Six and a half months before Renato Paulo Pape was born, his mother, Ana, was met at her Ob/Gyn's by a cadre of government officials and a number of scientists. She was one of over 350,000 women worldwide who had been or were being met by similar groups of government officials and scientists.
Within two weeks of Renato's conception a very peculiar phenomena had been noticed. It was a Doctor in New Dehli who first noticed it, and initially, he thought it was just an odd fluke in the birth rate in the area in which he practiced. Curiosity compelled him to contact his brother, also an Ob/Gyn, who worked in a hospital 54 miles north of his practice.
To the astonishment of the brothers, they had encountered the exact same incredible singularity. A quick check with all hospitals as well as Doctors in private practice throughout the New Dehli metropolitan area confirmed their mutual discovery. Not one woman in one of the largest urban centers of the world had been diagnosed as being pregnant in the last two weeks.
Within days the earth-shaking realization that the phenomena was not limited to the New Dehli area of India was made. It had not even been limited to India. It was worldwide. The last known day any child had been conceived anywhere on the planet earth was determined to be July 16th of 2034 on the Gregorian calendar.
An emergency session of the UN was called, and it was agreed that every single woman who had conceived on that day, a day that had quickly been labeled The Day of the Last Conception by the world press, should be contacted and given the best medical care possible, as those women were carrying, as far as everyone knew, mankind's last progeny.
And so it was, when Renato Paulo Pape was born in Brasilia, 6 seconds after a baby girl was born in Moscow, he was determined to be the single last human being born on the planet earth.
That was 11 years and seventeen days ago. In the intervening years Renato had been poked, prodded, probed and studied, just like the other 342,267 babies that had been born on April 18th, 2035. They had all also been cared for like no other babies ever born before - housed, clothed, and fed not too unlike the children of 16th century royalty, but with far better medical care.
The population of the earth had fallen below five billion people for the first time in nearly fifty years, and was falling faster still. Several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had lost over 75% of their populations, and the median age of a human being on the planet had jumped from 36.5 to 47.2.
Early on it had been determined that the cause of the problem was two-fold: All males were found to have become inexplicably sterile, and all women had become infertile.
To date, no cause of the two conditions had been found. The best working hypothesis was that an interstellar wave of undetectable radiation had washed over the earth and effected the termination of sexual reproduction in the entire human race.
No species of plant or animal life had been found that was similarly affected. The condition was unique to humans.
Four years after the Day of the Last Conception, the first suicide spike was observed. Over 700,000 women, nearly all of them between the ages of 29 and 36, had taken their own lives. A much smaller but similar spike among males in the same age range occurred in the following 10 months.
The suicide spikes had been repeated every two years since. the next spike was due near the date of Renato's 12th birthday.
Many had turned to the various old religions, and many had turned away from them. Several fertility cults had been revived, with archaic rituals being practiced on an almost daily basis by formerly level-headed, rational people all over the planet.
The majority of the world's GDP that had previously been earmarked for defense was now being spent on medical research. Several large institutions had been created for the sole purpose of finding the cause, and hopefully a cure, for the condition.
As the population declined, the value of property did as well. While the western world still thrived, the economies of countries that had lost staggering numbers of people had dried up to the point where production was now almost non-existent except on small farms or in small craft shops.
All of this was known to nearly every person living on earth. Renato's education, like the education of each and every one of the Last Children Born, was accelerated and amazingly thorough. At 11 years and 17 days old, he was as educated as any High School senior had been prior to his birth.
Today, May 4th 2046 on the Gregorian calendar, Renato once again found himself in the large office of his personal Doctor, Ivone Mendes. Dr. Mendes had been monitoring Renato's health since just after his second birthday.
Three weeks ago, just before his 11th birthday, Dr. Mendes had performed the thorough physical examination that she performed on Renato every six months. Blood was drawn, urine and stool samples were taken, an electrocardiogram and even a CAT scan was performed. Nothing was overlooked.
Today May 4th 2046, Renato was back in the office of his personal Doctor because one of those tests had discovered something that had not been seen before, not in Renato nor in any of the other Last Children Born.
Renato, in appeared, was no longer sterile.
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