The orgy of looting that followed seemed part nightmare, part wet dream. He found it difficult to accept what he had found in some of their homes, and his stomach ache reminded him of what he had found in various kitchens, cupboards and warming refrigerators. He and his twenty or so companions had separated from the main crowds, made their looting more methodical, and dubbed themselves the Cray Zees. They ate whatever would spoil, and all now carried heavy rucksacks full of food that could last. They’d taken weapons, too, from dead Inspectorate guards and soldiers, and in one case torn a readergun from its mounting. But they had used these guns to do no more than scare other ZAs away from their pickings. When they found any surviving Inspectorate or other government employees, they used other methods.
‘Cray Zee!’ Chingly bellowed, trying to be comfortable with the horrible images in his mind. The rest of the gang, sprawled around the fire over which they had previously been roasting an odd papery-tasting sweetcorn, responded in kind. They were all as drunk as him on the stash of raw spirit they’d found in containers alongside a still in one of the houses they’d recently broken into.
Chingly tried to accept that what they had done to the government employees they had found was well deserved, but still remained uncomfortable with his own actions. After filling his belly, he had found his libido returning in full force, and it seemed right to butt-fuck that stuck-up bitch wearing her grey power suit. He preferred that method, since the rest of her had already been well used by the other Cray Zees, and she was bleeding quite badly. She’d stopped bleeding about an hour later; about ten minutes after Denk slit open her guts.
Man, that corn was rough. Chingly rubbed his stomach, which felt tight and a little painful. He tossed away his roll-up and moved back a bit from the fire, because the smoke seemed to be bothering him now. His lungs felt raw.
‘Fucking shit!’ said Mills, tossing spirit into the fire so it flared. ‘I feel like shit.’
Maybe that was the cause – just a rough stash of bootleg liquor. It was certainly potent because Chingly felt numb, couldn’t even feel his feet, and now his hands were shaking. He put his own drink aside and tried to stand. Very drunk. Then, as he finally gained his feet, he felt a niggling in his chest. He coughed up something warm and salty into his mouth and spat it out, then gazed in bemused dread at the red phlegm spattered across the crushed-down corn, before abruptly falling on his backside. Shit, one of the new TBs! He needed to enjoy what he could now, before he died like so many in the sector, drowning in phlegm and blood.
‘Hey, Mills, wassup?’
Mills was lying on his back now, convulsing, a bloody foam about his mouth.
‘Y’know, I don’t feel so good,’ said someone behind Chingly, but his neck felt suddenly stiff and sore and he didn’t want to turn to look. A pain began growing behind his eyes and his right cheek started shivering as if just that portion of his body had grown cold. Across the fire, he saw Denk stand up and lurch forward.
‘Where is it?’ he shouted, then fell into the fire. He started screaming, but just lay there burning.
‘Help . . .’ Chingly began, then coughed violently, bringing up a great gobbet of bloody phlegm. But that didn’t seem to clear it. He was wheezing and bubbling now, coughs erupting as often as Mills’s convulsions. On the other side of the fire someone else stood up, and then just went down again. The screaming continued, and the smell of burning flesh permeated the air.
‘Bad . . . corn,’ Chingly managed. He tried to stand again, but found himself lying on his side, unable to get enough oxygen into his lungs while staring into a burning face. Beyond the face, and beyond the flames, he could see no one standing – all of them felled like . . . like the corn. Blackness edged his vision, just for a second, then it swamped him completely.
The first reports arrived with the passengers of the next fleet of aeros to land. Serene expressed horrified surprise, and then shed a brief tear on subsequently learning that the plague that seemed to be spreading across the world had also taken Simeon Anderson and Sheila Trondheim. But she was evidently far too busy to let it affect her much.
‘Apart from some tragic exceptions, this malady seems to be killing off zero-asset citizens,’ she told her Oversight staff and, via intercom, the small town of Administration survivors at the Complex. ‘It seems likely to be some form of super-flu, against the like of which many societal assets and government staff members have been inoculated.’ She had already run a search on that – to select a few million SA and Administration ID-implant codes in those whose inoculations were not up to date, and activated the biochips in those implants, just to make casualties less specific. ‘It seems that the rebels and subversives that attacked us are quite mad, and that this Alan Saul, their leader, is not just a revolutionary but a nihilist.’
Such power resided in her palmtop, still linked as it was to Comtrans One . . . but further killing to make the casualty list less specific was absolutely necessary, since it helped conceal the physical source of the Scour, and thus its ultimate source: herself. She could not allow her involvement to be known, for it would turn people against her, interfere with her plans, and she just knew that no one else possessed such a clear vision of how the future should be.
‘I have information,’ she added, ‘that these people were running a germ-warfare research base on mainland Europe, where they developed this affliction which, in an expression of their nihilism, they named the Scour.’
She paused to study the expressions of those immediately around her and saw fear, anger and grief, but no disbelief. So conditioned were these people to accepting what they were told that, even if they did disbelieve her, they would never show it. The reaction would be somewhat different amongst the surviving delegates, and some others in the hierarchy immediately below them, which was why, one and a half hours ago, she had transmitted the codes for every delegate listed, whether still surviving or not. Those immediately below them she was holding off on: no point killing people who might be useful once those they owed loyalty to were dead. She did not waste lives.
