There Is No Antimemetics Division: A Novel

by qntm

So, maybe the end of the world will be some other division’s problem. And yes, a big part of the job we hired you for is basic research. Lab work, as safe as it gets. And yes, it’s been thousands of years, and it may be thousands of years more. “But maybe it won’t. And maybe it will be our problem.

She says, “I remember…working.” And driving home, and sleeping, and driving back to work. Big, hostile buildings. Drug regimens, containment protocols, endless piles of opaque numbers, personal fitness drills. Running. Calculating. Never, ever stopping calculating. She remembers, with unfair clarity, a variety of extremely bad dreams. And other than that, nothing. A huge, deep, ragged-edged black pit.

“You will feel this for the rest of your life. Every day, you will wake up with a sick cold feeling in your stomach where there used to be a real life. And you’ll wonder why.”