The Culled Part 10

This was at the beginning. This was during The Cull itself, as The Blight swept the country, as the infrastructure gave way like a dam made of salt and all the comfortable little certainties - advertising, street-sweepers, hotdog stalls, the Metro newspaper on the underground, discount sales, pirated DVDs, free samples in supermarkets, full vending machines - all the little frills you never f.u.c.king noticed, just slowly...

...went away.

Except the news. Sometimes, anyway. "G.o.d Bless the BBC!" People would say, as they pa.s.sed in the street, tripping on b.l.o.o.d.y bodies and dead riot cops. Sometimes days would p.i.s.s past with nothing - no bulletins at the top of the hour, no "we-interrupt-this-antique-comedy-to-bring-you-breaking-news" - and out in the rain all the uncertain crowds who couldn't work out why they weren't coughing and dying like everyone else were all anxiety and confusion, waiting beside the screens. But once in a while... once in a while.

I imagined a skeleton crew, struggling on bravely at Television Centre; sleeping and living in its ugly bulges just to get the word out. I imagined them feeling pretty good about themselves, like the fireman who goes above and beyond to save a crying kid, like an artist who doesn't sleep for a week to get the right tones, the right shades, the right effects. Like the soldier who keeps going, who never gives up, no matter what.

In a civilised - and I use the word with the appropriate levels of irony - world, news is just another commodity. It so rarely affects you. It so rarely intersects with the sheltered, blinkered universe of your real world. It's just another entertainment. Another distant work of fiction (or as good as) to be picked apart and discussed in the local boozer, over tea or coffee, sat on the train, wherever.

The Cull changed all that. The Cull made it so everyone was living the news, all the time. Suddenly all the people - the quiet little n.o.bodies who called themselves 'normal' and never made a fuss - knew what it was like to be a native of Baghdad, or an earthquake widow, or a disgraced politician. Suddenly they all knew what it was like to switch on the box and hear all about themselves, their own world, their own s.h.i.tty lives, discussed in the same autocue-serious tone as every other dismal slice of bad news.

It must have been a weird sensation.

(Not for me, though. I'd been making the news for years, one way or another. And I mean 'making'. Some weeks it felt like foreign affairs correspondents would've been out of a job but for me and mine, though they didn't know it. And no one ever said my name.) On this particular day, the eagerness to receive fresh information was stronger than ever. All throughout the blistered wastes of London, little knots of people had formed - their clothes not yet raggedy, but getting there; their faces not yet malnourished and gaunt, but getting there - to crowd around flickering sets in front rooms and electronics shops, tolerating the dismal repeats on the off-chance of a new bulletin.

Two days ago, they'd mentioned the bombs falling in America. Rumours of atomic strikes, attacks all across the world, missiles going up and tumbling back down, EM pulses like technological plagues and supertech 'Star Wars' defences misfiring; farting useless interceptors into lightning storms and spitting heat seekers into the sea.

When they'd made that announcement - a couple of days before - it had been tricky to know how much was confirmed and how much was fabrication. Concocted, one suspected, by the dishevelled creature sat behind the news-desk, staring in terror at the trembling camera. It was difficult to imagine the usual BBC specimens - bolt upright, faces slack, Queen's English spoken with a crisp enunciation that bordered on the ridiculous - stammering and coughing quite so much as the nervous girl huddled behind her sheaf of papers, as she told an entranced London that nuclear Armageddon was right around the corner, then sipped carefully at her water.

It had been a tense couple of days, since.

I sat it all out in the flat. It had changed since that gloomy day when I got the text, when the removal guys failed to show up, when the ambulances streaked past one after another. Now the fish tank lay smashed on the floor, the CDs were all off the shelf in a heap, a couple of pot plants were turning slowly brown with their stalks broken and roots unearthed, and the front door sported a few splintered little holes where I'd shot it - for no reason other than to let the neighbours know I was armed.

I'd had a tantrum or two, that's all.

The phone hadn't rung. There were no more text messages. Nothing.

Oh, and, PS: nuclear bombs may be about to fall.

Not the best week of my life.

The point was, on this day, when the catchphrase comedy was blissfully interrupted and the serious little NEWSFLASH screen cut-in without announcement or music, pretty-much every poor beleaguered f.u.c.ker in the entire city leaned a little closer to the set, and held their breath.

It was a new face behind the news desk - even younger than the last one, with an untidy mop of hair and a thick pair of gla.s.ses that reflected the shimmering blue of the autocue off-puttingly - and he cleared his throat agonisingly before beginning.

What he said had nothing whatsoever to do with bombs.

