The Last Man

[Wayne23]

March, 2129: It took a long while for the snow to get here but it did. This year was nothing like last but for three weeks we were basically snowed in. I managed to get the self-driving pickup going though, and I got it into a bay here at the bus garage. So the only vehicle left at that point was the self-driving big box truck. I figured I’d worry about that in April.

I haven’t mentioned it but self-driving finally came to mean completely self-driving. After a few decades the self-driving cars evolved to the point where no one needed to be at the wheel at all.

I kept working on robots. I wanted a pair of them that could do all sorts of tasks. Roof repair was very high on my list. With my right knee and ankle I didn’t want to have to get up on roofs. Same with cleaning gutters. I wanted auto repair on the list. Oh, and plumbing. It would be nice to be finished with heavy lifting.

I had the programs to develop robots that could do all of these things as well as others- electrical work, carpentry, pretty much you name it.

I figured I’d have all of that in place by the end of April, and have the big box truck working by then as well. At that point I’d have the ankle surgery.

Next time: robots, the big box truck, programming the remotes, a very rainy spring, surgery.

[Wayne23]

5/1: We buy the national basic.

6/1: I arrived for my final series of injections, and DNA sampling. Dr. Worth was waiting for me with a very upset look on her face.

“One of the 12 test subjects died last night… We don’t know why, and we don’t know whether it’s really to the treatments… We feel we should suspend the program and not give the last injections.”

“I want the last treatment. I’ve had 11 treatments. If something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. This is working for me. You’ve said it’s not working for anyone else but it’s working for me. We need to do the full course. Give me the injections.”

It was a long discussion. It was a VERY long discussion. I knew Dr. Worth agreed with me, but I also knew she was concerned that giving me the injections would be a sort of an ethical violation.

I finally convinced her by saying I would sign any papers she wanted, absolving her, the lab, and the university from blame if anything went wrong.

I got the injections, they took the DNA samples.

The treatments were finished but the original agreement was that they would continue taking blood and DNA samples, once a month, for the rest of my life. If I moved on from the university they would send someone to get the samples. Once a year they might do other testing, again, coming to me if I was somewhere else.

6/5: Looking at transfers.

6/6: Dr. Worth asked me to come to her office. When I got there she, again, looked very upset.

“The autopsy results are back on our test subject. The telomeres looked… wrong. They were malformed. We think the treatments either caused, or were a factor in her death.”

Well, that was sobering. But, first, I’m not a worrier, second, there’s nothing they can do to reverse what the treatments may or may not do, and third, I’m still the only test subject who seemed to get really positive results. Let’s see what happens.

6/12: We pick up a PG who looks really good.

6/16: We pick up a PG.

6/26: We have 4 scholarships. We are loaded with guards so we are only looking at bigs.

7/1: First post-treatment testing, and it still looks like this is really working for me.

7/15: Another call from Dr. Worth.

“A second test subject has died. Same issue with the telomeres. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, this seemed to work differently on me than on anyone else. I think I’m going to be okay. I’m worried about the others, of course.”

I’m going to go out of time order here. Between 5/31 and 9/29 all 11 of the other test subjects died. All of them had malformations in the telomeres, and it was assumed that this was very likely a major factor in their deaths. Dr. Worth was very concerned about me, and she asked that I come in for weekly monitoring, blood work, and DNA sampling.

I was fine with that but I wasn’t nearly as worried as she was. Maybe it was a case of ignorance being bliss, but I was pinning my confidence on the fact that I had reacted completely differently to the treatments than any of the other 11 had. I really believed that, for whatever reason, the treatment had affected me differently. Maybe it was a question of body chemistry, maybe it was because I was more fit than any of the others, although they were all in good shape, maybe it was something else.

