by Unknown
Two hundred and forty-three silvery metallic canisters were retrieved, either immediately or at the first opportunity to do so unobserved, and opened.
The creamy powder, which had already been distributed through much of the densely-populated areas of the planet, now began to be smeared on banisters, door knobs and so on and so forth in cities like Pyongyang and Caracas, and in scientific and military outposts in far-flung regions. The powder appeared, though barely discernibly, in the thin air of mountainside villages and on oil rigs and in military island bases and other remote communities.
Many of the two hundred and forty-three people in possession of the canisters also held positions as research and field scientists or high-ranking military advisors and personnel—army, air and navy—or civil servants or personal assistants. Background positions that kept them out of the limelight, but that allowed them relative freedom to move about in areas where such movements are closely monitored or restricted.
Some had become traders between or, if possessed of the necessary racial characteristics, members of remote rainforest tribes or nomadic desert dwellers or the Inuit. Others had infiltrated cults or religious communities that preferred to live in out-of-the-way places with no modern conveniences.
No sizeable human settlements escaped the contents of the canisters. No humans that came into contact with the powder, or with someone already infected, were unaffected by it.
* * * * *
The gun-metal grey Mazda MX-5 Roadster eased in and out of the Saturday morning traffic as it made its way around the suburbs of Sydney, describing an ever-widening semi-circle centred on the harbour. Bishop had the soft top down, enjoying the sun on his face and the breeze in his hair.
He stopped frequently, dipping his hand into the bag within the holdall on the passenger seat next to him, getting out and wandering around as though to stretch his legs, touching things.
Occasionally, as he drove through built-up areas, he’d dip his hand into the bag and then raise his hand above the level of the windscreen, rubbing his fingers to dislodge the Moondust and allow the wind to whip it away to settle he knew not where, but settle it would. He laughed as he did this.
If he noticed pedestrians looking at his car, and it drew many admiring or envious glances, he waved and grinned at them. One youth, slouching along in vest and cut-off jeans, gave Bishop the finger. Bishop waved to him and laughed harder. On another day, Bishop would have been tempted to screech to a halt and have a little ‘chat’ with the youth, but not today. Today nothing could shake his agreeable mood.
As the morning stretched on, he made for Palm Beach and stopped for lunch at the golf club for what would probably be his last visit. He doubted he would receive an invitation to renew his membership in January. He ate heartily of freshly-caught red snapper and left an extremely generous tip, the dollar bills glistening slightly under their thin coating of Moondust.
This was the furthest point north of his journey and now he headed south, driving past the harbour and opera house for one last time, sprinkling a little more Moondust as he went for luck. He took a quick detour to Bondi Beach where he smeared a little powder to be collected by the fingers of the bodies-beautiful.
By late afternoon, he was satisfied that he had deposited sufficient Moondust to ensure that nobody in the metropolitan area was likely to avoid encountering it, directly or indirectly. He had stopped in half a dozen golf clubs—he was a member of many golf and sailing clubs—for a brief drink, tipping well and leaving near-invisible, powdery calling cards.
He left Sydney by the coastal road, driving south to Wollongong. There he took dinner and a late evening stroll. A stroll that took in some of the town’s residential areas and was accompanied by much touching of handrails and pedestrian buttons and benches in parks and bus stops.
On his way back to the car, he approached three youths who were standing together beneath a street lamp, smoking cigarettes. As he drew nearer, he noticed one of them glance at him and nudge his companions. All three of them turned to face him, spread across the pavement, blocking his way.
Bishop had changed from shorts to chinos to have dinner and wore a short-sleeved shirt that he hadn’t tucked into the trousers. Thrust into the waistband of the chinos, in the small of his back and hidden by the shirt tails, was the smooth-handled pistol.
His hand moved towards the pistol, then back to his side as he changed his mind. He was walking through a residential area—he could hear people talking and laughing in their gardens, enjoying the summer night air—and the sound of gunfire would bring people running, he had no doubt. He did not want to risk being delayed.
He reached the youths and stopped a few yards away from them. The one standing in the centre was shorter than his companions, less gangly, and sneered at Bishop, who sensed immediately that this was the leader. Cow this one and the others would give no trouble.
“Good evening, fellas,” said Bishop.
The leader took a step closer. “Got any spare cash, mate?” His tone was confident, cocky. Bishop almost laughed.
“Yeah, plenty,” he said.
The leader’s eyes widened and he glanced at his companions, who seemed a little nonplussed. He looked back at Bishop, narrowing his eyes like some gunfighter in a western film trying to face down the sheriff.
Now Bishop did laugh. He doubted that this would improve the situation, but he couldn’t help himself.
The youth took another step closer. Bishop could sense adrenaline coursing through the boy. Bishop knew that he was backing the boy into a corner, forcing him to act to save face in front of his friends.
He looked at the youth and probed. He sensed the barrier: an angry, scared barrier. The boy was about to do something rash; his hands had curled into tight fists.
Bishop’s left hand had been in his pocket, fingers dipped in Moondust. Now he withdrew it. He raised his hand to his mouth and blew. A puff of Moondust flew into the boy’s face.
