by James Smythe
Ally Weyland, lawyer, Edinburgh
We agreed that he would call us every time they moved, let us know that they were alright. I don’t know why we did that, because now, thinking about it, that sounds a bit crazy, checking up on these people we didn’t know at all; but if there were only four of us in the whole world, we really should keep in touch, that was the logic. Katy still hadn’t called home, and I hadn’t told her what her mother said, so it sort of hung around the flat, stinking the place up while we didn’t talk about it. But I could see her worrying about it, when we watched the news. When the riot-fight in New York happened, between the Christians and the whatever-they-weres, she worried then. And then the bombs; they made her worry even more. I mean, Christ, they made me shit my knickers, so God knows what they did to Katy.
Simon Dabnall, Member of Parliament, London
I couldn’t find my tablets – at least, I couldn’t find the open ones, still had a drawer of the damn things at home, but I am the sort of man who requires order amongst the chaos. In this instance, order meant using the currently open bottle, so I decided that I would head back to the office and collect them. They hadn’t taken back my keys, so I knew that I wouldn’t have an issue getting in. I parked on double-yellows – I was fairly certain that traffic wardens weren’t being vigilant about parking violations at that point – and went in, got the bottle from my desk, and when I left, I realized that I had nothing to do. A sensible man would head home, pick up his life; I, on the other hand, decided to revisit the scene of the crime. I walked through the city again, towards Parliament. I didn’t know what I wanted to find there, what I was hoping to get from my visit; there was a chance of seeing somebody that I knew, certainly, and a chance of seeing reporters, which might be fun. But, really, I was doing it because … Whingey Americans would call it closure, I suppose. He needed closure. I made it to the shadow of Big Ben, but couldn’t bring myself to go in. Instead I sat on a bench at the edge of the river, and I found myself shaking, slightly. Not ill; just nervous.
Tom Gibson, news anchor, New York City
When the video came through – same way as the others, posted in New York City, nothing else to give it away – we aired it without watching it. That was irresponsible, but it had already been shown on CNN, and we were still worrying about ratings, about market share. It was the same man in the same cave, and he told us about his operatives. We have weakened you, he said, brought you to your knees. Now, we will execute you, he said. This will be your only warning. There wasn’t anything about what the warning was for, or what was going to happen, to give us a chance to prevent it. It wasn’t a warning: it was a boast. After this, you will know who is right and who is wrong, the man said, and then we heard an explosion, and we saw the smoke throwing itself into the sky.
Ally Weyland, lawyer, Edinburgh
We saw the news about the Statue of Liberty as soon as it happened, I reckon. That was one of those Holy shit! moments, where you really get the chills, when somebody does something awful. It wasn’t awful like the bombing of that school had been, because it didn’t actually hurt anybody, best we knew; but it was an institution, you know? Everybody got that, how much they loved that bloody statue.
Tom Gibson, news anchor, New York City
Lady Liberty didn’t actually fall all the way: she slumped. Nobody was inside; the closure of public services meant that she had been shut for days. All this, said the FBI guys, was symbolic. You get that, right? We asked whether we shouldn’t tell people to evacuate the city, because if there were more bombs, it would be safer. It causes panic if we flood the streets now, they said. We’ll get the dogs. They cleared the area as fast as they could and we watched them tear in with their tanks and vans and dogs and start prowling the streets around the river, then running off in every direction from there, going to every nook and cranny. When they got back from the statue site a few hours later they sat us down to fill us in. The charges that had been placed were shabby, they said, half-assed, the sort of thing that looked thrown together. It was a professional job, the bomb guy told us, but it wasn’t exactly super-terrorist stuff. It’s nothing to seriously worry about, they said. Jesus.
Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC
The Vice President of the United States was who we had. They always say, you can never pick your running mate; the people do it for you. You, the would-be President, are always going to have holes in your campaign, and you plug those holes with somebody who might make sense. They might be able to persuade you another way on a topic of discussion, they might have a solid military mind when you have none, they might be a mathematician when you have no head for numbers; but they’re the other side of the coin. You run for office and you take somebody who might get you votes on the other side, because they’re the way you win the majority. Most of one, some of the other. The VP and POTUS weren’t friends – I don’t remember ever seeing them together before we threw the VP’s name into the hat on the trail – and they didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye on the issues. The VP was on record as being pro-war during the Iraqi invasion, anti-abortion, pro-armament. He was an ex-soldier, three tours, and he was religious, super-, super-religious. He was, in terms of our administration, our plans for the future of the US, a liability, but that’s what POTUS had needed on the ticket to win over some of the red states. He was closer to the red side of the fence, but that was what it took. I knew we’d be at war – a real war, not what it had been for the last fifteen years, not sitting in places holding your guns up in case somebody took a cell-phone out of their pants at the wrong time; a war where we would attack somebody to get some sort of resolution. We got back into the building a few hours after his induction, with the protestors cleared out, the army making walls around the building. The Vice President sat in the Oval Office, with its broken windows and fire-damaged carpets, and we waited for him to make his move. I was there, but in a purely advisory capacity. The President had wanted my counsel on everything, my experience. This guy? He looked like he’d sooner charge in himself than sit back and listen to a liberal. We watched what was happening in New York and we waited. We have to catch these people, sir, I said. He waved me away. You’ll see; the army’ll deal with them, he said. And then Russian Hill happened.
Tom Gibson, news anchor, New York City
The video of that was emailed to us seconds after it happened, and we had it straight on the air, because it felt important. That’s what news is, most of the time: what feels important. It’s famous now: the clip of the shop-owner being dragged out of his shop, through the doors, the men kicking the doors off their hinges, then throwing him down as they set fire to the shop, throwing the petrol in through the windows, and making him watch as it burned. The one that started beating the crap out of the shopkeeper got arrested, I think, but the others got away with it. And the guy with the cell-phone who was filming it wasn’t anything to do with the attack, but he didn’t step in. He didn’t exactly Hoo-rah when they did, but we still had emails from people saying he was complicit.
Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC
Either the police didn’t step in, and let that man get kicked to death on the street, or they didn’t get to the scene on time. They claimed the latter, but the footage showed a parked police car up the road, and there was so much noise they’d have definitely heard it, but they didn’t do anything.
Tom Gibson, news anchor, New York City
I have – I had – a reputation, as being mercenary. I didn’t like it, but that was the news. That’s what it took. We got a report about the reported numbers of dead in the past twenty-four hours only a couple of minutes after the Russian Hill story played out, and I decided to not air them. I got one of the junior reporters to take over the broadcast and I phoned all the syndicates, got some of the runners and assistants to call all the other networks. That was the pull I had; direct phone lines. We all agreed to sit on the information until we had it confirmed; let the W
hite House announce it, take the brunt. People shot the messenger, and we would be delivering the worst news possible.
Joseph Jessop, farmer, Colorado City
They showed the video on the television, the normal, daytime television. The man hosting the show said, This features some graphic images that viewers might find disturbing, and they showed the man being kicked. We had to cover Joe’s eyes from that, then we switched the set off, went for a walk. Jennifer was sniffling, starting to get a cold, and I had seen on the television so many people who were ill from it, so I remembered how we used to fight colds back in Colorado City: you get out, you exercise, you work that cold away. It was a lovely sunny day, beautiful weather. When we got back, we saw that the government had announced an enforced curfew. We knocked on Mark’s door, asked if he was watching, and he was. He looked so angry. When it’s enforced, it’s frighteningly close to martial law, he said, and I told him that I didn’t know much about that. I kept thinking about that poor man in San Francisco. It’ll keep people safe, though, I said. You want to come for food with us? I asked, and he agreed, but made sure when we got to the restaurant downstairs that he didn’t sit next to Jennifer. Turned out they weren’t serving food anyway, so we took some microwave mac and cheese from the shop and cooked it in our rooms, ate it off the saucers they’d put next to the coffee maker.
Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC
The decision to impose the curfew wasn’t made with my consultation. I turned my back and next thing I know, people are being told to stay indoors unless there was an emergency. The Vice President’s press release mentioned that it would be enforced, if it needed to be; the press piled onto me when I walked past the bullpen, and asked me what that meant. I don’t have a clue, I said, I’ll tell you when he tells me.
Well, that was the wrong thing to say to anybody without the words Off the record in front of it; it was on the blogs within minutes, and that effectively shut me out of the Oval Office.
We’re doing this to protect our nation, whatever their creed or colour; we’re doing this to protect the world. There are terrorists and infidels and those who would see you come to harm, and we’re facing the hardest time that we’ve ever seen. People are sick, people are dying, and the only way that we can keep you safe is by keeping those you love close to you. Stay in your homes, and we’ll keep you updated. I watched him deliver the speech live, then asked for a few minutes. You can have one, he said, and I told him that I could be invaluable, that I had a lot to offer. No offence, he said, but what you’ve got to offer is what got us into this mess. Our God spoke to us, that was no accident, but you were too dainty in your response. If some Jihad-following rag-heads rally against Him, against His name? You don’t fuck around with tactical strikes, son; you wipe those assholes out. He left me for a meeting with the heads of all the military divisions, the joint chiefs, some scientists, researchers from our missile programme, and I knew that this was going to get exponentially worse before it stood any chance of getting better.
Phil Gossard, sales executive, London
Jess was on the phone constantly, all morning, all through the afternoon. Her friends had heard all this gossip about the nuns from their school, how they’d gone on a pilgrimage or something, and they all found that hilarious. The phone wouldn’t stop ringing; she’d hang up, it would ring again. My hand was buzzing. I kept holding it under cold water, because it made it less painful, made it seem slightly less swollen. On the news they kept talking about infections being fatal, about stuff maybe being in the air. If you have an open wound, the doctors on the news said, keep it clean, disinfected, wrap it in disinfected materials. I didn’t have an open wound – apart from where the skin was starting to crack along the line of the fingernails, pushing them up, making them sensitive to touch – but I remembered when I was a child, on holiday with my parents, and I broke my foot. To get around the cast and let me go in the pool, my Dad put a condom around my entire foot to make it watertight.
Karen managed to phone in between Jess’ frantic, giggling conversations, and I told her about my hand, underplayed it. It’s just a bruise, I said. You should have let me check out the bone, she said, there’s nothing I can do now. No, I told her, it’s fine. She said that they had her in one of those suits, like she was working on the space station or something. They want to prevent us getting sick, she said, but I’ve got a bit of a cold, I think. My throat is sore. She sounded nervous, and I was nervous for her, but we didn’t say it. Stay positive, I said; that was my concession. I am, she told me. As soon as she hung up I called my mum, because I had the chance to, and she answered in floods of tears, and I knew. I just knew.
LOSING
Phil Gossard, sales executive, London
I was getting ready to drive to my parents’ house – I thought I should wear a suit for some reason, even though it wasn’t like it was the funeral or anything, but I got it wrong, in my head – and Jess came in, gave me a hug. She didn’t know my dad that well. We didn’t really see them, because I was lazy, mostly, and because they didn’t get on with Karen for some reason, I don’t know, but we never really saw them. They lived so close, but we didn’t see them. She wasn’t too upset. We’re going to see your grandmother, I told her, pack a bag. She didn’t, so I ignored her – sometimes she could be stubborn, and she did things in her own time. I was gearing up to tell her to get a move on when she had another phone call, ran off for it. Get off the phone, I shouted, we have to go. She ignored me so I went into her room – I was fuming – and I took the handset. My hand was in so much pain, and she was … I took the handset, and I put it down. What the fuck is so important that you have to talk all day on that? I asked her, and she said, Well, one of the girls, her dad died this morning. Who? I asked, and she said, Tanya. I remembered her name; Tanya was the girl who had been teasing Jess the most, the daughter of the man I had the fight with in the supermarket. I didn’t say anything about that; I stayed quiet until she went to leave the room. Can I take the phone? she asked. I thought you didn’t even like Tanya. I thought she bullied you. She did, Jess said. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what happened.
