The Last Hour
“How do we even decide what’s worth doing?” Sam asked.
The clock in the bottom corner of the enormous video screen read 11:36 p.m. Less than half an hour left.
“I don’t know that we can,” Will conceded.
Sam smiled. There was nothing funny about the response, but the absurdity of the moment made it difficult for her to process without laughing. She felt the nervous humor subside slowly, painfully, fizzling once again into darkness. A void. Like the screen on an old television turning off, the static narrowing to a point before disappearing completely. The image was a bit too vivid for her liking.
“What do you think it’ll be like after?” said Sam. “We’ve never had to live like this before. Our parents even grew up with it.”
Will looked back at her pensively. The screen projected his image through the screen set into the wall, his warm eyes rendered with sterile clarity on the massive display opposite her bed. Even though his features were coming through with intense fidelity, she was unsettled by the view more now than she ever had been before. A six-foot-wide face hovering over her, watching her with the same interest a person might show when looking into an enclosure at a zoo. Will was special to her, which was the only reason she didn’t end the call immediately.
“I’m not sure,” Will offered after a long pause. “I guess things will try to feel normal for a while. Banks are my big worry at the moment, but aside from the practical things…”
His gaze drifted off screen, and Sam noticed it was angled such that it almost looked like Will had turned to deliberately look out her window to the dark skyline. An appropriate gesture.
“It’s hard to think practically about it,” Sam sighed. “The internet isn’t just something that you should be able to turn off. Doesn’t it just seem…”
The word failed her. “Wrong” wasn’t even remotely strong enough. The whole thing felt like a crime.
“I think we’re robbing future generations of the opportunity to have the same tools we did,” Sam said, defeated. “As cheesy as it sounds, we couldn’t have gotten where we are today without the internet. And now it’s just going away? What about the last eighty years of innovation because we were all connected to each other? We just throw all of that away because of some ‘security’ bullshit nobody believes? Why is nobody trying to stop it?”
“Easy to say from your bedroom up there, isn’t it?” Will said quietly.
Sam’s heart dropped. Why would Will say something that mean? Did she misread his tone, or was she totally out of line?
“What the fuck do you mean by that?” she snapped back at him, with more venom than she intended.
“I mean…honestly Sam.” Will said, his normally cool demeanor falling. “This barely affects you.”
Will was now looking directly into the camera, and Sam knew that pointing his gaze deliberately at the lens like that meant he couldn’t see her on his screen. It was for her, so she could read his gaze more clearly. And it was definitely clear: I’m not screwing around.
“I didn’t mean that to come out as harsh as it did,” Will offered. “But really answer me. What will change for you?”
Sam didn’t know if she was just imagining him softening because it was easier than facing a fight. But it was easier, so she thought for a moment before continuing.
“Are you asking what I think you’re asking? Because if so, I love you, but you’re about to majorly piss me off, and I’d rather not leave it like this.”
Her eyes stung with the last words. It hit her hard and fast behind her nose, with a white heat that threatened to unravel her. She hadn’t wanted to confront the idea, and after weeks and months of putting it off, it was finally here. This was going to be her last conversation with Will on video, and possibly ever. She searched his gaze for any indication that he was feeling the same way.
“I don’t want to do it this way,” he said at last. “I’m a wreck, Sam. I’m going to miss you so bad it hurts. But…”
Sam begged silently for him not to say it, because she feared that she already knew what he was going to say, and it would make the whole thing even more painful.
“You have other friends,” Will said, with a finality that chilled the air in Sam’s room. He continued looking right into the camera, right into her own eyes through the screen that connected them and separated them over such a great distance.
“I mean, I do too. But you…” Will’s voice was starting to choke as he trailed off. Sam felt physically ill as she sat paralyzed, capable of nothing but watching him continue.
“You can go anywhere you want,” he said. “You’ll talk to other people, from so many different places. You’ll probably move soon anyway now that your dad isn’t around.”
This was it. Sam knew it had to end at some point, but it was never real until now, and it hurt worse than she could have possibly imagined.
“Will,” Sam said feebly through the wetness starting to collect under her eyelids. “I know you think this isn’t as hard for me as it is for you, and everybody else back there.”
“I don’t know how it could be,” Will fired back. “Sure you can’t email us, or call, or mail, or even travel to us. But it’s not like you can’t go offworld. Your system alone has, what, a dozen planets each with like a dozen colonies? This is it for us. Earth is locking the fuck down. No more internet, no more outside communication at all. No travel in or out. We’ve just gone back in time over a hundred years and there’s no discussion. Nobody to do anything. There wasn’t even a fucking fight.”
Tears came streaming from Will’s eyes as he let it out. Sam knew he’d been holding it back for her sake, but this was the end. She hated seeing what this did to him, and she was powerless to stop it.
“Everybody just rolled over and took it,” Will said. “And now we’re done. Earth is completely screwed. There’s rumors, Sam. They’re saying this might be a setup to nuke the whole thing. Get all the good ones offworld so we can put this shithole out of its misery.”
Sam glanced at the clock, and her stomach fell at the sight. 11:58. Two minutes. She had completely lost track of time, and she desperately fought for words to come to her, but all she could manage was a look of terror as her eyes started flowing freely.
Sam could see that Will looked back at his screen, away from the lens. He watched as Sam cried helplessly, alone and afraid.
“Promise me you’ll leave, Sam.” Will said. His face changed, he was pleading. “Promise me you’ll get away from the sadness. Your time back here, your dad, and now this. You need to see what’s out there. It will be so good for you.”
She had nothing to offer. No reassurances, no strength. It was all gone. Just as his world was closing in, hers felt vast and deep and almost entirely empty. All the potential of an infinite future just felt like a black, inky ocean suffocating her from the inside out.
“I promise. I’ll do it. I’ll do it as soon as I can.”
He drifted into a slow grin. He wasn’t happy, but it seemed he wanted her to remember him like this. If this was what came of the happiest friendship she’d ever had, Sam never wanted to speak with another human being again.
“Any final thoughts?” he asked with the air of a professor that just finished a lecture. Sam was completely disarmed, laughing out loud despite herself. Will joined in, and they laughed, and cried, and Sam wondered how it could have ended differently. If there was a chance they’d ever actually see each other again.
“Keep it weird, patchy beard,” Sam quipped a final time.
Will chuckled, as Sam took a mental snapshot of the last time she ever talked to her best friend.
The call dropped, and the screen went dark, leaving only the clock in the bottom corner.
Midnight.
