The End of Men(19)
Every other country is the same. The international section of the report provides some chilling news about the speed of transmission in France and some typically organized German responses that I’ll keep an eye on to see if they actually help. All of our key allies are fighting to keep their heads above water—to keep unrest at bay, ensure domestic terror threats are managed and ensure that, as far as possible, intelligence and security services keep functioning. On the plus side, it turns out that male terrorists are as petrified as the rest of the population. And happily, terrorists are men most of the time. The surveillance that we’re maintaining at a minimal level is finding that terror cells are breaking up and fleeing. We think a few hundred have left London, and about 110 have disappeared from Birmingham. I can only imagine they’re unlikely to still be alive, which brings me absolutely no sadness whatsoever.
The media reports section is a painful read. The newspapers have had a field day. “The authorities ignored the problem,” they’re saying. But I’m still unsure as to what exactly it is that we could have done. Pushed for research earlier into a vaccine? We’re not scientists. Warned people? Our role is to minimize unrest and panic, not create it. Perhaps we could have quarantined the sick, but women were hosts. I don’t see how we could have kept enough people away from each other in a country with seventy-plus million people, and thousands of people flying in and out every day, to make much of a difference unless it was done in the first, critical few days.
But that’s not a very PR-friendly answer. I’m meant to apologize profusely as though I personally concocted the disease and spread it to the British population myself at night like the BFG. So instead I write a brief press statement that’s as vague as it is unhelpful.
The security services are working tirelessly to minimize unrest and keep the British people safe. We will continue to provide updates as and when we know more.
I’ve always been good at drafting press statements. The carefully constructed neutrality I convey lends itself to press statements that are unobjectionable. Whenever my daughter asks me what my job is like, I say that my job isn’t just boring, my job is to be boring. Or at least it was, until the world imploded. We’re doing what we can, and it’s not enough, of course it’s not, but I can say without any blight on my conscience that we’re doing what could be expected in extraordinary circumstances. This is like a biblical flood or an extinction. This is not normal. Everyone’s going to blame the authorities and we’re going to take it because that’s our jobs. But we are just about managing to survive as a nation, and at the moment, that’s as good as it’s going to get.
CLARE
San Francisco
Day 48
Everyone in San Francisco has had the same three ideas. To go home to wherever they’re from, to go north to Canada or to go east to the desert. But it’s too late.
I walk through the airport, being jostled and thrown about by people rushing, rushing, rushing. It doesn’t matter that I’m in a police uniform. What am I going to do, yell at them? Everyone is running away from death. They’re not scared of me.
There’s a huge crowd of people beneath every flight board. The red words, “Canceled, Canceled, Canceled,” are bleeding down the screens. Every few minutes another flight goes from “Delayed” to “Canceled” and a group of people groan and yell. Not enough pilots are here to fly the planes and half the countries in the world have closed their borders so the flights can’t land. The world is closing down.
I keep walking around the airport, ostensibly to “keep the peace” and “calm down any disagreements.” But the place has the feeling of a lit match edging itself toward a pool of gasoline. The city’s ready to burst. The tech bubble has officially popped. When the world’s financial markets are in free fall, the stock value of a tech company that relies on widespread internet connection and an ever-growing middle class and has never actually turned a profit goes down, fast. Billionaires have become millionaires, the value of money has evaporated and this city built on sexism and man’s ability to play God through technology is falling apart at the seams.
I need to stay calm, stay strong. I’m a woman. I’m not going to die. I’m always going to have a job as a cop. I cannot be fazed. There are plenty of cops here. The police are focused on the airport as the army deals with inner-city disturbances.
It would be easier though if every single flight was canceled and I could tell people to go home, but there’s still a tiny number of flights leaving. A flight switches, accompanied by the chime of an announcement, from “Delayed” to “Boarding,” and a horde of people start running toward the gate. The atmosphere shifts, becoming even darker. Everyone is seconds from crying or screaming or both and now they’re jealous too. Why does that guy get to fly out of here? Why is that flight leaving? Why not me?
A lot of gun owners are carrying their guns, which makes me antsy at the best of times but now it’s terrifying. They have nothing to lose and it makes them feel safer. They’re dead men walking and they know it.
I’m walking around a corner when I hear it. The crack of a gunshot. I run toward the sound as everyone else screams and scatters. I hear a splintering sound and look up. Fuck. The man is sitting on the floor, the gun still pointed upward. The glass roof is above him. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.