The Last Human (a novel)

come along later. He devised a hand-pump apparatus to extract gasoline from underground tanks at gas stations and used it to drive a government minivan around the city.

He stopped at the house where Idris and he had lived with Clara. He stopped at the house where Perdita and Colonel Gordon had lived when Clara was born. He found it difficult to feel any emotions, as if feeling emotions required living human beings to share those feelings with.

He drove to the White House where Idris, Clara, and he had literally lived while Adrian had secretly run the government. Just inside the gate it became obvious that there had been a last fierce gun battle there, uniformed White House security against unruly and probably looting mobs. There were skeletons of guards with bullet holes torn into their uniforms and there were skeletons of civilians with bullet holes torn through their clothes.

Apparently in the final days some of the guards were dying of the disease but still protected the White House. Lionel proceeded cautiously. He was not quite sure whether all of the various protective service members might be dead. He did not want to get shot.

But as he got closer and then finally, cautiously, went inside, it became obvious that there was no one alive there.

Lionel wandered over to the Oval Office. It was abandoned and dusty. The president had written a note and placed it on the presidential desk. Lionel picked it up. "Leave everything as it is until I return," it read. Lionel laughed and put it back.

He shook his head. "Babylon! With no one left to dig it up," he said loudly to the abandoned walls.

It was a nice day. He walked from the White House to the Smithsonian Aerospace Museum. The body of a dead museum guard blocked a half-open door. His arm was stretched out with a 9-mm pistol in firing position. He had apparently been successful in his last attempt to guard the museum because no one had pulled the door open.

He went in. His footsteps echoed hollow and empty. The great human achievements in aviation and space were all around him. There would be no more humans walking on the Moon. There would be no more human-made robots scooting around Mars.

It was still midday. He copped a crowbar from the museum maintenance room and walked over to the Natural history Museum. He used the crowbar to pry open a back door.

After ambling around inside for some minutes he went over to a skeleton of a mammoth and stood studying it. Then he went to a skeleton of a dinosaur and sat by it.

He went back to his car at the White House. The next day he broke into the Corcoran Art Museum. In exhibition halls lit only by daylight, he ambled past hanging paintings and standing sculptures. After he left, no one would again find pleasure and meaning in these.