9781629270050-Text-for-ePub-rev (11 page)

Her eyes fluttered open and closed again immediately. Then, scrunched up against the
light, they opened a fraction and she peered at him.

“Mam. It’s me. I’m here.”

A ghost of a smile formed on her cracked lips. They moved. It was barely a whisper
and Tom had to strain to hear what she said. Just two words.

“My boy.”

Her eyes closed as the effort of holding them open even a crack grew too much. They
didn’t open again.

Tom stayed at her side, holding her hand, until the end. It didn’t take long.

* * * * *

The sun moved behind her as Diane neared Las Vegas. The stream of traffic leaving
the city had dried to a trickle by the time she passed through. She arrived on the
Strip in the early evening.

She had filled up with gasoline and bottles of water and snacks in the city, and there
was really very little reason for her to tarry. She had visited Vegas as a tourist
once and had hated every inch of its glitz and glamour.

Last time she was here, the Strip had been a parade of stretch limos and Continentals
and fin-tailed Buicks, dropping off the rich and the beautiful and the brash to whichever
casino they wanted to give their money to. Flat-bed trucks carrying billboards advertising
topless bars and high class call girls had driven slowly up the Strip, turned around
and driven slowly back down again, pretty much all day.

Now, apart from the occasional vehicle that appeared to be leaving town, the Strip
was empty. Diane was able to pull over to the side without any difficulty. She turned
off the engine and got out.

Although the sun was dipping towards the horizon, the evening was still bright and
none of the neon lights had yet come on. It was warm, too, for December and she didn’t
need her coat. She stood for a moment, the wind rustling her hair, marvelling at how
quiet it was. The clanging chimes of slot machines and fanfares and announcements
designed to lure the undecided inside had not yet begun their nightly clarion calls,
and the only sound she could hear was the wind. She walked towards the centre of the
road and stood looking first one way, then the other. Not a vehicle moved. If a bolt
of tumbleweed had come rolling down the Strip, she wouldn’t have been surprised. It
was as though she had the place to herself. Then a truck turned out of a side street
and the illusion was broken.

Diane stepped back to the sidewalk. She could not see any people, apart from what
looked like a hobo shuffling down the sidewalk away from her on the other side.

More out of curiosity than anything else, Diane walked to the nearest hotel and entered
the lobby. The casino was just beyond. She pushed against the door and peeked around
it.

The rows of slot machines flashed and bleeped and pinged, but nobody paid them any
attention. Looking beyond them, Diane could see a roulette table with a croupier and
three customers. The table was in operation, but none of the players seemed particularly
animated. She suspected that if she moved closer, she would be able to hear them coughing
and see them wincing as they swallowed their drinks. None of the other tables—blackjack,
crap, poker—was occupied. Out of habit, she moved inside to the nearest machine and
ran her fingers over the flashing buttons, smearing them with the last of the powder
on her fingers.

She left and walked back to her car. Leaning over the driver’s seat, she removed the
canister from the knapsack on the passenger seat.

The Strip was quiet again. She walked back to the outside lane of the three-lane stretch
of road and took one last glance around to make sure nobody was watching her. Then
she unscrewed the top of the canister, removed the inner disc and held the canister
horizontally in her right hand. Tipping it forward, Diane spun on the balls of her
feet. The remaining creamy-white powder poured out to be immediately caught by the
wind and dispersed behind her, settling on the verges of the Strip and beyond.

Diane stopped spinning, feeling a little dizzy. She looked into the canister.

“All gone,” she remarked to no-one in particular.

She replaced the disc and top, returned to her car and threw the empty canister into
the back.

Setting the car to the east, Diane drove away from the setting sun.

* * * * *

The president of the most powerful nation on Earth made a live televised address that
was beamed around the globe at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

As he appeared on television screens throughout the world, people watching gasped
at how haggard he looked; he seemed to have aged thirty years in less than a week.
The make-up that he wore for the TV cameras couldn’t completely mask the dark shadows,
the red bruising around the eyes, the hollow cheeks.

The president fixed the camera with his famous glare that did a far better job of
hiding his illness than the make-up girl had done, and addressed the world.

“My fellow Americans. . . . No, strike that. I know this is going out live to every
free nation on this planet and it is my fervent hope that it will be seen in many
of the less free nations. We’re all in this together. So let me start again. . . .

“My fellow humans. It is my grave duty to address you on the eve of what is likely
to be mankind’s swansong. A virus that some have dubbed the Millennium Bug has caused
worldwide illness and death. Every one of you has lost someone precious. I have lost
someone precious. The First Lady passed away six hours ago. I was at her bedside.”

The president paused, blinked, coughed and took a sip of water before continuing.

“Every one of you is likely to have someone precious suffering from this virus as
I speak. So have I. Both my children are currently in bed, too ill to have even got
out of bed to be with their mother at the end. . . .”

For the first time, his voice broke. He took a moment and another sip of water to
compose himself.

“I have not long come from a meeting with my Joint Chiefs of Staff—at least, those
who were well enough to be conscious—and the top medical advisors this great country
has to offer. We made the decision for me to address you now, while I still can. They
wanted me to treat this as any other speech, but I refused to have it scripted.” He
made a noise in the back of his throat, almost a snort.

“Votes, popularity, opinion polls. . . .” He held up his hands, palms upwards, and
shrugged. “What does any of that matter now? No, the only thing that matters is that
I share the truth with you. Everyone deserves that much.

“So. The truth. This administration has been in constant consultation since the start
of this crisis with leaders of every other major nation on this planet. Even when
nuclear war was a very real threat, we continued to converse—behind the scenes, as
it were, in some cases—with each and every one of those nations. All the top scientific
minds throughout the world have been working on the problem constantly. Even when
they have fallen ill, these wonderful men and women have worked from their sick beds.
We have shared and pooled our resources and I firmly believe that every other country
has shared everything they can about this threat. Nothing has been held back.

