Her car, a bright pink Toyota Regal, came to meet her by the door. The door opened as she approached and Samantha settled herself into the drivers seat. “Home, Parker,” she said in her best aristocratic voice.
“Yes M’lady,” said the plummey British voice from the dashboard and the car moved smoothly forward. Samantha would much rather have been in the back, to assist the fantasy that she was being driven by a human chauffeur, but the law still required that drivers sat in the drivers seat, where they could reach the controls in case of emergency.
As they left the university grounds and entered the traffic of the main road, she thought fondly back to the time, over twenty years before, when an uncle had given her brother the boxed set of an ancient television adventure series played by puppets for his birthday. Harry hadn’t thought much of them, but Samantha had fallen instantly in love with it, and particularly with the aristocratic lady secret agent who was driven around in a pink Rolls Royce by her manservant, Parker. She’d acquired the voice print of the actor who'd played him and had used it for the verbal interface of every gadget she'd owned since.
“I regret to hinform you, M’lady, that there happears to be a problem with the traffic hinformation service,” the car informed her as it sped away from the centre of Bristol. “I cannot be sure that the road ahead is clear.”
“That's alright, Parker. We'll just have to take our chances.” The traffic information system, like so many other things, was dependent on satellites to deliver information from the cameras and road sensors all across the country to the central assimilation centre, and from there to all the vehicles using the roads. It was considered a low priority system, and so had been sacrificed so that more important satellites could be saved. The result, though, was that the roads had been thrown into a chaos that hadn't been known since the early decades of the century, and sure enough the car was soon forced to slow to a crawl as the road became congested ahead of them.
Their progress was slowed even more as the car kept stopping to allow vehicles from side roads to enter ahead of them. Their selfishness was set too low, she realised. Everyone else had it set to maximum so that their cars forced their way in front of more considerate drivers. That wouldn’t do. Being nice was no good if everyone else just took advantage of it. “I think we need to take a more aggressive attitude to our journey, Parker,” she said, therefore.
“The machine gun, M'lady?” That was the code phrase she'd programmed in to mean that they would raise their selfishness to its maximum setting.
“The machine gun, Parker,” said Samantha, confirming the command. The car accelerated a little, closing the distance to the car in front, preventing others from pushing in. Someone honked a horn at them and she smiled to herself. Up yours, Mister! she thought with satisfaction.
The slow progress they were making was a reminder of the calamity that had so recently hit the world, though, and of the potentially far greater one that might be coming. Passing a row of shops, she saw queues of people lined up outside them, the people complaining loudly and angrily to each other, probably about the scarcity of food and how high prices had become. Things had been affected that almost nobody knew was reliant on satellites, and the combined GPS systems in particular. Trade all across the world had been hit hard, and although people would do little more than grumble if the delivery of their new car or Virt system was delayed, the delivery of food from Europe and the Americas was another matter. Some goods had actually been rationed, and all the promises by the politicians that the shops would be full again very soon did little to reassure a fearful public.
And if there was indeed a second, much larger Scatter Cloud on its way, things could soon be getting much worse. Maybe end of the world bad. On the other hand, if the very worst case scenario didn’t come to pass, maybe civilisation would collapse with survivors crawling around in the ruins. If that happened, she had to make sure that she and her daughter were among those survivors. “I think we need to do a little shopping, Parker,” she said, therefore.
“This week’s groceries were delivered just Tuesday, M’lady.”
“Yes Parker, but we need more. Take the weekly shopping list and remove everything that’s perishable. Keep only the frozen and tinned goods.”
“Very good, M'lady.”
“Now double the quantity of everything on the list. No, triple it. Hmm. And add twenty litres of bottled water. Label it the Apocalypse grocery list.”
“Yes, M'lady.”
“Now place that order with a dozen different retailers, with a repeat order for next week. Oh, and better order a chest freezer from Ellen’s. And a generator. A five hundred kWh solar dissociator.”
