Clade

by James Bradley

  October 5

  Something happened today. Because Mum’s in China my feeds have been sending me news items about stuff there, which is good because it means we’ve got things to talk about besides my aunt when she calls. Usually the stuff is pretty normal, stories about pop stars and politicians, but today there was this weird one about all these people dying in Guangxi. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all if some other users hadn’t promoted it.

  Anyway, I tagged it and followed some of the links and it turns out they all seem to have died of some kind of respiratory thing. In the beginning the reports were saying it was flu but by this afternoon they were saying it was actually a virus that hasn’t been seen before.

  I was pretty freaked out so I pinged Mum. She said she didn’t know anything about it but that it was probably nothing. We talked for a while after that, mostly about my aunt, who is getting worse, so Mum’s been at the hospital most of the time. Apparently my cousin Jun is coming back from America tomorrow, so it sounds like it may all be heading for some sort of conclusion.

  October 8

  Mum called. Aunty Mei died earlier today. They were all there. We talked for a while and she sounded upset but okay. I don’t know how I feel about it, because I didn’t really know her, but it still feels weird, like I’ve lost something I can’t describe. The apartment feels very empty just now.

  October 10

  More stories out of China. The government is saying it’s just an isolated outbreak, but there are other reports that it’s much worse than that. Apparently the area around the outbreak has been closed off, but nobody seems to know whether it has spread. Some people think the government should have reacted faster, but the government just keeps repeating it’s under control. I want to ask Mum about it but she’s too caught up with Aunty Mei’s death. Yesterday when I spoke to her she seemed to think it was okay but today when I pinged her I got no response, and when I try to access her profile it tells me she’s offline. I’m not alone either, there are people all over the net complaining they’re finding it difficult to contact relatives in China.

  October 12

  Still no word from Mum. I’m sure it’s nothing but I wish I could just make sure everything’s okay.

  October 13

  I saw Dr Leith today. He came home early. I’d been reading about the outbreak and when he saw it on my screen he went a little quiet.

  ‘Do you know about it?’ I asked, and he just nodded.

  ‘Is it bad?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘We got a bulletin today that made it sound like the Americans and the Europeans are pretty worried.’ Then he paused. ‘Have you heard from your mum?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not for four days.’

  I could see by his face this wasn’t good. ‘I’m sure she’s fine,’ he said.

  October 15

  I’m just writing this quickly. Apparently there are cases in Beijing now. And Shanghai. And Guangzhou. People are saying the Chinese government has been monitoring the traffic and telephones, keeping it under wraps. I’ve been trying to contact Mum but I still can’t get through. It’s been a week now and I’m really scared.

  October 17

  The story about the outbreak is all over the place. Everywhere I look there seem to be maps and counters, although nobody really knows what’s going on. A lot of people don’t believe the figures the Chinese government has released. A journalist from Canada got into the area of the original outbreak and took some photos and spoke to doctors, who looked frightened and said there were thousands dead. People have been sharing photos and video that are supposed to come from Shanghai and Guangzhou and other places that show people fighting outside hospitals and what look like makeshift clinics in school halls. On the train to Noah’s everybody was watching the feeds or texting.

  October 19

  Dr Leith was there again this afternoon, and said he hadn’t been to work. When I came in he asked me if I’d seen Noah, and when I said no he closed the door.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.

  ‘At our place,’ I said.

  ‘And are you alone or with somebody?’

  ‘Alone.’

  He paused in that way he does. ‘You still haven’t heard from your mum?’

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  I could see he was thinking about what to say next. ‘I’m sure she’s fine and this will all blow over. But if I were you I’d stay away from school for a few days. And avoid crowded places.’

  ‘Is it here? In Sydney?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it’s in Canada and the US and there are reports of cases in the camps in India and Burma.’

  ‘Is it bad?’

  ‘Maybe. They’re working on drugs now, and there are detection units at all the airports, but it’s already moving.’

  I waited until eight to head home so the train would be less crowded. It was emptier than I expected and some people were wearing masks. Nobody talked, they just sat staring at their screens and overlays or looking out the window.

  October 22

  Up all night watching the news. There are hundreds of cases in America now, but still none here. People don’t seem able to decide whether to be afraid or not, but if they want to it’s got a name now, Acute Viral Respiratory Syndrome, or AVRS. There’s data as well. The mortality rate is around 25 per cent, but what’s scarier is that the transmission rate seems to be higher again. People are saying its incubation is several days, which is bad because it means it’s transmissible before there are symptoms.

  There’s some maths for it, an equation. Someone has built a simulator online and I played with it for a while and then I got too scared and stopped.

