Everything is still in the neighborhood. It was a dawn like any other.
Every time I leave my house, the dogs from the adjoining houses start to bark. The uproar is as unpleasant for me as it must be for their owners, who tell them to shut up as soon as the barking begins. But they keep on barking without heeding the orders they’ve heard since they were pups. It’s always the same routine: I leave the doorway, open the gate, and they begin to bark like mad. For them it’s very simple: they hear me and that’s enough. In their little brains there is no room for anything else. I’m used to it. Since I was little, it’s been this way. I have no patience for dogs.
“Hey, Ricardo! Ricardo Miguel, wait!”
The voice comes from the house next door. The last house of the alley. There, standing in the doorway of his house was my neighbor, Ramón. Tall, fat, and with a bushy mustache. Authoritarian, controlling, and constantly in need of self-affirmation. He talks in that dictatorial way used by everyone who is accustomed to giving orders and knowing that they’ll be obeyed. He is neither a military man nor the directory of a company; he’s the president of the CDR of my block.
For those who are neophytes about the dynamics of the Cuban Revolution, CDR is the acronym of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. It was a political organization created in Cuba in 1960. It’s nominal goal was to watch out for any sort of “enemy activity” that sought to undermine the revolutionary process. A sort of paramilitary organization with anti-terrorist aims. But over the years it turned into a mechanism for control and political action. Little by little it became a machine whose only goal was for the community of neighbors to forget concepts like privacy. Every procedure, from starting a job to getting a telephone installed in your home, had to first be authorized by the CDR. In which case its president, democratically elected every year, was the person with the most power in the neighborhood. Someone truly feared and who had to be respected if you didn’t want problems. Over the years, the institution gradually degenerated into a union of gossips who intrude upon the privacy of their neighbors. But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t bastard presidents who were waiting for their chance to screw over their neighbors.
This was one of those cases.
And I was the neighbor.
“Hey, Ramón, how are you?” I said in the friendliest tone I could summon.
“Remember that you need to give Carmita a copy of that letter you gave me about that matter involving your brother.”
“But I already turned in a letter from my work with all the seals and signatures.”
“But the Vigilancia needs a copy.”
“Look, at the Center we have work to do. We don’t have time for so much bureaucracy.”
“Those are the rules. One copy for the CDR president and another for the Vigilancia. I can’t authorize something like this if it doesn’t go through the proper channels.”
“I don’t see the sense of that.”
“You need to go straight to Carmita’s house, right here ahead of you, and deliver a copy of the letter from the CIDEZ.” Then he relaxes his tone of authoritarian military man and places a hand on my shoulder, condescending. “Look, the bodega already has the meat for your brother, don’t go complicating the situation.”
The message was clear.
“Fine, fine, I’ll take care of it.”
“And remember: tonight is the block meeting. At nine thirty. We’ll discuss the Comandante’s last pronouncements about the zombies. As you are a specialist in this subject, I hope you’ll attend.”
Smoothly, I drew away from him until he had to remove his greasy hand from my body. I can’t stand people who have to touch you all the time when they talk to you. It’s true that we’re Cubans, and gesticulating while we talk is part of our national identity, but all this touchy-feely stuff is too much.
“Fine, Ramón. I’ve got to go, I’ll miss the bus to work.”
“Remember, bring Carmita the paper from your Institute.”
“Of course, of course.”
And I get out of there as fast as I can in case he keeps on talking. In fact, I was running late. Since my house is the second one from the end of the street, I have to walk an entire block to reach the avenue. On the corner is an improvised table, four chairs, a game of dominos spread out and nearly six people shouting.
Dominos originally started as an evolution of the game of dice. According to international rules, it should be played in silence and by teams. But, as always happens, here things unfolded a little differently. Dominos in Cuba is played with many spectators, shouting at your opponents and your partner, while everyone else gives their opinion. The result, when all this is heard from a distance, it is very similar to a tumultuous fight. In any event, it’s an altercation of the public order, but since it forms part of our national identity, the laws are a bit flexible.
“¡Oye! Richard, come here!” one of the players shouts at me, abandoning the table. The shouts of protest from the rest prevent me from hearing what he says. Soon someone else will wind up taking his place in the game and everything will continue as normal. As he comes toward me, I recognize Omarito, Clarita’s son. Clarita, who lives three houses from me. We’ve known each other since we were little, but he is more a buddy of my brother than me.
“Tell your brother that he’s letting us down. Every day we’ve got a game of dominos going here and he doesn’t even show up.”
“Pipe down, man. You know my brother is a zombie now. And I’ve got the fatso of the CDR opening fire me.”
“That’s right. Don’t be no fool. You know that guy’s a nosy pain in the ass. Look at him! He’s standing there in the door of his house, looking this way.”
“Come over here, Richard. What made your brother become a zombie?”
“For the meat allowances.”
“They give you extra meat for having a zombie at home?”
“Beef and hamburger.”
“I need a zombie in my house, right away!”
“Needs to be a family member and to be certified by the CIDEZ. You’ve got to fill out more paperwork than to leave the country.”
