Kirk and Ilzee were sitting on the floor, in front of the news-anchor’s desk. They were both sick: they were pale, they coughed horribly; their eyes were bloodshot. Ilzee had bundled herself up in a fuzzy yellow blanket. You could swim in the circles under her eyes—they were that deep.
Kirk’s graying hair was unmoussed and unkempt. He held his thick, black-rimmed glasses between his fingers. He’d unfastened his black blazer and lazily half-opened it, giving the nation a view of his wrinkled white shirt and its mismatched buttons. Mr. Dempshire’s normally dapper necktie was nowhere to be found.
There was alcohol everywhere. A mix of bottles in various states of emptiness laid or stood on the floor and desk, along with plastic cups messily scattered about.
The “on air” sign must have been on, because Ilzee looked at the camera and then nudged Kirk’s shoulder. “Kirk, we’re back on again.”
Nodding, Mr. Dempshire sat up straight.
“To anyone just joining us now, um…” Ilzee glanced downward briefly, “Well,” she raised her hands and shrugged, “I guess this is the end.”
Kirk bit his lip as he looked back at the camera. The man was clearly fighting with his emotions.
“As…” he shuddered, “Angel…” Glancing down, he picked up his console, eyes darting at the screen. “The experts estimate the global death toll from NFP-20 is nearing one billion. That number is only expected to grow in the coming days. Across the world, all the brightest minds are scrambling to find a treatment or cure, but…” he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t make a difference. Even if they do find a treatment for the Green Death, by then, society will have collapsed from the sheer numbers of deaths. A cure might save humanity from extinction, but it won’t be able to reverse the… collapse. I’ve been told it’s only a matter of time before the lights begin to go dark. Not just here, but… everywhere. We don’t know how long this broadcast will be going for,” he said, “but we’re thankful you’ve chosen to spend your time with us here at CBN.” A single tear trickled down the news-anchor’s face. “We’re… on the Graveyard shift, now.” He smiled humorously.
Ilzee let out a bitter chuckle. “Actually, Kirk… the lights will probably stay on for quite a while.”
“Oh?“
Ilzee tapped the side of her head. “It’s all automated, remember? Everything from internet service to power generation, water processing and waste extraction… they’ve been automated for decades, thanks to DAISHU.” She leaned toward the camera. “Believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, we still have to go to commercial break, because the commercials were scheduled in advance.” She swung out her arm, sloshing the booze in the cup. “It’s all done by AI. The commercials are customized for every screen—every household. It’ll probably be a couple weeks before the queue finally empties. But then, they’ll just start making their own to fill the queue. It’s how they’re programmed.”
Ilzee raised a plastic cup to toast the gigacorporation. She coughed and gagged the instant she drank it down, spitting spirits across the floor.
“Shit. I can’t even drink anymore,” Ilzee muttered. “The alcohol burns too much going down.” She looked down at the cup. “The main issue’s gonna be food and supplies.” Ilzee closed her eyes. “If I remember correctly, only about one in five farms have been automated in this country so far. For the shipping and trucking industries, it’s even less: maybe only one-tenth of the workforce is autonomous. We’ll start running out of food in about a week.” She lowered her head. “Assuming anyone is still alive to notice.”
“By the Angel…” Kirk muttered, shaking his head in dismay.
A voice spoke from offscreen. “Guys… do you really want us to keep broadcasting? We don’t need to. You can—”
For a moment, Kirk’s brow furrowed. Without a word, he and Ilzee looked each other in the eyes and nodded. “Yeah, Steve,” Kirk said, looking off to the side. “We’re in this till the end.” He nodded somberly.
“Kirk,” Ilzee asked, “do you mind if I…”
“Not at all.” He shook his head.
Ilzee pointed at her colleague. “His son is dead. Just a kid, but now he’s dead.” Then she pointed at herself. “My wife is dead. Oh,” she nodded, “yeah, in case you somehow didn’t know, I’m a lesbian. Send me your best death threats, I dare you!”
There were murmurs from the camera crew. “Rachel is dead?”
Ignoring them, Ilzee looked down at her console and then laughed out loud.
