Up from the vaults

The day that all life on Earth ended, Ben Morris was having his lunch, outside the vaults, down in the depths of the bank, where he worked as a teller. He was engaged in on-line gambling and so far, had lost more than he could afford but it didn’t matter much to him.

Ben was 34 years old, divorced, no family and a compulsive gambler, which was not a particularly good habit for someone who worked in a place where trust in employees was paramount. He used to dream about getting access to all the money locked away in the vaults; wow, what a spree he could have! For Ben, though, it wasn’t about getting rich. Gambling was his supreme passion; all the money in the world would not stop him from gambling.

Lunchtime over, he got the lift to the public area and stepped out. And stopped in his tracks. The bank was completely empty of people. He checked his watch. He looked out to the street, and again, it was empty.

Slowly, his heart hammering in his ears, he walked through the open doors. On the streets of New York, and in the skies, there was no sign of life. No sound of birds, people or traffic. There were cars and trams on the road, all stationary; all empty.

There was one difference; the skies were clear, not a cloud in sight, yet the footpaths and streets were wet, with a liquid that had a smell he was familiar with. He had smelled it in the sheds of the cattle farm he had grown up in, the sheds where they slaughtered the animals.

He leaned over and puked into the gutter.

He then noticed a newspaper placard across the road that he had seen that morning. He hurried across the road to read it. The headlines read: “USA develops Apocalypse bomb. It is only a deterrent says President.” He snatched up the newspaper to read further. It explained how the bomb, once detonated was programmed to repeat and repeat until all human life was not only ended but eliminated without a trace. Disappeared, dissolved. No messy cleaning up of bodies. The technology had to be further refined so that it could be contained within a certain area.

So, the ‘deterrent’ was now a reality? Some crazy person had pressed the button and not only wiped out the enemy, but self-destructed too? He threw his head back and roared in agony. The sound echoed through the city streets. There was no reply. He was alone.

Just as Robinson Crusoe discovered, when he thought himself the only man on the island, one’s instinct for preservation inevitably kicks in. Once Ben has calmed down to a reasonable level, he realised that there were unlimited resources all for the taking, which would enable him to survive.   

A faint hum showed that there was still power. That would mean refrigerators would still be working. Food would be readily available. Kitchens would still be working. He could cook and eat and drink all he liked.

He strolled into a nearby liquor store, helped himself to a cold bottle of beer and sat down in a tram shed.  He switched on his iPhone. The gambling app came up. An hour later he suddenly felt very tired. It was hot in the sun, so he looked for shade. A couple of stores along, there was a Macy’s department store. There was a King size bed in the window and the doors were open.

He fell asleep almost immediately, and when he woke it was evening. Reality burst into his consciousness. He was alone in a post-apocalyptic world, perhaps the sole survivor. He was king of an empty world.

A streetlight was shining in his face. He went to shade his eyes, when suddenly a shadow, then a shape appeared. He leaped off the be and went to the window.  Standing before him, her mouth open was a young woman. For a moment, they just stared at each other, then she came into the store. 

“Omigod, omigod”, she said, “I thought I was the last one on Earth!”

“Me too” said Ben, “Who are you?” Questions started to bubble out of them both and they exchanged stories.

Ben told her he had been deep down in the bank building, near the vaults. Her eyes widened. “Me, too! I was in the vaults of Chase Manhattan and when I came up, I was the only one alive.”

“Well, I was down there doing a bit of private gambling on the net. My addiction saved my life. What sort of life it’s going to be is the big question? What about you?”

She looked away and smiled sadly. “I don’t suppose it matters now, but I was doing something I could have got arrested for. I was attempting to commit fraud. I’m in big, she paused,” I was, in big financial trouble and in a desperate situation. I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

“Looks like we are sole survivors on the great desert island of New York. Only thing is, we don’t have to live on coconuts and catch our own fish. I’m hungry. Let’s find some food.” He added, “I’m Ben, Ben Morris.”

“I’m Kelly Macarthur”. They solemnly shook hands and walked down the block to where Ben often had lunch.

The kitchen in Gino’s Trattoria was still warm from lunch-time cooking, so they helped themselves to a bowl of pasta, followed by chicken and vegetables. Then they talked.

Ben said they had to find out what had happened? “We have to investigate, but let’s leave it until the morning. There are whole households of furniture, TVs, microwaves, PCs at the Macy’s store. We might as well make it our headquarters for now”. Kelly agreed. “I’m so tired now,” she admitted. Tonight, they were uninvited guests of Macy’s department store.

The next morning, after they had showered in the staff bathrooms, changed into clothes they pulled off the racks, and helped themselves to breakfast at the stores cafeteria, they got onto the Internet. The time and date were set at 12.08 30/04/2020 - the previous day.

All the same, they tried to connect with people internationally, but after a gruelling hour, they agreed there was nobody out there.

The big question was, what had caused the apocalypse, was the air toxic enough to kill them too? Ben thought that perhaps they would be able to penetrate government files for some answers, but that also was not to be. 

Weapons of mass-destruction had been around for a long time, sparking wars in the Middle East. Biological weapons had been the most feared, as much as any other physically destructive weapons. Defoliants had been used in the Vietnam war, resulting in gross malformations and cancers in humans. “Personnel” weapons, that killed people, leaving buildings intact had also been used, regardless whether the targets were civilians or not.  

Kelly said, “Remember the movie, Dr Strangelove, where the cobalt bomb was ideal for the purpose of spreading radiation out across the Earth? It enveloped the planet in what one of the characters in what they called “a doomsday shroud. I remember the last scene where the bomb just kept exploding and setting off another and another to infinity. Wicked stuff.”

So, Ben said, “What if scientists, from whatever country, America, China, Russia, had gone further, and found a weapon that not only killed through radiation, but also vaporised bodies?”

An initial search of government agencies had come up with very little to back their theories,  but a scientific journal produced something interesting.

Together, they read an article titled, Mad Scientist, from the science magazine Future Science.

‘When people talk about using energy, they tend to forget that energy isn’t always easy to come by, in the massive amounts needed for modern weapons. To conserve ergs, the efficient mad scientist knows the vaporization energies of his or her targets, as they may be are known though. For example, did you know it takes more energy to vaporize a person than it does to accelerate a kilogram to Earth's escape velocity?

There it was, in print – ‘to vaporise a body’. It had already been in the minds of scientists – mad scientists perhaps, but it had been researched and tested. Did it mean the energy required to turn a solid substance into a gaseous one, like water into steam? In either case, the target would be well and truly destroyed. 

The article went on to say that to achieve vaporisation of a body, it required a simple molecular structure containing an oxygen atom bonded to two hydrogen atoms. With enough energy to break these bonds, it is possible to achieve. It would leave very little residue of water. No rotting bodies in the streets, very neat.

Could this account for the putrid water in the streets? Had such a weapon been developed and fallen into the wrong hands? 

“Wow!” they said, simultaneously, and looked at each other, both with tears in their eyes. “They did it! The monsters did it!”

Now the time for research and action was past, for there was no action to take. They were either the last people on Earth, or the first people on a new Earth. There and then, they made a vow, that there would be no children brought into the world by them, that they would live a life of simplicity and care for what was left in nature, until, with no pollinators or agriculture, it, too would die. 

They were taking a second chance to live again, in a different way, in a world where only two flawed humans would try to atone for the monstrous actions of those in power. Whether they survived or not was up to them. Life was a game of dice in a roulette wheel, and they would take their chances. After all, they were both experienced gamblers.

THE END