by E. J. Swift
‘Well,’ says Pilar. ‘That shit’s just gone and ruined my day.’
The Alaskan was awake when the radios went black, and she is awake when the broadcasts resume. Station Cataveiro is the first. Others follow as she twists the dials, netting the radios sat on chairs and shelves and depositing them on the covers around her legs until she is surrounded by radios, each broadcasting a different wavelength. First come the subsidiary stations, then the independents, then the singly operated outfits, picking up and rebroadcasting the same message, over and over. Quarantine! There hasn’t been a quarantine in five years. Over three thousand died in the last big outbreak of redfleur; they were fast, but not fast enough.
After a while there are other messages, supportive and subversive, and then there are doctors and scientists, someone from Tierra del Fuego urging the city not to panic, to stay safe and in the home. She leaves all of the radios on. The cacophony of voices brings a shiver of excitement to her aching bones.
Don’t go out unless you have to. A stern government official.
Wear a mouth-mask. A researcher with a mellifluous, reassuring voice.
‘Ha!’
The Alaskan snorts aloud at that. As if a mask would help anyone with redfleur. She twists her awkward body and feels under her mattress where the gun is and yanks it out and checks it is loaded: yes it is. She places it under her pillow. Then she waits.
And listens.
And waits.
The hours, the light slides by. She hears panicked banging about in the apartment next door. The streets below are busy at first, shrill gossip and exclamations interspersing the broadcasts from all the radios around her legs, who’s-dead and who’s-sick and whose-doctor-is-best and where’s-your-mask-I-told-you-not-to-come-out-without-your-mask, as though there were any point in talking, as though there were any point in anything but finding the poor infected bastards and shooting them and then burning the corpses to ash.
Mourn them later. That is the stance the city’s enforcers must take. You cannot firefight redfleur: you eradicate it, or lose the population. It is that simple.
The heat intensifies. The Alaskan’s mouth is parched. Her tongue feels like paper in her mouth. The water jug by her bed is almost empty. She will not resort to dragging herself across the floor. Someone will come.
By midday the street has fallen silent. Occasionally she hears a single set of hurried footsteps passing by. She keeps the radios turned up loud. The broadcasters continue to chitter. Now they are full of eyewitness accounts and journalists interviewing the families of redfleur victims. It is the same story. My-sister my-brother my-mother my-bedridden-grandmother – she switches that station off – my-friend my-lover my-daughter I-knew-someone I-knew-someone and the redfleur took them and this is how it went.
The story is the same. The ending is the same. They died. They died badly, in agony. The Alaskan will not allow herself such an ending. She has suffered enough indignity for one lifetime.
She takes the gun from under her pillow and looks at it. She feels its heft. She points it at her temple, then fits the barrel against the roof of her mouth, above her tongue, tasting the sour metal. That is the most effective way. She leaves the gun out on the bed, her saliva drying on the barrel.
She waits. Mid-afternoon. The jug is dry.
Mig does not come until past three o’clock and by then the Alaskan is angry, very angry.
‘Where have you been?’
He shrugs. His eyes slide away from hers, sly. He has a secret, this one, something he is keeping from her. The Alaskan doesn’t like secrets, not when they do not belong to her. She’ll worm it out of him.
‘Where have you been, eh? I’ve been sat here all morning waiting for you to show your worthless face!’
Wordlessly, Mig picks up the jug. He refills it, returns and pours her a glass of water. She sees him notice the gun. She has to hold herself back not to slurp the liquid down and ease her swollen tongue.
‘I had to check on the kids,’ says Mig. ‘Ri and the others.’
Kids, says the boy. As if he’s not one of them. Forgetting his place, he is.
‘And what of me, stuck here with legs that don’t work, waiting for you to enlighten me? Am I supposed to die of thirst?’
The boy shuffles. ‘Where’s Maria?’
‘Maria’s not going to come with that death message all over the radio, is she? Why would Maria come? Cowardly. Disloyal, she is. Disloyal. You’re not going to be disloyal, are you, Mig?’
