Quo Vadis

Quo Vadis

english-creative writing
Quo Vadis?
(Latin For “Where Do You Go?”)
His arm was tattooed in black ink with the word “Alpha”. Behind his ears, there were instructions for both shut down and generator functions. These were handy in the Sears Catalog days before The Pollution. The days when playgrounds were full of laughing children were over. By at least two hundred years, they were over. The dry Nevada air whipped his synthetic hair into his eyes. He blinked it out.

Before The Pollution, he was known as Philip. He helped his owners with their housework, and provided comfort to their two small children when they needed it. In short, he was a Domestic Android. He had a purpose. A reason for being. Now, he was just waiting for his piston-hearts to shut down. In a world with no one to serve, a housekeeper was useless.
***
Y Chromosome B-17. Scientists had divised that it had, before the Pollution, regulated the white blood cells from multiplying too quickly in the early stages of   life. It had been mutated to prevent sperm from being able to fertilize eggs after the Pollution, preventing the species form growing. The last of the children, Danny Webber, had been born on 5:13 on March 19, 2987. He had grown up in Boston, followed by the media, hounded by fans, until he had been shot to death by his stalker. Emily Walker of Hoboken, New Jersey was next in line for World’s Youngest. Her tattered Presidential Campaign posters from the election in 3021 were still flecked about the ruined landscape. When the world’s population reached collectively over sixty-five, there are more important things to do than think about taking pride in your community.

The Pollution had been released from an underground shaft dug buy the InGen corporation, a subsidiary of Dow Corning Sony, Ltd. They had been strip mining Zaire in an attempt to replenish the world’s fossil fuel supply and broken through to a pocket of   gas of undisclosed origin. When oil had been stuck, the...