I knew that my hand was just waiting. I saw the stuff about people dying, and I saw my hand, black, rotting, it felt like, and I knew. It was inevitable.
Dhruv Rawat, doctor, Bankipore
I don’t know why I didn’t go outside when I saw that people were getting sick. I should have thought, I’m a doctor, I can help them, but I didn’t. In fact, I did quite the opposite: I helped myself. I know that one of the main causes of sickness is germs, in the air, so I shut off my air conditioner and kept the windows shut. Out of my window I could see the clinic that had employed me – that was part of the reason for choosing the hotel that I did, because it was so close – and the people waiting outside, not yet frantic, but I knew that they would be. I should have helped them, I know, but I did not. I lay in my room and watched the television, watching the international news and seeing their reports about The Broadcast. They said, Here are some thoughts from around the world. There was a girl in America somewhere, another girl in England somewhere, a German man with long hair, and then me, right in the middle of the screen. I heard Adele’s voice asking me what I thought it was, and I said that I didn’t know, but that I was a doctor, and I needed facts. It was out of context, an old clip now, unrelated to who I was or what was happening, but it ruined me. I took my clothes off in the heat and lay on the cold floor of the bathroom, feeling my back get stuck to the tiles because of the sweat.
I left the television on, and through that day and the next the situation got worse and worse, so I stayed in the room and didn’t answer the door to anybody, and I ate the sandwiches and biscuits from the minibar, and occasionally looked at the clinic, at the people outside it trying to get in, and then not trying to leave.
Simon Dabnall, Member of Parliament, London
I watched a woman fall into the river, off the Vauxhall Bridge, d
own near the Tate. I don’t know if she fell or jumped, actually, but it wasn’t far enough to kill anybody, and all you’d get was an awful swim in water that hadn’t ever been clean, as far as I was aware. (Oh, no, I tell a lie: they put cleaning agents in it for the Olympics. Apart from that, it was a brown quag.) She fell in, and she screamed from the water, and I stood on the side of the river and debated saving her. I could swim, I was there, but I didn’t go for it. There was all this stuff about immune systems not working, and we still didn’t know what was actually going on with that. I didn’t offer my help; I wasn’t ill yet, and I didn’t want to risk it, frankly. I knew that there was a better-than-average chance that, if there was something worth catching, I’d catch it. Most people had an immune system to be destroyed; mine was, as they say, already compromised. There was, I reasoned, a better chance that I’d pop it than most, and I was fine with that; because it’s easy to come to terms with when you know it’s going to happen sooner or later. For me, it’s nearly always been the case that it would be sooner. She didn’t die; a man who saw her leaped in from the edge, grabbed her, dragged her to the bank. Everybody rushed over to check she was alright, but I stayed back.
I had the phone call as I watched a woman from the crowd doing mouth-to-mouth on her. It was Clive, my brother-in-law, and he asked if I was sitting down, as if that actually made difficult news easier to hear outside of bloody Eastenders. Yes, Clive, I said. What’s Dotty done now? She’s dead, he told me. I assumed for a second that it was like everybody else, a virus or the flu, some terrorist after-effect, like with so many other people over the last few days, but no: this was suicide, delivered with a sharp knife in their bathtub while Clive was out. I found her when I got home, he said. I’ve called a funeral home, but there’s nobody there, or at the police. Do you want to come round? he asked, and I said, Honestly, Clive, I really don’t. I don’t want to see her. He wasn’t crying, which I didn’t blame him for; she put him through a lot. He sounded so shaky, though. What are you doing with her body? I asked him, and he said that he didn’t know. I don’t know if we’ll find anywhere to bury her, not now, he said. Are you sure that you don’t want to come and see her? he asked, and I could hear that he wanted me to, so I said that I would. I didn’t do it because I felt I owed it to them; I just thought that I would regret it if I didn’t.