‘No,’ he mumbles.
‘What was that?’
‘No, all right? I’m here, aren’t I? Didn’t I come?’
Mig’s face is flushed and sweaty. The Alaskan relents.
‘You did, Mig. You did. And don’t think I don’t appreciate it. You’ll be well rewarded.’ She moves a radio and pats the bed. ‘Sit here. There’s work to be done. We need to know who is dead. Who’s stayed and who’s gone. Is Xiomara still in town, or has she scarpered? Because, Mig, it’s times like these when the power can shift.’
‘They’re moving people out,’ he says. ‘Testing them and telling them to go to the country.’
‘Moving people, are they? The military has moved in, I’ll wager. They’d better be in by now. Do you know how fast redfleur can travel, Mig? Have you seen what it does?’
The Alaskan’s brain is powering. She can feel the shift, like a gear in a motorcycle. She used to love a motorcycle. The wind on her face and the thrum of the engine. The speed. The Scandinavian girl sat behind her, clinging to her waist. Up through the gears. One moment her thoughts are following the usual patterns, racing along their natural highways, the next it is as if she has lifted above the network of intersecting pathways and tramlines and river routes and Nazca lines and she sees each of them at the same time, with complete clarity. The Alaskan does not know if this is a result of her freak ancestry or just a fluke of genetic code, but when it happens, she feels a girlish thrill, an awareness of her own power and intellect that is intoxicating. The city reveals itself like a map before her. The players take their places upon it: Mig, Xiomara, the Antarctican, the hiding Osirian, the chemist, the government agents, and Alejandro Herrera, the ambitious mayor’s apprentice who came for Mig’s telegram. What is each of them thinking, deciding? Who will make the first move?
Taeo is shocked at the speed at which it happens. The broadcast. The rush to the shops as everyone in the district buys as much as they can carry, wheeling home trolleys stacked with tottering piles of tins and bottles of fluids. How quickly he finds himself prepared to fight for his share. Outside the store a small girl plucks one of his precious purchases straight out of the bag. Taeo shouts but she is already twisting away. Other thieves are waiting, expertly assessing the panicked shoppers, slicing open bags with pocket knives so the contents spill to the floor. Taeo hurries back, clutching his purchases to his chest. An evacuation official is shepherding the children of several families out of the building. Each child has a single bag. One clings to a floppy stuffed dog. Their faces are frightened and defiant, stained with tears. Climbing the five flights of the apartment block, Taeo hears the sound of running water as residents throughout the building fill their buckets and sinks in anticipation of cuts to the water supply.
The shops close. The street falls quiet. The radio issues nervous reports of zones where the disease has struck. Districts are named: a park, a street. Nothing is certain. Nothing is confirmed. By early evening, army trucks are taking regular patrols through the streets, and Taeo curses himself for not making a move before.
When he opens the shutters to see the street below, it is dimly lit and appears deserted.
Vikram taps his shoulder.
‘Let me see.’
He moves aside to let the other man look out. Vikram stands silently. Watchfully.
‘Can you see anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Nor could I.’
‘You said before that redfleur never reached Antarctica,
didn’t you?’
Taeo peers past Vikram. The building opposite is dark except for the occasional sliver of light through the shutters. He cannot tell if anyone else is doing what they are doing. ‘It’s one of the reasons the Republic maintains an isolation policy. Too many northern plagues.’
‘I never heard of anyone in Osiris having it either.’
‘You wouldn’t have. The superstrain only emerged around forty years ago – it was probably created by the northerners, knowing them.’
‘You think they created it?’
‘I’d put nothing past the Boreals.’
He hears the sound of an engine. A minute later an army-marked truck drives through the street below. The soldiers sat up top are wearing masks and full hazard suits. The white suits look like shrouds. The sight sends a chill through Taeo.
‘I have to go out,’ he says. ‘I want to find out if the city is blocked. There must be a way out. We should get out while we can. If there’s an epidemic—’
‘You know I don’t want to spend a day more than I have to in this place,’ says Vikram. ‘But we haven’t found any of your Antarcticans, and how are we going to get out of this country until we do?’
