Chapter 3. Eugene, Oregon

Chapter 3 of my science fiction novel “The Last Human”

Note: I will be posting the chapters of my science fiction novel “The Last Human” on Substack. This is the second edition, updated through April 2026.

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✦ Chapter Three ✦

Eugene, Oregon

We arrived in Eugene in September 1999, a few months before the new millennium. At that time, everyone was concerned about the “millennium bug”: the fact that many computer programs had used only two digits to indicate the year, instead of four. It was thought that all systems would collapse at midnight of December 31st, that the planes would fall from the sky, trains would collide, banks would lose track of the interests to be paid, etc.

In the end, nothing happened, perhaps because companies had invested in correcting the software failure, or perhaps because most systems did not depend on the date.

There was also concern that the “millenarians” would think that the end of the world was coming and launch attacks or commit suicide on December 31st. Millenarianism arose from a literal interpretation of the book of “Apocalypse” in the Bible. Some communities did commit suicide, including a ritual suicide-homicide in Kanungu, Uganda, where nearly one thousand members of the “Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God” died.

The authorities anticipated that the arrival of the new millennium could encourage acts of extremist terrorism. The governments of Europe, Canada, and the United States developed special investigations and contingency plans to prevent acts of violence on a large scale by extremist religious groups.

The possibility of new attacks by Al Qaeda was also anticipated, which, after the attacks of limited impact on the twin towers in New York in 1993, had carried out larger attacks in 1998, bombing the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar - Es - Salaam, Tanzania. These attacks resulted in more than 200 deaths and nearly 5,000 injured.

In fact, Al Qaeda had threatened attacks in the New Year and planned an attack on the USS Sullivan on January 3, 2000.