PSYCHOGENESIS
By
M. W. Leeming
M. W. Leeming
Eddie gulped a mouthful of black coffee and set his mug down. His wife, Ellen, sat opposite him at the breakfast table reading the morning paper on her reader. Mulling over the headlines. He smiled to himself, and popped the last bite of toast in his mouth.
“Anything interesting this morning?” he said.
Ellen sighed. She flicked the page over without answering him.
“Darling?”
She looked up. “What do you want, Eddie? Can’t you see I’m trying to read?”
“Sorry,” he said. “I guess I…”
He trailed off. They sat there, at opposite ends of the breakfast table. Staring at each other.
“You guess you what?” she said at last.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Ellen snorted. “No. There isn’t much you do know is there, you stupid little man!”
Eddie watched as she lifted her reader and scanned the headlines again. He sipped more coffee, and after a moment, his chair squealed backwards across the tiled kitchen floor as he got to his feet.
“I’d better get ready,” he said.
Ellen ignored him. He turned and disappeared down the hall to the wash-room. Showered, shaved and dressed. Combed his hair. He stepped back out into the hallway adjusting the knot of his tie. Watched her out of the corner of his eye as he pulled open the closet and removed his Sunshine Suit.
She was oblivious to his concern. Flicking the pages of the electronic-news. He stepped into the Suit, keeping an eye on her the whole time. Then he appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Can you zip me up, please?”
She sighed again. Placed her reader on the table and walked over to him.
“Turn!”
Eddie turned his back. “Ellen… is everything okay?” he said.
She yanked the zip up forcefully. “Everything’s fine. What do you think?”
Eddie turned to face her again. “Well, if something’s bothering you, let’s talk about it,” he said gently.
She looked at him for a moment, then she shook her head in reproach, turned and sat back down at the breakfast table. “You’ll be late if you just standing there gawping at me,” she said.
At that moment, Eddie heard Sylvester chirping from the lounge. He looked in its direction. “You’ll be sure to feed Sylvester, won’t you?” he said.
She waved him away with an impatient flap of the hand.
* * *
Eddie’s lead-lined boots clanging on the metal rungs of the ladder. He reached up and swivelled the wheel on the hatch. Pushed it up and open. The muscles in his body working their daily routine with ease.
The decontamination chamber was briefly lit with the dreary light from above. A gentle sprinkle of acidic drizzle.
He clambered out, slammed the hatch shut and secured it. Stood up straight and looked at the sky. The morning’s readings scrolled across the digital display in his helmet. Radiation levels, temperature, acid content in the rain. But he paid no attention. His thoughts were with Ellen as he set off across the blackened hills. And for once, it wasn’t the sight of the ruined surface that concerned him.
* * *
Barely thinking about it, Eddie regulated the heating controls from his forearm panel. All around him, the landscape was black rocks, rubble and ash. Ragged tree stumps sticking up, blackened and gnarled like the arthritic fingers of petrified corpses.
The sky was grey and hung low. He could see the blotted out sun through the noxious filth saturating the atmosphere. A pale disk, feeble and cold. A rough wind buffeting and blustering with corrosive drizzle.
As he trudged through the blasted suburbs of the city before him, the familiar signs of a long-gone civilisation began to appear. The burnt and twisted frames of children’s bicycles, up-turned cars strewn around like toys, hollow and lifeless. The remains of collapsed buildings, brick and metal structures, fallen, cracked open and exposed. Furniture and material things that once pleased the folk who lived here, now soaked with chemical-rain and poisonous muck. Abandoned goods, trinkets and discarded memories.
Eddie normally felt uneasy stepping through the streets around him. Like trampling over silent graves. Peeking through the cracks of private tombs, where he had no right peeking. No right to make intellectual puzzles of the things he saw. The evidence of so much suffering.
But this morning he couldn’t stop thinking about Ellen.
There was something very wrong with her. Very wrong indeed. And he knew his obligations. He knew the Law. He had helped write it, after-all.
