by Morgan Bell
There was a whistle and a bell indicating the departure of the train. Blaise settled in with the reports and began to read. The train pulled away from the station. The reports were exactly what he expected them to be. Just the way his conversation with Fenwick on the ride to BWI had been made for the consumption of others. Nowhere in the reports were there any mentions of Baxter. There was no blame assigned and no credit given. There was only a list of events, equipment inventories and the count of dead citizens and personnel. Blaise read the reports and correlated the information. There were over 300,000 bodies following the signal transmission. The KVB surge in Detroit had stopped. The Kensington virus spread had, outside of Detroit, stabilized without apparent explanation.
The official report, published by the state agencies through their communications groups, was that there had been a limited terrorist attack against Detroit by international anarchists. Leaders had been arrested and were being held by HDMP officials in undisclosed locations pending military tribunal hearings. “Leaked” information included a release of a manifesto and international locations where these cells originated from. The leaked information – which was more official than the official reports – indicated that military reprisals against host nations and financial benefactors were imminent.
A signal flashed on Blaise’s tech. He accepted the notice, and a message appeared on his screen.
Major Jericho Blaise, the message began. Blaise felt himself tense. The cleanup is nearly complete. The more they try to obscure it the more apparent the truth will be.
Blaise’s hand tightened on his tech. Inside and outside they control all. If you draw a line in any direction you will arrive at their door. They will greet you as friend. They will treat you as confidant and compatriot. Then they will sacrifice you. Blaise’s eyes were lost in haze of red.
You cannot join anyone. There are no sides. There is no right or wrong. There is only conscious participation or unconscious compulsion. You are in a zugzwang. All actions are wrong and inaction is impossible.
Blaise felt the throbbing in his temples.
You are in, as product, byproduct, player or observer. You are in and there is no out.
The pressure increased in Blaise’s head.
We will meet again, soon.
Eyeless in Gaza.
∞
Thomas Morton was walking from his home to his office in Seattle, Washington. The weather was pleasant, overcast and promised that proper combination of temperature and moisture that would see his rhododendrons continue their rapid growth. He’d planted them with his ex-husband Larry, who had no natural gift for gardening, but had been companionable and reliable labor. Thomas was a block from his office when his tech signaled that he had a message. It was 8:08 AM Pacific time. Thomas saw the message and thought, Think of the devil.
He began to read. His pace slowed. He tried to stop reading. His vision was lost behind a red haze. Thomas Morton was dead at 8:15 AM Pacific time. He arrived at his office and worked the rest of the day.
∞
Adjoa Kalejaiye was preparing her classroom in the eastern cape of South Africa for the arrival of students when she received a notice on her tech that she had a message from her cousin, Boitumelo. She paused from putting up display terminals and laying out the data sheets to accept the message. The message had the normal greeting between Adjoa and Boitumelo, but then the message became strange. Adjoa was confused and wondered if this could possibly be her cousin. She tried to stop reading, but she found it caused her pain to do so. She continued to read and her head began to throb. Adjoa started to see everything through a red haze.
Forty minutes later, when the students arrived in Adjoa Kalejaiye’s classroom, their teacher had been dead for twenty minutes. She told the children to take their seats. They did their morning attendance, completed the morning announcements. Then Adjoa assigned them a silent reading exercise and spent the remainder of that class period sending messages.
∞
Liam Russell, conductor for the Capital Unlimited, was walking through the compartment car completing his post departure scan of all passengers’ travel data. The procedure was redundant as there were four levels of scan prior to departure. But policy was that he had to have them all scanned before they arrived at their first stop. As it was, they were a few miles out from Rockville, Maryland and he had three passengers left to scan. Two weren’t in their cabin and Liam was fairly sure they were a newlywed couple. So he would check the showers first and then the dining car. The third one he thought was in his compartment. But when Liam swept his scanner over the room it didn’t register anything. Liam stepped up to the compartment door and knocked on it. He heard a cracking sound, and he heard movement inside. He knocked again. There was silence and then the door to the compartment opened.
A tall man with a military posture emerged. He was holding a shattered piece of tech.
“Doing a passenger data scan,” Liam informed the man.
“Okay,” the man said, and passed a data card to Liam.
Liam took the card and scanned it, and handed it back. Now he only had to find the couple and he could transmit his report.
“Pardon me,” the man said. “Do you have someplace I can put this? I’m afraid a piece of my tech broke.”
“We don’t have a repair service on board,” Liam explained.
“No. I’ll get a replacement. I just need to dispose of this,” the man told him, opening his hand to reveal the piece of broken tech.
“I can dispose of that for you,” Liam said. The tech was expensive and he could take it to a salvage office on his way home.
“Thanks,” the man responded, and withdrew into his cabin.
Liam went back to his office to store the damage tech.
∞
Major Jericho Blaise waited until he heard the sound of the car door close as the conductor moved back through the train. He took out the replacement tech that Fenwick had packed for him. He sent one message, contacted by Eyeless In Gaza. Then he shut down the tech and opened up his bed. He stretched out and watched the passing scenery. He felt himself drift off to sleep as the train rocked him. Eyeless in Gaza might think Jericho had no good choices. But that didn’t mean he didn’t. You could only be in a zugzwang if you were playing the game, forced to move and all moves were bad. Jericho wasn’t playing the game. He wasn’t a chess piece or a player. He was going to do what neither could do. He was going to go to the end of the line and then he was going to take himself off the board.
The End
Jericho Blaise will return in:
Technosis: The Eyeless God
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Morgan Bell lives in a yurt, in a sustainable community in New Mexico, with his wife and their two dogs. He teaches anatomy, physiology, medical ethics and political science. He writes dystopian novels, short stories, and essays.