She continued, ‘A terrible blow has been struck against the lawful authority of the government of Earth and, though we can grieve and rage, we must also work hard to re-establish order. This is why I am gathering together personnel and dispatching Inspectorate teams to all the power stations in Europe. First we must turn on the power itself and then we must restart the machinery of our civilization.’
The prospect excited her. Though billions had died, and were still dying, so much of Earth’s infrastructure was automated. The vast population of zero assets had been sustained by this automation, but it was this same automation that would make it possible to restart everything. There would be no dearth of resources, now that there would be no vast unproductive population to both feed and control. In fact, Alan Saul had effectively done her a favour, too, by wiping out millions of bureaucrats. They would not be needed in the sleek government Serene was creating, and she fully expected herself to be ruling over a completely functional civilization within a year. First, however, she needed to establish her authority. She checked her watch: five minutes to eight. It was time for some privacy so she could take part in what seemed likely to be a very interesting teleconference.
‘Clay,’ she said, turning to Anderson’s lieutenant, ‘you are now my executive officer, so keep the pressure on. I want lawful authority re-established fast but, more important than that, I want production and transport back online, so tell our teams to go easy on the SAs they recruit. Also, do we have control of Tactical Excision in Belgium?’ The European launch site for tactical atomics was certainly something she might need, and soon.
‘We have control.’ He nodded tightly. ‘European Administration and Inspectorate survivors are somewhat more organized than here, and will accept your authority until told otherwise. TEB was one of the first places they ensured was under control and available – they used two tacticals against the ZA horde moving coastwards from the Frankfurt se
ctors.’
‘Good – and the rest?’
He continued. ‘We’ve probably got more than enough food stocks available now, and the auto-trucks are all ready to run. Our secondaries are also implementing population centralization. Also, all the east-coast power stations are undergoing start-up testing.’
That seemed surprisingly fast, but Serene nodded as if she had expected no less, and headed for her private quarters. At the door she hesitated, turned back, ‘What off-Earth facilities are still available?’
Clay answered without pause, ‘Most of the communication satellites are still available, as none of them was brought down. The Hubble Project is still running, and we have two space planes there. The old space stations, Cores One and Two, are still functional – all staff surviving. Also the Mars Traveller factory complex hasn’t been fully decommissioned.’
‘Space planes on Earth?’
‘Twelve planes at Outback Spaceport and sixteen at various other smaller facilities across the world are all operational. Twenty-three are in for overhaul, and SPP – Space Plane Production – has a further twelve near to completion, though production has halted for the present due to a scramjet crashing into part of the main factory.’
Serene nodded again, feeling slightly numb. She needed to enquire further into all she had set in motion, for it felt almost as if it was careening out of her control. Surely, despite her optimism, it couldn’t be this easy to restart a planet after so much death and destruction?
She stepped through into her apartment, took a steadying breath, then headed over to her big-screen console and sat down before it. One minute to eight, and the screen was already dividing up as delegates came online. And some, it seemed, had come online and gone off again – the screen segments they had occupied now just displaying a United Earth logo. Next, one of the segments expanded, pushing others to the border, and a stern-looking Asian face became clearly visible.
‘It seems, despite the seriousness of the situation, some delegates have not seen fit to attend,’ said Delegate Angone of Region SE Africa.
Serene kept her expression bland, even as one of the smaller screen sections turned a blurry red. It seemed one of the delegates had just coughed blood all over his webcam.
‘I would first like to speak to you all individually, then I’ll permit half an hour of open discussion through me, as the chair of this meeting,’ he said.
A screen segment expanded, cramming Angone to one side. Serene recognized Yinnister from New Zealand, whom she had known was one of the twenty-four surviving delegates but whose presence she had not originally expected. Yinnister had been close to Messina, and Serene had assumed Messina had taken all those loyal to him up to Argus.
‘I would like to know,’ Yinnister said, pausing to cough into a handkerchief, ‘what makes you think you can claim the authority to chair this meeting.’
Another screen division and Delegate Sinegal added, ‘Yes, I too would like to know that.’
It seemed that three delegates who, under the previous regime, had authority over Serene were still alive, though Yinnister didn’t look too good.
‘My position in the hierarchy is not open to question,’ Angone stated.
‘A hierarchy that effectively no longer exists,’ said Sinegal, over Yinnister’s coughing. ‘Messina is gone and, as far as we can gather, is either dead or a captive. Here and now we must establish a new world order.’
Serene couldn’t agree more, but suspected it would not include Yinnister or Sinegal, since now Sinegal seemed to have developed a pronounced tic, and there appeared to be a tear of blood at the corner of his eye. Also, of the eighteen screen segments that had appeared, yet more had flicked over to the United Earth holding logo so that, apart from her and the conversing three, only five more delegates were present.
