Children of The Clench

Oh, this is new.

I seem to be in a tunnel. There’s an exit, over there.

Good, the exit is coming to me.

That’s helpful, because I’m not sure which way is up.

Hello, I can see now.

Archangel, Gerasa. Archangel, Gerasa.

Archangel, Gerasa? That’s not right.

Arkhangelsk, Jerash. Arkhangelsk, Jerash.

Arkhangelsk, Jerash! That’s better.

Lina only heard a little. Over the years, the rest fell off.

Then let’s draw it up, in full.

Thank you, Tippi.

Thank you, me!

3000. A library in Quezopolis. A studio in New Harbin. A foundry in Kohima V. A mineral exchange in Dar es Salaam. A flophouse in Paris. A ferry in Arkhangelsk. A greenmarket in Jerash. Carnaval de Oruro. A cybernetics suite in Spanish Town. A port in Camden.

I know these places!

You’ve never heard of these places.

Oh, right.

This is where Leviathan began.

“Birthed at global chokepoints.”

“Patented DorCorp designs.”

“Award-winning spike proteins.”

“The future of terralogical solutions.”

But why?

Why Arkhangelsk? Why Jerash? Why Camden?

No, why’d they do it?

Why does anyone do anything?

Must we answer questions with questions?

Want to know something funny?

What?

Neither DorCorp, nor their children, nor their great-great-grandchildren, lived long enough to see Leviathan bloom.

Nobody intended it to go on this long?

Who has the time to tend a garden for 2,000 years?

Nobody was driving this thing?

Who has the foresight to schedule a miracle?

Did DorCorp end the world?

Who didn’t end the world?

After a while, I guess it wasn’t enough to be rich.

Three hots and a cot. Anything more, and you’re asking for trouble.

Leviathan was just one platelet, among many.

Nobody notices a platelet, until too many dribble out.

Yikes!

At least humanity didn’t end all life on Earth. They had plenty of chances.

If I’m being honest, it’s that sort of optimism that bothers me.

It’s a quisling optimism that says, “Congratulations on your painless bowel movement.”

“Optimism is mysticism, or something. Look at me, I’m Xoz!”

Good he didn’t hear that. You wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings.

True!

Everybody knew the sewer was a black box. Humanity flipped the rats’ genetic script, every day, for hundreds of years, and somehow we always escaped to the floorboards. Rattus norvegicus minos, that captures but a fraction of it.

More like Rattus norvegicus fruit salad.

Right? They knew Ratti were a melange, and they threw in Leviathan. No one involved signed up for the incubation period.

Quezopolis, New Harbin, Kohima V, Dar es Salaam, Paris, Arkhangelsk, Jerash, Oruro, Spanish Town?

Those all failed.

Camden?

Camden stuck.

Oh. Are we going to Camden?

No, we’re staying right here, under the tree.

 

Welcome to the year 3000.

I’m still at the spruce, but I can see the capital from here.

It sits on a bit of land that never ran out of geopolitical utility.

Once upon a time, the capital was of some regional importance.

Making and taking, same as ever.

Over the years, one shiftless accretion or another bought up the neighborhood, block by block.

And not just the tony or struggling ones: all of the neighborhoods.

Dozens of self-contained duchies, each governed by their own terms of service.

After a while, all of this minutiae began to chip away at county regulations.

“The waterworks are now offering a tiered payment plan, to better serve our customers.”

After a while, it became less of a hassle to smooth the contradictions.

“Farmhand’s Friend has tree-grown apples, available to Platinum-Class leaseholders and above.”

After a while, private equity stopped pretending.

Pretending what?

That it actually improved anything.

“Should you lose your Commonwealth Card, please report to the nearest Hessian Hut.”

“In terms of customer satisfaction, the unchecked monopoly and the state economy are the same.”

“Let a hundred flowers bloom, then get one weed to choke ‘em out.”

“Hello sir or madam, this is your ISP. We have invaded Afghanistan.”

Is it too late to admit I don’t quite understand this?

I’m quoting the dead.

Did the dead say anything else?

“Celebration, Hershey, Palo Alto: America’s kolkhozes.”

What’s a kolkhoz?

Read a book.

What’s a book?

This is going to take forever, isn’t it?

Fine. Why are we at the capital?

Because you’re here, under this tree, where it stood.

Where’s Leviathan?

In 3000? Under the floorboards.

Something tells me we’re going to 5206.

Yup, things got weird in 5206.

 

Welcome to 5206.

Either two seconds passed, or 2,006 years did.