“But you work in the CIDEZ, you fool.”
“And despite that, neither the fatso nor the big mouth from the Vigilancia have believed the story completely.”
“Damn! Okay then, tell your brother that we’ll move the dominos to the afternoon so he can come. As a zombie, of course.”
“OK, I’ll tell him.”
I started to walk toward the road. I went as fast as I could, since there were still two blocks to go and I was already late and the bus to work would leave without me.
“But not today!” Omarito shouted from the corner. “There’s a meeting of the CDR.”
I nodded my head and kept walking. I turned the corner almost at a run. I was at the road now, and the smoke of the buses and the noise baffled me for a moment. It’s a bit strange for someone who lives in such a quiet neighborhood that a mere two hundred meters away is a place with so much hustle and bustle. The sun hadn’t even risen, but the sidewalk was already full of passersby who went to the public transport stops. The lights of countless cars dazzled me. I looked away and hurried my steps. Normally the bus to work picked me up on the highway at six thirty, but sometimes it was early. I checked my watch, but before I could see the time an imperative voice stopped me.
“Citizen.”
No one in the entire national territory addresses someone that way unless they belonged to the Policía Nacional Revolucionaria, the National Revolutionary Police. I lifted my gaze and there he was, dressed in impeccable blue and with his baton in his hand, a man from the PNR. Behind him, on the same sidewalk but at the curb, were two more policemen checking papers of two other civilians.
“Your identity card, please.”
The identity card is the official document, analogous to the North American driver’s license and the European DNI, that theoretically prevents paperwork at the moment of identifying a c
adaver or an unconscious patient in an emergency room. The only inconvenience of this document is that bearing it is considered an obligation of citizenship. And not carrying it is, of course, a crime. During my time at the university, when everything was still up and down between my brother and the people of the neighborhood, I spent more than one night at the police station for having forgotten it. Years have gone by, I don’t wear my hair long, I don’t meet with antisocial elements, and I’m a prestigious researcher in the CIDEZ. And they still ask me for it with the same disdain as when I was nineteen. I’ve come to think that asking for the identity card is something of a hobby for the police, almost as addictive as cigarettes or drugs. Whatever the reason, they make me feel like a worm every time they ask me for it.
One of the two men at the curb argued with the policemen in a loud voice. A patrol car was parked nearby. The man gesticulated in front of the agent of order. That’s always a bad sign. Not with two uniformed men on the sidewalk and two more in the car. That attitude could lead to a cell.
I concentrated on the way the second man stood. Head tilted back three quarters, arms at both sides as if he couldn’t move them any more and a slight oscillating movement of his hips. His gaze was lost on some point between the rooftops of the buildings and the sky. I know those characteristics by heart; after all, I work with them. That man was a zombie.
I handed my identity card to the policeman in front of me. He didn’t even bother to read my name, check my address or verify if I looked like my photo. He lifted a small flashlight to my eyes. The light dazzled me, provoking a very unpleasant sensation. But my response was not hostile. I must pass through these controls every time I enter the office. I know what they’re looking for; it’s always good to know what the police are looking for. Since they are not normally intelligent individuals, and as a general rule they tend to be violent and have authority on their side, it’s always good to give them what they want in order to leave quickly. They were looking for natural pupil reactions to light. They were looking for runaway zombies, unlicensed living dead.
“Listen, comrade,” I said as I pulled my work ID from my pocket. “I’m not a zombie, I make them.”
The policeman focused the flashlight on my hand, something I thought unnecessary since there was already plenty of light. He read the letters CIDEZ and his face changed. He gave my identity card back to me while he spoke with a flat voice. The same voice a zombie would have. If they spoke, of course.
“Sorry for the inconvenience, you can continue.”
I started to walk hurriedly to the corner where I could already see the work bus waiting for me. Behind me, the owner of the undocumented zombie shouted while they cuffed him and forced him into the patrol car. The living dead had no reaction to the violence that took place before its cold eyes. It waited patiently for the Special Brigade truck that would bring it to the police station until everything was cleared up.
The bus for my work center is a Chinese made Yutong. They are not well-known anywhere in the world. They are made in a province of China that is more famous for its Shaolin temple than for producing an urban transport bus. Before boarding, I looked at the two enormous barricades on both sides of the street. I read both slogans: FREEDOM FOR THE FIVE HEROES, the first proclaimed; OUR ZOMBIES ARE NOT HOSTILE, BECAUSE THEY ARE REVOLUTIONARY ZOMBIES , the second said.
I walked down the aisle of the bus, finally settling into a comfortable padded seat. I sat on the side where the barricade bore the propaganda of the five heroes. They didn’t interest me, but the zombies did. Zombies are my work. And if they don’t attack people it is because of people like me. We, the grey scientific researchers without big salaries or bonuses at the end of the month or hard dollars to spur us on. We gave the Cuban Revolution the serum it needed. The final definitive tool to prevent this country from going up like a powder keg.
