THE END TIME
Prologue
Fifty years ago today, the United Global Army flooded Earth’s atmosphere with Furon Gas and drove the invading Tarnacki out of our world and back to their home planet. Nearly five and a half billion human beings lost their lives in the two year struggle to save Earth from annihilation and another billion from starvation when food supplies ran out in areas that couldn’t be reached by the Planetary Red Cross. Tarnacki bunkers raided by United Global Army security forces yielded incredible discoveries and I believe a lot of good came out of them, i.e. food processing machines, universal translators, and such. But I also believe some technologies created by an advanced alien society are not meant for human application, the procedure device being one of them.
Chapter 1
3:45 p.m. Tuesday
Ten more years to live?
Fifty?
Perhaps, a hundred?
I would know the answer to Jane’s results soon.
I shuffled nervously in the chair under hot institutional lights in the small waiting room, my underwear and T-shirt feeling clammy against my skin, while trying to get a grip on my fraying patience. At this very moment, Jane’s physical body lay strapped to a machine built by extraterrestrials while the spiritual energy that is her human life force whisks through bent celestial dimensions until it can travel no further.
The moment of her death.
Her end time.
It twisted my mind to think about it.
No matter how much I learned about the procedure at school, no matter how many times I’d read about the procedure in periodicals and newspapers, no matter how much I’d researched on my own the good, the bad, and all that could go wrong with knowing your own personal end time, I still believed I was absolutely prepared for whatever the outcome.
“Are you doing okay, Mr. Bradly?” the receptionist asked.
Mid-forties, attractive, with graying hair, and wearing a green dress too small for her figure, the receptionist turned away from typing at her computer to face me.
“Just anxious,” I replied. “That’s all.”
“It shouldn’t be much longer.”
Murmuring voices in the hallway caught my attention and the steel door leading to the procedure area opened. A male doctor wearing a white lab coat and blue scrubs stepped through. The door shut automatically behind him.
The doctor’s hair was dark and unruly. Heavy-rimmed glasses with thick lenses that artificially enlarged his eyes rested on the bridge of his nose. His face was clean shaven. I caught a whiff of oniony body odor as if he hadn’t showered in a while as he reached over and placed an electronic tablet onto the receptionist’s desk. The receptionist took the tablet and resumed typing.
“I’m Dr. Menning,” the doctor said. He reached out to shake my hand and a crease formed along his forehead. “Bob Bradly, I presume?”
I shook. “Yes.”
“Jane Powers’ application form states that you are her primary caretaker for her procedure?”
“I am.”
“Before we continue, would you please take this pill? Low level cosmic radiation may emit from a patient’s body for several hours after the procedure. This neutralizes any effects on those in close contact.”
An alarm rang in my head. I’d never once read or heard anything about side effects of having the procedure. Something didn’t seem normal.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