"Good afternoon," he said. I almost laughed. "A UN-sponsored team of researchers based in the United States have today released a statement regarding the unknown sickness that is now estimated to have struck two thirds of the countries of the World, and shows no sign of abating. Despite the poor quality of the signal, agencies still in contact with the BBC across the Atlantic have confirmed it to be genuine, though its source is as-yet unknown.

"According to the report, the disease targets particular biological conditions with a precision formerly unknown in medical science. Referred to by the unnamed author of the report as the 'AB-Virus,' the infection - which is airborne and requires no physical contact to transmit - attacks red blood cells at an unprecedented rate; causing muscular, respiratory and cardiac failure within days."

A cut-rate graphic appeared on the screen: a crude image of eight identical human silhouettes, in two rows of four columns. Headers across the top of the table read A, B, AB and O, whilst the rows were marked with simple mathematical symbols for positive and negative.

"Oh s.h.i.t..." I whispered. The penny was beginning to drop.

"Each person," the voice continued, settling into a sort of cod-doc.u.mentary narration, "possesses one of four distinct types of blood - known as phenotypes. These are characterised by the various protein markers, or 'antigens', upon the surface of each red blood cell. So, people of phenotype 'A' have A-antigens," here the first column of the table lit-up in lurid yellow, "and people of phenotype 'B' have B-antigens. Those whose blood-type is 'AB' have antigens of both varieties, whilst those with no antigens at all belong to phenotype 'O'."

In each case the strip of yellow highlighting clunked its way along the table. I felt like I was watching one of those G.o.dawful educational videos they used to crack-out in biology lessons at school, with the unconvincing s.e.xual metaphors and the pulpy innards of rats and frogs.

"The practical effect of this system is to determine what blood-types are safely viable for transfusion into medical patients. Patients of blood type 'A,' for example, cannot be safely given blood of any phenotype containing 'B' antigens and vice-versa."

The voice drew a breath. It was hardly compelling viewing, but I didn't envy the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d delivering it. It was like 'Doomsday-By-Boring-Science.'

I guess even then, at the back of my mind, knowing as I did that I hadn't felt a twinge of sickness, and being all too familiar with my own medical stats, I knew what was coming.

"The categorisation is further complicated," the voice droned, "by the presence in most people's blood of a further protein marker: the so-called 'rhesus' antigen." Here the entire upper row illuminated, like a bad version of a Connect-Four game show. "Any person with Rhesus-positive blood cannot viably donate to those with Rhesus negative blood, whose bodies contain natural antibodies to defend against the antigen."

I caught a sudden mental picture of filthy people all across London, cl.u.s.tered into makeshift bomb-shelters, trading bewildered glances and muttering "Wa.s.sef.u.c.ken' talkin' baht?"

The newsman continued, a little shakily.

"The UN report makes it clear that the virus, once contagion has occurred, will specifically target red blood cells bearing antigens of any type. So any person of phenotypes A, B, or AB; or of Rhesus-positive blood, is susceptible to infection."

On the screen, the little graphic changed, a crude red 'X' appearing upon each and every cell within the table, except for the last one.

"Subtle." I said to n.o.body.

The camera cut back to the guy behind the desk. He looked tired, and someone had nipped-in to yank off his gla.s.ses during the off-screen monologue, so now he was squinting comically at the autocue.

"If the report is correct," he said, "less than seven percent of the population of the United Kingdom - those of phenotype O-Negative - are safe from infection."

He coughed quietly, glanced off-camera for a moment, and then licked his lips. He knew what was coming.

"The report ends... The report ends with a summary of the research team's attempts to develop a treatment for the 'AB-Virus'. Viewers... Uh. Some viewers may find the following audio file disturbing."

I laughed again, bitter.

"Yeah..." I said. "Yeah. Because telling nine-out-of-f.u.c.king-ten people they're going to die isn't at all disturbing, mate, is it?"

The poor kid was up out of his chair - face crumpled in disgust - before the image even blurred away into a bland red screen with the astin 'UN RESEARCH REPORT.'

A man's voice - American - came out of nowhere: "As to our findings regarding the... ugh... the... hnh..." A thick bout of coughing broke through the signal; ugly sounds of spittle flying and phlegm being swallowed, which lapsed by degrees into silence. Machinery and murmuring voices sounded quietly in the background. The voice started again, dry and uncomfortable. "-the treatment of the virus. We've... We've found nothing. No way to stop it. It obeys all these... these rules we don't understand, but even so... every division is a... a new strain. You treat one - kill it, even - the next one's different. It... hnnk... it can't be sto..."

The voice broke off again, the coughing far uglier this time, interrupted with staccato grunts of pain and short curses. It softened slightly - the speaker moving away from the microphone - but the obvious pain of the fit was hardly diminished, and I found myself wincing in sympathy.

And then everything changed.

It was only quiet, but I heard it. There's no doubt. No fraction of uncertainty in my mind.