She might have been having a down day, he told himself. She might have just been annoyed at him for forgetting something that was important to her, perhaps. And although he tried, he couldn’t conjure any possibilities. He returned to the same conclusion every time. And it scared him.
It seemed that Ellen had The Gloom.
* * *
The Agency had set up a base beneath the police station. By the time Eddie reached the stone steps that led up into the building, he caught sight of another Sunshine Suit trudging towards him. As the figure drew closer, Eddie recognised the face of Ralph Bellamy through the visor.
They waved to each other.
“Hi, Eddie! How are you this morning?” Ralph sounded a little out of breath. Stumbling over loose debris on the pavement.
Eddie nodded. “Fine, thanks,” he said. “You?”
Ralph gestured with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Oh, you know me,” he said. “I’m always good.”
Eddie smiled. They stood there for a moment. A vaguely uncomfortable silence descending upon them.
“Hey!” said Ralph, breaking the awkwardness. “You mind if I get your advice on an idea I had? I’ll inbox you with it later if that‘s okay? It’s a new design I came up with for a Pre-War artefact they called a ‘rocking horse’. It should do wonders for Pre-War Ethos; research suggests that people went mad for them -”
Ralph suddenly stopped.
Eddie smiled politely. “Sure,” he said. He turned and started up the steps, with Ralph beside him. “Drop me a mail with the proposal and I’ll get back to you.”
At the top of the steps, the men entered the precinct through a seized up revolving door. They helped each other to shove it round in front of them in great jerking lunges. It scraped loudly on loose gravel, the dust and ash that had settled overnight.
Once through, Eddie looked at it disapprovingly. “We’re going to have to have this thing seen to,” he said.
Ralph nodded. “Too right, mate!”
* * *
The stairs took them down to the levels beneath the police station. Eddie and Ralph complied with the obligatory decontamination scrub-down in silence. Hung their Sunshine Suits in a communal closet.
Afterwards, in their shirts and ties, they stood side by side in the corridor beyond. Once again, Ralph was the first one to speak.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be off. And I’ll inbox you that proposal today.”
Eddie smiled at him. “Indeed,” he said. “Make sure you do. And have a good day.”
“You too!” Ralph waved, and set off down the corridor to the right.
Eddie turned left. To Admin.
* * *
His secretary greeted him with a coffee and a smile.
“Hello, Eddie,” she said.
Eddie took the mug of coffee. “Thank you, Moira. What kind of day have we got?”
Moira scanned the day’s schedule. “You’ll find plenty of Approvals to go through. And you have a meeting with Maynard.”
Eddie sipped his coffee and nodded in thanks to Moira. “Ralph Bellamy in Artefacts may be inboxing me later. Look out for it, will you? Let me know when it gets here. I told him I’d take a look at a proposal.”
She looked at him with mock reproach. “Your Approvals list is already bursting at the seams, Eddie. You should have insisted he go through the proper application process.”
Eddie nodded. “I know,” he said. “But I’m too nice.”
Moira chuckled. “I’ll hold off with the calls. Unless it’s Maynard, that is.”
“Thanks, Moira.” Eddie turned and stepped through to his office.
As he sat down behind his desk, he was still thinking about Ellen.
* * *
The Gloom. Severe depressive episodes. Negative thinking and impulsive, destructive behaviour. Often it led to suicidal thoughts. Sometimes, to murderous ones.
When someone was struck by The Gloom, it could spread like a virus to those close by, and contaminate their thoughts. People in Pre-War days used to say that bad news spreads quicker than good, and so it was that The Gloom was a highly contagious state of mind. It could infiltrate the Pre-War Ethos quickly and destructively. These were dark days indeed, but succumbing to The Gloom would hold back much-needed progress. Consequently, it was one of the biggest threats they faced to the success of restoring the planet Earth to a habitable state. Survivors were few, and good mental health was essential.
