Welcome back to my post-post-apocalyptic novel, Ada’s Children, and thanks for reading! If you’re new to the story, please don’t be surprised that it’s paywalled. The Prologue and first three chapters are free, and you can start reading them here. The previous chapter, “New World,” is here.
As you may be able to tell from the date, a lot of time has passed since we last saw Carol and Shondra. Now approaching the end of their lives, they’re trying to make sense of the depopulated world Ada created. At the very end, they receive an unexpected visit.
APRIL 2111
Carol eased herself into the overstuffed armchair with a sigh of relief. The city view out the picture window was always soothing, with the water of Bde Maka Ska reflecting the sunset against a backdrop of downtown skyscrapers. In the daytime, at least; at night with nothing but the moon to light the looming shapes of the buildings, the scene was rather desolate. The skyscrapers hadn’t been occupied in years.
Shondra sat in the chair next to her. “Are you tired?” she asked.
“Only a little.” Carol glanced over at the third, vacant chair. “I thought Paul’s service was moving, didn’t you?”
“It was. And that he had so many friends and family to remember him.” Shondra looked away, gazing out the window.
“He was fortunate,” Carol said, trying not to be jealous of their deceased friend. Neither she nor Shondra were likely to have many mourners, since few of their friends and acquaintances were left. They both had their absences, their ghosts. What was life but a progressive letting go, until you had nothing left to lose? “I suppose the bots will take that chair away.”
“The caregivers will, yes,” Shondra corrected her. The old argument. The carebots here at Breezy Hills were so lifelike, even Carol sometimes forgot her resentments against them.
Shondra turned back to her and took her hand. “It’s just the two of us now.”
“The two of us at the end of the world.”
“It’s not really the end, just…different.”
Shondra was right. They might be the only two residents left in this eldercare facility, but there were other homes with their own residents. Some of the younger generation must still live independent lives, though she and Shondra saw few younger people—or anyone, really—while out on their daily walks. And in the New Lands, wherever those were, life must have gone on for her daughter and the other disappeared children, the Taken. A life with a future of some sort, though she couldn’t quite imagine it. Whatever it was, it must be better than this stasis, this limbo, waiting for the end in an emptying world.
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