‘They must have lifted the lockdown on the harbour by now. There’ll be an Antarctican boat. I’m sure of it.’
‘You don’t know that. We have no idea what’s going on inside the city, never mind outside of it.’
‘They’re evacuating children. That means it’s serious. Vikram, you’ve never seen someone with redfleur. It’s a horrific way to die.’
‘Is there a good way?’
‘What?’
‘I’ve seen a lot of people die. I’ve never seen anyone die in a good way.’
‘I wouldn’t wish redfleur on a Boreal. It’s messy and incredibly painful. Your relatives won’t recognize your face when you’re dead. Is that horrific enough? Fucking hell.’
Vikram’s face is expressionless.
‘Anyway, quite apart from the actual danger of infection, even if we do escape an epidemic, we’d be put in isolation for months before Antarctica would let us in. I really think it’s best to pretend we’ve never been here.’
Vikram shrugs. ‘Then check it out. Just watch yourself out there. Or take me with you, if you want to stay safe.’
‘No,’ he says quickly. If Vikram’s lost, then everything’s lost. ‘No, we can’t risk you being caught. And one of us needs to stay with the radio.’
‘Then why are you even pretending to ask me?’
Taeo opens his mouth to react and realizes there is no point. If Vikram was planning an exit, he would have gone a long time ago. For better or worse, he has placed his fortunes in Taeo’s hands.
The building, usually clamorous with gossiping neighbours and children shrieking and running up and down stairs, is eerily quiet. When Taeo steps out into the street he feels its emptiness acutely, as though in that short stride he has crossed aeons of space and time to the surface of another planet, one strange and unfamiliar.
Mig has three checks to make. First is the enclaves, where Señorita Xiomara lives. The gates to the enclaves are shut and everything within silent. Some of the cars are gone. Not all. There are soldiers with guns, patrolling the perimeters. She’s still in the city then, for now. One of the soldiers sees him. He shouts. Mig sprints away, the click of the soldier’s gun loud in his ears.
Second: the heart of the city, a lesser street where the creepy old chemist brews his potions. The chemist’s frantic customers of the morning are long gone. The shop is closed, the lights off. Is he still there, down in his basement? The Alaskan has a suspicion that if the chemist stays, it means something. Mig wonders if she thinks the chemist has a cure for redfleur, which would be a miracle, so Mig does not believe it, but still he wonders.
The third and final check is the Tarkie and his prisoner. Then he can find Pilar. He is worried about Pilar. She does not care for the quarantine, or the curfew, which starts around now, not that anyone is out. Doors and shutters are closed tight to the empty streets as Mig hurries on his way. He can barely hear the radios, as if the city is afraid that too much noise might provoke an onslaught of redfleur symptoms. Enforcers wearing full-face masks pop up on every corner, the young ones twitchy, the veterans hard-faced, all of them itching for trouble. Mig has only seen the city like this once before. It makes him nervous. There were things that happened – the last time. There was that gang who took the heads of Born Again Mayans, or those they believed to be Born Agains. Another group invaded a House of the Nazca. They sacrificed an acolyte; his screams could be heard in the next district.
People turn when death is close. You can’t trust what they say and you can’t trust what they don’t say.
When he reaches the Tarkie’s block Mig feels more relief than he would care to admit. He is almost at the top of the stairs when he hears voices in the corridor. Madame Bijou? No, but definitely a female voice, possibly that mouthy girl who answered the door to him once. And a male, speaking in Spanish, but badly, with a distinctive accent. Not the Tarkie.
Mig freezes.
Is it him, the other, the one the Alaskan wants? Is it the Osirian?
He creeps up a few more steps.
They are talking about the quarantine. The man is asking the girl questions and saying yes, yes, and once, slower please, as she responds. The girl says business is bad, no one has come, but Bijou will not close. They are all scared – what if a customer comes, a rabid one, infects them all? They’ll be dead in hours. Or what if the gamblers decide they want quick cash? What if they raid the place and kill everyone? They’ll be dead even quicker then.