As time passed and I remained healthy Dr. Worth and her team became more and more determined to try to figure out why I was doing so well. They were desperate to know what the difference was, and whether there was a way to make what was clearly working beautifully for me work for others. I can skip WAY ahead and say that they never figured out either why I was the exception, or how to make this work for others. When it became clear that civilization was going completely down the drain Dr. Worth, who was nearly 80 at the time, gave herself, and two of her colleagues the treatment. It was a roll of the dice, based upon the realization that they were probably going to die soon anyway, due to the collapse of civilization. All of them died within three months of starting treatment.

8/21: We offer to 3 PFs and a C.

9/18: No one has signed but all 4 seem close.

We’re at the Las Vegas Winter Jam vs. Illinois. Schedule is about as weak as last season. We’re still going for wins.

9/25: Got 3, lost one.

9/30: All 11 of the other test subjects in the longevity project are now dead. It’s a strange feeling, but I really do think I’ll be okay. I feel great!

10/2: We’re definitely stronger and deeper inside this year. Hoping the guards can come through. We’re a little thin there.

11/6: We have a lineup, and I like it:

Soph Jam Grip is starting at PG, playing a little SG. Senior Ty Side is starting at SG, playing some PG. Soph transfer Cam Bow is backing up at SG.

Frosh Mu Mont is at SF. Junior Jay Daws is at PF, filling in at SF.

Frosh Marc Lyn is at C. Backing up at PF and C are senior Den Port, and soph Tim Garn, a transfer from Kentucky.

We’re picked 7th in conf. I think we’ll do better.

[Wayne23]

May, 2129: It has been a very rainy spring, with frequent flooding. I managed to get the self-driving big box truck running, and it is sitting in a bay here in the bus garage. I have lots of vehicles, 2 big box trucks, 2 pickups, an ambulance, and a golf cart. That should take care of all my needs.

I’ve managed, after all kinds of difficulties, to get the self-driving vehicles, as well as the robots, to respond to remote commands. That was as difficult a task as I’ve had, but I figured it out, thanks mostly to my HC helpers.

I now have the robots I want, fully programmed and fully operational. I have 2 EMTs, and 6 multi-purpose robots.

Two weeks ago I had the ankle surgery. There was some post-op pain, but not a lot. I’m still on crutches or a walker but I’ll be walking on my own again soon. This one was way simpler than the knee operation.

Now that I got to the part about the longevity research I can talk about it in this part of the story. I just turned 129, and I feel the way I’ve felt since I had the treatments in my mid-30s. If I’ve aged at all it is in very minor ways. I can do everything I’ve always done, I still have the energy of a 35 year old.

Why this worked on me when it killed everybody else is beyond me, but it obviously did, and despite the difficulties caused by climate change and radiation, and by the fact that I am completely alone, it’s a great life. How long will it last? No way to know, but I’m planning to enjoy it as long as it does last.

Next: a peaceful time. Enjoying HC time.

[Wayne23]

11/20: 2-0 start. We open with 3 on the road. We won the first road game by a single point, and the 2nd by 9. SF Mu Mont is looking really good.

11/27: 4-0. These are not good teams but we’’ take the wins. We’re getting balanced scoring, good D, and good rebounding, but the ball handling needs to improve.

12/16: 7-0 headed to the Vegas Jam vs. 4-3 Illinois. They’re the #1 seed. We’re #8.

12/25: 8-2 at the end of pre-conf. play. RPI #55. +9.3 PPG, +2.8 RBs, +4.2 TOs.

We lost our last 2 games, both in OT. We’re showing balanced scoring, solid D, good rebounding, and our ball handling has definitely improved. Mu Mont is our leading scorer, and Marc Lyn is playing very well inside.

[Wayne23]

August, 2129: I’ve had a peaceful three months. Rehab on the ankle went seamlessly and I am now walking normally, even running for exercise- slowly, but I’m running. The Holodoctor says the ankle is better than it was before the injury. It feels it.

With no problems, no crises, I’ve managed a lot of relaxation, which I really needed. I keep the vehicles in shape and run them regularly, which I think is important. I just go for drives to different places, with a self-driving vehicle behind me.