“Let us hope that the freezer harrives before the frozen goods, M'lady,”
“Indeed,” said Samantha, while wondering whether it was necessary for self drive cars to be quite so intelligent. She'd noticed that Parker had developed something of a sense of humour lately.
“I am sorry to report, M'lady, that only three of the retailers in the local area are haccepting new orders at the moment. Goods are in short supply, and they happear to be favouring their regular customers.”
“Try retailers further afield, then.” There was no point having advance warning of the Apocalypse if she couldn’t take advantage of it. She intended to stock up with what she and Lily would need to survive. She only regretted that firearms were almost impossible to acquire this side of the Atlantic. The thought that she might need them sent a shiver down her spine, but if it became a question of saving her daughter or her civilised values, it would be an easy choice to make.
It was possible that her neighbours would see all the groceries being delivered to her house, she reflected. The sight of Donald, her household robot, coming out to pick up tray after tray of goods in its forklift hands might well attract attention, and they would remember when civilisation collapsed. She could find herself coming under siege by starving neighbours desperate to feed their own children. If that happened, though, all the guns in the world wouldn’t save her. When people became desperate enough, they would risk the gunfire to get what they wanted, and then it was only a matter of time before she ran out of ammunition. She just had to hope that the deliveries went unnoticed, or at least were quickly forgotten among the other urgent matters of the day. Then, when it all went down, she and Lily would just remain indoors, out of sight, making their supplies last as long as possible while everyone else fought each other for the scraps. It would be incredibly selfish of her, she realised. She could remember a time when she would never have dreamt of doing such a thing, but she had a daughter to take care of now and everything else took second place to that. Absolutely everything else!
“I have found two more retailers willing to take the horder, M'lady. The total bill comes to two thousand five hundred and sixty three pounds, twenty pence. That is considerably more than you have in your bank haccount, M'lady.”
“It'll just have to go on the credit card, Parker.”
“Yes, M'lady. There is a selection of freezers and generators on the market, M'lady. If you select the cheapest of them, the total bill comes to over five thousand pounds.”
“Choose the most reliable models, Parker. Based on customer reviews. Regardless of cost. Contact my bank and take out a loan to cover the cost.”
“Yes, M'lady.” If the Apocalypse came, she would never have to repay that loan. And if it didn't come, if it all turned out to be a false alarm, then her only worry would be a huge debt that she had to repay somehow. She would cross that bridge when she came to it.
If the Apocalypse really was coming, it was annoying that it was coming just as the world finally seemed to be getting its shit together, she mused. Wars were virtually unknown now. The global economy was so interlinked that no matter what country you might want to go to war with, people in your country owned stuff in theirs and people in their country owned stuff in yours so that, even when one country was vastly larger and more powerful than the other, a war between them would do more damage to their economies than anything the larger country might possibly gain from it. All countries had begun reducing the size of their armed forces, therefore, even the United States with their famous obsession with weaponry of all kinds, and the entire global arms industry had gone into decline. Only a handful of companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Wilson’s were still doing serious weapons research, and even the wealthiest countries were using the same ships and aircraft they'd been using for the past fifty years.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
As the superpowers had stopped bombing third world countries, the hatred of the latter for the former had gradually begun to subside and terrorist attacks had all but ceased. Prosperity was coming even to those countries that had once been the most poverty stricken, and fundamentalist attitudes in all religions were beginning to subside. Pollution had fallen to nineteenth century levels as industries cleaned themselves up and more and more goods and materials were recycled, and the population was finally showing signs of stabilising at around nine billion. The world could feed itself, and species once under threat of extinction were coming back from the brink.
There were still problems, of course. The world was heating up, even though the use of fossil fuels had all but ended. Sea levels were rising, with all coastal cities suffering as a result. Extremes of weather were more common and storms were more violent as the warmer atmosphere was able to hold more water. Finally, there seemed to be a global increase in right wing politics and an intolerance towards minorities, although political commentators seemed to think that this was just a short term trend and that it would sort itself out in time.
