The Voiceless

by Faye Kellerman

  The Voiceless

  Faye Kellerman

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  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  The Voiceless

  Faye Kellerman

  It was a time when the world, though filled with sound, was quiet.

  Human ears continued to hear noise: birds still chirped, dogs barked, rain splattered on rooftops, and the wind rushed through the boughs of leafy trees. There were annoying drippy faucets, loud jackhammers, and emergency sirens wailing at warped pitch. There was plenty of clatter and shatter, lots of clunking and thumping, and clamor was everywhere. But there was simply no sound of the human voice because, over the centuries, it had disappeared.

  People still had vocal cords, but the larynx had become little more than an atavistic appendage, something akin to an appendix. The voice box was part of the anatomy, but beyond a necessity for proper breathing, it sat silent.

  It’s not that people didn’t communicate. Of course they did. But “talking” no longer referred to speech. Talking implied texting and emailing on laptops or pocket computers—things that were once called phones and had been exclusively used for voice transmission.

  Music existed. There was an abundance of synthesized instruments that could be programmed to suit the mood of the moment. Human voice was just another app on the sound portion of the electronic options. Voices could be made to sound high or low, rich or nasal, thin or booming. Voices could sound bluesy or gravelly or operatic. Voices resonated, but they were programmed. And the pitch was always perfect. One minor point of irritation: voices had become devoid of individual nuances. But scores of people were working on software to correct the programming flaw.

  All entertainment was downloaded: concerts, movies, TV shows, and stage plays. Human actors were no longer needed and avatars were used in their stead. Studios and movie theaters had been torn down decades ago. All books and periodicals had been available on the computer for centuries. There were no more physical newspapers or books even if someone wanted them, and no one could remember the feeling of a page under one’s fingertips.

  All communication depended on the printed word and eyes to read them. Conversation from husband to wife, parents to children, friend to friend, teacher to students, clergy to parishioners: almost all of it done on the pocket computer. It was an endless barrage of incoming and outgoing messages, from the most loving intimate moments to the angriest of exchanges. Pushing one’s buttons simply meant communicating: talking, speaking, shouting, and yelling (done in cap letters), cooing, hissing, cheering, debating, and cussing (done in bold print or italics), or any kind of “verbal” interaction.

  Cars were programmed to drive to locations via automated navigation. Speeds were programmed as well. All households were “smart” homes, turning on and off lights, vacuuming, dusting, sweeping, and polishing, and of course, the favorite pastime of the current age—spying. With a simple app, it was possible to spy on family members, spy on the neighbors, spy on just about anyone that was connected. And who wasn’t connected anymore?

  Museums still existed. People wanted to see actual objects, not just facsimiles. When they ventured to these places of the past, they took their pocket computers and downloaded apps so that they could read about the art, the artist, and the history of the times. People also used their pocket computers as cameras so that they would have permanent keepsakes of the paintings, sculptures, and decorative pieces that they saw. They took out their pocket computers and tried to recreate the art using painting software. They did everything that their pocket computers allowed them to do.

  Rarely did people just stand back and observe the objects or look at the art.

  There were no more schools, churches, temples, or mosques. There were no more post offices for mail (maybe that was a good thing). There were no more opera houses or lecture halls or concert arenas. Information exchange was done at home: in a room, in a bed, in the comfort of sweats and pajamas. No longer was there a need for physical warehouses, grocery stores, clothing shops, or toy emporiums. Everything could be ordered online, from crucial medicine to the most trivial kitchen appliance. All people needed were their devices and their eyes.

  For the most part, life was very quiet.

  When Mary Angstrom woke up one morning, her eyes were bothering her. She rubbed them fiercely but the harder she rubbed, the blurrier they became. Panicked, she immediately emailed an alarm to her mother. The beep woke up Mary’s mother, Angela, who was sleeping in her bedroom. When Angela read the complaint, she became worried. She threw on a robe and ran out of her bedroom, her pocket computer in her hand. She knocked on Mary’s door although her computer had told her it was open—it was after all a smart home.

  Angela texted, “What’s the problem?”

  “My eyes are blurry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m seeing double. Mom, I’m scared.”

  “Not a problem,” Angela texted back. “I’ll speak to the doctor right away. Get dressed and we’ll go to her office.”