“What the– Oh man, what is that?” The youth flapped one hand in front of his face. His other hand was no longer balled into a fist.
Bishop pushed with his mind, pressing against the barrier. The boy blinked. Bishop pushed again, harder. The boy took half a step back, his gunfighter expression dissolving in confusion.
It was Bishop’s turn to take a step forward. The leader stepped back again, rejoining his friends who shared his look of bewilderment. Wordlessly, they retreated to the hedge that bordered the pavement, leaving room for Bishop to continue on his way.
As he walked past them, Bishop grinned at the youths; the leader cringed.
“Evening, fellas.”
Bishop grinned all the way back to the Mazda. He gunned the engine, enjoying the feeling of power.
He glanced down at the smooth-handled pistol, now settled once more within the open holdall on the passenger seat. He was glad he had brought it with him—it was a comfort to have by his side—though doubted that he would need to put it to its former use. For many years, Bishop had been responsible for a trail of unexplained killings throughout New South Wales and southern Queensland. The pistol had been the tool he employed to carry out the killings—he considered them to be executions—in the majority of cases. Now and again, for variety or if he needed to be quiet, he used his bare hands. He knew how to break a man’s neck from behind, but preferred to strangle his victims. That way, he could watch their expressions as they struggled vainly for breath.
The police must have connected the murders—the simplest of ballistic tests would confirm that each shooting was carried out with the same weapon—but had never launched a public man-hunt. The papers weren’t full of articles damning the police for failing to catch a serial killer or lurid headlines making the killer out to be some sort of celebrity with a suitably macabre nick-name. Maybe a team of detectives was working on the case, but Bishop doubted they were working too hard. Apart from the ballistics, they would have very little else to go on. Bishop made sure he left no DNA call
ing cards. If he employed strangulation as his extermination method, he would first disable the victim’s hands so no fingernails could gouge his skin. Besides, no DNA test on his tissue would give results that any human scientists would find reliable.
And he was careful in his choice of victims: usually lone vagrants, druggies or alcoholics, inhabiting the underbelly of Australia that the more affluent pretended didn’t exist. And if nobody cared about the victims, they wouldn’t try too hard to catch the perpetrator. Or so Bishop hoped and, so far, it had proved, at least judging from the lack of publicity of the killings.
Now Bishop had discovered a new method of execution, one that wasn’t messy, posed no risk to him and which the victims weren’t aware was happening, even as they breathed in the deadly powder. Maybe not quite the thrill of watching the victims’ faces turning blue or their brains spraying from their heads, but a different sort of satisfaction. Yes, Bishop was satisfied. For now.
He grinned and gunned the engine again. He would now continue south along the coast before heading inland for the capital. He meant to reach Canberra by the morning.
* * * * *
In Los Angeles, a young boy by the name of Jarod, who had spent a happy morning playing with his mother in a local park, had developed a hacking cough and complained of a sore throat. Mom, while sympathetic, was herself feeling a little under the weather. Her throat felt as though it had been rubbed with powdered glass and her nose had begun to drip. She was forced to constantly wipe it, and it had become red and swollen like the nose of an alcoholic.
That afternoon, she and Jarod had unwittingly infected the waitress in the coffee shop where they’d had lunch (who in turn that afternoon infected the short-order cook, seven customers and her boyfriend), nineteen mothers and children in the Mothers and Toddlers Club, Jarod’s grandparents who they called in to see on their way home and three fellow bus passengers.
Meanwhile, Diane Heidler had left Beverly Hills and made her way through Century City to Santa Monica. She was by now footsore and heartily fed up of walking. As she sat in a beachfront coffee house, gratefully sipping a large latte with an extra shot of espresso, she decided that it was time to mobilise.
Diane did not enjoy driving. It scared her. Particularly in the traffic-choked roads of the city. But she still had a lot of ground to cover before she could leave L.A. and driving herself would be quicker than using public transport. Besides, she would need a car to reach Las Vegas. Although she had days and days before the contents of the canister lost their potency, she had the feeling that staying in L.A. for longer than necessary might turn out to be a bad move.
As she had worked her way through Hollywood and Beverly Hills, Diane had been aware of the multitude of CCTV cameras mounted on nearly every street corner and civic building; on many privately-owned buildings, too. Although she imagined it would be many days before the authorities suspected that the disease had been spread deliberately, if they suspected at all, it was inconceivable that nobody would think to check CCTV footage or that she had not been captured on at least one camera reaching into her bag then trailing her fingers along things, leaving powdery smears. Even though her actions would not look suspicious to anybody watching her now, they would tell a very different story if viewed in the wake of a deliberately-started plague. All the more reason not to use public transport to travel to Vegas.
Diane finished her coffee. She touched the sugar bowl and ran her fingers along the edge of the table before leaving.
The Pacific Ocean twinkled and sparkled in the late afternoon sun. Soon the sun would dip into the ocean and Diane doubted that she’d easily find a vehicle rental store that would still be open. But find one she would, even if it meant having to travel out to the airport. Car hire was available there almost twenty-four hours a day.