It was barely audible. It rose out of the background hubbub and the storm of coughing and wheezing dominating the signal, but oh G.o.d I heard it. I know I did.

"Lie him down!" A new voice said. Tinny with distortion and distance, but somehow resonant and deep nonetheless. "Get him down! And switch off that f.u.c.king micropho..."

The signal died.

The news programme stopped.

The repeat episode of Only Fools and Horses picked up where it'd left off, with canned laughter roaring out of the box.

Out on the streets of London, a low moaning, building through sobs and cries of horror, was growing all across the steepled skyline.

In my flat, I shot the door six more times, drank half a bottle of vintage single malt, and went out to start a fight.

That night - the night that London tore itself apart - I could take my pick.

Someone tried to rob me. Emphasis on the tried.

Give the little punks their credit: they had a system. Probably been pulling this s.h.i.t every day for months, and if it weren't for the fact I clocked them as soon as I saw them, it might even have worked.

Somewhere inside the heart of the Con Ed power plant facility, a broad plaza had been cleared. Intestinal pipes and tanks dragged aside, buildings burned and shattered, the whole roughly-square patch razed to a cracked-concrete wilderness.

It heaved.

The weirdest thing was - and I didn't realise this until later - there were no kids. It seemed natural enough to expect them, somewhere amongst it all. At the heart of the colourful crowds, at the source of the excited shouts and squeals, amidst all the bodies squashed together or dashing through scant open s.p.a.ces as they blossomed and filled. It was pandemonium. It was human convection in a tattered blend of colours and sizes, pushing and jostling and grunting, haggling out loud, or simply standing tall to yell offers at top volume.

But no kids. In all of New York, just like London: no kids.

"Wheels Mart." Nate said, leaning idly against a rusted pipe and lighting another of my cigarettes. "You want transport, you find it here." His eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly. "Where we going anyways?"

I ignored him and let the sensory overload knock me about, letting my instincts adjust, taking stock.

A hundred and one aromas gusted past - not just the usual filth and stink of too many unhygienic people - but the smoky promise of meat and stew, served diligently by a long row of low stalls, to the colossal queues of hungry customers. Prices were written in arcane barter-notes: weighing cigarettes, ammunition, items of clothing, canisters of fuel and recreational narcotics against the value of ratburgers, dog food gumbo, home-grown potatoes and (f.u.c.k me, the smell!) freshly baked bread. My senses kept trying to tell me I'd died and gone to heaven.

All around the outer perimeter of this bustling plaza other stalls were erected, bartering all manner of curious products and sc.r.a.ps of salvage. So wide was the square - and so thick with people - that I couldn't even make out what the distant stock was, though a tent near me held nothing but live chickens and shrieking budgerigars in small wicker cages, and something that looked troublingly like a parrot was turning on a spit over a barbecue. There were no weapons visible anywhere, except those clutched by the small groups of black-clad guards lounging about on walls and turrets around the enclosure, keeping half an eye. The distinctive shriek-scream-grunt of pigs rose from a muddy mora.s.s behind another section of the crowd, and most audible of all - over the top of everything else - was the growl of engines. Dozens of them. From all quarters of the mart fumes coiled upwards like greasy fingers, and at regular intervals a fresh cavalcade of bikes throttling, cars backfiring and heavier vehicles rumbling to life sounded above the melee.

The crowd was thickest at the centre, where a tall man in a wide-brimmed Stetson dangled uncomfortably from a series of cables and harnesses above their heads, waving arms and shouting out what I first mistook for unintelligible nonsense. The crowd seemed to be responding in kind - hands raised, necks craned, roaring out and waving bits and pieces of tatty scav every time the pendulous showman wobbled overhead.

It took me a while to realise he was running an auction.

"Four an' five!" He was wittering, almost too fast to catch, "four-and-five, pack of burns, pack of burns? Pack of burns! Anna piglet! Raise me? Best scoot inna house, here! Vespa, onlythabest! Raise me? Raise me?"

The crowd hollered - everyone shouting all at once - and the MB ("Master've bids," Nate grunted) dangled about like a string puppet, pointing fingers, taking offers, and promising new barters. A shiny chrome moped sat on a plinth beside the crowd, guarded by four serious-looking guards.

"Pack of burns?" I asked, flicking Nate a look.

He shrugged and brandished his cigarette, then scowled and looked me up and down.

"You wanna try lookin' any more like a G.o.dd.a.m.n tourist?"

I realised I'd been blocking the causeway. Sticking out like a sore thumb with my bulging backpack invitingly obvious, bolt-upright and fascinated where everyone else was either rushing about like their a.r.s.eholes were on fire or leaning, just like Nate, against whatever item of st.u.r.dy ephemera they found. There were two correct states of being inside the Wheels-Mart: involved or not involved, and neither one involved any sense of wonderment.