By now, nobody uses that calendar.

I don’t recognize any of this.

Neither did Leviathan, and we were here the whole time.

Where are the neighborhoods? Where is Chambersburg? Duck Island? White City? Sandtown Arms?

Most neighborhoods don’t live that long.

Where are the buildings? Where are the Old Barracks?

Buildings definitely don’t last that long, especially those with “Old” in their names.

I think I understand “Neo-Massive” now.

Even on the most generous timescale, the human house is basically a beehive.

I think humans have more in common with beer.

How so?

They’re cute little yeasts.

Partying on, until the party kills them.

Now you get it!

Of course I do, I’m you.

So what happened in 5206?

Leviathan woke up.

And then?

Pandemonium. More than average.

Meaning?

We came from the drains.

I don’t want to be in 5206.

Nobody wanted to be in 5206.

Can we go somewhere else?

We can go to 9861.

That doesn’t sound promising.

It isn’t.

 

Welcome to 9861. It’s raining.

Is it the middle of the night?

Just a summer storm. Sun hasn’t even set yet.

Where’s the tree?

You’re under it.

No, it kind of feels like I’m above it.

You’re not going to enjoy this, no matter where you sit.

Should I worry about the lightning?

Calm down, you’re not even here.

The lightning doesn’t seem like a coincidence.

It’s just lightning.

Then what is it?

Look closer.

The rain whipping the trees?

Closer.

The wind breaking the branches?

Closer.

The flood overcoming the field?

Closer!

Well, I’m all out of guesses.

Then we’ll wait for the rain to pass.

 

The storm clouds scuffled off, unmasking a runny-yolk sunset, and Tippi was up in the sky.

The pig was so high, she could see the Lenapewhittuk sink into the bay. Somehow, she couldn’t see the century shelter.

We can’t forget that which we never knew.

By 9861, there was no evidence of humanity, with two exceptions.

Three exceptions.

The first exception was Big Rehoboth. From her empyreal box seat, Tippi could see a blip of skyscraper, jutting to the north, cradled in mountains.

In 9861, that old stone saw everything.

“Then why didn’t Big Rehoboth mention it?”

Look closer!

The second monument to Homo sapiens’s short, confused tenure was the geothermal chimney, farther in the distance, dwarfing Big Rehoboth.

That means it’s much bigger.

Tippi considered the chimney. It was once a beach town, but the beach got swallowed up, and the town lost its direction. Later on, that unlucky town won a big contract. Someone needed plenty of seawater, and the townsfolk were swimming in it. The chimney rose, and the town disappeared. A tangle of manufacturing concerns bloomed. Vast tendrils of steel and cable rose up, and rusted over.

From Beach Blanket Bingo to Kola Superdeep Borehole.

After a while, the geothermal chimney turned into an island. Somebody still needed it, so a berm of rocky earth rose up from the mainland, its foot deep in the pines. The precious parts of the chimney were entombed in this earthwork, protected from the salt and the sting.

This is where the stone splits the sea.

The earthen berm began in the pinelands. From the forest floor, the berm resembled a long, meandering mound. But well before the seashore, the berm took off, trading the sandy soil for artificial cliffs of stony Brutalism. The beach went vertical, and the berm turned into The Endless Cliff, The Jetty to Nowhere.

“I couldn’t see the chimney from Big Rehoboth.”

You were on the wrong side of the state.

But the chimney wasn’t why Tippi was dawdling in the aether.

Three exceptions!

In the sunshine, the ground glistened and churned.

We came from the drains.

Tippi looked down.

Leviathan buried the landscape, in all directions.

The entire world was drenched in a charnel acreage of pure rat.

Compared to this, our swarm is a dripping.

The terrain roiled and bled, every surface several rats deep. The gigacolony shrieked orgiastic, but its choir favored bested foes: the caribou and the landmine, the grizzly and the shotgun. Nobody seemed to be winning.

In 9861, The Prince of Scum was born, for the very first time.

“Was it divine election, or random mutation?”

Does it matter? Leviathan celebrated Father’s birth by turning an entire hemisphere into a battlefield.

Tippi was above it all, three weeks after his birth.

The party lasted every day, seven years straight.

Tippi wanted to go!

Father is down there, enjoying himself, somewhere.

She wanted to go to the party, more than anything in the world!

Before The Price of Scum, Leviathan stopped curating new extinctions, and settled into a few decades of tenuous symbiosis. The other continents eluded us, but let’s be honest, they’d been work.

“I want to join them,” said Tippi.