All in all, therefore, this seemed to be a bad time to be having an apocalypse. Probably it won't happen, she told herself as her car drove itself out of the city centre and into the suburbs. If something mysterious was passing through the solar system, it would probably pass far enough away from the Earth that the vast majority of people would never know anything about it, and if it was the end of everything, then at least humanity was going out on an upward beat as if to say to the Universe see? We’re not so bad after all.
The sight of the people of Bristol going about their normal lives began to give her a strange feeling of nostalgia, as if the world had already ended and the windows of her car were television screens showing a way of life that was already over. She saw children in sports clothing chasing a football across a frozen field in which patches of last week's snow could still be seen. For a moment the crazy notion came over her to stop the car and help them in some way. What could she do, though? Tell them to hoard food as well? Tell them to get out of the city and find a farmhouse to live in while the cities convulsed in their death spasms? The brutal fact was, though, that to give herself and her daughter the best possible chance, the aftermath had to settle down again as fast as possible, and for that to happen, the great bulk of humanity, including those children, had to die as fast as possible. A wave of guilt and shame washed over her, and she forced it down with an effort. It won't happen, she told herself. I'm just a stupid woman getting all worked up over nothing. There may not be another Scatter Cloud, and even if there is, it probably won't come anywhere near us. I'm just taking some prudent precautions. It helped, and she was able to push the guilt to the back of her mind, but she still found it painful to look at the children, playing innocently and happily in their field.
The trip home seemed to take far longer than it normally did, but eventually the garage door was opening and the car was easing itself inside. “Thank you, Parker,” she said as she undid her seat belt. “You may take the rest of the day off.” That was the phrase that told the car to power itself down for the night, but the humorous phrase now felt stupid and ridiculous and for a moment she thought about wiping the voice interface and restoring it to its factory settings. To have humorous exchanges with her car while the world might be on the brink of disaster, with thousands of children about to die... No! she told herself angrily. Stop getting upset and emotional! There is no disaster coming! Now get a grip on yourself!
She barely heard the car responding in its fake aristocratic voice. She got out, the door closing behind her, paused a moment to make sure it locked itself, and then went through the door into the main part of the house. She found Lily and Tracy, the babysitter, in the living room watching cartoons together. Tracy, a neighbour with no children of her own yet, working for some extra housekeeping money, had picked the girl up from school an hour before, as she did every day.
“Mummy!” cried the girl joyously, jumping out of Tracy's lap and running over to throw her arms around her mother. Sam hugged her back, a sudden deep, powerful love welling up inside her. The feel of her daughter’s small, warm body, the smell of her hair, filled her awareness, driving away everything else. She forgot where she was, she forgot who she was. All she knew in that moment was that her daughter was safe. Safe and healthy and happy. She tightened her arms around the small girl, lowered her face to kiss the top of her head. She was safe! Her daughter was safe!
“Is everything alright, Sam?” asked Tracy, and Samantha was brought back to normality with a bump. Lily was staring up into her face as if she too was surprised by the intensity of her greeting.
“Fine,” she laughed, letting go of her daughter but keeping an arm around her shoulders. “Hard day at work, that’s all. Good to be home. How's your day been, Lily?”
“Okay,” the girl replied. “Mrs Alabaster was off sick. We had Mrs Bentley instead.”
“Oh. Well I hope Mrs Alabaster gets better very soon. I'll go upstairs and get changed, and then we'll have some dinner. What do you want today?”
The little girl's face screwed up with intense thought. “Chips!” she said at last.
“And what would you like with your chips?”
“Sausages!”
“Okay, chips and sausages it is.” She looked up at the babysitter. “Would you like something before you go, Tracy? A cup of tea perhaps?”
“I had one a few minutes ago, The wind was quite bitter on the walk back from the school. They’re saying it might rain tonight.”
“Okay. Thank you again for doing this, I really don't know what we'd do without you.”