“Every effort has been made to find a cure for this disease.

“Nevertheless. . . .” The president paused again and his expression became, if that
was possible, even graver.

“Nevertheless, it falls on me to inform you that we have failed. I am told—I am no
scientist—that this virus is like nothing we have encountered before. It is totally
resistant to every treatment known to man. If some drug or other shows any signs of
being effective, the virus mutates into something else, constantly shifting the parameters
within which it attacks the human body, making sustained treatment impossible. It
is as though the virus has been created specifically for killing humans—it appears
to have no adverse effect on other creatures, not even members of the ape family.

“We do not possess the technology to artificially create such an organism. No country
on earth has such technology. So, there is no need for mistrust of our neighbours.
This Millennium Bug has not originated from mankind. Where did it originate? From
outer space? No-one can say and I see little point in speculating further.”

Pause; cough; sip of water.

“I am told that if we could slow down the effects, then a cure might be possible in
three, four, maybe six months. But even then, a cure is not guaranteed. Our knowledge
of the structure of DNA and its manipulation would have to increase tenfold . . .
heck, maybe a hundredfold, before we could even begin to experiment with possible
cures. The harsh reality is that we may never find a cure if we had another hundred
years to spend searching. And many of us may not even have a hundred hours remaining. . . .”

The president removed his spectacles and rubbed tiredly at his eyes, before sliding
the spectacles back on.

“I appear before you as a sixty-three-year-old. Heck, I feel ninety-three! I will
stop speaking shortly, but first I want to address a special group of people.

“It is possible—maybe even likely—that a small percentage of humans will survive the
Millennium Bug. Please don’t let this raise false hopes. I am advised that even if
such a miracle comes to pass, that we are talking about a fraction of a fraction of
one percent of the entire pre-virus world population. That equates to roughly one
and a half million people. Sounds a lot—it isn’t. They will be spread throughout the
world and may include elderly and infirm people.

“In other words, the human race, even if that infinitesimal survival rate actually
materialises—and I pray to God that it will—will become what the scientists refer
to as ‘functionally extinct’.

“But if you are one of those people who lives through this, I urge you to forget about
race or nationality or creed or colour. Forget politics. Forget religion. Forget property
and ownership. Such concepts will become meaningless in a world whose population numbers
less than two million. The only meaningful ideology, the only ideal worthy of pursuit,
will be simple survival of the species.

“So, if you are one of those people, don’t hide away in fear of other survivors. Seek
them out and extend the hand of friendship. If you don’t speak the same tongue, invent
a common one. Heck, draw pictures in the dirt if you have to! But find one another
and then find more. Protect and nurture each other. Rebuild communities.”

The president paused for the last time. His hands were clasped firmly together on
the desk in front of him, but some sharp-eyed viewers noticed that they were shaking.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have already died. Millions more . . . billions,
are dying. To those lucky few who may survive: I am leaving instructions that all
power plant facilities and food production sites and medical supplies, and whatever
else occurs to us, be left running and unlocked. Use them for good.

“Please . . . take this opportunity to build a better world.

“I beseech you.

“Goodbye.”

* * * * *

In New York, Milandra switched off the television.

“That was really quite moving,” she said. “Could almost feel sorry for them.”

“
Almost
,” said Grant.

“Yes,” said Milandra. “Like I said.”

* * * * *

In the Ambassador Suite of the Park Plaza in Melbourne, Bishop laughed and flicked
a peanut at the television as the president’s face faded.

“Wanker,” he said.

* * * * *

Tom Evans did not watch the speech. He was too busy digging a hole in the wet, heavy
soil of his mother’s back garden.

The ambulance had never turned up. Tom had tried again to ring the emergency services
but once more got the recorded message. He disconnected before the voice could finish
speaking.

He rooted around until he found the telephone number of his mother’s GP. No reply;
no recorded message.

Next he tried the local hospital. Same result.

Finally, in desperation, he found the number of a Swansea funeral director and rang
it. After about ten rings, he was about to hang up when it was answered.

“Yeah, hello?”

“Er, is that the funeral director?”

“Yeah, but we’re closed.”

“Closed? But, it’s my mother. She’s . . . dead.”

“Sorry, mate. I can’t help you.”

Tom did not know what else to say.

“Look,” the voice continued, “we’re backed up. Same with the morgues. You’ll just
have to make your own arrangements, or. . . .”

“Or what?”

“Leave her where she is. Sorry, don’t want to sound harsh—”

Tom hung up.

For a moment, a fleeting moment, he considered walking away and leaving her in bed.
He immediately felt guilty and started to hunt for a shovel.

Drawing a blank, he went outside and knocked on neighbours’ doors. No answers; no
movement of curtains; no passing pedestrians or vehicles.

He went back inside and out of the back door of his mother’s terraced house. He climbed
the fence into the neighbour’s garden and broke into the shed. It was still daylight,
but nobody shouted at him. If anybody did see what he was doing and called the police,
they’d be lucky if the police came.
Besides,
he thought,
Let them come. They can help me dig the hole.

By the time he had finished digging a pit that he hoped was deep enough, Tom’s arms
and back felt as though someone was whipping them with red hot wires. Night had fallen:
the pitch darkness of deep winter that was only marginally relieved by distant street
lamps.

He trudged into the house and upstairs to his mother’s bedroom. Even with the window
thrown wide open, the room still smelled of defecation and death.

Tom bent forward, the muscles in his back screaming in protest, and gently turned
back the duvet, revealing his mother’s face. He placed a light kiss on her cool brow,
automatically bringing his sleeve up to wipe his lips as he drew back, only just stopping
himself in time.