“What’s so funny? Kirk asked.
“Gant just called me an enemy of the state on Socialife.”
“What for?”
“Showing the Norm footage.”
Kirk sighed. “Riots are breaking out across the country—across the world, really. They probably would have broken out anyway, if not because of the Norms, then because of food shortages or the like.”
“And the government thinks they can stop them, Ilzee said.” She chuckled again, hiccuping and coughing. “Fat chance of that happening. If DAISHU couldn’t stop it, no one can.”
“That hasn’t stopped Mayor Joleston’s from calling military personnel to Elpeck.” His voice was raspy. He reached out with a trembling hand and downed a glass of what looked like water, and then panted for breath.
He cleared his throat. I kept munching on my plastic brittle.
“The troops have been arriving in the city since this morning.”
“Do we still have footage?” Ilzee asked. “Can we still show footage?”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The staff answered from off-screen. “Yeah. And we can.”
“Then let ‘er rip!” The reporter whirled her hands in the air.
The feed cut to—frankly ominous—footage of the proverbial cavalry getting sent into action. More so than any of his fellow Prelates, Prelate Vebern had made it his mission to give Trenton the biggest, baddest war machines this side of anywhere, because what was the point of having military parades down the Imperial Promenade if you didn’t have mechanical titans rumbling down the streets to put the fear of the Angel into heretics and infidels all the world over?
Even now, more than a century later, the war machines hadn’t lost any of their power to tighten your throat and make you shudder. The images on the screen showed fortified artillery and jungle tanks rolling down Elpeck’s boulevards. Thuggish transports scattered troops across the city, crawling ahead on their tread-wheels. They had spiked scoopers in front to clear the way forward, and chain-gun turrets mounted on top to keep hostiles at bay. We had rail-gun rifles as big as a man that launched slender metal rods at the speed of sound to blast craters into reinforced steel and reduce iron and concrete to rubble. And though the footage cut out before I spied any missile launchers, I’d be stunned if they weren’t in there, somewhere.
“So far,” Kirk continued, “deployments have come from military bases in the greater Elpeck Metropolitan Area, all across the Thumb. On orders from Chief Minister Gant, troop reserves are being dispatched from forts all across the country in response to reports of violence and unrest. The Mayors of both Seasweep and Angel’s Rest have already declared martial law, and though Mayor Joleston press secretary insists the same will not happen here in Elpeck unless absolutely necessary.” The journalist sighed.
From what I’d seen online or on the news throughout the day, when it came to the pandemic, the Chief Minister’s administration’s ‘management plan’ was primarily one of dismissal and negligence. I found myself wondering who might rise up to fill the vacuum Gant would leave in his burger-gobbling wake, assuming he did kick the bucket. On more than one occasion, Heggy had told me about how military high command was split between pro- and anti-Gant factions.
It was exactly the sort of thing you didn’t want when the world was ending.
“Wow, Kirk,” Ilzee interjected. She tilted her head to the side in an exaggerated gesture. “When you put it that way, it sounds like things are almost normal. It’s funny. The Army Corps of Engineers have been setting up sanitary cordons throughout the city. They think they can separate neighborhoods with high infection rates from those with low infection rates. Emphasis on think. Internal memos have been leaking like rain ever since we showed the Norm footage.” She turned to Kirk. “You know what they’re using as their cut-off for what counts as a low infection rate?”
“It’s gonna be bad, isn’t it?” Kirk said.
“Fifty percent. An area is considered low spread as long as no more than half of its population is believed to be actively infected.”
“Angel’s mercy,” Kirk said. “It’s that high?”
Nodding, Ilzee grabbed a sealed, half-empty glass of Odenskaya vodka and rolled it across the floor to Kirk.
“That settles it, then,” Kirk said, ignoring the vodka. He looked dead into the camera. “Everyone, we’re now in a period of transition. The world of yesterday is on its way out.” He sighed. “And we’re not going to be able to stop it.” Kirk nodded. “The most important thing right now is to take as many measures as possible to prepare for the world that will come after us. We need to do it now, while we still have the time.” He looked at Ilzee. “While the lights are still on.” He turned back to the camera. “So…” he took a deep breath, but it sputtered into coughs. “Don’t join the rioters,” Kirk said. “Don’t let it all burn down. Don’t be wasteful. Don’t be foolish. Save as much civilization as you can. Record knowledge. Print up books like there’s no tomorrow. The world will endure, even if we don’t.” He wept.