Her mind made up, she walked off in search of a cab.
* * * * *
Tom slept badly Friday night. He dreamed of his mother. She was walking away from him, towards a dark tunnel. No matter how his dream-self tried to catch up with her, to pull her back from the darkness, he could not gain on her. At the last, before she disappeared into blackness, before he awoke panting and perspiring, she looked back at him. Tears rolled down her face and her eyes filled with reproach.
He lay in bed, feeling his skin prickle as the sweat dried. His duvet had been kicked to the floor. He reached down to grab it and glanced at his bedside clock: 7:42.
Pulling the duvet over his cooling body, he turned to his side and closed his eyes, but it was no good. He could not shake the image of his mother stepping into that dark tunnel and he knew that he and sleep were done with each other for the night.
With a grumbling sigh, he got up.
Downstairs, cup of tea and slice of toast in hand, he sat in front of the television and watched the news on BBC 24. It contained the usual doom and gloom about wars and murders and famines and recessions and job losses. Even the supposedly more light-hearted items didn’t particularly lighten Tom’s heart: the odds on a white Christmas were shortening; the race for the Christmas Number One was hotting up with the winner of some reality show the favourite, despite the winner not even having been yet decided; medical experts were confidently predicting a flu-free winter after an extensive programme of inoculation against the most recent virulent strain.
That last item got him thinking about his mother again. He’d had a battle to persuade her to get her flu jab; a battle that he’d won, eventually, but at some cost in irritation and exasperation. He checked the time: it was after nine and he knew she would be up.
Tom picked up his mobile and called her on her land line. She owned a mobile—he had bought it for her two birthdays ago—but was obdurate in her refusal to learn how to use it.
The line rang and rang. Frowning, he rang off.
He tried every half an hour or so throughout the morning, but did not get an answer until early afternoon.
“Yes. Hello?”
“Mam! Where’ve you been? I was worried.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me—Tom.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Have you been out?”
“Yes. Went to the shops with Betty. We had lunch at Marks’. I’m tired now.”
“Look, Mam, About last night, what we talked about. . . .”
“Oh, yes?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking some more and maybe we should just leave it for now. Get Christmas out of the way. Talk about it again next year. See how you feel then.”
“Whatever you say, Tom.”
Tom sighed. “Mam, I just want what’s best for you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, love. If you say so. I’m going to have a lie down now.”
“Okay. I’ll ring you in the week.”
“Bye.”
“Bye, Mam. Oh, and. . . .” But she had already gone.
* * * * *
Nobody spoke much during the meal, each too intent on replenishing their strength. The Commune had been fleeting, but had consumed a vast amount of mental energy due to the distances it had covered.
Everyone ate heartily, except for Simone Furlong. The Chosen picked at her food, staring off into space for long moments at a time.
Away with the fairies again Milandra thought, watching the girl. She’ll never gain the necessary girth with the amount she eats. Milandra mentally shrugged. Simone had plenty of time to fill out; Milandra had no intention of relinquishing her position just yet.
Something else nagged at Milandra. As she and Grant filled the dishwasher, she mentioned it to him.
“We’ve lost one.”
Grant blinked. “Dead?”
Milandra shook her head. “Closed his mind. Or her mind. I don’t know who it is yet.”
“Will we need to Commune again?”
“No, that won’t be necessary.” She nodded towards the desk where her computer stood. The pings as messages were received had all but ceased. “That should tell us who
it is.”
“I was afraid we’d lose more than one.”
“So was I. Still, I’d rather have not lost any.”
Grant’s brow furrowed as he thought. “Will we need to do something about him, or her?”
“That depends. On what he or she does. If they don’t try to interfere. . . .” Milandra shrugged. “If they do, well, that’s an entirely different matter.”
* * * * *
On Saturday morning, Peter caught the train into Cardiff. The steady drizzle had not deterred the Christmas shoppers. Throngs of people crowded St David’s Shopping Centre and it was impossible to walk in a straight line down Queen Street due to the sheer volume of foot traffic.
Peter visited his bank and transferred all the money sitting in his savings account to his current account. Unlike most of his kind, he had never been interested in the acquisition of riches. Nevertheless, by most standards he was an extremely wealthy man.
He responded to the bank clerk’s enquiry with a shrug and a smile.
“May as well spend it. Can’t take it with you.” He refrained from adding that money would soon be worthless. “Now, I also need some cash and a banker’s draft. . . .”
He left the bank with a thousand pounds in cash in his pocket and a banker’s draft for one hundred thousand pounds in favour of a car dealer on the outskirts of the city.
Peter did not often go shopping, but knew the layout of Cardiff well. He had lived in the city for many years. It would have been partly his responsibility to deposit the contents of the canister that lay under his bed around the capital’s streets, concentrating on the north of the city, before heading up to Caerphilly and Pontypridd and Merthyr Tydfil, then up through Mid Wales. Another person would deal with the city centre before heading east towards Newport and on to Chepstow.