by Rob Sears
→ Continue to click here.
Kim Jong-un roars with laughter, banging the table with his fist, narrowly avoiding instigating oblivion
Kim Jong-un’s voice is deep and commanding. ‘May my father’s spirit and the cheering of the people bring our glorious rocket smashing down on the American lair! Let us sever the windpipe of the Great Rapscallion and prove our glorious prestige for a thousand years! And if the western devils send rockets back at us, I personally will knock them out of the sky with my peerless golfing skill.’
The generals cower in silence.
Then Kim Jong-un begins to roar with laughter. ‘I’m joking, you guys! That’s the old me. I want to clear up this mess as much as you do!’
Tears of laughter roll down his round cheeks. One by one the military officials start laughing too, and a desperate mirth fills the room.
→ Join in the laughter. Click here.
→ Keep a reproachful silence; this is no time for messing around. Click here.
If anyone can help you rid the realm of this dangerous meme it’s the man behind the social media curtain, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg. But first you have to figure out how to get in touch with him. Thinking his number may be on file, you ring the office; Christmas is over so someone might be around to have a dig for you.
Excusing yourself, you stand out in the corridor and place a call back to base. It rings through to answerphone.
‘This is the Department for Continuity (Global). We can’t take your call right now but did you know you can now register cataclysmic events on our website? Go to—’
You ring off. You try your boss, but he’s on answerphone too. The only other person you can think of who might have some kind of connection to Zuckerberg is your colleague Susan, whom you could call in Chamonix, though you’re loath to let her steal your glory.
→ Call Susan anyway. Click here.
→ No way, you’re not giving her the satisfaction. Try to create a countermeme instead. Click here.
Just fifteen minutes later, you’re rising up from the White House lawn in an Apache military helicopter. Donald Trump Junior stands below, waving you off, a puckered little smile visible through his hazmat mask before the helicopter gains altitude and shifts off over the Potomac.
‘Weird kid,’ comments the chief epidemiologist.
The streets in the centre of the city appear quiet, but as the chopper continues east, you see lines of abandoned vehicles blocking the roads. Thousands of people displaced by the outbreak are pressed up against coils of barbed wire that cut across the I-20. On the far side, a few tanks and a sparse line of troops appear woefully inadequate to the task of keeping the blockade intact. Even as you watch, the crowd surges toward the wire and one of the soldiers has to fire a warning burst of machine-gun fire into the sky.
From your aerial viewpoint you see what the soldiers cannot: a group of lobbyists with wirecutters are sneaking up on an unguarded section of barbed wire away from the highway. One of them coughs into his necktie.
‘Down there!’ you cry out.
→ They’re infected! You’ve got to land the chopper and stop them getting away. Click here.
→ It’s pointless trying to quarantine an entire city. Head back to the White House and try something else. Click here.
You cough and periodically say, ‘Excuse me, Mr Musk, sir’, until Musk finally flips and says, ‘My super-intelligent autonomous subterranean tunnel-boring robot, the Really Freakishly Large Drill, has malfunctioned and there’s a 62 per cent chance it will undermine the structure of the earth’s mantle.’
You only understand about one word in three of this, and he must be able to see your incomprehension as he says, ‘My drilling robot has gone mad. It can go through granite like butter. And it’s totally unstoppable. Are those words short enough for you? But I’ve got it under control, more or less.’
Elon Musk returns to his holographic labours, while the android version grins at you awkwardly. From what you can understand, you’ve got to stop this drill from somehow turning the whole planet inside out, but where to start?
→ Talk to Uncanny Elon. Maybe he’ll have more answers. Click here.
→ Ask the real Elon what he’s doing to stop the drill. Click here.
With the pilot and chief epidemiologist by your side, you begin the journey back to the White House. Though it’s only a few miles, in your hazmat suits no walk is easy. Shadows lengthen over the eerily quiet streets; most of those left alive in the city are staying indoors. Here and there you see the bodies of people ravaged by the disease, struck down so fast they expired in the street.
‘The whole world will be like this pretty soon, I guess,’ the chief epidemiologist says, cheerful as usual. ‘Deader than a desert. Look at that, someone’s looted Max Mara.’
You and the pilot manage an eyeroll through the plastic of your suits but you have a feeling the chief epidemiologist’s gloomy outlook is aligned with reality right now. An enemy that kills and spreads at this speed cannot be stopped, and for the first time you realise the true gravity of the situation. To have let Pink Camellia bring about a thermonuclear war at the start of the week would have been one thing, but you’re now on track for the most apocalypses stopped in one week since the legendary UNC(G) consultant Verolina Lang’s historic six-apocalypse streak during the Cold War. Defeat at this stage would be as galling as choosing the wrong box right at the end of Deal or No Deal.
As you reach K Street you hear thumping dance music coming from a designer furniture store.
→ Go over to investigate. Click here.
→ Head back to the White House and try something else. There’s no time to lose. Click here.
Your minder is fuming outside the Ops room, but you manage to duck his grasp and go inside. Kim Jong-un and the generals are right where you left them.
‘Kim Jong-un,’ you begin, ‘I need you to remember the missile’s deactivation code. The world needs you to remember it.’
