After a few seconds of deliberation, Adrian started scribbling.
The Oculus 3 (mainly for Monkey Island VR)
The latest filmmersion release
The beach holiday to Sardinia, with Mum (September)
My last year at St. George’s (school)
Actually, in Sardinia, also spying Amanda when she changes into her bathing suit in the old wooden shed, the one by the beach house
(He couldn’t help throwing a quick, guilty glance towards Alice after writing that last line.)
Having a dog
Adrian tapped the end of his pencil on the page. It was strange. Yes, there were lots of things he knew he’d missed out on. They often struck him at odd, unexpected moments, but he found it difficult to imagine an alternate present in which he’d actually get to enjoy them. Or, not quite difficult, but uninteresting. It didn’t hurt much (although it did a little) to think of the awesome games he might now be playing on the new Oculus Rift set. But it didn’t really matter. Only incidentally did he consider the fact that he was measuring the importance of these issues by how much pain they caused.
What really hurt were other things. Not what he had missed out on, but what he missed. He let the pencil tip hover above the page, then he drew a line beneath his previous list and added a title for a new one: Things I miss.
But, just as he’d finished scratching the paper with that last, upwards curve of the s, he felt as if someone had opened the floodgates inside his chest. It was like one of those tsunamis in the Atlantic Ocean had suddenly found its way inside him, and was about to wreak unimaginable havoc. If a present he’d never really known was one he found difficult to regret, the past was quite a different beast. One thirsty for his tears.
He quickly closed the notepad, slipping the pencil back inside the spiral binding.
Maybe some other time, he told himself.
* * *
The sea was screaming.
Or that’s how it appeared to the two of them, laying flat in the grass and peering down towards the beach.
The wind battered the furious surface of the waves, as the Channel waters shook and roared their foaming rage. Somewhere beyond the Channel lay England and, within England, Adrian’s aunt and uncle.
But right now they couldn’t have seemed any further away. Not only because of the wild stretch of water. Two groups of people stood on the beach, confronting each other.
One group appeared to be scavengers, although they were in such rough conditions Adrian had initially thought they were ‘wraiths. There were about fifteen of them, clothes filthy and eyes rabid.
The other group, a smaller group of about six or seven, were different. They stood before the scavengers, blocking their path. Adrian had never seen anyone like them before. They were still, their stance disciplined, as the disorderly scavengers cried obscenities and threats at them. More strikingly, they wore uniforms.
Alice and Adrian had encountered the occasional group of soldiers during their travels, although they’d always done their best to avoid them – there was no knowing who they were serving, or whether they were dangerous or not. But these men were definitely not military. There were no armies with uniforms like these, black with red stripes along the sides. Their uniforms actually appeared to have been ironed, which was beyond rare these days. And despite something sinister in their design – something that was hard to pinpoint but most definitely there – Alice and Adrian found it hard to look away. There was an enchanting quality to their cleanliness, their order that harshly contrasted with the chaos surrounding them.
The men in these uniforms stood firm, legs slightly parted, and stared, expressionless, towards their opponents.
The two children watched as one of the scavengers spat on the sand, then shouted towards the other group, a fist raised in the air. Another one, an elderly woman, was pointing beyond the uniformed men.
The atmosphere was tense, and just shy of breaking out into a physical confrontation. The smaller group never uttered a word.
“What are they doing?” asked Adrian. Alice simply shook her head.
One of the scavengers picked up a large plastic bag containing what appeared to be vegetables, and headed deliberately towards the martial-looking men. His intention was, apparently, to walk past, ignoring them.
At first, they did nothing. The men merely watched the wretched individual approach them without the slightest variation in their expressions. The man with the plastic bag turned towards his group and smirked sarcastically, as if to say that these men, despite their intimidating appearance, obviously posed no threat.
Then came the first gunshot.