  By the time Mary and Angela Angstrom arrived at the doctor’s office, an examination room had been set up for them. Mary’s chart had been downloaded into the doctor’s files along with all the current information on blurry eyes. The doctor did a brief physical exam. She sent a text to the both of them.

  “Probably a little eye strain. You may need to exchange your pocket computer and get one that can magnify text.”

  “Yuck,” Mary said. “That’s for old people.”

  The doctor smiled. “It’s a good feature to have, Mary.” She handed Mary some drops. “Take these for a couple of days and text me if you don’t see any change.”

  Mary took the drops. She used them according to the directions.

  By evening, Mary Angstrom was blind.

  The next day, Angela Angstrom’s vision began to blur and within days she was blind as well. The disease gripped the entire Angstrom family until each member was left sightless as well as voiceless. There were voice apps on the computer, but they rarely used them. It was as shocking as it was devastating.

  But medical science didn’t even have enough time to study the family. Within days, the virus or whatever it was had traveled throughout the Angstrom neighborhood, mercilessly going from household to household until it encompassed the entire block.

  Then it went from block to block, area to area, as swift and destructive as a firestorm. Within weeks there was an epidemiological crisis, the likes of which had not been witnessed in centuries. The disease traveled from the Angstrom area—the first outbreak—through the entire city. Once it ravaged the city, it moved on to the county, then to the state. The virus, with its speed and multiplication, obliterated the sight of countless victims, racing from state to state until finally it jumped the ponds—both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans—and demolished country after country.

  Horrific didn’t even begin to describe the panic and terror that had seized the world within a matter of months. Everything came to a complete and utter standstill as the globe and its inhabitants groped their way through blackness. All hope was lost because even the greatest minds of medical science were rendered useless. There was nothing left for people to do except wait in desolation until it was their turn to succumb.

>   No more sunrises or sunsets or even the blinding rays of the sun. No one could make out a great mountain or a crystalline blue sky. No one could distinguish skyscrapers or farmhouses. No one saw birds or flowers or trees or butterflies. And the worst thing of all, communication had grinded to a screeching halt.

  The virus did not merely cut a swath of devastation: it blanketed the universe in a thick, black cloud until the entire world was both speechless and sightless.

  The world was not only quiet—it had gone dark.

  Doctors, though blind, continued to work on the problem. Voice apps were slow and imperfect, but they did provide a modicum of communication between researchers, even though without sight it was difficult to posit and test. Without true speech, thoughts were rapid, but their translations were very slow. Babies were still born with sight but within hours became blind. The maleficent virus continued on with its evil deeds, mutating within minutes, and there seemed to be no way to stop it. As time went on and nothing was solved, the quiet world without light became very, very bleak.

  Four senses remained intact: taste, smell, hearing, and touch. People groped around for loved ones, for familiar faces. A kiss was still a kiss. A sigh was still a sigh. And an orgasm was still an orgasm. The first grunt of human sound came after Adam Sone had climaxed. He recoiled in fear. He reached out for his pocket computer that was now programmed exclusively for a voice app and typed words to his wife.

  It spilled out in a robotic voice, “What was that?”

  Nancy Sone’s machine answered his query in an equally robotic voice, “I don’t know. I thought it came from you.”

  “From me?”

  “Yes. From you.”

  Adam sat up on his bed. “Yeah, it felt like it came from me… like a burp almost.”

  “Vsm ipo ytu oy shsom?”

  “What?”

  “Sorry, my fingers were on the wrong keys. Can you try to make it again?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Try.”

  Adam took a deep breath and let it out. His vocal cords produced a grunt. And then another. And then another. And then he tried to say his name like the voice app. “Aa-dam.”

  “Was that the voice app?” Nancy typed into her pocket computer.

  “No, that was me,” Adam typed back.

  “That was you?”

  “It was.”

  “You made sound.”

  “I did.”

  “That’s unbelievable.”

  “It is,” Adam typed on the voice app. Then he tried again to make the sound with his own throat. But it was too sore for him to continue on.