The generals stiffen but Kim Jong-un waves your impertinent question away.
‘Not this again. I do not know any deactivation code, fix-it person! Therefore there never was one, as I have perfect recall. Isn’t that so, comrades?’
The generals all nod. ‘Not only that, you are perfect in every way, Supreme Leader.’
You decide to appeal to the generals. ‘So not one of you remembers the Chairman here setting a deactivation code back in 2016 or 2017? Remember, your very survival depends on it.’
There is a long pause. Finally an ancient general rises to his feet. ‘Chairman of the People, I recall you did choose a deactivation code that no one else was allowed to know.’
Sweat beads on the old man’s brow and he sits back down. You get the feeling he just used up all his courage in one go.
You’ve so far been oddly impressed by Kim Jong-un’s levity on the brink, but now he has a sense of humour failure. ‘So I forgot something, is that it? Well, maybe it’s true! Maybe I did!’ He glares from face to face, as if challenging the room, but you’re also not sure if he might be about to cry. ‘And maybe I have to eat and defecate as well, and maybe my dad and my grandpa did as well! Is that what you want to hear? That we had to put our trousers on one leg at a time and we’re disgusting human beings just like the rest of you?’
The generals all look at their hands.
When Kim Jong-un speaks again he sounds suddenly tired. ‘Ah well, maybe I did forget the code. It was three years ago. Do you remember your passwords from back then?’ Then he lights up. ‘Wait a second, I think I just remembered it!’
Kim Jong-un brings up a dialogue box on the creaky old computer and carefully types in a series of letters while everyone watches tensely.
The computer makes a discouraging beep.
Incorrect code entered. One attempt remaining.
‘Oh,’ says the Chairman, and you can tell this isn’t one of his funny jokes.
→ The correct code simply must be in his memory
somewhere. Try using hypnosis to recover it. Click here.
→ This is hopeless. But there’s still time to warn the Americans and save thousands of lives if they can evacuate New York before impact. Click here.
‘Hey, where are you going?’ the chopper pilot calls, as you straddle the Harley. No time for goodbyes. You flare the throttle and speed off.
Soon you’ve fled the city through the same gap in the barbed wire that earlier today you were trying to guard, and you’re away down the freeway, heading west. You have a long journey ahead of you and no time to lose.
→ Continue to click here.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Kim Jong-un asks. ‘Don’t you have a funny bone?’
Failing to make you smile, he pulls some funny faces and barks like a seal. The generals all take their cue to fall about with practised laughter.
‘When is the rocket due to re-enter the atmosphere?’ you interject, trying to bring them back on track.
Kim Jong-un stares at you intimidatingly. ‘You don’t think I’m a funny guy?’
Uh oh, it looks like you’re in a reverse Goodfellas situation – but you’re determined to hold your nerve.
‘Take him to the cells!’ Kim Jong-un orders. A fat guard grabs you around the middle and starts hauling you out of the room. You think one of your ribs may be about to crack when Kim Jong-un explodes into giggles. ‘I’m kidding! Deng, put the foreigner down! What must you think of me?’
Deng sheepishly lets you go as the generals once again provide the laugh track.
You’ve had it. You pick up a jug of water and slosh it over the Dear Leader’s iconic visage. The room instantly hushes as if you’ve doused them all and Kim Jong-un’s mouth opens and shuts in shock before he bursts into his strongest gale of hysterics yet.
‘Very good!’ he guffaws. ‘Very good! You’re a joker like me.’
→ Continue to click here.
When you are finally shown into the Oval Office, Trump is watching a DVD of his election night coverage, while his surviving staff mill around with panic-stricken faces. When he sees you he puts down his popcorn and booms, ‘It’s the UN patsy! What have you got for us, patsy?’
This isn’t easy for you to admit. You’ve stopped nuclear missiles and crazed AIs and killer memes but this time you’ve got nothing.
‘There’s simply nothing we can do,’ you say.
‘The World Police need my help, huh? Only I can fix it?’
‘No, Mr President. I’m saying there’s literally nothing anyone can do.’
‘Then you’re fired.’
Someone has a word in Trump’s ear. A grave mood settles over the room.
‘There is one thing we can do.’
The officials turn in unison as Donald Junior steps boldly into the centre of the room.
‘I’m only going to suggest this because it’s so clear the situation is hopeless. Why is it that we have all been able to survive and function in this tainted environment? It’s because we’re strong, not like the dead, right, Dad? But it’s also because of these. Our hazmat suits. We love our hazmat suits, don’t we, Pop?’
He ventures a look at the President.
‘A hazmat suit is your own personal wall, if you like. It stops alien organisms from getting into our healthy American bodies. So here’s my pitch: why can’t all Americans have one?’
The aides all murmur.
‘Over 700 million people walking around in hazmat suits?’ someone says. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘And the global market is even bigger. The virus is guaranteed to spread, turning seven billion people into potential customers who’d be prepared to pay thousands of dollars to protect their health and loved ones.’
You gawp. ‘But that would take years to organise even under ideal conditions. Now? Logistically impossible.’