Wait, what?

“I want to join the party.”

You’re kidding, right?

“I want creative destruction. I want nature to run its course. I want to reduce overhead. I want a library named after me. I want to be indispensable. I want to be the exception to the rule. I want to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I want to -”

Up in the sky, Tippi abandoned all coherence for diabolical oinking.

Unbelievable!

“Sorry,” said Tippi.

I wouldn’t have shown you this if I knew you were going to turn into Baba Yaga!

“But what if -”

Stop simpering to a system that will never love you back! Clamoring for a piece of the action, you debase yourself!

“You said I was supposed to hate this!”

You’re supposed to!

“Then why don’t you sound entirely surprised?”

You’re appealing to my intrinsic bitchiness, and I can respect that.

“Where did we leave off? You were bragging about killing everything?”

I wouldn’t say it’s ‘bragging’ as much as ‘empirically observing.’

“What happened to the deer and the weasels?”

Once we came from the drains, most of the animal kingdom stopped posing a problem.

“The cougars and coyotes?”

Have you ever seen a trapdoor spider?

“The rabbits? The bats?”

We didn’t eat the bats. A norovirus did.

“The moles? The voles?”

They went down easier than the mice.

“The insects?”

Fuck me, we couldn’t put a dent in them if we tried.

“The fish?”

Humanity took most of the decent ones. Why do you think we lose it for a single shark?

“The birds?”

They already had their troubles, and we don’t fly.

“So when there was basically nobody left, Leviathan gave us Father?”

And then Leviathan turned on itself. Packs fractured, cosmically compelled to submit to the hierarch. Think of it as self-improvement, like ripping copper from the walls.

“Did anybody try to kill Father?”

Oh, he got killed all the time.

“Really?’

It just never took.

“How so?”

Leviathan is no less an impressionistic organism than you, gut biota, or that murder machine you hang out with.

“Which one?”

Both of them. Anyway, I see one of two scenarios playing out.

“First scenario, please.”

You come at my sister and fail. The silver lining here is you die immediately.

“Second scenario, then.”

A few millennia back, my ancient sisters got sick of Father’s bullshit and turned on him, pronto. They came out of the womb, jaws snapping, ancestral memory gorgeously intact.

“They sound cool.”

They were. Sadly, they didn’t live long.

“Why not?”

“As long as my sisters live, so shall my Father.”

“Oh, no.”

“As long as my sisters breathe, my Father can never die.”

“How?”

The Mark of Freehold.

“Do explain yourself.”

Father sometimes dies by misadventure, but usually by gastric blockage. Each sister possesses The Mark of Freehold. The Mark reseeds Leviathan upon his death and guarantees his rebirth.

“Parthenogenesis?”

Something like that.

“Like bees and pollen?”

Uh, sort of.

“The Mark of Freehold went up my nose. Should I be concerned?”

Probably. I’m almost dead, and this was my last shot.

“What’s it going to do to me?”

No clue.

“I’m not going to give birth to your dad, am I?”

Eww, don’t be gross. You’re not a rat.

“Then what?”

You’re Tippi. At the very least, you won’t inherit my palace drama.

“How many sisters are left?”

Just my older sister. The next pups won’t be born for a few weeks. We lost a host of broodmothers recently, and an opportunity like this will not present itself again.

“How did the broodmothers die?”

Stop changing the subject.

“I didn’t want this.”

You must kill my sister: The Archangel, Drover of Leviathan, Queen Motherless, She Who Has Become Wrath.

“No.”

You must. Only then will my Father die.

“This isn’t fair.”

Recite The Poetry of Laceration.

“Do you even like your sister?”

I love my sister, more than you will ever know.

“Then why?”

If you don’t, you will die. Your friends will die. Despite her peerless vigil, my sister will die for letting it get this far. My father will be live and die, again and again and again, until Leviathan collapses into itself, buckling under his incoherent appetites, until there is nothing left to build upon, and the swarm destroys itself, chasing a meaningless and fugitive perfection.

“So, cute little yeasts?”

That, or a voracious cycle of nothingness.

“Pointlessly hostile systems breed pointless hostility.”

Now you get it.

“I hate this.”

You think I like it? She’s my sister.

“Why me?”

You killed me and said the right things, so it’s your turn. Perhaps this time Father’s death will stick long enough to trap him in the netherwombe for a few centuries.

“A few centuries? What the heck is a netherwombe?”

It’s complicated.

“Your plan isn’t even permanent?”

You will be giving many grateful rats a rare opportunity to work out their nonsense.