Its sound was almost completely drowned out by the tumultuous storm. Alice and Adrian felt their hearts stop as the horrific scene unfolded before them: the scavenger walking forward, leaving deep footprints in the wet sand, turning his head, while almost exactly at the same time, as if following some sort of secret choreography, one of the other men raised his arm, the small, dark object in his hand hardly discernible.
This moment was the longest. From their perspective, the children caught a glimpse of what was to come – an instant’s worth of the future. They witnessed the possibility of the scavenger’s death before he, the victim, was even aware of the gun pointing in his direction. If ever he was.
Just as the scavenger’s head started turning, the uniformed man (he was standing slightly ahead of the others, although it wasn’t clear whether he carried more importance, within their mysterious hierarchy) raised his pistol. And fired.
What followed was both terrible and strangely uneventful. A sudden silence. A lifeless body falling to the ground with a muffled thud which the kids didn’t hear, but imagined. Then the stillness of the scavengers, as they realised their life was in peril. Adrian noticed he was holding Alice’s hand (gripping it, actually). He couldn’t remember having reached out for it.
Now, the other uniformed men raised their arms, each holding a firearm the children hadn’t noticed before.
“Let’s go, Ady,” said Alice.
“Y-yes,” muttered Adrian, almost incapable of looking away.
There was something mesmerising about those men. Something terrible.
Then the firing began. So did the screams. It was nothing short of an execution.
Adrian felt Alice pulling him up. Yes. It was time to go. While the fight (if one could call it that) ensued, they’d perhaps manage to slip away, unseen.
They stood up, turned around, and saw the rifle pointed at them.
Chapter 7
A Council Meeting
“Tea, anyone?”
Paul smiled as Ms. Brand, a sixty-year-old former school teacher, posed this quintessentially British question to the Council members. Despite it all, and despite the apparent fate of his own Church, some traditions held strong. This was one of the reasons he had returned after all, wasn’t it? The British ability to down-play even the greatest of tragedies, at least on the face of it, by following their odd set of priorities, the first of which was invariably a cup of tea.
A chorus of ‘yes, please’ and a couple of ‘cheers, Marge’ had Ms. Brand pouring out seven steaming cups. Perhaps, when the last teabag finally runs out, so will their sanity, Paul thought to himself, leaning forward with a smile to accept a heart-warming cuppa.
They sat in a circle in the centre of what had once been a classroom. Colourful drawings still covered the walls, and Paul’s eyes wandered upon a touching depiction of Bately Castle populated by Norman soldiers and what appeared to be a dragon peering outside of the Eastern tower. The dragon was smiling, and seemingly got along well with its military fellow tenants. Everywhere were hills, trees, and butterflies. A kindly sun shone above it all, indiscriminately dispensing joyous rays of light on everyone and everything. Nature, thought Paul, was indeed indiscriminate, both in its blessings and its curses.
“So,” started Bill Hughes, a retired Major in the British Army, who now helped coordinate Bate
ly’s patrol and defence squad, which they referred to as the Guard. “If we’re all ready, let’s open the proceedings.”
Everyone nodded.
“Good.” Bill said and gestured towards a slightly overweight kid in a black hoodie, by far the youngest attendee in this Council meeting. Sean shuffled in his seat and seemed to shrink as all eyes turned towards him. He nodded nervously.
“Ahem… yes, sure. So. I’ve been tracking the bulletin boards, and received a few updates from GliderBB and /b/tardReborn, and,” he paused, reminding himself the others hadn’t the faintest idea of what those names meant. They were often at a loss when he spoke. “Ahem… you know, my contacts online.” No use, here, going into the story of the scattered, surviving hacker community.
“And?” asked Bill.
“Well, there’s little news, this week. Umm…”
“Yes…?” Bill edged him on.
Sean flicked through a notebook, thick with scribbled notes and drawings.
“… lot of reports of looting and, you know, violence all over the place. A large gang of meteorwraiths is active on the border with Wales. London is a mess. There’s been another tsunami on the western coast of Ireland. The usual, really.”