I’ve gone to Northampton several times. I always find a new book or a new disk for the HC when I explore the town.

I hike on the Smith College campus. I’m careful though. I’ve long since hacked away at the overgrowth with my machete so now it’s just a nice, shaded trail and a pleasant hike.

At home I read and write, but, as I said, I spend a lot of time in the HC. My yacht is where I spend the most time. I still love being on the water. It’s peaceful and it’s beautiful. I can just cruise slowly for hours and hours, relaxing. I put a robot at the wheel and program a course, or just instruct it to cruise, and to be back at the starting point in X hours. I’m happy in general, but I am probably happiest on the yacht.

My girlfriends, Lacy, Jo, and Barb, are all completely programmed, and growing in their own directions somewhat.

Lacy is feisty as hell and a real handful at times, but I love her passionate approach to- well, everything.

Jo is great when I want companionship when I’m in an intellectual mood. She’s a true philosopher. She’s been talking about going back to school to get a Ph. D. in something related to philosophy.

Barb is all woman. She’s not the intellectual type at all. She’s very down to earth.

I really am pleased with how the three of them turned out, and with the directions they are growing toward. I don’t plan to talk much about the … physical aspects of my relationships but I’ll say that that is about as good as it could be.

Next time: Star Trek HC, Sherlock, hurricane season.

[Wayne23]

1/8/2036: 10-4 2-2. RPI #46. We split 2 at home and we split 2 on the road. We’re playing pretty well, and the lineup seems to be solidified.

1/29: 13-7, 5-5. RPI #40. +5.8 PPG, +1.1 RBs, +3.7 TOs. In a 2 way tie for 4th. We’re playing well but it’s a tough conference. We feel like the rest of the schedule is favorable and with a little luck we could go 6-2 in our last 8.

SF Mu Mont and C Marc Lyn are leading us.

My bloodwork and DNA continue to come back looking excellent. Dr. Worth says she thinks the treatments have significantly slowed down the aging process, and that I could live a very long time. Sounds good to me!

[Wayne23]

November, 2129: Hurricane season came right on time this year. We got three here. The first and last were moderate- lots of rain, some significant winds, but nothing alarming, and damage was about normal for this type of storm. But the middle one was a monster. Sustained winds over 120 mph, and gusts that I measured at 195 mph, at times. There were trees down everywhere, and the house roof was severely damaged by a large tree branch.

There was severe flooding that restricted my travel for more than a week.

Fortunately, my robots were able to repair the roof.

Once the waters receded I used the plow to clear the roads. I needed to do a lot of chain saw work with trees that were too big for the plow to move, but there again I had the robots do that. Within a couple of weeks everything was fixed and back to normal, more or less. And at that point the third hurricane hit, but as I said, that one wasn’t too bad.

I’ve been spending lots of time in space. I love the exploration program and use that a great deal, but the Star Trek program is also getting a lot of my time. Much as I love role playing as Picard, I spend more time as McCoy than as any other character. There’s just something about his character that’s a delight to play. Evidently a lot of people felt that way back when these games were being played by millions of people, because there seems to be an endless supply of McCoy adventures. I suppose that’s true for Spock, Picard, and a few of the others as well.

I love the future but I also love the past, specifically late 19th century England. I spend a lot of holotime as Dr. John Watson, assisting Sherlock Holmes. I’ve gotten to know the London of the era really well, and the English countryside almost as well as we track down criminals. I play the great detective at times, and I’ve even played Lestrade now and then, but Watson is my man.

Next time: A very rough winter and a spring surprise.

