The End of Men(84)
I go to the tab I have saved on my computer. My local authority has opened, as of today, an application process for fertility treatment using donor sperm for women who no longer have any living children. It’s time to move forward. I complete the application form, which is surprisingly simple. I confirm I have had a child before and list my health history. I expect it to ask me to list any miscarriages, fertility drugs taken and any other details but it doesn’t. Perhaps they will take this straight from my medical records.
I send the form and text a photo of the sent e-mail to Libby.
Thank you. I love you too.
Now, I need to try desperately to forget about it. I don’t know the odds of being accepted and even if I managed to get treatment, I have struggled to conceive in the past. But it is a chance, and that’s more than I’ve had in years. For the first time since they were put up there, years ago, in another lifetime, I go upstairs to the loft, where all of Theodore’s baby clothes, crib, pram and baby toys are stored. I haven’t touched them. I thought it was because it would be too painful, but now I think it’s that I always hoped. I allowed myself to have moments of hope but the pain of acting on it was too great. And so the relics of my former life sit here, untouched and precious. I so desperately want for them to become part of my future.
AMANDA
Glasgow, the Independent Republic of Scotland
Day 1,531
Being in charge is not overrated. I fired someone today, which was completely deserved. I finally tracked down the man who ignored me in November 2025. Or to be more specific, the man who told Leah, my university friend who worked under him, that I was—let me quote the e-mail—“a stark raving lunatic who is trying to waste the limited resources and time of this institution. Not to mention my patience.” His name is Raymond McNab and I had the immense pleasure of finally wrangling access to the e-mails today, which gave me the proof I needed. It should never have taken me so long to access the bloody e-mails but he had deleted everything before he ran up north with his wife, abandoning his position here to try and save himself.
Turns out he was immune so there was no need. He slunk back in 2027, once he was certain he was safe and had had a nice break in his summerhouse up at Loch Lomond. I’ve been trying to get rid of him ever since. Leah told me on my first day here that he was the roadblock, but thanks to his deletion of e-mails and Leah’s ruthless “management” of her inbox “because a full inbox makes me nervous,” I was stuck between paranoia and suspicion.
Enter an excellent forensic IT recovery specialist and here we are.
“Raymond, thanks for coming in to meet me,” I say, all sweetness and light.
“How can I help you?” He has nervous sweat on his upper lip but he’s trying to stay calm. Does he know that I know? I decide to go for it.
“It was you who made the decision to ignore my warning to Leah, to HPS.” I practically hiss the words. Years of pent-up fury and rage quickly dissolve the calm I had hoped to maintain.
“I have no idea what idea you’re talking about.”
I quote the e-mail. “‘A stark raving lunatic who is trying to waste the limited resources and time of this institution. Not to mention my patience.’” His face becomes satisfyingly pale. “God forbid your patience was tested, Raymond.”
He’s blushing furiously, moving around in his chair. “I could never have known.”
“You could have investigated. You could have tried. You didn’t do anything, you dismissed me because of what, because I was a woman?”
He scoffs and my loathing for him intensifies. “Everything’s sexism with you ladies.”
“You’re fired, Raymond.”
“You can’t do that.” Ah, the confidence of the mediocre white man.
“I can and I have. Your employment was terminated this morning. You’ll need to go to HR on your way out to collect some papers. You won’t receive a reference unless you want the reference to say, ‘This man was partially at fault for the Plague and the near extinction of the human race.’” Even as I say it, I know I’m being unfair but it feels so good to blame someone.
Raymond’s mouth is flapping open, giving me an unpleasantly good view of his molars. “That’s an outrageous thing to say.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. Good-bye, Raymond. I look forward to never seeing you again.”
He slams the door on his way out in a final display of petty aggression. I had imagined leaving my office triumphantly but as silence settles I remember that I’m the boss. Four days a week I sit in this office and everyone outside the door is careful around me. I’m so thankful I insisted on keeping up two days a week in A and E. It keeps me sane.
I wonder if the Board of Health Protection Scotland considered the possibility I would use my time in the job to be vindictive. I suspect not. I know they didn’t really want to hire me, but the health minister told them my successes were making Scotland look bad. Every time I discovered something—the Plague, Patient Zero’s history, worked with Sadie and Kenneth to identify the origin of the virus—I showed how incompetent the Scottish establishment was being. They decided the best thing to do was to bring me inside it, hence the bloody irony of me—HPS’s most vociferous critic—now being its director. My personal assistant, Millie, took notes in the meeting and told me everything when I asked her to fill me in on what she knew about office gossip. I didn’t intend for her to reveal the details of confidential meetings, but here we are.