Mig smells cigarette smoke. What should he do? This is his chance to see the man. But to see him, he exposes himself. He presses against the stairwell wall. The stone is cool on his bare shoulders. He wants to see the man. He wants to see if he has scales, like the stories say, or gills. Curiosity is burning a hole inside him.
The man asks, how do you get infected? Is it through blood?
Stupid question, thinks Mig. She’ll know he’s not a Patagonian.
Yes, blood, says the girl. She doesn’t seem bothered by the question; perhaps she already knows about the man? Or touching, she says. Or spit. Snot, if you sneeze. Or tears. It’s true you can die from the tears of a dead one. Once they’re infected, you can’t touch them. That’s why they’re burned.
What about the symptoms? asks the man.
Well, says the girl. It’s the rash that comes first. But that’s the tricky thing, because, you know, it might be heat rash or a mozzie bite gone bad or whatever. The redfleur looks a bit like flower petals, but not always. When it spreads all over your body and gets gooey, that’s when you know it’s bad. Then you start sicking up blood. Then everything inside you folds up and hours later you’re dead. That’s how fast it is, by the hummingbird.
A long exhalation and a whiff of smoke.
I hope it doesn’t come here then, says the man.
Mig hears the sound of a cigarette being ground against the floor. The pair are winding up their conversation. Now, now is the moment!
He pads up the final steps, certain of not being heard.
The door to Madame Bijou’s closes. As the door opposite pushes shut, he catches the briefest glimpse of a man’s face in profile: dark hair, brown skin, a nose that has been broken. If he has scales, they are not on his face.
When Mig puts his ear to the door there is only the radio. For a few minutes he sits with his back to the door, wondering, listening.
Who are you in there? Who are you that the Alaskan wants so badly? Who is it that doesn’t know about the redfleur?
The army has set up manned barricades at each of the major roads leading out of the city. The soldiers are armed and suited up. Taeo sees only one attempt at escape. A man approaches the barricade. He is told to go home. It’s past curfew. He retreats, then makes a run for the barrier. A soldier levels her gun and calmly shoots the man i
n the leg. The man drops with a shout. He lies there, yelling and clutching his leg. Eventually someone drags him into the back of a truck and drives back into the city.
By the time he has seen the last barrier, Taeo is exhausted, and it is long past curfew. The atmosphere of the streets has changed. There is barely any light, but he senses he is not the only one out. He notices forced doors and shutters pried up; shops have been raided, a chemist’s window is smashed and its shelves almost entirely cleared. A child – a little girl – is looting through packets of pills scattered on the floor. She picks up one, frowns at it, discards it, chooses another. Her shoes crunch on the broken glass with each shift in position. When Taeo passes she looks up instinctively, and remains frozen until he has gone.
As the night deepens he hears unidentified shouts and the sound of things being smashed. He cannot tell if they are very close or several blocks away, and hurries back through the streets that have become surprisingly familiar in such a short space of time. When they arrived he could not imagine knowing the place. Its people and customs made it seem larger and stranger than it actually is. Now the city’s smallness is its downfall. He can see how quickly, how immediately, the population could be eviscerated in a single sweep of plague. He and Vikram have to get out. They should pack their things tonight. He thinks of Vikram’s blank face and his insistence that there is no such thing as a good death and a sudden fear strikes him that did not occur before.
What if Vikram wants to die? What if he’s given up, like Taeo almost had?
He walks faster.
He is five streets away from Avenue Lorado when he hears the mob. First the angry shouts, then an advancing light, a strong orange glow that defeats the wispy luminescence of the few functioning street lamps. Firelight. Taeo runs to the end of the street. Right or left? The shouts seem to come from all sides. He chooses right, hoping to avoid whatever is coming his way, but he hasn’t gone far when he hears voices again, nearer now, perhaps on the next street. He ducks down an alley and runs into a huddle of three dark figures. A hand grasps for his shoulder. He backs out as fast as he can.