“Your sister doesn’t deserve this.”

I love her, but yeah, she absolutely does.

“This is a bad idea.”

I’m dead, and therefore haven’t the occasion for bad ideas. There are not a lot of Sus domesticus bonuses running around these days. You are Tippi, the universal recipient of ill-advised genomic fads.

“Really?”

Look, they filled you with jellyfish.

“I can’t do this.”

This unique confluence of events will never happen again. We both know it.

“I’m scared.”

You are our final chance to break the cycle.

“I suppose I can’t say ‘no’ here.”

I’ve already jump-started the apocalypse.

“What do I do after I kill your sister?”

You kill my Father.

“And then?”

Nobody’s ever gotten that far.

 

When you butcher nearly every single mammal on a continent, you will make enemies.

“Who’s left?”

If you succeed, they will come for you, out of curiosity, avarice, and spite. Three of them are alive, and the fourth has sunk into apocrypha.

“Show me.”

First, New Golgotha.

(Suddenly, I am in a stampede of a thousand elephants, raging unopposed across the vast southern prairie.)

Heavily betinkered specimens, largely from zoological collections and private weirdos, mostly unregistered Loxodonta africana homebrews. The herd came together as things fell apart, largely to keep the last humans away. A few centuries later, Leviathan would put the humans, and everybody else, away.

“The mammoths! They got off the island!”

Uh, sure. Now the herd nation of New Golgotha travels across the flatlands, challenged by none, leaving their tomb cities as a warning to trespassers.

(Their boneyards are the size of Nazca Lines.)

Leviathan tried to take back to the grasslands, once.

“Did it work?”

(I am in the winter mud, as wave after wave of angry pachyderm stomp on me.)

If you can see a tomb city, it’s too late. The boneyards are outposts, and they’re full of traps, deadfalls and other fucky business. Stay a fair distance from The Necropoles of New Golgotha, and you’ll be fine.

“Easy enough, I find all this upsetting. Who’s next?”

CL-0V15.

“I’ll need more than that.”

Avoid the Great Lakes. Avoid the Mississippi. Stay dry, or CL-0V15 will find you.

“No problem, I don’t know where any of those are.”

If you’re a phyto-intelligence with imperial ambitions, who is your champion?

“Is Xoz an option?”

You choose Steller’s sea cow, Hydrodamalis gigas.

“The Hydrodamalis gigas? The extinct Hydrodamalis gigas?”

One and the same. Hydrodamalis gigas: 9 meters long, 10,000 kilograms, looked like a big dumpy seal. Died out entirely in the 1700s, a few decades after sailors discovered each one was a floating brisket buffet.

“How is Hydrodamalis gigas still alive? Not going to lie, this news kind of excites me.”

The sea cows are clones, obviously, but that’s where it gets disturbing. Either CL-0V15 has access to a jury-rigged replication vat – a 7,000 year-old replication vat with underwater specimen release, mind you – or an over-evolved algae bloom with delusions of conquest learned how to rebuild a mammal that died out 100 centuries back.

“Rebuilt out of what?”

Found materials, spare carbons, pond scum. Nobody’s heard from CL-0V15 in a minute. Our most recent expedition said CL-0V15’s neural tissue is glommed to the bottom of Lake Superior.

“And that was?”

500 years ago.

“How did you get down there?”

It wasn’t easy, and most everyone who participated died.

“How are you losing fights with algae and sea cows?”

Fine, go take a bath in the Mississippi and see how quickly your day goes.

“You’re serious.”

I’m dead! I don’t have the luxury of making shit up for my own amusement!

“How much of CL-0V15 is your fault? You did scrape the skin off the entire ecosystem.”

All of this is our fault! We killed everything, and they slid into the free niches! I’m trying, in one of the few miserable ways I actually can, to set it right!

“You were trying to kill me less than an hour ago.”

Opinions change! Organisms die! Opportunity comes a-knocking, for crying out loud!

“That’s so weirdly sincere, I believe you.”

Whatever it takes! I’m dead, and it’s impossible for me to be embarrassed about it. Most life is dead!

“Fine, who is the third?”

Two anemones.

“Like sea anemones? Two cnidarians?”

Two anemones. Avoid them at all costs.

“Why?”

Avoid them at all costs.

“I don’t understand.”

Two anemones. They will come for you. Do not trust her.

“Who?”

Two anemones. She is the only one who hunts Leviathan.

“For food?”

No, worse.

(My sister is mirthless and muttering. I can’t interject. There is violence in her voice. She doesn’t want to remember, but is exhuming this for my benefit.)

