Cataclysm

“THE END IS NIGHT, HELLFIRE IS ALL AROUND US, REPENT, SINNER, AND HAVE ALL YOUR SINS ABSOLVED” The man shouted at the drydocks of the space station.

“Um,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder, “Hey, man, you do realise we’re here to escape the apocalypse. Y’know, the one happening right now.”

He looked at me and my sweaty visage, the heat from the fire really was becoming unbearable at this point.

“Ah, a freethinker I see. Come, my son, get yourself baptised.”

I backed away slowly. Not again, this is the second time I’ve gotten this offer. Then I fly. I fly away from here. It’ll happen and I’ll be free from the grasp of this hellscape that the universe has become. People are collapsing in line. I see it as a kind of Darwinism. Those of us who can’t stand the heat, quite literally, perish and give their space up for those of us who can handle it better. You need those kinds of people to go to where we’re going. I don’t know where it is but I’m sure that they’ll need strong people. And just like that the crazy preacher guy dropped exactly where he was.

I was next up soon after that. Last I saw was the guy getting dragged out of the line by staff and tossed unceremoniously with the rest of the charred corpses. Oh well, sucks to be them. I smile at the attendant and he smiles back.

I enter the docking bay and…there’s a car here. It’s a car that’s just hovering off the ground and sitting…is that even the right way of putting it? Sitting? Floating? Yeah, it’s floating right there. The door pops open and a car packed with people greet me.

“Get in,” The man lying on the floor of the back seats says.

“Um, if it’s a choice between burning up in the cataclysm and sitting in that car…” I genuinely thought about this for a moment.

“Well,” The professor began. I didn’t know why I thought he was a professor but it just made sense, “We were actually the ones who began this. So, get in and we can fix it.”

I frowned, HARD. “Wait, you guys were the reason I was forced to abandon my business? You are a bunch of bastards, or you’re lying. Either way I think you people are shitty and I’ll take my chances with another flight.”

“There are no other flights, get in.”

I grimaced but relented. I got in the front, no way was I joining the scrum happening up the back. I looked at the college age students up the back and waved. No response.

“Uh, hi guys.”

“Oh, they can’t understand you. I haven’t installed their logic circuits yet.”

I was taken aback, “They’re robots?”

“Yep.” He replied as he hauled the car around and blasted off faster than any car has any right to be. Except maybe a Bugatti Veyron, except a warp speed version.

“And why do you have these?”

“I invented them.”

“I think you know my next question. Don’t make me say it, spare us both the awkwardness.”

“My students all burned up in the cataclysm. That guy back there also had a hand in the cataclysm, but he more told me about what I had done. He poked a lion once and that’s how he found me.”

“Mm…okay…wait, what?”