  And so, speech started as a series of grunts, an easy sound for a rusty voice box to make. A short grunt meant approval. For a yes, I like you, grunt once. For a no, I don’t like you, or a no, that’s not acceptable, grunt twice. A high grunt meant hello and a low grunt meant good-bye. Two longs and a short meant I love you. Two shorts and a long meant get the hell out of here. Mom was a high ascending grunt. Dad was a low descending grunt. Boys were staccato grunts, girls were long and languid grunts. Of course, people still used their voice apps. One needed to communicate with more than yes and no. But still, grunting was much quicker for common everyday phrases.

  Eventually grunting evolved into words. Not overnight, not even over a period of weeks or months. But with each year that passed, the sound of vocabulary—learned from the voice app—entered human consciousness and was reproduced in the larynx. At first, it came out as electronic staccato. But eventually people began to imbue their speech with emotion and individuality.

  Moreover, because speech could only be heard by bodies in close proximity, humans began to interact more physically with one another. At first, people congregated in individual homes. With the small, intimate gathering came food and wine. And with the wine came the actual sound of human talk, conversation and laughter. Then the gathering got too big for the average house. Community centers sprang up, built by feel and those who remembered carpentry. And really, it didn’t matter too much what the building looked like. As long as it was safe, warm, and had a decent roof, it would do. Architecture was functional rather than aesthetic. No sense in building monuments. No one could see them.

  Schools began to crop up. So did places of worship. Without being able to see merchandise, people wanted to touch the wares they bought. So general stores began to reappear. Grocery stores followed.

  A few years later, the first concert arena reopened in New York City. People came to hear actual singers. And it didn’t matter if the singers were young or old, short or tall, fat or skinny. All that mattered was the sound of the human voice conveying music that in turn conveyed feelings and emotions.

  Great music was played again with big live orchestras—strings and brass and woodwinds and percussion—that rang out with the magnificent notes of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. There was such joy in the instruments played by humans and heard by the human ear. Music was no longer something tinny that came out of a machine. It was something to be heard, mistakes and all. Pocket computers had morphed back into telephones because people actually spoke to one another. There were calls of excitement, calls of problems and woes, calls that encompassed the gamut of human expression. Radio came back into fashion with families sitting around listening to music, drama, news, people together and talking once again. Laughter, sadness, fear, surprise, anger, joy… all these sentiments could now be discerned by the gradation and tone of the human voice. People were interacting in ways that had not been possible just a decade ago.

  And of course, it was now possible for doctors to talk to one another. To discuss the horrible problems that had spread throughout the world. Maybe it was too late for those stricken with blindness, people like them, but babies were born with sight. Babies could see until the virus took its toll. Maybe there was something that could be done to help the future generations.

  So medical science worked and toiled and slaved, trying one anti-viral after another. There were multiplicities of experiments with drugs, chemotherapy, radiation, surgery. One procedure might be tried and discarded while another procedure might be advanced to the next level. It took years upon years, but finally improvements were made. At first, babies retained some vision although blurred. Then the next generation of medicines and procedures was better than the first and babies could see well enough to make out colors and shapes. It was the third generation of drugs that produced magic, endowing an entire population with sight. Beautiful, beautiful sight: sunrises, sunsets, majestic mountains and crashing oceans, the blare of the hot sun and the cool silver of a full moon. Flowers bloomed, trees blossomed, butterflies flitted, and birds soared in the skies. This had always happened, but now people could see it. It was glorious. It was magnificent. It was breathtaking. The toils and work had lead to the translation of neural impulses onto rods and cones that came out as images on retinas.

  Now people could speak and see. Years flew by, decades came and went, a century passed and then another. And once again, people used their laptops and pocket computers as their primary form of communication. And once again, they downloaded entertainment and music. Houses became smart houses and people could spy on their neighbors. Once again, as sight was restored, it was no longer necessary to talk.

  And the world became quiet.

  About the Author

  Faye Kellerman is the author of twenty-six novels, including nineteen New York Times bestselling mysteries that feature the husband-and-wife team of Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus. She has also penned two bestselling short novels with her husband, New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman, and recently has teamed up with her daughter, Aliza, to cowrite a teen novel, entitled Prism. She lives in Los Angeles and Santa Fe.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Welcome

  The Voiceless

  About the Author

  Mulholland and Strand Magazine ebook shorts

  Newsletters

  Copyright

  Copyright

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2012 by Faye Kellerman

  Cover design by Keith Hayes

  Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.