I could only imagine what was going through his mind. “The Sun will come out again. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but… the Sun will come out. Blue skies will come again, and something new will be here to bask in the sunshine. We should want to leave something behind by which we can be remembered. Something worthy of us.” Kirk crossed his arms. “Oh God,” he said. “I can see it like it was yesterday.” His eyebrows peaked.
“What is it?” Ilzee asked.
“The Yez-Fa River gorges,” Kirk explained. “It was with Francesca, for our honeymoon, six years ago. It was… gorgeous. Hills glistening in the sun like golden thumbs; mists gathering in the valleys.” He coughed, and the pain made him wince. “The jungle greenery split through it, clambering over the rocks. And… and they had these waterfalls…” He breathed out a soft, airy whoosh. “They poured…” He waved his hands down, imitating the falling water. “You could see it all from the bridges.”
“I’ve never been,” Ilzee said.
“It’s magical… for sure.” There was a faraway look in the man’s eyes. “Earlier today, I was browsing the web, and…” he inhaled a ragged breath, “I saw footage, recorded at Yez-Fa. People were leaping to their deaths. Thousands of them, as far as the eye could see. They leapt off the guard rail and just… vanished into the mist. They didn’t want the disease to make them suffer. Holy Angel,” he clutched at his head, “is that gonna be us, too? Wishing we were dead, and acting on it before we’re too far gone to even try?”
“Have you seen the aerial footage?” she asked. “From Eng An?”
Kirk shook his head. “No, Ilzee. I know of it, but… I can’t.” He coughed again, closing his eyes. “I can’t bear to look at it.” Kirk made the Bond-sign. “Queen have mercy… I don’t think I’m strong enough. I’d take another week in Trans-Dalusia over this Hell.”
Ilzee brought her hand to her mouth. “I can’t get it out of my head. The trees in the Grand Park by the ancient Tchwangan Imperial Palace… they looked like something you might find in a coral reef; animals that look like plants. And… all the bodies…” She shook her head. “I think it’s only a matter of time before Elpeck starts to look like that, too.” She wept. “That’s when I made the decision to release the Norm footage.” She sniffled. “This isn’t just a disease, Kirk. This is… this is something evil. I’d say it was proof that there is no God, but… I… I don’t know anymore.”
Kirk groaned. “It makes me wonder: is it even worth praying for a cure, at this point? I mean—”
—I turned off the news.
I wanted to be optimistic. I want to say that Ilzee and Kirk were panicking, and that there was a chance we’d get through this, but… every shred of evidence said otherwise. I could only imagine what my colleagues were going through right now. West Elpeck Medical was filled to the brim with hearts and minds that wanted the best for our world, and for our fellow man. They wouldn’t stop fighting, even if it was pointless, just because… it was what we did. It was our calling. But… how do you treat a disease that cannot be treated? How did you win a battle that couldn’t be won?
“Mr. Genneth, you can’t give up,” Andalon said. “You can’t…”
Her eyes glistened with incipient tears.
“What’s left for me to do, Andalon? I can’t save people’s lives. I can’t save their spirits. I’m stuck. We’re all stuck. Stuck behind a Gateless Barrier.” I shook my head. “No way through.”
I tossed the last piece of the waste bin in my mouth and shuddered. My leg twitched. Pressure built up. I looked down at my lap, wincing at unexpected pain, and then—
—Rip.
My left pant leg tore open, on the side of my thigh, right above my knee. Flinching, I fell off the sofa, landing on the floor with a thud. The tear lengthened as I clambered back up. I looked down to see that my tail had burst out of the side of my pants like a fractured bone. The limb continued to swell and grow until it was as thick as my thigh.
“Fudge!” I hissed.
Then, in the distance, someone shouted.
“Fucking hell, Hank! I told you we should have come the other way!”
Great. Just… great.