It'll All End Sobbing in the Dark
by
Lee Alon
By the time the bus made it up the hill, it had started to snow. Noam watched the countryside roll by outside the window under skies the color of polished nerve endings.
A small TV screen announced the morning news. Although tired from trekking all night, he turned to listen. An epidemic, one that has been ravaging the Republic of South China, was found to have nestled in other parts of the world.
A few cases were reported in London, Sao Paulo and Toronto, not to mention a selection of places whose names he didn't catch. International health officials said there was no cause for concern.
Noam glanced at the stop announcement and realized his was next. The trip up from the small, sleepy town never took more than thirty minutes, and today there was hardly any traffic.
He thanked the driver and alighted just as someone on board sneezed. His destination, a large cottage, lay at the end of a narrow lane, engulfed by trees, most denuded due to winter's frosty advances.
His backpack was very light, but his head felt even lighter; he wasn't used to higher altitudes. There hadn't been much to pack when he left home. His mother in her concern had wanted him to bring along half the stuff she had, just to be safe, but he had resisted.
On the way out, he had seen tears in her eyes, but there had been no choice. The economy was still reeling from ravages of man and nature, and he hasn't held a solid job in over two years. The offer was too good to refuse, even if it meant leaving his family again.
A square wooden sign tacked on to the side of the house read "Court Services and Support". This was the place he needed to be. For once, his peculiar talent -- the ability to make whatever he wrote impossible to disbelieve -- was exactly what was needed. Being able to write in four languages made him that much more valuable.
The new universal tribunal reporting services founded all over the globe required people of such talents to convince a weary world audience of the recently established system's trustworthiness, as it tried almost a good quarter of the planet's population.
According to UN statistics, the project would take over a decade to complete, even with mass Projectionists at work, transmitting proceedings simultaneously to tens of millions.
He knocked on a green, rickety door.
There was no security at Court Services facilities. The people who worked there were merely enablers -- and nobody sympathized with those on trial anyway. They were mistakes accumulated over thousands of generations, all the types that made humanity suffer, from bad neighbors to war criminals. Why would anyone ever retaliate against those responsible for making the world better?
A big guy sporting a big, bushy goatee opened.
"You're Bruce, right?"
"Yep, that's me," the big guy said. "And you must be the new Writer. You made it. Come in, cold out there."
Noam followed Bruce inside, careful to knock the snow and mud from his boots before he crossed the threshold. "Thanks. I thought it'd be harder to find the place but the instructions you gave me were very accurate."
"What, you mean the mail I sent? Nah, that was Carol, she Projected directions to be sure you'll make it. Anyway, welcome."
Inside, the cottage was quite spacious. Teak furniture anchored earthy carpeting and framed art from various periods. There was a large display showing Senator McCarthy chairing a committee, and another depicting a mosaic of civil rights activists from around the world.
It was warm, smelling of cinnamon/coffee/rust, and it made him uncomfortable, not because it was strange, but because it made him think of home.
A woman came into the landing, and he instantly knew her to be Carol.
"Hello, great to have you here with us," she said. "We need Writers, good ones, so forgive me for being a bit brusque, but you'll need to get cracking, effective tomorrow. That okay with you?"
"Yeah, sure, been craving some hard work," Noam said. "Lots of people rely on the written word even now, and I like reaching them." He still had the backpack on.
"Excellent. We really do require your help in getting to those who can't receive Projections. I trust you had a pleasant journey?"
"Not bad."
"Super! Bruce'll take care of you for now, bring you up to velocity and all."
"Well, anyhow, this is us here," Bruce said, pointing toward a staircase. "You'll be living upstairs, in your own room, like all of us. Each unit has its own facilities, so you can spend some private down time there. However, we all work in the same space and share meals as well. It's imperative to maintain that dynamic"
Noam nodded. "Cool, fine by me".
Carol smiled and shook his hand. "Right, I gotta get back to the soap factory investigation, Bruce and Tingting will give you the tour and help you get settled. Later!"
Bruce showed him around. His room was nice. The other staff were nice, too, relaxed and friendly. Tingting had emerged from the kitchen area, wet towel over her head, already treating him like one of the 'family'. But somehow, he still didn't feel at ease, and something inside told him it wasn't just new job jitters.
Bruce seemed like someone to lean on. He talked a lot about stuff they had in common, like games and role playing.
Tingting, on the other hand, was eccentric to say the least, but then she was an observer. Her duties involved looking into feeds from non-compatible Court Services, the ones holding their own trials, judging people who used to complain about bad neighbors and prosecute war criminals. It was hard talking to Tingting as her eyes kept fleeting this way and that, but he didn't have to spend too much time with her anyway.
Bruce pointed to another room, next to his own, where the dark doorframe met a door without much color.
"Herein lies Danny. There's something wrong with him, I think, 'cause he always sleeps a lot."
"Danny? He's the editor, according to the messages I got from the agency."
"Yes, but that doesn’t mean much. Danny's more like Han Solo than Luke. He does a lot of the leg work but gets very little credit, at least for now. Currently it's Carol's outpost, she's operations manager. Danny here keeps what you write in check, and bugs me constantly about the equipment, even though he never uses it much." Bruce made to walk away from the bleached door.