  October 24

  I didn’t go to school today, just stayed in the house. There are reports of people panic-buying, filling their cupboards with food, and stories about unrest in the camps up north. There have been more boats, and people are talking about refugees bringing it in with them. One man had pictures of a hospital in Burma, of the bodies outside, and he was showing them to people, saying what if this happens here? It’s crazy, like it’s all too much – too much information, too many people. It’s like we can’t control that either, can’t keep the stories from spreading. I know I’m just tired but I can’t stop thinking about Mum.

  October 26

  It’s here. Two cases in Melbourne, three in Sydney.

  October 28 (morning)

  Dr Leith called. He said he’s coming to get me. He’s got a house up in the north we can go to.

  October 28 (afternoon)

  On the road. Noah is in the front seat, I’m in the back. The weather is hot and grey. Dr Leith says the house is near one of the old national parks and used to belong to his parents, but it got damaged in one of the floods a few years ago.

  The road is bad, long queues of cars heading out of the city, people by the side of the road. It’s slow and frustrating but Dr Leith doesn’t get angry, just sits and stares out the window. Once, a man came and stood by the window screaming, and telling us to fuck off. Dr Leith pressed the lock down and kept staring ahead.

  October 28 (evening)

  We’re at the house. I wouldn’t have known it was here if I hadn’t been shown. It didn’t come up on any overlays either. You get to it by a track that runs off a road through the national park, and then up another track to a gate.

  The house is small and old but comfortable enough. Dr Leith said it was built back in the teens or twenties, and although it must have been pretty schmick then it’s looking faded now. He said they used to come up here most summers, but for the past few years it’s been too difficult. A lot of the forest is flooded whenever it rains and there’s malaria and cholera around.

  There was power when we arrived, from the panels on the roof, but the house smelled damp inside, mildewy, and there was a foul smell coming from the kitchen. Noah covered his face with one hand, he hates strong smells, but Dr Leith just started opening the windows to
air it out.

  ‘We can clean up in the morning,’ he said. ‘For now let’s try to get some sleep.’

  It was only then that we noticed someone had been here. There were tins levered open and a dried-up pot on the stove. Dr Leith went still when he saw them, then gestured to us not to say anything.

  He went back through to the bedrooms, flicked on the lights and checked them one by one. When he was done he came back to the kitchen.

  ‘Probably just kids,’ he said, but I knew from the way he wouldn’t look at me he was thinking the same thing I was, which was what would kids be doing out here in the forest?

  October 29

  It was light when I woke up. Dr Leith was in the kitchen with Noah, scanning the feeds on his screen. When he saw me he put it away, which I suppose was sweet but annoyed me at the time.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked and he opened his hand.

  ‘It’s everywhere,’ he said. ‘We did the right thing getting out.’

  I knew he wanted to talk to me about Mum, so I went over to look out the window. At some point a storm must have blown through, uprooting trees and sending them tumbling to the forest floor, but the trunks that lay here and there were already disappearing beneath ferns and climbers.

  We spent the morning washing the bedding and airing the place out, which took forever because all we had was a few rags, an old broom and an ancient mop, and everything’s so wet nothing dries, but once we were done I went for a walk.

  I didn’t really know where to go, but then, where the clear space around the house ended, I noticed a track running off and followed it. It was narrow, and sometimes seemed to vanish altogether, but I managed to stay on it.

  I’m not used to the forest or trees, and to be honest I found it a bit creepy at first. I suppose once there would have been birds and things through here, but now they’re gone it’s so quiet all you can hear is the leaves moving in the breeze. Maybe I should have thought it was restful but really it was just weird, I’ve never heard anything so quiet. Although what was worse was the way now and again I’d hear a crack or a crash, like a branch falling somewhere.

  After I’d walked a few hundred metres the ground began to get marshy and the number of fallen trees increased. With less cover the sun was hotter, and I began to sweat.

  Eventually the path went up onto a sort of ridge and turned aside, and I came out into what must once have been a river or a creek, but was now a lake that spread out in all directions, with trees standing in the water.

  It was sort of sad, all the trees there in the water, but it was also weirdly beautiful. The water was dark brown – tannin from the eucalypts, Dr Leith told me later – and so still you could see the grass and leaves and branches scattered in the shallows.

  I would have stayed there longer, but after a while I began to feel sort of uneasy, like somebody was watching me. Looking around I couldn’t see anybody, but then again if there was somebody it would have been dead easy for them to hide. Just like realising people had been in the house last night, it creeped me out a bit, so I decided to head back.

  Noah had his lenses on when I got there, his face twitching and his hands opening and closing. I watched him for a while, wondering how long the software agents and AIs would keep running if we all died. Would the games continue on without us? It was a strange thought, all those worlds left empty, waiting, their only inhabitants things of bits and light.

  October 30

  The weirdest thing about all this isn’t how messed up it is but how normal it is so much of the time. Now that the house is sort of sorted out it’s almost like we’re on holidays, except that Mum isn’t here and everybody’s so far away. But when I sit on the veranda or chat to Noah we could be just killing an afternoon at somebody’s house.

