We Are the Ants(85)

I leaned against the wall and held my hand over my throbbing, watery eye. “Nothing, sir.”

? ? ?

Diego punched the steering wheel so hard, the dashboard shook. “I’ll f*cking kill him.” I’d skipped lunch to avoid Diego seeing my eye, but he found me after last period. We’d been sitting in the school parking lot for ten minutes while he raged, blaming himself for not being there to protect me. “I’ll rip his f*cking hands off.”

“Calm down, Diego. It’s not a big deal.” It was difficult to sell it with a swollen eye and a plum-colored bruise running across the bridge of my nose.

“It’s a big f*cking deal,” Diego yelled. “Which one of them was it? Was it Marcus?”

“No.”

“Don’t protect him!”

I flinched. The air around Diego vibrated the way it does before a thunderstorm, warning me that worse was coming. “Stop, Diego, just stop. It doesn’t matter who did it.”

Diego clenched his fist. He punched the steering wheel until his knuckles bled. “Don’t you get it, Henry? I love you. I love you so much, and I know this is all a big joke to you because the world is ending and you don’t think any of this matters, but when it comes to you, it always matters.”

I unbuckled my seat belt and twisted around. I held Diego’s face in my hands and kissed him despite the agony that exploded around my nose and eye. Pain has a way of reinforcing memories. It binds them to the moment so you never forget, and I didn’t want to forget.

“I think . . . I think I love you too, Diego.” They words hurt. Saying them to someone other than Jesse, but I knew they were true. And that made them hurt even worse. “But that’s why we shouldn’t see each other.” I don’t remember when I started crying, but I couldn’t stop. “I wish the sluggers had chosen you to save the world. I just . . . I can’t be the reason you end up back in juvie.”

Diego was shaking, but I couldn’t tell if he was crying or going to punch me. “I don’t need you to look after me. You can’t even look after yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You won’t press the button to save the world because you don’t think you deserve to live in it.”

“I was going to do it, Diego. Because of you.”

Diego shook his head. “Maybe you’re right. We shouldn’t see each other.” He laughed bitterly, but I didn’t get the joke. “I wanted you to press the button because you wanted to, not for me or anyone else. If you can’t see how amazing you are, then . . . forget it.”

I tried to think of something more to say, but I’d run out of words. I got out of the car and walked back toward school to call Audrey for a ride. I half expected Diego to chase after me, but he didn’t.





Superbugs




The first case of untreatable gonorrhea is observed in Maxx Costanza of Warwick, Rhode Island. It is estimated that he infected thirteen sexual partners before being diagnosed.

Within months, outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Clostridium difficile, and E. coli are observed in patients around the world. Not even last-resort antibiotics are effective in controlling the diseases.

Governments around the globe direct their resources to the development of new antibiotics. As deaths from simple infections rise dramatically, a new sense of teamwork spreads throughout the world. Knowledge is shared freely, old barriers are eliminated as humanity races to find cures for diseases once considered beaten. Economic and military rivalries are set aside to save the world.

An unparalleled level of global collaboration leads to the first breakthrough nearly two years after Maxx Costanza’s initial diagnosis. The potential new antibiotic is found in the chemical secretions of cockroaches. While attempting to isolate enough of the compounds in the cockroaches, an international consortium of scientists develops revolutionary technologies to increase the size of the cockroaches through genetic manipulation. These novel insects, named Blatella asmithicus after the geneticist responsible for creating them, Dr. Andrew Smith, measure nearly a meter in length, and have an astounding resiliency and immunity to all known toxins. Capable, even, of withstanding significant exposure to radiation. They are more commonly referred to as CroMS: cockroaches of mighty size.

The first new successful antibiotic in a decade is tested on 8 January 2016. Within days, the mortality rate from bacterial infections decreases to levels never before achieved.

United by their cause, a new age of peace and prosperity envelops the world. It is the golden age of humanity.

On 29 January 2016 a pair of CroMS escape from a laboratory in Austin, Texas. They begin to breed. As a result of their increased size, CroMS possess a ravenous appetite and devour everything in their path.

Austin is overrun in three days. Texas in two weeks. The United States in less than a year.

When CroMS are the only living creatures remaining on the planet, they consume each other.





7 January 2016


After Adrian punched me in the hallway at school, which I read on Marcus’s SnowFlake page was retribution for his expulsion, despite not even being the one who’d e-mailed his video confession to Principal DeShields, I spent most of my free time in my room, contemplating my existence.