they were meant to be lost, so that they might help as many people as they could, and learn as much as they can about the universe before finding their way home.

During their early adventures, there is an overwhelming sense of optimism among them, as they are flush with their faith in themselves and an unwavering devotion to their noble destiny. They are a family on a grand adventure, and they enjoy every second of it. They dine with interstellar royalty, study the early evolution of their own species and help bring peace to a galaxy ravaged by civil war. The two boys, Cru and Ski, grow from children to young men in this time, falling in love with alien princesses, forming bonds of friendship that reach across the ages and studying with the finest minds of every era.

30 subjective years pass within the paradox buffers of the timeship. In that time, the adventures of the intrepid family become increasingly grim. Where once they had encountered mad scientists with delusions of world domination or planets run by sentient computers, they find themselves more often at odds with psychopaths and monsters. An encounter with a race of warrior-telepaths leaves Chen’s son Cru completely mad, drooling and straitjacketed in a padded brig cell of the massive timeship. He stays that way for 5 years, until a friendly race of telepaths can be found to restore his mind. He never truly recovers, and will never be the man he once was. It begins to seem as though time and space are at odds with them, as they never again visit the worlds and eras of high adventure. Instead, the timeship seems drawn to those times and places where misery and despair have overwhelmed all else, and hope is nearly lost forever.

The journey of the Michaels family reaches its nadir with the tragic death of Chen’s wife to a space-borne plague. Following that horrible day, the family becomes a gang of pirates, striking out at each new era they come to and taking what they need until a time they can finally navigate their temporal starship. Chen no longer believes in their grand destiny of heroism and exploration. He refuses to believe they were meant to suffer as they have, and begins to blame himself for all their tragedies. He no longer even cares about getting home. He is focused, with brutal precision, on using the timeship to save his wife.

At last, Chen’s younger son Ski learns to plot a course through the timestream. They can go to any time they wish, at any place. After years of failure and missed opportunity, Chen can finally go back. He'd stolen a cure for the plague and would bring it back to her through time, forever negating this wretched destiny. For the first time in years, Chen Michaels has reason to smile.

Unfortunately, Ski has also made a rather shocking discovery. The increasing horror of their surroundings may be their own doing, as their travels have been disrupting the flow of history and evolution since they began. Now that they can navigate the ship, and travel directly to a specific point in time and space, it is possible they might unravel the fabric of the universe itself.

Chen must decide how much that matters to him, or if even one more moment with his beloved wife is worth the end of all Creation.

Henry and Gillian

The old woman shuffled from one end of the kitchen to the other, tea kettle in hand. She smiled as the steam wreathed her face in a pleasant moist heat. She paused, letting herself enjoy the moment. By this point in her life, the small pleasures were the only ones she had left.

Until today, of course. Today would be a day of large pleasures. She smiled again, busying herself with the two cups of tea. She did so love having visitors. Of course, living so far out in the middle of nowhere, she could hardly expect them too often. But, she held out hope. She knew how to attract the right kind of people. She set out two plates, placing a cookie on each. She already knew the children liked their sweets.

Henry and Gillian were their names. They had just moved to town recently from the city. She knew the type. Well-to-do parents, professional people, fancy apartment in the city. Then one day they wake up and realize their children are going to be teenagers soon, and they'd rather they weren't teenagers on the city streets. So they sell their fabulous apartment, liquidate some assets and buy a nice little house in the country. One usually goes into consulting, the other generally opens a business in town.

She truly did enjoy these urban transplants. They were always so trusting, so quick to assume that horror and violence were unique to the city. So utterly dismissive of the provincial locals that they never count on finding monsters in their pleasant little getaway.

Never count on finding people like her. Or, more to the point, people like her finding their children.

It was the candy, of course. The candy and the dense forest. City children were all the same. All they knew of nature were city parks, or maybe the odd overnight at a campground. Sooner or later, they'd go out "exploring". And then they'd find out what nature really was. By the time they found her house, they were so desperate for food and someone to help them that their normally wary city instincts were buried under a child's instinct to seek comfort.

And what could be more comforting than a sweet old woman who keeps candy on her front porch?

She usually let them eat for a while before she'd come out, surprise them, then put their minds at ease when they thought they were in trouble. She'd invite them in to rest. She had no phone, but she'd usually offer to show them the way back to town, but would they like some tea and something more to eat first? They usually did, and these two were no exception. They seemed a bit older, maybe 12 or 13, but at that age the veil of maturity is thin and as easily torn aside as their urban sophistication. She dropped the pills in the tea and put everything on a tray to carry out to the parlor. They usually woke up in the oven, just as it was heating up.

She backed into the room, tray in hands, pushing the door open as she came. "Here we go, Henry. Gillian," she said, turning around. "I want you to drink all this tea down and--" The tray fell from her grip with a crash, the drugged tea soaking in to the carpet. A cookie was ground under Henry's boot as he moved in to punch her again.

She grunted as she hit the ground, just before Henry's fist smashed her face a second time. He kneeled on her chest, hitting her again. He stood and stepped back, but it was only to allow Gillian to move in and begin kicking the old woman repeatedly in the ribs before stomping on her chest. The old woman screamed for as long as she was able, eventually reduced to a keening gurgle.

