The Last Human



  The Last Human

  Eric Steven Johnson

  Copyright © 2012 Eric Steven Johnson

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781301461394

  Jay looked at the lifeless robot carcass next to him. It was in poor shape; circuitry hung from every orifice. He had been holding a conversation for the past fifteen minutes without care that it was not answering him back. No one, or nothing answered Jay anymore… because Jay was the last human being. When humanity decided to rise up and overthrow their robotic overlords, only he had survived. He was left alone, drifting the countryside in the hopes of finding another living thing. Jay had grown bored with the direction his one-sided conversation had taken and he pushed the robotic husk aside. He stood, brushed the layers of dust that had accumulated on his ragged clothing and did what he did best… Jay walked on.

  Everything around him was covered in gray dust, lifeless and ugly. Most buildings had been razed, plants and trees were overgrown and rotted and there was a perpetually putrid smell in the air. He had grown used to the lack of life around him, save for the occasional robot corpse. He had been wandering for what he estimated was a three year span. He had become rail thin and sickly looking but his body was still strong. There was no shortage of food as the robots had never seen fit to destroy it all. Instead, they horded all rations into storage bunkers. One or two of these bunkers existed in every town and there were enough rations in each for hundreds of people. Being that Jay was a sole survivor, the supplies proved to be infinite.

  Jay walked upon a broken sign that had at one point been a greeting into a small city. It now only read “Welcome to the City of M…” For a moment, the sun peeked out from behind the dark nimbus clouds that hung ever present in the sky. The momentary brightness only illuminated the dank and dead cityscape around him. Signs of life had long left this place, with not even an insect track in the thick dust that had fallen.

  Walking all day had a way of expediting hunger, and Jay found his stomach was bellowing. He strode casually along, seeking out the City of M…’s food bunker. After only minutes of searching; he found the entrance, clearly marked as usual. The doorknob stuck a little as he tried to turn it but after a bit of jiggling, it gave way and the door creaked open. To Jay’s surprise, the lights were working inside the dank, cool storage room. This was a rarity indeed. Usually he stumbled around in the dark, aimlessly knocking over storage crates as he went. This time he graciously surveyed the room. One particular container caught his attention. A solitary crate in the corner had been stamped in red ink with a label that read WINE.

  Red wine had been a weakness of Jay’s even back before the robot uprising. Back when human beings were allowed to roam the earth of their own free will. It seemed like such a distant memory, though it had been less than twenty years ago. Wine had a great effect of Jay. In addition to making him forget about the horrid life he now led, it also caused his mind to flashback to better times. The fact that the better times he would reminisce of were of his time as a slave to the robot empire made Jay second guess his mental state. Nonetheless, Jay removed one bottle of well-aged red wine from the crate and observed it affectionately. “People always told me that you would be the death of me,” he said to the bottle. “Little did they know that it was you that would keep me alive.” He smiled and popped the cork loose.

  The wine was rich and sweet and he took a long, rewarding swig. Instantly his mind drifted to another place. The drab, slate gray surroundings faded away and were replaced by memories of his days as a servant to the empire. Despite the reprehensible state of life there was at least color back then. The sun still shined in the sky and everything was intact and there were still other people.

  Humans were not allowed to interact with each other unless ordered to do so and they were not allowed under any circumstances to speak to one another. The only times they were allowed to rest was during the fifteen minutes they were allotted three times per day for meals. Jay thought about how sad of a state that was and yet here he was wishing he could go back to it, just for that moment of human interaction.

  Then he thought about Marilee. She was beautiful, that Marilee. Because she was a fellow slave; Jay never had a chance to speak to her, but he saw her every day. She was gorgeous in her prisoner’s uniform, devoid of makeup and any of the other tricks women used before the robot uprising to look beautiful. He could only imagine how lovely she would have looked before. She was likely the same age as Jay, old enough to have been given a name instead of a number. Most prisoners in their camp had been children but Marilee and Jay and a few others remembered a life of free will. Even still, he was only able to learn her name because she had written it in the dirt one day while they were working outside together, a gesture that Jay returned.