[Wayne23]

March, 2130: What a winter! It was very much like two years ago when it just snowed and snowed and snowed some more. I worked hard to keep the parking lot here, the roadway to the house, and the driveway at the house clear of snow so I could move back and forth, but there were times when I was snowed in. Twice we had genuine blizzards- more like super blizzards in both cases. The winds got up to hurricane force, even reaching 110 mph in a couple of cases. The first blizzard dropped 18 inches of snow, and the second 31 inches. With drifts it was to the rooftops. I plowed every two hours during those two storms, and it was a good thing I did. But both times, when the storms ended, I crashed and slept for several hours, and the winds piled the snow up while I was sleeping, stranding me in the bus garage.

A few days after the second storm, when I was finally able to get to the house, I found that the furnace had died. There were burst pipes all over the place. I managed to send a robot to turn off the water but the house was a total mess, completely uninhabitable.

Once everything gets back to relatively normal I’ll send my robots in to install a new furnace, after I find one and get it to the house with their help, and I’ll have them replace all the split pipes. Meanwhile I’m in the bus garage.

It’s good that I went with two locations.

I’m also going to replace the furnace in the bus garage before a second disaster strikes. I have the robots to do the work, so why not.

And today, on the last day of March, with the snow all melted and the flood waters receded, I decided to go for a walk at Smith College, my first of the spring. I got the biggest surprise since I met the three thieves in 2099.

I turned a corner on the hiking path and about 20 feet down the path were two kittens, an orange tiger and a jet black cat; they looked like they were about 3 months old. I stopped in my tracks, not wanting to frighten them, but they came right to me, rubbing against my legs.

I have absolutely no explanation for this. I haven’t seen a cat since… well, since I left civilization in 2079, not off in the distance, not anywhere, not a live cat, not a cat corpse or skeleton, nothing. I assumed there were none left. Same with dogs.

So where these two little guys came from- they are both male, and where the mother is, I have no idea.

They were real pets, staying close to me, and following me as I walked back to the pickup. Given that they were feral cats, descendants of who knows how many generations of feral cats, this mystifies me. I lifted them into the cab and drove home.

As I drove I thought about how I would feed them. I tried to remember if I had seen any cat related disks for the 3D printer during my rummaging around in Northampton. Since this was not something I was looking for, or thought I could ever possibly want or need, I had never paid attention, so I didn’t know.

Priority one was getting them fed, so I decided to bring them into the HC and getting them some food in there. They’d need to eat in there of course, since anything created in the HC disappears when you try to take it out of the HC.

They ate and drank, and then I made a little bed for them in the garage, and drove to Northampton.

As it turned out there were cat related 3D printer programs in the very first shop I went into. I grabbed a handful of them and drove back to the garage.

The “boys” greeted me on my arrival, and I set out to print up scratching posts, cat toys, a litter box, litter, a cat bed, and cat food.

I was now the owner of two cats in real life, to go along with my two holocats. This presented a problem. As I’ve mentioned, I slept in the HC. Dan and Hal, my holocats, liked to sleep with me. What to do with the new guys at night? I wasn’t crazy about the idea of four cats in the bed, and who knew if the real cats and the holocats would even get along?

I finally decided that the garage was plenty warm and comfortable for the new guys to sleep there. Whenever I went to the house, and I often napped there, I’d take the boys with me. I would set up second versions of all the cat stuff, litter box, food, toys… at the house.

This meant accelerating the repair program because I really couldn’t start going to the house until it was repaired. So I got four robots into the big box truck, went to Worcester to get a new furnace, and all of the other stuff, had the robots load it into the truck, brought it back, and set them working. In three days I had a working furnace, all the split pipes had been replaced, and the house was livable again. The robots had already cleaned up the mess from all the burst pipes.

Now I had to name the cats- not that cats care what you name them. I settled on Stan and Ollie, Stan being the tiger.

Over the course of the next several weeks I returned to the hiking trail at Smith, hoping to find the rest of the cat family, but I never saw a trace of any other cats.

Next: A beautiful spring, fun with Stan and Ollie, an experiment that didn’t work. Time on the yacht.

[Wayne23]

3/9: The absolute bottom ranked team in the PAC 12, Washington ST, 9-19, 4-14, was an upset winner in the play in round. We meet them in the round of 8. We beat them by 18 at our place.