She was dying. Blood filled her lungs and darkness fell across her eyes. Her ears filled with the rasping wheeze of her dying breath, so she only heard her ostensible victims' conversation as a muted buzz through her death rattle.

"You think she got any money?"

"Fucking better," Henry told his sister. "I ain't working at Mom's fucking fag shop for meth money."

"Well, if you think I'm sucking Russel's cock again, you can forget it," Gillian said. "This old bitch don't have money, you can suck the greasy hillbilly's cock."

There was a pause, then Henry grunted out a rough chuckle.

"What?" his sister asked, going through the old woman's pockets.

"I love how easy it was to sell her on the lost little kids routine."

Gillian laughed as well. "Yeah." The old woman felt hot breath on her cheek. It brought a memory of the steam back to her, but not pleasantly. The young girl screamed in her ear, "Never heard of GPS, you stupid old redneck bitch?! Huh?! Huh?!" The old woman wanted to turn away, but couldn't. All she could manage now was a spasmodic twitch.

Gillian stood, delivering another savage kick to the old woman's ribs before walking away.

The old woman lay there in agony for a time, moaning softly.

But not too long a time.

She was dead before the kids had finished looting her bedroom.

The World of Tomorrow

He walked along the dark and deserted street, eyes darting to the left. He was passing another row of overgrown yards and deserted houses, and he'd heard enough stories of what lurked in the tall grass to be wary. He listened for any sounds that might indicate the presence of one of the growing number of savage humans who frequently squatted in the abandoned suburban homes, feeding off the packs of wild dogs and feral cats that roamed the old neighborhoods. Some had been known to attack travelers, particularly those who still bore the basic trappings of civilization.

Civilization. It still existed, just not in the old suburban areas. Those cities still functioning were walled fortresses, the trains that ran between them armed and armored against the primitive tribes that roamed the weed-strewn blacktop of the old interstates. Civilization also existed far beyond the suburbs, in the smaller towns of rural America. But those places were becoming increasingly isolated, cut off from their urban cousins by distance and a widening cultural divide.

He was from one of those towns, a small farming community in what was once Pennsylvania. He was traveling to the city to find a doctor, one schooled in medicine, who could do for his small town what the largely self-taught healers could not. He had been told that there was an old suburban town that had not gone completely savage, and maintained its old rail connections to the city. He hoped the rumors were true. He was not sure he could walk the full distance to the city. He had walked so far already, and winter would be upon them before he could walk back. It was his hope that, should he find a doctor willing to return with him, the doctor would own an electric vehicle. The cities were awash in electricity, and the joltcars, as they were called, could run for many hundreds of miles on a single charge. He had never seen one before. Back home, the mill only generated enough electricity to power the farm vehicles and the town center. Personal electric power was a thing of the distant past, not seen in the small towns since they'd passed the Peak.

He'd read plenty of accounts of life before the Peak, and could see depictions of it in the old movies they showed on the communal television at the town center. He was always so awestruck to see how people had taken electricity and their ease of movement for granted in those days. The days of cheap and plentiful oil. But those days were long behind them, and they'd left the wilderness of the suburbs as their bitter legacy.

His musings cut short as he emerged from the old neighborhood onto what a beaten and weathered sign told him was State Highway 46. To his right was the barren emptiness of one of the ubiquitous shopping plazas that had sprouted up alongside roads like this during the Oil Age. He remembered reading that they had been called "strip malls". From where he was, he saw that some of the abandoned stores still had intact windows. He surmised that this strip mall had been built during the time just following the Peak, and had been made impervious to burglary and vandalism. He approached one, and could see old merchandise still hanging from the racks inside. The windows themselves were scuffed and dented, showing the effects of numerous failed attempts to breach them.

He also saw a number of faded posters hanging inside them, their words so bleached by the sun they were barely legible. One poster promised "Free Power! Free Heating Oil! Free Gasoline!" to any citizens who reported homosexuals and "political dissidents" to the authorities. He almost wished he could gain entry to the store to grab the poster. He was an avid collector of historical relics, and there was very little in his collection from the time most people referred to as The Purges.

It had been the beginning of the end of the central government; a time when alternate lifestyles and opposition politics were a ticket to the firing squad as a crumbling authority tried desperately to keep its hold on a fragmenting society. It hadn't lasted long, and only served to hasten the suburbs' descent into barbarism. The scarcity of oil took its toll on the reach of the government, and by the time he was born, the federal authorities controlled little more than the territory immediately surrounding Washington DC. From what little news his town received of the outside world, he gathered they didn't even hold that much these days.

He moved away from the old storefront, setting his steps upon the cracked asphalt of the old state highway and turning toward the pale light in the east. It was hours yet until dawn, but the bright lights of the city could be seen for miles. He would keep walking toward it, holding out hope that he would find that train station he'd been told about, while despairing at ever succeeding in his desperate mission.

So intent on his goal was he, that he didn't hear the soft pad of calloused bare feet behind him until it was too late.