Sean hesitated.
“What is it, Sean?” asked Catherine. Sean turned red under her gaze.
“Well, there’s no news at all from Europa’s impact zone, as usual… but… Nero–”
“Yes?”
“Well, you see,” Sean started explaining, looking to the floor, incapable of raising his eyes to meet Catherine’s. “Hackers in Russia and the Nero area are generally very active. Those of them left, y’know, but… the amount of communication from them has, like, dropped. As in – a lot. Say 25 percent or so. Not sure why that is.”
“Okay.”
“Anything else?” asked Bill. Paul couldn’t help but notice the former military man’s unease at treating this spotty kid as an equal member on the Council.
“Not really, no,” concluded Sean. He slowly relaxed, as if he’d just wrapped up a rather difficult exam in school.
Paul observed the others. He knew that they were disappointed, although they tried not to show it. Sean – or R3dPill, as he was apparently known online – had come to fill the gap left by newspapers and magazines, and everyone was constantly on the lookout for a juicy story from the outside world, both inside the Council and among the locals. Starved of the royal scandals and VIP reports they’d been bombarded with before the impact, the cataclysmic stories that occasionally surfaced on the web were all they had to entertain them.
“Well,” said Bill. “Let’s move on to the issue of the food and medicine supplies. Who wants to start?”
“So,” began Frank Bailey, a chubby farmer who was in charge of overseeing food production. “The results from the orchards are unsatisfying, as we had predicted. Pity, yes. But, on the other hand, we’ve had a ten percent increase in the yield from the vegetable and square-foot gardens. Which means,” he added with a sarcastic little hint of a smile, “more delicious cauliflowers for all of us.”
They giggled. Cauliflowers, along with a handful of other vegetables, had proven resilient against the post-impact lack of sunlight. Which meant they had been eating ungodly amounts of them.
“As Catherine requested, we’re working on distributing garlic, for whatever medical reason that was, and it seems to be working out okay so far. Bloody unpleasant to eat the stuff raw, even without chewing it, but you know.”
“Thank you, Frank,” said Catherine.
“In terms of livestock, we’re out of pork of course, but we should have enough cattle for the next three to five months if we stick to the ration plan.”
“And how are you doing in terms of workforce?” asked Bill.
“Well… I’m training a few of the new lads, the ones from what-was-Paris, and the other blokes that came in a couple of weeks ago. They’re learning. Young, most of them, which is good. But they grew up with Game Boys, or whatever they were called, in their hands. Not shovels. Slow progress, but not too bad.”
As Frank spoke, Paul considered the radical shift in peoples’ social status since the impact. Those who made a living performing what the former higher ranks of society had thought of as menial or humble occupations – small farmers like Frank, as well as builders, plumbers, electricians, technicians of any kind – immediately proved to be indispensable. They knew where water pipes where located, how to repair engines (although few of them understood the finer workings of the LMMs – the liquid metal motors – which, although rare, were prized findings for anyone lucky enough to stumble upon one of them), and provided all sorts of services that helped fuel the smooth running of the town. The absolute protagonists, despite their only relative contribution, were kids like Sean. Paul glanced at the boy, who seemed ill at ease in his position as Outside Information Analyst for the Council, and only vaguely aware of the key role he occupied within Bately.
In the meantime, the others, the ones who had lived a life of intellect, who had a hard time making use of a simple screwdriver, had plummeted to the depths of society. Paul felt his own seat on the Council had been assigned to him out of little other than a sluggish reluctance to abandon pre-impact social structures. He was the local priest and, since the Church of England minister, Father Theodore, had lost his life to Nero’s Affliction months ago, he was the only representative of the Christian faith and of the metaphysical architecture of old.
“Good job, Frank,” said Bill with the stiff appreciation of an army officer. “Catherine, how are things on your end?” All eyes turned to her.
Catherine sighed, and cleared her voice before speaking.