‘You are arguing against yourself, Delegate Sinegal,’ said Angone, still looking stubbornly healthy. Perhaps, like Serene, he had decided keep his ID implant separate from his body. She opened her palmtop and started running a signal trace, quickly locating Angone not in Southeast Africa as expected, but in Egypt, in the newly rebuilt Red Sea resort of Sharm-El-Sheikh – a place where many delegates took their vacations.
‘If a new world order is to be established, who’s to say any of us Committee delegates should have anything to do with it? Our hierarchy therefore stands since, by dint of our positions, we are rightly placed to take up the reins of power, and my status over you all puts me in the prime position to assume the chairmanship.’ He paused, obviously staring at his screen. ‘What is the matter with you, Delegate Sinegal?’
Sinegal’s head was down on his desk, but he raised it for a second to say, ‘I am unwell.’ Then his screen segment also switched to the icon.
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Angone, as three more segments also switched to icons. ‘What is going on here?’
Serene resisted the temptation to tell him, as she wanted no recorded proof of her guilt. Better to let this Alan Saul take the blame – he was far enough away now to be beyond being caught and questioned. Angone went to holding. Was he, too, starting to feel the effects of the virus? Serene sat back and waited patiently, her fingers interlaced below her breasts. After a moment Angone reappeared, looking very worried.
‘It appears that this Scour presently sweeping our world is not confined to the zero-asset population.’ He paused as the last screen segments blinked out, leaving only him and Serene. ‘Delegate Galahad, I see that it is now just you and me.’ Again that pause. ‘It’s somewhat coincidental that it was you who identified the source of this Scour.’
Obviously the alarm bells were ringing in his head. She needed to deal with him before he tried to assert authority in Europe.
He continued, ‘I need you to send me details of this rebel biowarfare laboratory your people found. We’ll reconvene tomorrow at the same time.’ His screen segment blinked out.
Serene was out of her seat in a second and into Oversight, standing over Clay. She hesitated for just a moment. The human cost was irrelevant, but the Red Sea was on the endangered list . . . No, this had to be done. She said, ‘I want a launch from TEB immediately. Here are the coordinates.’
She put her palmtop down beside him, it showing only the numbers her signal search had found. He keyed them in, a map coming up on his screen showing a location on the Red Sea coast.
‘Why there?’ he asked.
‘It is not for you to question my authority,’ she told him. ‘However, just this once I will reply. A large contingent of the African Inspectorate military wing has occupied the city and is disobeying direct orders from Delegate Angone. It seems someone is intent on carving out their own kingdom, and this cannot be allowed.’
The firing order was now up on the screen.
‘I’ll need confirmation of the order.’ Clay’s expression was bland as he slid a palm-reader across to her. He didn’t believe a word of what she had just said, but that didn’t matter just so long as he obeyed. Serene pressed her hand down against the reader and then instinctively stooped forward, even though the retinal scanner and pulse transmitter inset in his screen would easily find both her eye and the ID implant contained in her watch.
A beep of acceptance followed, then a screen segment opened to show a cam view of part of the launch facility. A pan-pipes missile rack rose into view from some underground silo, and one of the four-tonne cruise missiles blasted into the sky. The thing, which would go SCRAM shortly after going airborne, would arrive at its target very quickly.
‘Give me the map,’ she instructed.
He punched a couple of keys and it appeared: Europe, North and Northeast Africa, the missile’s route showing as a dotted line, the missile itself as an amber light travelling along that, joining up the dots, slowly at first then accelerating as it went into SCRAM. The thing was now accelerating at a rate not allowed with passenger scramjets, since though the occupants would certainly arrive, most of them would be dead. Still, it would take a
t least another ten minutes for it to reach its target and, if he realized his danger, Angone could abort the thing. Serene watched the timer up in the corner of the screen, herself remaining a still point with all the activity in Oversight swirling around her. Finally, when the missile was joining up the last few dots, she stepped back, reached up to her temple for the control for her fone, called up a visual cortex menu and quickly found Angone’s number.
‘I said not until tomorrow,’ was Angone’s immediate response. Obviously he wore one of the newer fones that could link to local webcams, for his image appeared in her visual cortex. He looked distracted, angry. Doubtless he was busy learning about the terrible toll the Scour was taking on the surviving delegates.
‘I am contacting you to confirm,’ said Serene, deliberately vague.
‘Well, you’ll have your confirmation: tomorrow at 20.00 GMT. Incidentally, I still haven’t received your report on this biowarfare lab. You do have a report, don’t you?’
‘In fact, that’s the other reason I’ve contacted you. As you can imagine, things have been rather chaotic here, so I’ve had little time to file it. The laboratory itself was mostly destroyed by the assault team, and we only learned what they were making there after our interrogation of a captive.’
‘So there must be a vid file of that interrogation?’
‘Certainly: I should be able to transmit it to you within the next few minutes. You need it immediately?’
‘You’re damned sure I need— What?’ He turned, obviously being addressed by a shady figure behind him. ‘What!’
‘Very well,’ she said calmly, ‘I’ll send it to you shortly.’