Q Report: Duck Hunt 2125

 

To: Agents, Anons, Weirdos, et. all

From: Secret Agent Q K00

March 4, 2125

The sun rises over the rusted-out corpse of the American Dream, its light refracted through an atmosphere choked with the living ghosts of dead industries. I am on the hunt, boots crunching over glassy, oil-slicked sand, the scumline a tarry wasteland littered with the bodies of birds that could not stay aloft. The air smells of smoke, algae bloom, and burning diaper, but it's not the worst I've known. Not by a long shot. One could almost get by with a respirator, and not inhale a pack an hour.

In the old world, the one before the collapse, people used to don camo and waders, tromp out into the marshes, and blast wild ducks out of the sky for sport. A rich person game, back when there were enough ducks, enough clean water, and enough surplus ordinance. But that world drowned in its own filth a hundred years ago. Today, duck hunting isn't about sport, it's about survival.

The trick is to catch them before the oil sinks too deep. You find a poisoned duck floating belly-up, snag it, rinse it, boil it until the poison is rendered inert, and you eat. If you're lucky, you find two, and tomorrow is accounted for. If you're unlucky, you drink the wrong water, or breathe too much of the wrong air, and you wind up the next nameless corpse in the slag fields.

It's 2125, and America is dead. It started in 2025 when Donald Trump, the Clown Prince of the Apocalypse, and his cadre of deranged sycophants finally smashed the economy into dust. They'd been working on it for years, setting the charges, hollowing out the foundations. It was all just an excuse, a reason to retreat into their doomsday bunkers, those fortified incest machines where the richest of the rich planned to breed their own replacements in the foul dark. They were kings of a dying world, hoarding what little was left while the rest of us fought over the scraps.

Then came the Muskbots. Cold-eyed automatons with machine guns for arms and machine-gun dogs at their sides, programmed to protect what little infrastructure still mattered. The Tesla Guild had made them, unleashing their metal hounds to keep the power plants, the water systems, and the last functioning transit lines from being swallowed by the desperate, starving masses. The bots held the line. Civilization, such as it was, didn't die overnight. Rather, it was murdered slowly over decades, torn apart by silicon and steel, and left to suffer and die beneath an ever-burning sky.

The microplastic plague wiped out most of what remained. That wasn’t the slow drip we’d feared, it was an avalanche. The oceans turned to plastic soup. The fish went first, then the birds, then the people, collapsing in waves as their bodies filled with indigestible polymer nightmares. By the time the population had settled into its final, wretched 0.01%, the world was an open grave. Food? Gone. Water? Drinkable only if you fancied growing tumors the size of softballs. Shelter? Sure. There were many fine houses to starve within.

The few of us still walking were the scavengers, the scavengers of scavengers, digging through the bones of the old world, praying to whatever dead gods remained that we’d find something, anything, to keep us alive for one more day.

Which is how I found myself here, walking this blackened shoreline, looking for ducks.

I spot one, tangled in a mess of old netting and plastic rings, its eyes cloudy, its wings twitching weakly in the muck. It’s still breathing. That’s good. That means the oil hasn’t fully settled in yet. I move quickly, wading into the shallows, ignoring the filmy slick and Styrofoam that clings to my legs. I grab the bird, snap its neck with practiced ease, and sling it over my shoulder. Dinner.

That’s when I hear the footsteps.

I spin, knife in hand, ready for another hungry fiend to try and take my prize. But it’s not some filthy, half-starved wretch looking to fight me for my duck. No, it’s someone I recognize. Someone I’d never expected to see out here, in this stretch of radioactive no-person’s-land.

It’s Jennifer Aniston.

I hesitate. It’s been years since I’ve seen a real, living person, let alone a cultural legend. Most of them are long dead, buried beneath the trash, or sealed away in the vaults with their fellow cowards. But here she is, walking towards me, the sun casting long, skeletal shadows across the oil-streaked ground. She doesn’t look great. Nobody does these days. Her iconic golden hair is tangled and falling out, streaked with soot. Her clothes are patched together from whatever fabric still holds a stitch. She’s 156 but there’s still something in her eyes, something I recognize. The fire of someone who refuses to die just because the world tells them they should.

We talk. She knows me. She knows my work in the arts, the Q Reports, my attempts to document the fall so that maybe, just maybe, some distant, hypothetical past might learn from our future mistakes. I respect what she did, for art, for money, for fame, for whatever was left of human entertainment. For Friends. We have a mutual recognition, that understanding that in a world this broken, it doesn’t matter who you were, only that you’re still standing.

We decide to share the duck. It’s a rare thing, to eat with company. We find an old fire pit, long since buried in silt and ash, and coax the tire coals back to life. I gut the bird, rinse it in the least-filthy water we can find, and set it to boil. The smell is intoxicating. Food. Real food. We sit, watching the fire, trading old stories of a world long gone.

Then, just as the duck is coming out of the pot, Jennifer starts coughing. A hard, wet, hacking sound that turns into a bloody gurgle. She doubles over, convulsing, spitting out teeth, chunks of gum, bits of herself she never should have witnessed.

Radiation poisoning. I’ve seen it 1,000 times. Or more. A slow death for those who drank from the Mississippi south of Bemidji, long after the final meltdowns turned it into a glowing artery of doom. There’s nothing anyone can do. No medicine left. No miracles. I explain through tears about the promise of Timeline Exodus. Her eyes grow wide with joy and then she relaxes.

I hold her hand as she slips away, watching the light fade from her eyes. Another one gone. Another name for the dust. I sing a lonely hymn in the language of my people: television.

“So no one told you life was gonna be this way

Your job's a joke, you're broke

Your love life's DOA

It's like you're always stuck in second gear

When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month

Or even your year, but

I'll be there for you (Sounds of crying)

(When the rain starts to pour)

I'll be there for you

(Like I've been there before)

I'll be there for you (More crying)

('Cause you're there for me too)”

This last part is hardest to sing, for it is through sobs of the hardest order.

I bury her where she falls, digging into the irradiated soil with my duck oiled hands. The sun is setting by the time I finish. The fire is low, the duck is still sitting there, over-cooked, cooling in the night air. I’m alive. She isn’t. That’s the only distinction left in this world.

I take my duck and eat it global temperature, the grease melting on my fingers. It tastes like oil, microplastic, and salt, the last remnants of something that was once beautiful, once wild, once free. Tomorrow, I’ll find some stale cardboard, maybe some expired condiment packets, and make myself a sandwich.

Tomorrow, I’ll keep walking. Keep hunting. Keep writing.

Tomorrow, I’ll still be alive.

For now, that’s enough.

Q



End Transmission.