3/10: 76-59. We never trailed. Our guards did the scoring, 24, 7, 6 for Bow, 19, 6, 4 for Side. +7 TOs, +5 RBs.

Our reward is that we get to meet #1 seed, #4 ranked Arizona, 25-5, 15-3, in the semis. We lost to them by 9 here. I truly believe we have a shot, but we need to play very well.

3/11: 64-69. The final was as close as it got. We never led. We also never gave up. With a minute left we were down 5 and took a three that looked like it was going in, but it rolled out after circling the rim twice. That would have made a huge difference. 20, 4, 5 for Bow, 13, 7 for Lyn, 15 for Side.

3/12: Arizona won the title.

Now we wait for the Selection Show. We’re 20-10, 11-7, RPI #31. Can we hope for a #7? #8 seed?

#7 West. We play #10 seed Xavier, 18-13. Not an easy match up, but a 7-10 rarely is.

3/17: 63-59, We led most of the way. They made a late comeback, and they had a chance to tie or go ahead three times. We stopped them every time. Lyn led us with 15 and 5, but this was a team effort. All 7 who played significant minutes did well. +8 RBs.

Tough 2nd round matchup, #2 seed, #5 ranked Oklahoma, 27-5. This is NOT going to be easy. They’re solid at every position and have a very good bench.

3/19: 47-71. Ouch! 25 TOs. Frankly, they were just a much better team. There’s no shame in losing to a better team. Bottom line? It was a very successful season.

4/3: #1 Syracuse won it all, Arizona made the Final Four, and USC won the NIT.

4/4: Awards: Mu Mont was named PAC 12 Frosh OY, and 2nd team all star.

Would I move? If the right offer came I definitely would.

4/9: We’re staying for another year.

4/23: We ask for a budget increase. We get $12,000.

Great season, 21-11, 11-7. 4th in conf. Overall I’m 169-79, .681.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling great but the world is falling apart. Climate change is reducing the habitable parts of the planet significantly, causing all sorts of issues- feeding people, wars for land, wars for water… 27 nuclear power plants have now had critical failures and the radiation level over most of the planet is at absolutely deadly levels. Cancer is rising astronomically.

There is almost no middle class anywhere. The tiny percentages of “haves” control everything, and “have nots” comprise upwards of 90-95% of the world’s population. Society is hanging by a thread.

[Wayne23]

June, 2130: It was a beautiful spring. We got enough rain to make things green but not enough to cause flooding after all the winter snow. There was an endless supply of beautiful days, not too hot, not too cool. I did a lot of hiking on safe trails.

Stan and Ollie were a lot of fun, as kittens always are. They were into everything, very playful. I got lots of laughs from their antics. I couldn’t help wondering where they had come from, and what else was out there that I didn’t know about.

Whenever I was out in the world I looked for signs, I always had done that. I never saw anything to indicate any animals other than deer, wolves, mountain lions, bobcats, brown bears, and a host of small animals like possums, woodchucks, rabbits, skunks- things like that. No corpses or partial corpses, no skeletons or partial skeletons. Nothing at all. This was a complete mystery.

At some point I decided to introduce Stan and Ollie to Dan and Hal. That was a huge mistake. Something didn’t smell right- on both sides, and the four cats were all completely spooked. The holocats wanted nothing to do with the real cats and vice versa. It wasn’t a small reaction either. It was a kind of panicky fear. I got Stan and Ollie out of there and vowed not to try the experiment again.

I spent a lot of time on the holoyacht, as I had all along. In the past I had always brought Dan and Hal along. Now I alternated, Dan and Hal one day, Stan and Ollie the next. All of them loved being on the water and I never had an incident when any of them were in the slightest danger of falling off the boat. Cats are great sailors, and they love being at sea.

The spring went seamlessly and it was a wonderfully peaceful time.

Next time: A hot summer.