‘Fortunately, Dad has one long-term thinker on his team. I’ve taken care of it,’ Donald Junior says with the jubilant air of one who is closing a sale. ‘Trucks, trains and ships full of Trump Freedom Suits™ are even now arriving in major urban centres around the planet, ready to sell.’
Trump lumbers to his feet and envelops Donald Junior in a hug. ‘My son.’
Some of the longer-serving members of staff break into applause, and you sense this is the denouement of a long-running family soap opera.
Whether you like it or not, a course of action has been chosen.
→ Continue to click here.
You repeat your idea to your client. The meme is already out there; it stands to reason the only way to reverse the slide into chaos is to create a countermeme.
‘A countermeme? Is that possible?’ your client says, brightening. ‘Torsten, come over here. Torsten is our whizzkid.’
A portly gentleman in his fifties wanders across the floor with a glass of sherry. You’re no technical expert but this guy doesn’t inspire confidence. What kind of hacker wears a cravat?
‘A countermeme? Interesting,’ Torsten says cautiously. ‘We could certainly put together a working group, commission a report or two?’
‘We don’t have time for this,’ you say. ‘We need to make a countermeme now or they’ll tear us to shreds!’
Torsten shakes his head ponderously and plucks a canapé from a passing tray with lizardlike skill. ‘Creating a countermeme is harder than you perhaps imagine. Selecting an image that doesn’t breach Article 14 for copyright infringement, writing a funny caption that all twenty-seven nations can agree to . . . it would require experience, resources and, frankly, a level of sheer cunning that I’m proud to say we do not have in Europe.’
And maybe he’s right. But he’s given you an idea. The EU may not have the requisite meme-making experience, but you know who might.
→ Continue to click here.
‘The clock thing nearly convinced me,’ you tell Prof. Wu. ‘But I don’t buy it. Anything could happen in four years – we’ll probably have invented robot bees by then. So I’m sorry, but I’m going to Washington DC. You’ll be receiving an invoice for my travel expenses.’
‘I thought you might say that as well.’ She sighs. ‘So I made some preparations.’ And with that she hits a button on the wall, causing a security door to rattle down from the ceiling and block your exit. ‘Did you really think I’d let you leave so easily after a year of ignoring my messages?’
You watch open-mouthed as she removes the casing from the Clock of No Return to show you packed brown cylinders and wires inside.
‘W-what is that?’
‘Oh, that’s just eighty kilogrammes of C-4 explosive, enough to blow this place up and kill us both.’
‘You’d kill yourself?’
‘A bee would, to save the hive.’
Uh oh, she’s deadly serious. What do you want to do now?
→ Try to force the door and make your escape. Click here.
→ Reason with her. As a senior scientist she must have been an intelligent person once. Click here.
You place a quick call to your new friend Kim Jong-un and quickly explain the situation.
‘Sure, I can have a word with my friend Xi Jinping,’ Kim Jong-un says. ‘What number shall I have him call?’
You give Prof. Wu a thumbs-up. Life’s easy when you’re in the club. Now you just have to wait for Xi himself to call you back.
What do you want to do while you wait?
→ Those bumblebees look sleepy. Knock on their tank to wake them up. Click here.
→ Sample the local honey. Click here.
Svetlana holds the case carefully, lowers her nose to it and inhales deeply as if it were a good Malbec.
You hold your breath as she opens the laptop to view the meme. You get ready to try to wrestle her to the ground if she flips out, but her only reaction is to raise an eyebrow.
‘It’s not one of ours, but it’s very fine work, very fine,’ Svetlana murmurs. ‘Who created this?’
You tell her you don’t know.
‘Do the initials
SB mean anything to you? If you zoom right into the bottom left-hand corner it’s written into the pixels. He or she couldn’t resist signing their work.’
Someone with the initials SB who operates in the shadows and wants to see the break-up of Europe? You make a mental note to make some enquiries.
‘So anyway, you want me to create a countermeme, right? Hmm. What’s my motivation exactly?’
‘This meme is on its way to destroying everything that’s good in this world.’
‘Why would I stand in its way? If I were you, trying to persuade me to help you, I would say that I should be the only one creating anything this evil. Plus, if this thing spreads unchecked there’ll be nothing left for me to undermine, which doesn’t sound fun.’
‘OK, what you just said,’ you reply feebly, feeling like you’re being eaten for breakfast.
‘Fine. I’ll help!’
→ Stay with Svetlana and see if you can help her work. Click here.
In the lift to the UN Department for Continuity (Global), you put your doubts about the way the Virus X outbreak was resolved to one side. Maybe that’s just how things are now, a series of apocalypses and adaptations, headlines that come and go unnoticed and unremarked.
You think instead of the reception that awaits you. Virus X aside, you’ve just helped the world through a series of cataclysms in almost unprecedented quick succession. You’re bound to get a promotion and a salary boost, maybe even a meeting room named after you. Your boss has probably organised a party to honour your achievements and announce you as his newest senior continuity consultant. There may be cake.
You come out of your reverie when you notice that the Freedom-Suited figure who’s just squeezed into the lift is none other than your boss. You greet him and he peers through your visor to see who you are.