“We’re running extremely short on supplies. I’m trying to limit the distribution of aspirin and Paracetamol, but the demand keeps growing–”
“Especially with all those foreigners coming in,” said Ms. Brand, wrinkling her nose. Bill nodded quietly, in agreement, but said nothing. This was one of the more delicate topics, and Catherine felt both the urge to, and the fear of, discussing it with the rest of the Council members. Few things seemed to be as polarising as the issue of the infected from the continent.
“Ms. Brand, they are sick. They have nowhere else to go. We have a moral obligation to help them out.”
“I agree,” said Ms. Brand. “As long as that doesn’t interfere with our own business, here in Bately, Cathy.”
“I know, but–”
“Please, Catherine.” Catherine slumped back, crossing her arms on her chest. “Take me, for instance. I’ve been going around with my arthritis, and it’s killing me. Have I ever bothered you for some painkillers? No. I haven’t. I just put up with it. I think what we need is a wee bit of self-sacrifice around here.”
“Well said,” uttered Bill.
“But, what about these others,” continued Ms. Brand. “They swarm in, and expect us to provide them with medicine and food, don’t they? They turn up at our doorstep and wait for handouts, and what are they giving back, I wonder?” She was looking around, delivering her speech with an annoying combination of pedantic exposition, one you’d reserve for a bunch of eight-year-olds, and amateurish political propaganda.
“Well, a few of them are helping me out, out on the fields, Marge,” muttered Frank, shyly.
“Exactly, thank you, Frank,” said Catherine. “They do help out, Ms. Brand, believe me. And anyway, we’ve all had loved ones die of the Affliction, haven’t we?” Catherine didn’t wait for an answer. She knew it was true.
“That has nothing to do with it,” said Ms. Brand, looking away. Her hand was clenching the hem of her skirt.
“Of course it does, Ms. Brand. We can’t stop caring for the sick, simply because they’re not related or close to us.”
“But–” began Ms Brand, before Catherine interrupted her with an authoritative index finger that no one would have dared challenge.
“Wait. Most of them don’t help, it’s true.” Here Ms. Brand no
dded in agreement. “But that’s because they are literally dying, Ms. Brand. Dying. We’re not talking about arthritis, here. We’re talking about being dead.”
Catherine surprised herself. She hadn’t meant to be quite so aggressive, especially towards a little old lady, bigoted as she may be.
The older woman considered her words for a moment, amidst the general silence. Unexpectedly, she turned towards Paul.
“Father Paul, you know I’m a Christian, and although I don’t attend your services as much as I’d like, I believe in the word of the Lord.”
Paul nodded, somewhat embarrassed.
“So,” she continued, “please don’t take offence at what I’m about to say…” She then hesitated, and turned back towards Catherine.
“The thing is, Cathy dear, if they are indeed dying, why are we wasting medicine on them?”
They all fell silent.
The thing was, Catherine thought, it was easy to see Ms. Brand’s point. And almost too easy to agree with her. But easy didn’t mean fair. Resources were scarce, not only when it came to medicine, and it was natural for people to want to safeguard their own, first. But what irritated her was the fact she was pretty certain that Ms. Brand hadn’t reached that conclusion after reflecting on their current situation. Rather, she was probably one of those who had always regarded immigrants as pests and nuisances.
Catherine drew a breath, and was about to talk, when Paul spoke. “Perhaps it would help,” he began, as eyes shifted towards him, “if we considered what would happen, were we to stop caring for them.”
Catherine was curious. Despite all the thought she’d given to the matter, she had never seriously considered not providing assistance to the ‘wraiths and the sick from abroad.
“It appears that, somehow, people are somewhat aware of our… shall we call it ‘privileged’ condition?” Paul spoke with a soft, measured voice. “No doubt also thanks to the efforts of this Council, Bately has coped with the aftermath of the impact in a far better way than most other places. Both here, and abroad, it seems.”
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