  I said this to Sash earlier this evening and she screwed up her face and told me I was crazy.

  ‘Stuck up there with that freak Noah and his crazy old granddad? It sounds a bit hillbilly to me,’ she said, and I laughed, and so did she except then she got all earnest.

  ‘Seriously,’ she said, ‘are you sure it’s safe? I mean, what do you know about them?’

  It was stupid but I didn’t quite know what to say.

  ‘You think I should come back?’

  Sash glanced sideways, looking at something I couldn’t see. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ I said.

  ‘I’m scared, Lisy,’ she said. ‘They say they’re working on a cure but what if they don’t find one?’

  ‘What do your parents say?’

  Sash made a face again. ‘Mum and Anna keep arguing about it. Anna says it’s engineered, that we should buy some of the pharma they’re selling, but Mum says that’s crazy.’

  ‘And your dads?’

  ‘They have to stay away because Anna says we can’t have more people in the house.’

  ‘But you can still chat?’

  ‘Sure, it’s just they’re all acting so crazy it scares me. What if Anna’s right? What if it is engineered? What if we’re all going to die?’

  ‘We’re not,’ I said. Sash looked unconvinced.

  ‘Have you heard from your mum?’

  I shook my head. Sash was about to continue but I held up my hand to stop her. ‘I have to go,’ I said.

  When I went outside Noah was standing on the edge of the veranda looking up at the sky, his lips moving as if he was reciting something under his breath. He didn’t have his lenses on but the way he was standing told me he was looking at where the stars would be if we could see them.

  ‘Do you know all their names?’ I asked after a while.

  He just kept moving his lips, faster if anything. But then he stopped and blinked several times.

  ‘Most of them don’t have names,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You can’t count them,’ he said. ‘There are too many of them. So they just give them numbers.’

  The sky was grey and featureless. It seemed dizzying that there should be so many stars we couldn’t even name them all.

  ‘How many are there?’

  He seemed to be doing a calculation in his head. ‘In the galaxy? About three or four hundred billion.’

  ‘And how many galaxies are there?’

  ‘Hundreds of billions. But we can’t count them all either, they’re too far away.’

  He stood staring upwards, his leg jiggling. I found myself wondering what it must be like to be him, whether he, like me, felt something that was half-wonder, half-sadness at the idea of all those stars, all that time, the vastness of it all.

  November 2

  We went into town today. I asked to go, but I don’t think I’d realised how weird it would be. It was so quiet. Twice I saw dogs loping along beside the road, first a skinny yellow one on its own, then later a group of three, who saw the car and turned aside into a driveway.

  We stopped outside a convenience store. It looked closed, and despite the security mesh that covered them one of the windows had been broken, and patched up with cardboard and tape. Dr Leith stared at it and then turned to say he thought we should wait in the car.

  ‘I want to come in,’ said Noah.

  ‘No. I don’t want the two of you taking chances.’

  ‘But you can?’ Noah asked.

  Before Dr Leith could reply I leaned forward. ‘I want to come as well,’ I said.

  Dr Leith gave me a sharp look then caught himself. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If you insist. Just don’t touch anything. And make sure you keep your masks on.’

  It was weird being in a shop after five days in the bush. Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Before we arrived I’d thought it would be nice to be able to wander about and look, but once we were inside it was clear the place had been stripped of almost anything anybody might want. While Dr Leith talked to the store owner I picked up a few of the things that remained, looking for stuff that might be useful. It was only when I glanced out through the fr
ont window that I saw Noah had gone back out and was standing in the car park.

  He had his lenses on but when I approached him he turned.

  ‘Don’t you want anything?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘What do you think’s going to happen?’ he asked.

  ‘Now? I think the plan is to try to buy some food.’

  At my words he seemed to close in on himself. ‘It’s not funny,’ he said. ‘We can’t stay here forever.’

  ‘They’ll find a cure,’ I said.

  ‘And if they don’t?’

  I didn’t know the answer to that. ‘Then it’ll end anyway, I guess. It’s just a lot more people will die.’

  Noah stood looking at me and I thought I realised what it might be like to be him, to be so alone, and so afraid.

  November 3

  Still no word from Mum. I’ve been trying so hard not to think about her, not to worry, but it’s really difficult. The media ban is still in place in China but the images that are getting out are bad: hospitals overflowing, bodies in the streets. It’s the same all over Asia, and in America and Europe. Until now I’ve been worried she might be sick, but it could be worse than that, she could be dead, her body dumped in some mass grave or lying in the open somewhere. Some of the big tech companies have been working with the UN to consolidate the information that’s flowing in from different countries, so there’s a database with details of the dead that people can search if they’re worried about friends or relatives, but with so many sick and dying it’s impossible to know how accurate the data is. And so I just keep searching and hoping, willing myself to believe she’s okay.