What Came Next: Five Tales from the Next World

Gender

The facility is top-notch. Stockpiles of supplies. World-class research infrastructure. Sustainability bells and whistles. Wide-ranging entertainment. Olympic quality fitness. Weapons and munitions. Cleansed and scented air. Television screens broadcasted nature scenes. Lighting emulated night and day.

None of that mattered much when you lived underground for months and it was the end of the world.

Captain Teresa Garvin stares at her nails. They are in pretty good shape. She unconsciously runs a hand through her hair. The cafeteria is quiet. No surprise given it is four in the morning. She warms her hands on a large black coffee.

This is the smallest cafeteria of the three. It hosts a few fellow insomniacs or shift workers. No one talks. Cutlery clinks. Teresa looks at the television monitors. They show a lovely autumn scene though it is April.

One woman sobs into her hands. Another gets up. Teresa assumes she will comfort the first. Instead she takes her tray and slots it in the 'to be cleaned' rack and leaves. The first woman continues to cry.

"Captain, may I join you?"

Teresa recognizes Staff Sergeant Monica Gomez's voice. The tiny warrior is a loyal puppy dog. Teresa points to the seat opposite. Gomez has a tea and an army issue granola bar.

"How did we do today Ma'am?"

"Sarge do we have to talk business? Can't we gossip or something?"

The base commander had sprung a full alert on the security forces. It had gone well because all it took was the push of a few buttons. The place was so automated it locked itself down.

Still, Teresa had deployed her rapid reaction force at logical points throughout the facility. The team was good but they were untested having been underground since this whole thing began. That included Staff Sergeant Gomez. The sergeant was suffering from some sort of inferiority complex for not having been in what veterans call the 'Gender Blender' battles.

"Staff Sergeant. You and your people performed well. I truly admire the level of preparedness. Now how about a conversation? How you doing with all of this? We've never chatted before."

Gomez looks uncomfortable, "Thank you Ma'am. I am not real big on chatting."

"C'mon Monica. We're off duty. Call me Teresa. And don't tell me this isn't the biggest load of the strangest shit you ever stepped in."

Gomez grabs her tea avoiding eye contact.

"I mean here we sit in our underground lair like some dysfunctional sorority."

Gomez snorts a small laugh, "A dysfunctional sorority. I like that." She looks reflective, "Can you tell me what it was like on top? I know you have given some briefings but how about the real deal?"

When the world started falling apart six months earlier Teresa was rotated back from Afghanistan. One of the many waves of U.S. personnel returning from foreign bases. She was deployed to Fort Riley in Kansas. The usual 25,000 personnel had grown to over 30,000. The brass attempted to make the 400 square kilometer base a refuge for healthy civilians. It never got a chance.

The base's commanders were forced to lean on female personnel because every day more men took ill. Half of them died within six or seven days. Eventually, all died. Then half of them rose up. This happened so fast that female survivors had no time to process the loss of the male population. The female of the species was too busy running and defending themselves.

Teresa had been part of a mobile force that patrolled the vast base. When men began dying and reports from around the world confirmed a "regenerative pattern", her superiors ordered the burning of every corpse. In the space of two weeks the 9,000 women on base disposed of 21,000 male comrades.

Before the world became a girls-only party, there were over 200,000 women in the U.S. military's active forces and well over 700,000 in the reserves. According to last official reports the combined number of those on duty was less than 300,000. Many died in the early battles but more had ignored their call-up orders. They stayed home to protect family.

The remaining troops were now split among seven bases across the states. There were small outposts in Alaska and Hawaii. Sailors had mostly been redeployed to ground forces but a mix of Coast Guard and naval personnel were running a few small ships on the west coast. The air force got all the attention. The ability to move key people around, conduct reconnaissance, resupply and attack from the air were priorities. Teresa had caught wind that the new big bosses were welcoming fresh recruits while retooling veterans for key roles.

It became clear fast that Fort Riley was not important in the grand scheme of things, so Teresa and other troops were ordered out. That is the story she chose to tell Gomez.

"I got assigned to one convoy under the command of Colonel Darlene Jaxson. There were sixteen hundred of us in trucks, Humvees and some APCs. We had everything we needed except experience. We were on our way to Schriever Air Force Base near Colorado Springs to shore up base security."

Gomez nods.

"The first leg was smooth. We saw abandoned cars on and near the road but we motored free and clear. The worst part was seeing the males. No one had really grasped what all had happened. Then we see these guys lurching around. Some women broke down. It was more fucked when we spotted young boys. All of us had a hard time but in the end we stayed frosty."

Gomez hung on every word. When things had disintegrated, this underground facility acted with clinical precision and excised all men immediately. They were sent away and the skeleton staff of women was increasingly reinforced. Gomez had been underground for months.

"We headed west on the 70 at a calm forty miles per hour and crested a ridge north of Abilene. That little town had only 7,000 residents pre 'Gender Blender' so let's say 3,500 males died. Maybe only about 1,500 of those came back. Well, when the lead truck came over the rise I figure it plowed right into all 1,500. The next four vehicles went in after it. Brake lights came on too late. The Colonel was in the third truck."

Teresa sips her coffee.

"I was at the back of the column and heard the frantic reports from upfront. I had my Humvee driver take me abreast of the scene. Men swarmed the vehicles. Small arms fire could be heard but it was dwindling fast. We let off some rounds into the outlying groups but it was useless. We lost 63 women."

"What did ....? How did they ...?" Gomez was full of unfinished questions.

Teresa anticipated the question, "We know now that women do not reanimate if they are bitten or scratched. They just get chewed. But at the time we were clueless. I took command. We reversed out of there and found an alternate route. We picked up a few survivors along the way. For the civvies, the world completely imploded. Suburban yoga moms went from enjoying Starbucks and Netflix to burying their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons. After that it got worse."

The six weeks at Schriever had been exhausting duty. Teresa accompanied scientists and doctors to medical and research facilities around the country by helicopter and plane. They brought back devices, reams of data, tissue samples, sperm, and eggs. All that stuff made it back here. Teresa was lucky she survived. Too many operations ended badly.

Gomez pushes back her chair realizing the Captain is done and leaves in silence. Teresa looks at the monitors. They show a sandy beach and bright blue sky. She imagines the doctors and researchers in their white jackets looking into microscopes in other parts of this facility. The pressure was on them. She had light duty in comparison.

All Teresa had to do was remain locked and loaded. She didn't have to figure out why only males died. She didn't have to discover if new pregnancies would result in healthy boys. She didn't have to monitor the progress of over 1,000 pregnant women here underground. Some inseminated before the fall and others from the new baby cocktails the doctors invented.

She glances at the clock. Almost time for duty at the biggest and probably last fertility clinic on the planet. Troops called the facility "Eve". She sighs and stretches. For the first time in a long time Teresa feels hopeful. It may not come today or tomorrow but it would happen. We'll figure it out. Women are patient.