II
“It’s unbelievable that they do things like this,” María began to say. No other person within the limits of the Zombie Research and Development Center dared to begin a speech this way. The majority of CIDEZ workers were exemplary students in their specialties, almost all at the top of their class and with golden honors at their graduations. All following more or less the same profile: young, studious, white and middle-class; respectful of the rules and fearful of the Revolution. All pre-university graduates of exact sciences and members of the University Student Federation. All incapable of protesting a work injustice, pointing out errors to their bosses, or criticizing a bad policy at the center.
But María was a case apart. To begin with, she was licensed in physics, which made her de facto an oddball. An oddball among oddballs. On the other hand, she had been as brilliant a student as she was undisciplined, to the point of not managing to place her, on graduation, in any research center of pure physics. But as her grades were a good reference, she managed to get a spot at the CIDEZ, not as a physicist but as a computer tech. That is the only characteristic of the physicists that I personally envied. In general, they’re self-sufficient and arrogant but it’s also true that they have an astonishing polifacetism. They can undertake any task alien to their professional profile. They easily adapt to the role of engineer or biologist. María was one of those.
In the mere three years that she’d worked at the Center, Maria had already become an expert in modeling complex molecules on the computer. Possibly seventy five percent of the modeling required to synthesize the serum was due to her, in addition to administering our entire computer network and having set up a cluster of computers that had nothing to envy of any foreign University. Therefore, the research directors, the administration, and the politicians endured her disobedient and conflictive character, as well as her mania of questioning research directives and telling the truth to any head researcher’s face.
We could say that she was magnanimously tolerated and secretly envied.
“It’s truly extraordinary,” she said.
“What’s going on now, María, that you’re complaining and complaining?” We were in the room with the computer servers, enjoying the air conditioning that was colder than in the science area.
“Nothing, it’s just that yesterday a general showed up and asked to speak to the director. Then they called the department head to his office. They were there for nearly three hours. The general finally left at four in the afternoon.”
“And? Zombies interest everyone, but especially the military. It’s a question of national security and those things.”
“It’s nothing to do with national security! Look what they added to the work plan this morning?”
She showed me her computer monitor. I leaned forward and could read the list in an Excel table:
1. Voluntary zombification of military specimens. Create conditions for inoculation through the serum.
2. Acceleration of the pilot tests of version 7143 of the serum in aerosol form.
3. Begin first tests for a massive zombification campaign through the experimental strain VZA1-34907.
I was flabbergasted. If that file were true, a massive zombification campaign was being prepared. We’re not talking about taking criminals or dissidents and converting them into obedient zombies through the serum. We’re not even talking about a voluntary zombification to test pilot vaccines. We were talking about converting an entire population into the living dead. That couldn’t be possible. The Revolution couldn’t give the green light to such a fascist project, it had to be a mistake.
“Now do you understand what I’m talking about? They’re trying to develop an air-born Z-virus. A mutation of the virus that’s resistant to oxygen, that propagates like the flu and not through saliva as with zombies. And then to spray everything with an aerosol version of the serum.”
“OK, let’s assume that they trust that, at some point or another, we’ll come up with the vaccine. Thanks to the serum we could make zombie soldiers.”
“Are you crazy as well, Ricardo? Don’t you realize that the term voluntary in
this country is very relative? Especially in the army. We’re not talking about military professionals who decide to become zombies to better serve the fatherland. Those are young guys doing their military service. 17 and 18-year-old kids. And they’re forced by military discipline. And I don’t need to tell you what the word massive means when it’s used here: we’re talking about a Zombie 1st of May.”
“I think you’re exaggerating. Maybe they’re just looking for a practical use for all those soldiers and cops that were bitten during the first days of the Z virus outbreak?”
“Does the word zombification say anything to you? If the military had aggressive zombies locked up in some secret installation, it would make sense that they requisitioned so much serum from us. And if it’s in aerosol, even better. But they don’t need to zombify anyone. I’m telling you that what they want is to inoculate healthy individuals. Whether they volunteer or not.”
“We do that, too. We use prisoners with death sentences and we also have volunteers.”
“And dissidents.
“Yes, dissidents, too, but they asked for it by being counterrevolutionaries, right?”
“Of course, of course, those things are done for science. To find the vaccine. This is different. This is creating zombies for war. Without even getting into what they hope to do by contaminating the civil population.
“You’re exaggerating, María. No one is at war with us and I don’t think that, with the zombie problem the way it is at this moment in the world, no country is going to decide to attack us now. Maybe they want to create a special force to capture runaway zombies or something like that.”
“And here I thought that you were the only person in this place with his head screwed on properly.”
“I am, but you’re complaining without any proof. In practice, we perform science based on the sacrifice of human beings inoculated with the virus. To a certain degree, we support the concept that the infected are essentially alive although they have low cerebral activity. And with the hope of one day finding a vaccine to undo the process. That, my friend, is as inhuman as creating zombies for the army, whether it is to kill other zombies or to march better in the December 2 military parade for the anniversary of the FAR. The only difference is that we are looking for knowledge and they are looking for more practical goals. The world is no longer how it once was and if you doubt that, look at the news and you’ll see. These are no longer times of human rights, they’re times of survival and we’re surviving.”
Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction Page 11