Tracy smiled. “She's a joy to be with. Same time tomorrow?”
“Yes please. Oh, I've ordered some deliveries. The robot'll take care of it, There’s no need for you to do anything. Just don't be surprised if trucks keep coming to the door over the next couple of days.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow then."
Tracy saw herself out through the front door, and Samantha watched through the window as she walked down the path to the gate and got into her car, an absent minded smile on her face. Everything was fine in her world, Samantha knew. Her husband had a good job that he enjoyed doing, everyone in her family was in good health. One day, perhaps soon, she would have a child of her own and Lily would have a young companion on her ride home from school in Tracy’s car. There was no thought in the young woman's mind that the world she lived in would ever be anything other than safe and comfortable.
What would Tracy and her husband do if the apocalypse came? she wondered. Tracy knew that Samantha was an astronomer. If destruction came from space, would she remember all the extra grocery deliveries and guess that she'd had advance warning? Samantha tensed up as she imagined the anger the other woman would feel. The terrible sense of betrayal. Perhaps she should warn her. Tell her that she too should stock up on supplies, prepare for the possible collapse of civilisation.
The trouble was, though, that Tracy had a sister with a husband and children of her own. She would want to warn them as well, and they would also have loved ones they’d want to warn. There was the chance that word might find its way to the media. Only as a rumour, of course. A page seven story in the newspapers. The ‘and finally’ story on the television news with the presenter smiling with amusement as he delivered the crackpot theory. Nobody who didn't know her personally would take it seriously, but when calamity struck they would remember and there would be a terrible wave of fury towards the authorities who’d known and who hadn't warned them.
If it’s confirmed that the danger is real, the authorities will issue a warning, she told herself, but then everyone will be racing to stockpile. The shops will be empty and Tracy will have lost the opportunity to beat the crowd, an opportunity she would have if Samantha told her now. She paced back and forth across the carpet, torn with indecision. Tracy was her friend. If Tracy was in trouble, Samantha would help her in any way she could, just as Tracy would help her if their positions were reversed. Perhaps she could give her some kind of cryptic warning. Something that would urge her to stockpile without telling her the truth about what might happen. A bad weather warning, perhaps.
As she continued to pace, the idea grew and grew on her. Yes, a bad weather warning. She might pass on the warning to her loved ones and it would do no harm because she was saying nothing about a second Scatter Cloud. People worried about the weather all the time. It was the Great British Preoccupation, and a weather scare would come as no surprise to anyone. Her mind made up, she took her phone from her pocket.
“Tracy!” she said when it was answered. “I completely forgot to tell you. We heard at the University that there’s going to be a lot of sunspot activity over the next few days. They think it might bring on a spell of unusually cold weather. Yes, even worse than thirty one. That's why I've ordered some extra groceries, in case we get snowed in. Yes, that’s right. I meant to tell you, and then it went completely out of my head. No, nothing like that. Just worries at work. Anyway, you might want to order some extra food in yourself, just in case. You know how people are at the least suggestion that... Yes, that’s right. Yes, good idea. I've ordered a new freezer, just in case. Okay then. That's quite alright. Yes, there's no point working at a university if we can't get the occasional heads up about things like this. Okay, yes. See you tomorrow.”
She broke the connection, feeling much better. It was a small thing she had done, but it was enough to drive away the guilt and make her feel better about doing whatever she had to do to protect Lily. Thankfully, the young woman had virtually no scientific literacy. She certainly didn't know that they were currently going though a sunspot minimum, something that her tablet could have told her in just a couple of moments, as well as the fact that sunspots had almost no effect on the weather. It wasn't Samantha's fault that the woman hadn't bothered to educate herself.
She went upstairs, changed into her comfortable indoor clothes and went down again to where Lily was still sitting on the sofa watching the television. “So,” she said. “Sausages and chips?”
“Yes!” said Lily in delight.
Samantha grinned with happiness and relief and went through into the kitchen.