“Who is the fourth?”

The forgotten one.

“I want a name.”

It’s yours.

(From an omnipresent window in spacetime, another teacup hypermini is watching me.)

(This pig looks exactly like me.)

(“Ah-wooooo,” she says.)

 

There’s a reason nobody goes to the geothermal chimney.

But somehow, Tippi was there, at the summit of The Endless Cliff.

The gale was merciless, but it was a clear evening with a sprawl of stars. The ocean surrounded Tippi from all angles, as the chimney was plunked at land’s end. Rocky vents pockmarked the windswept shrub like organelles, and the vents birthed meager plumes of steam. Only the most rugged and warped trees tested their mettle.

You want to see what’s inside, don’t you?

The Endless Cliff terminated at a stony lump, the size of a small hill.

Too late, you already know what’s in there.

Tippi saw a hole in the turret, facing downhill, towards the geological curvature of pine barren and sniffling rock.

You’ve been here so many times. You just don’t remember it.

Tippi knew this place.

“When did I come out of the brine?” she asked.

Two years ago, in the century shelter. Lina was there.

“That’s impossible. I’ve been here.”

Trust me, it’s all possible. Don’t overthink it.

“Why should I trust you?”

Because I’m falling apart.

And with that, the sea boiled, The Endless Cliff puckered and melted, and the Atlantic Ocean collapsed into the planet’s mantle. The vast, floating fields of Sargassum were the first to burn, and the continental shelf was the next to go.

Oh, this is new.

“Four days from now, the Earth dies,” said Tippi.

The funny thing is, you’ve known this for quite a bit.

“Really?”

Oh yeah.

“I thought it all started with that ominous turnip.”

It’s been going on way longer than that.

Tippi watched the planet cool into a thankless expanse of mud and ash. Beyond a promising puddle or two, terrestrial life hadn’t the gumption to mount a comeback.

Congratulations, pig. You have 96 hours to save the world.

“Are you kidding me?”

Hey, you told me this part of the story.

“You said you jump-started the apocalypse!”

Yes, but, to be fair, your apocalypse is far more comprehensive.

“Bah!”

Look, I’m surprised too, and glad I don’t have to figure this out.

Tippi swore and snurfed, until the Sun became a red giant. Big Rehoboth wasn’t there to enjoy it, as the skyscraper had been reduced to particles when the Atlantic Ocean burst into flames. She continued with her rude sounds, until the universe itself ended.

Are you done?

“This is a lot, so I required a few billion years to collect my thoughts.”

How did it go?

“Not great. I’ve been outside for three days, so I probably could use another four.”

Everybody is making it up as they go along.

“Maybe I shouldn’t go to the geothermal chimney.”

You can’t go back to Wee Sheol.

“True,” said Tippi.

Two doomsdays in one week. What are the odds?

 

“Will I remember our conversation?”

You’ll remember enough not to completely beef it.

“How will I remember?”

You’ll remember it the second you open your eyes, trust me.

“It’s funny to admit, but I enjoyed this, extinction-level events notwithstanding.”

Oh, I’m not done with you yet.

“Will I ever see you again?”

You’ll see me all the time.

“Really?”

Yeah.

“Wait, why?”

Isn’t it obvious?

“What?”

I’m your fairy fucking godmother.

 

Tippi sneezed, and it was night.

As Leviathan’s gestalt knowledge left her nasal cavity, the pig felt the past 37 minutes seep away in seconds, leaving but a gauzy outline of her parley with Gerasa. There was too much to remember, and the most important conversation of her life slipped away like a daydream, or mystic revelation catalyzed by food poisoning.

Thirty seconds later, Tippi’s brain was left with the vaguest contours of her mission: she needed to save all life on Earth, but first, she needed to stand up.

The pig staggered to her hooves. She’d been curled up next to Gerasa. The rat had died several minutes back, the pearls of midnight long withdrawn.

Tippi was punchdrunk with survivor’s relief, but the rat’s broken body brought her no joy. She felt like she should relish her victory, but she couldn’t muster the enthusiasm. Plus, she still needed to find Lina, who was trapped in the memory crown, somewhere in the dark.

Tippi looked to the Moon for guidance. It was stunning, if unilluminating.

She then turned to the supernova.

Tippi could see Antares.

Sister.

All of the nameless colors danced before her.

Break the cycle.

She could see red.

There is no going back.

Tippi beheld her future, and it was on fire.

 

Outro: Beyonce – “No Angel”