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 bastard 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, clustered into makeshift bomb-shelters, trading bewildered glances and muttering 'Wassefucken' 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 nobody.
The camera cut back to the guy behind the desk. He looked tired, and someone had nipped-in to yank off his glasses 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-fucking-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 God 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 fucking 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 shit 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 spaces 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 (fuck 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 scraps 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 morass 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.