Noam went to the bathroom to get a fast one out of the way. Irritable bowel syndrome was a bitch. While at it, he noticed faint sounds coming from, he guessed, the town.
It sounded like sirens. They faded, and birds chirped in their stead.
Out, he looked around for Bruce, and the big man called him into the communal work area, where Carol was hooked into the humming Projection machine.
Judging by her face it might have been her humming -- he couldn't tell for sure. Bruce showed him his spot, and he took the next ten minutes to get familiar with this particular version.
He decided to sit back and watch them work, as Tingting came in, and later, when enough crude accumulated, Danny, too.
Their typical work day consisted of a simple chain: monitoring court proceedings, typing up crude for those who couldn't get Projections, editing by Danny, outside monitoring by Tingting.
There were also reports to HQ on a regular basis, something Bruce seemed enthusiastic about.
"He loves it," Tingting said over breakfast a few days later. "I think secretly it's bad for him here. He was over the moon after reading your resume. Told us another gamer was coming. Personally I suppose gamers should be on trial too."
"Why?"
"Had an ex that kept at his Playstation. He once punched me in the gut for getting in front of the TV."
"Oh, well, not all of us are like that."
"Not all war criminals are really bad, either."
Danny sat down. He hadn't said much to him till then.
"It's all genetically determined, anyway. They're born bad, Playstation or not," Danny said around a mouthful of toast. "I gotta go into town. Anyone want to join in the fun?"
There were no takers. Tingting got up, removed the perennial towel from around her head, and stepped out.
Carol switched on the TV. It was set to a news channel, and they were covering mass graves in Nepal. That country had been almost completely devastated in the war, but now it appeared to be at the throes of a new catastrophe.
"This will get out of hand. Projection figures have dropped significantly over the last week -- there's less receivers now," Carol said with concern in her voice.
Noam heard the bus stop outside to pick up Tingting.
####
Carol hummed again. It wasn't her, but the equipment. Bruce was calibrating something while she was under.
"Makes it easier. Plus Danny's occupied with sleep again, so they both are out of my hair, giving me time to relax and do this properly. She wasn't lying, though. I've seen other stations reporting less Projection receptions, too."
Noam looked Bruce over. "Something to worry about?"
"Not sure."
Coffee at hand, Noam sat and reviewed his own station desktop.
There was a huge case ongoing and a couple of days ago he had been burdened with material, but that morning it was much quieter.
A couple of People's Liberation Army generals and two from NATO were on trial for conspiring to cover up tens of thousands of casualties from experimental psychotics deployed in major population centers.
He wasn't sure if they were really the bad people in this case, but DNA charts said so.
From watching feed come in he could tell the courtroom had fewer people than before, and the transcript had to pause whenever the judge sneezed or coughed loudly.
####
Tingting came back much later than expected. Her face looked pale and drawn and her hands moved aimlessly as if needing to touch someone, but afraid to do so.
"The town's fucked," she said. "People are running away and those that are staying are getting sick fast."
They all had been watching TV when she entered the house. Even Danny was up, aroused from his sleep.
Tingting fell silent, breathing heavily and swaying slightly.
Noam turned to look at her, noticed the rosy tint on cheeks glistening with moisture. She smelled of expired perspiration and cloying fatigue.
Carol went to her, sat her down with a cup of hot something.
"We’ve been seeing it on the television, it's getting around most places," she said while comforting Tingting.
They were off duty, and had time to observe news from around the globe.
It dawned on them that over the last few days financial and legal items had been gradually usurped by reports of fatalities from flu-like symptoms. An untold number had already died worldwide, and authorities were stymied.
Toronto's Eaton Centre had been converted into a massive triage facility when hospitals couldn't take anymore cases, and the psychotics trial had to be dismissed when the judge and two of his generals collapsed.
"I saw military vehicles parked outside the plaza," Tingting said. Her voice, never loud, was barely audible.
"Which one?"
"Where we shop," Tingting replied. "The supermarket plaza. The place was emptied out, shelves empty."
"We have to get out of here," exclaimed Bruce.
"Go where?" Noam asked.
"Nowhere," Carol interjected. "It'll be OK. There's work to be done and nobody told us anything about evacuation. This'll blow over." She gave them her best look of stern authority, but the sound of the wind shuffling in the eaves made it seem as though the world had already ended.
Noam thought about his mom and tears came to his eyes. He had to call her to see if she was all right.
"Sorry about the momentary lapse in courage, pal," Bruce said ruefully. "We'll be fine here, up on our hill. Fret no more, it'll be over in a jiffy." Bruce looked anguished as he placed a big hand on Noam's shoulder and assumed his Bunyan pose again.
####
Noam's mother was doing well. They talked for over two hours before he managed to hang up.
When he returned to the common area, it was very windy outside but otherwise quiet. He could hear humming and clicking; everyone was back at their stations, save for Tingting, whom Carol stuck in her room to rest.
The feed was on, with trials going on undisturbed most places. But there were almost no spectators in the Courtrooms, and regular media were paying no attention to any of the trials. They were too busy covering the advancing disease.