Paying attention; taking an interest; having a bag full of unknown goodies. These were one-way-tickets to getting noticed by someone.

My 'someones' emerged from the crowd to my left, and I knew what was coming immediately. Two young men - early twenties at a guess, maybe even t.i.the-dodgers - sc.r.a.pping and squabbling, rolling in muck, dirtied fingernails clutching at torn rags. They sprang and locked again, snarling like ferrets, tripping each other in their clumsy aggression then scrambling upright for a renewed attack.

It was all very convincing.

Except for the glances.

The tiny sideways squints in my direction.

The subtle eyes that told me everything I needed to know.

One of them drew a knife, circling in suddenly to thrust inwards towards the other, who rolled aside theatrically and yanked his own shimmering little shiv out of the hem of his boot. The pair closed again, their angry wrestles and desperate stabs bringing them - as if by magic - stumbling towards me. Ch.o.r.eographed to perfection. Messy and fast and unpredictable, and as authentic as it gets, but I knew.

The body language.

The stance.

Nate was watching them with some interest, I noticed, completely taken-in; face a slack mixture of disapproval and distance. Even some of the crowd - studiously nonchalant of all other things - were twisting to watch the brewing carnage. Everyone was ignoring me, never considering it might all be for my benefit. One or two punters even started calling out encouragement to the fighters, making wagers and shouting advice, whilst others scanned the crowd for the nearest guards.

"No Klan business!" A woman hissed, trying to break them up. The young men shoved her away and kept circling around each other, knives hooking hilt-to-hilt, then twisting back and forth inside one another's guard. Vicious. Personal.

Always heading right for me.

By the time they dropped the pretence and pounced - both at the same time, unlocking from their fake pugilism like a bear trap in reverse, knives outstretched on each side like scissor blades - I was already moving. Diving beneath the double-stab, rolling awkwardly across the backpack and flicking out one orbital leg: roundhousing the first punk - a freckled beanpole with bright purple hair - off his feet. The other darted-in with a snarl, catching a straight-handed chop to the side of his tattooed neck and - as I vaulted upright from the ground - an angry, unsubtle head b.u.t.t on the bridge of his much-pierced nose. To be blunt I think he was dead from the neck wound already - he b.l.o.o.d.y should have been, the way I hit him - but I was angry. Sue me.

He went down without a word.

The purple-haired geek got up slowly, shaking his head to clear the fuzz, and backhanded his knife into a downward slicer. I picked up his mate's shiv - dropped from one spasming hand - and grinned at him; letting my body tell him how calm I was, how much I wanted him to rush me, how much I was urging him to come take me o...

His eyes flickered, just a millimetre, to one side.

Cold sweat. That sinking feeling.

Third guy behind me.

Two for the diversion, one for the strike.

Clever.

I sidestepped a fraction early. I figured the attack was imminent, but I left the f.u.c.ker with too much time to angle his swing. Still, if it's a choice between denting my skull with a heavy tyre-iron or missing by inches and instead swiping the fabric along the top of my pack - tipping me over like a sleeping cow - I'll take the latter every time. I slash-stabbed blindly with the shiv as I stumbled, snarling from somewhere deep inside me that wasn't entirely rational; feeling a tug and a tear and a spatter of warmth, rewarded with a scream. The breath exploded out of me as I thumped to the tarmac on my back, crushing the kid with the pierced face for a second time and sending something sharp punching through the top of my pack; digging me in the nape of my neck.

This Johnny -come -lately sneak -up -behind -a -guy a.r.s.ehole - an enormous man with a braided beard and a pair of lensless gla.s.ses - staggered and moaned, squirting blood from an arterial gash on his thigh. He'd dropped the tyre iron at some stage, but as the purple-haired youth closed in on me with the knife the giant swatted him on the shoulder, held out a bony paw for the blade, and dropped down to finish me himself.

Something small and red appeared between his eyes.

The back of his head came off, and for a second or two he looked startled; as if his brain was still feeding him waves of shock and uncertainty, despite being scattered in a semicircle across the mud. A gunshot echoed across the crowd - like a guest arriving late for a party - and everyone jumped.

"Fffff..." he managed.

The kid with the purple-hair took off.

Without being entirely conscious of it, sitting upright in one long fluid movement, I felt my arm extend, left eye closed, fingers releasing. The shiv - a curled tooth of flat steel, easily palmed beneath gloved fingers - spun off into s.p.a.ce; a shuriken that caught the weak light as it whispered.

It hit the punk at the base of his skull, just beside his left ear. It looked like it went deep, and when he sagged to the floor - arms quivering, legs bending back on themselves - he wasn't in any rush to get back up.

There's a lot of blood in a scalp. It clashed with his hair.