50

I told myself not to panic. SeksMart would send a cleaning crew, and they’d realize I was in there, and they’d get someone to work on the lock. They wouldn’t leave me in there to starve and dry up like a mummy: when they reopened Scales they’d need me. It wouldn’t be at all the same without Mordis — already I missed him — but at least I would have a function. I wasn’t only a disposable, I was talent. That’s what Mordis always said.

So it was just a matter of waiting it out.

I took a shower — I felt dirty, as if those Painballers really had got in, or as if I had the blood of Mordis all over me.

Then I did another Meditation, a real one. Put Light around Mordis, I prayed. Let him go into the Universe. May his Spirit go in peace. I pictured him flying up out of his demolished body in the form of a small, brown beady-eyed bird.

The next day, two bad things happened. First, I turned on the news. The minor epidemic they’d been talking about earlier wasn’t behaving in the usual way — a local outbreak, one they could contain. Now it was an emergency. They showed a map of the world, with the hotspots lighting up in red — Brazil, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Bombay, Paris, Berlin — it was like watching the planet being spraygunned. It was an eruptive plague, they said, and the thing was spreading fast — no, not even spreading, breaking out at the same time in cities far apart, which wasn’t the normal pattern. Ordinarily the Corps would have called for lies and cover-ups, and we’d hear something like the real story only in rumours, so the fact that all this was right out there on the news showed how serious it was — the Corps couldn’t keep the lid on.

The news jockeys were trying to keep calm. The experts didn’t know what the superbug was, but it was a pandemic for sure, and a lot of people were dying fast — just sort of melting. As soon as they said, “No need for panic,” in that eerie calm tone with those glued-on smiles, I could tell it was really serious.

The second bad thing was that some guys in biosuits came into the Snakepit and stuffed the dead people into body bags and took them out. But they didn’t check out the second floor, although I screamed and screamed. I guess they couldn’t hear me because the Sticky Zone walls were thick and the Snakepit music was still going and it must have drowned me out. That was lucky for me, because if I’d left the Sticky Zone right then I’d have caught what everyone else was catching. So it wasn’t really a bad thing, but it felt like it at the time.

The next day the news was even worse. The plague was spreading, and there was rioting and looting and killing going on, and the CorpSeCorps had just more or less vanished: they must’ve been dying too.

And a few days after that, there wasn’t any more news.

Now I was really scared. But I told myself that although I couldn’t get out, nobody else could get in, and I’d be okay as long as the solar didn’t break down. It would keep the water flowing and the minifridge running, and the freezer, and the air filters. Air filtering was a plus, because it would soon be smelling very bad out there. And I would take one day at a time and see what came of it.

I knew I’d have to be practical, or I’d lose hope and slide into a Fallow state and maybe never come out of it. So I opened the minifridge and the freezer and counted all the stuff inside — the Joltbars and energy drinks and snacks, and the frozen ChickieNobs and the faux fish. If I ate only a third of every meal instead of half, and saved the rest instead of tossing it down the chute, I’d have enough for at least six weeks.

I’d been trying to call Amanda, but she hadn’t answered. All I could do was leave text messages: CUM 2 SCLS. My hope was that she’d get the texts and realize something was wrong, and then she’d come to Scales and figure out how to unlock the door. I’d kept my cellphone turned on all the time in case she called, but now when I tried to phone or even text I got NO SERVICE. Once I did get a short message — IM OK — but the channels must have been jammed with frantic people trying to reach their families, because I didn’t get anything more.

Then I guess the calling must have thinned out as people died, and I was able to get through. No picture, just her voice. “Where are you?” I said, and she said, “Nicked a solarcar. Ohio.”

“Don’t go into the cities,” I said. “Don’t let anyone touch you.” I wanted to tell her what I’d been learning from the news, but she’d faded out. After that I couldn’t even get a signal. The relay towers must have gone down.

You create your own reality, the horoscopes always said, and the Gardeners said that too. So I tried to create the reality of Amanda. Now she was in her khaki desert-girl outfit. Now she’d stopped to have a drink of water. Now she was digging up a root and eating it. Now she was walking again. She was coming towards me, hour by hour. She wouldn’t get the sickness, and no one would kill her, because she was so smart and strong. She was smiling. Now she was singing. But I knew I was just making it up.