####
"This thing doesn't care about DNA," Danny said a few days later. They were watching the network feeds, which now covered nothing except reports on the epidemic. "It gets everyone -- bad people, good people, they're all just as edible far as it cares. Actually, I've been getting slightly dizzy since Tingting went out. What about you?"
He stopped writing and groaned as the room seemed to make a quick orbit around his head. "I'm good, just tired," he answered.
"You don't look so good," Danny said. He coughed and snorted back what sounded like a pint of mucus. "Maybe you need to see a doctor, dude."
"Nah, I just need a quick rest, nothing more," Noam said. "Just like Tingting."
"Tingting? Don't think resting's helping her a lot. She's been sleeping harder than I could ever manage. Hey Bruce, you figure we need to take him to the hospital?"
Bruce stopped overclocking a piece of equipment.
"Danny, he's OK. Get over here, I wanna show you something."
"What?"
"Get you ass over here, man."
####
A voice spoke on the TV an interminable period of time later. It was interrupted occasionally by what sounded like noise discharges or small explosions in the distance, he couldn't tell which.
". . . retrovirus enters the bloodstream pretty much through either inhalation or extensive physical contact. We have no idea what strain it is since we can't compare it to anything in any of our databases. It's definitely airborne, though, and persistent.
"Medical crews have been getting sick days after being disinfected and rotated. Rates of infection are frightening, with around forty percent of all major urban centers affected thus far."
Another voice, a woman, sounded. She was clearly scared but composed. He wished he could see the screen, but his room was dark. There wasn't even a thin streak of light around the doorframe.
"Can we slow it down until a cure is found, doctor?"
After a pause, the male voice replied, clearly on the edge of exhaustion and despair, "I don't know. We haven't -- nothing -- none of the existing vaccines or antivirals has had any effect. Our main hope is in locating those naturally immune and working from there. Maybe it's something to do with the DNA testing done since the bad gene was discovered, I don't know, but ..."
It went darker then, but Noam had time to catch Bruce ask softly, "Shit, Carol, what the fuck's happening?"
####
Noam thought about his mother again when he woke up. It was still very dark, and even quieter than before, The wind was gone, too.
He felt better, but somehow alarmed at the same time. He reached for the phone beside his bed to call home, but the line was dead.
He climbed out of bed, weak, staggering, but moving. The house smelled of vinegar and bleach covering other, more disconcerting odors.
He went downstairs in the dark, the tranquility. Nothing made a sound. All the machinery was silenced. Even the overstuffed fridge stood mum.
He looked down and saw Carol in a sleeping bag, on her back, eyes open to the ceiling. She had the look of someone who had just awakened from a nightmare.
Danny was curled next to her in his own bag. The part covering his chest didn't move at all.
Noam then spotted Bruce, eyes also open, looking right at him.
"Hi there, buddy," Bruce croaked.
Noam jumped. "Bruce, what's going on? Why's Carol and Danny like that? Why is it so dark and quiet?"
"Don't worry, my friend, you'll be safe." Bruce raised his head a few inches to look around and at him again. "Guess you're one of those naturals they mentioned on TV before the lights went out."
"What naturals? Why are you guys all here?"
"Wanted to be together," Bruce rasped. "After working as a team for so long, it felt right. The sickness came fast, you were out cold, and we expected what happened to Tingting."
"Where is she?"
"She's dead, bro. They're all dead. Don't cry, you gotta be strong now. I'll be gone soon, you have to make it on your own, all by yourself." His face was steaming red, heat almost pouring off it.
"But how could this be? We were turning out crude just a couple hours ago."
Bruce looked at him again, and his eyes were the kindest he'd ever seen save for his mother's. "No we weren't," he said. "Those were overflow files, the ones we get to when there's nothing else to do. There haven't been any court sessions in days. We didn't want to say anything because we weren't sure and you're the new guy. Can't do that to the new guy." Bruce stopped.
Noam looked at their bodies, tucked into sleeping bags on the floor, in a room where they used to work for the betterment of the world. The silence was unearthly, like nothing he ever imagined could happen.
Sitting down next to his dead colleagues, he listened to his breath quicken. There wasn't a sound from outside, but an ethereal, faint bluish light came in through the curtained windows.
Heavy thuds, like gigantic footsteps, started in the distance. Their rhythm was steady, and they drew closer, slowly but inexorably. Thud, thud.
A long, wailing sob slithered up from his gut and emerged as a miserable whimper as he sat there in the blackness, wishing he was home.
There was no one in the world to hear it.
THE END
© 2005 by Lee Alon
Bio: Lee's probably outdated bio says that "Lee dedicates himself to wanderlust, movies, gaming, the written word, and teaching. He's a compulsive Blade Runner devotee (supposedly watched it over a thousand times) and can presently be found playing Call of Duty online against the great, teeming cyber-masses. Goals include living off writing (sure), getting to Mulholland Dr. sometime in 2019, and learning a fourth language." (No doubt it's just a coincidence that the hero of this month's tale is a gamer who is fluent in four languages!) He has appeared several times in Aphelion, most recently in July 2005 ( Entrechats in Bloody Snow).
E-mail: Lee Alon
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