  When they were seated near each other at mealtime, Marilee would flash Jay a warm smile and he would return it in kind. The smile had such confidence and reassurance behind it. It spoke more to Jay than any words could. It offered him hope that a better day was coming. It reminded him of why he lived on, persevering through the subjection and the abuse. He hoped beyond measure that his smile did the same for her.

  They maintained care to not allow the robots to see them exchange these affections. The robots didn’t tolerate insubordination. At best they would be separated and at worst they would be publicly executed for disobedience. They would serve as a reminder of the consequences to all who would oppose their overlords. A pact formed between them, one that was born of necessity and was made in silence. They would never break the rules.

  Everything changed on the day of the human uprising. In a chance encounter, Jay met a man who introduced himself as George while stocking wine in one of the food bunkers.

  “Don’t you think it’s a bit odd that the robots let us keep wine,” asked George.

  “We really shouldn’t be talking,” Jay said, worried.

  “The robots never come down here,” George answered. “Besides, even if they do, death might be a nice break from this life.”

  Jay shook his head negatively. “It’s not perfect, but it’s life. The alternative scares me to death.”

  George drew very close to Jay and whispered in his ear, “You need to get over that.” His voice became harsher and more gravely. “There’s an uprising coming soon.”

  “Don’t even joke about that,” Jay nearly shouted, but stifled before continuing, “that’s impossible.”

  “It’s coming and it’s closer than you think. Some of the kids, the ones that don’t have names, they got this way of communicating. Across camps, even.”

  “How can you even know this? I didn’t even know the kids could speak, let alone communicate with other camps. They were born in tanks and bred to serve. How could they even know other camps exist?”

  “There was a time before mankind was civilized when we learned how to talk. It seems that the children have done so again.”

  Jay was beside himself. Freedom had always seemed so distant. It was the dream that always ended too soon. Yet here was George, telling him that it was within reach. Just then, there was an explosion outside.

  “It’s starting,” George exclaimed. “You stay here and I’ll check out what’s happening outside.” George maneuvered Jay into a corner, and gave him a reassuring nod before turning and sprinting up the stairs and out of the bunker.

  The ground above the bunker shook and quaked for what seemed like eons. The din of battle rang out into the air. Weapons fire, explosions and screams of terror all boiled out at once. The sounds were sickening and made Jay turn a pale white. He slumped into a corner near a crate of wine and not knowing what else to do, he began to drink. He drank bottle after bottle until he lost all cognizance of the horrific scene outs
ide of the bunker. He drank until he had fallen into a stupor and then he drank some more. When the robots stormed the bunker looking for signs of life, they found none and they left satisfied that all of the human oppressors were dead.

  When all of the humans were dead, the robots found that their programming had been altered. They had all been reconfigured for war. Those that had been scientists or historians now only sought death. Now that there were no humans left, the robots turned upon each other. Knowing nothing but the urge to fight, the robots began killing each other until there were none left. The scene was repeated everywhere in the world, as the central network that was their collective conscience had instructed every unit to do so. The robots killed until everything was dead…

  …And then Jay awoke. Only eight hours had passed since Jay passed out but everyone and everything was dead. Marilee and George, were gone as well as all of the children. Jay had held out hope for a while that maybe it was only his camp that was destroyed. After discovering camp after camp full of nothing but death, he gave up that dream. He admitted to himself that he was the last of man and that humanity and all memories of it lived and died with him. He carried that weight with him everywhere he walked.

  The effects of the wine had begun to wear off and Jay thought not for the first time of ending his suffering and taking his own life. Then he thought of Marilee and that smile, that smile that carried him through so much. He then remembered hope. He had to live on, in memoriam of all who had fallen. He would carry their memories until his body gave up. Only then would he surrender to fate. He also kept hope that maybe somewhere out there, someday he would find someone else who had survived. He thought that perhaps that person was out there looking for him. He thought about all of this and did what he did best… Jay walked on.