Eddie himself had proposed the Quarantine Law to Maynard. It was drawn up and passed immediately. A very clear, very strict responsibility was placed on anyone who suspected that another person might have developed The Gloom.
A responsibility that Eddie now understood he was under.
* * *
At half-past one, Moira poked her head round the door with a cheery smile.
“Meeting with Maynard,” she said. “Half an hour.”
Eddie looked up from the proposal currently before him. An application for Approval to manufacture Pre-War guitars. He was up to his eyes in research when Moira interrupted him. Research that so far led him to believe that the guitar posed no risk to the Pre-War Ethos.
He glanced at his clock. “Ah,” he said. “Thank you, Moira. I lost track of time there!”
* * *
Maynard waved Eddie into his office. “Sit down, Eddie,” he said, signing some paperwork.
Eddie stepped in and closed the door behind him. He seated himself opposite Maynard, who was finishing up with some Authorisations.
Finally, he dropped his pen and shoved the paperwork to one side. He looked up at Eddie with a polite smile. “Some of these Approvals are pretty impressive,” he said. “They should really help Pre-War Ethos.”
Eddie felt pleased with himself. “Thank you, sir. I’m working on some proposals at the moment. There are some that are pretty useless, to be quite honest. But there are also some that seem very well thought out. I‘ll be going over them with a fine-tooth comb, as usual.”
Maynard nodded. “Good,” he said. “That leads me nicely into what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve been looking over the statistics. The number of Quarantine incidents has almost doubled in the past year, and quite frankly, I am very concerned about it.”
Eddie frowned. “Well,” he said. “The idea-teams are working hard, as you can see. Unfortunately, some of them aren’t quite so inspired. Out of every ten proposals, we’re only getting just two or three Approvals.”
Maynard shook his head. “It’s just not enough,” he sighed. “The rise of Gloom episodes seems to suggest that we need more beneficial Pre-War artefacts. You don’t need me constantly going on about the importance of Pre-War Ethos. We are living in very bleak times, Eddie. The atmosphere is more polluted than we realised, and we can’t predict with any accuracy when returning to live up top will be possible. It could be generations away yet. For the time being, we have to ease the negative response to all this devastation. To living in holes underground.”
Eddie nodded. “I agree, sir.”
Maynard scrutinised him. “Yes,” he said. “I know you do. How is your own Pre-War Home?”
Eddie nodded. “I would say it’s convincing enough.”
“Are you sure? I can’t have my top man living in a hovel. You and your wife need looking after. The last thing we need is an outbreak of The Gloom under our very noses.”
Eddie suddenly felt uncomfortable. Was Maynard suspicious? Was he on to Ellen already? If he knew, he’d also be on to him for hiding what he knew about Ellen.
This was the perfect opportunity to report her. To comply with his obligation under the Law and have her arrested and Quarantined. Anyone with The Gloom presented a risk to Pre-War Ethos.
Pre-War Ethos was a priority.
As Eddie spoke, nerves tightened his vocal cords. “Yes, sir,” he said, and then cleared his throat. “Yes, I agree.”
Maynard smiled. “I know you do,” he said. “Which is why I need you to look again at the idea-teams. Start rooting out the individuals without ideas. We need positive action here, Eddie. Get rid of the dead-weights. I don’t need you slogging your way through a ton of dumb ideas. I need you sifting quickly through good ones.” He gestured to the pile of Authorised Proposals. “Ideas like these.”
Eddie nodded. “Are we talking redundancies?”
Maynard shook his head. “Redundancies lead to depressed thoughts,” he said. “I don’t want to risk being responsible for causing episodes of The Gloom when we’re trying to prevent them. Find them something else to do. Places you can relocate them. Janitorial, Admin Support, anything.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Good,” said Maynard. “And one other thing.”
He passed Eddie a file. “Start with this guy,” he said. “I’ve been looking over the figures and he hasn’t produced a decent usable idea in months.”
Eddie looked at the name on the file.
It was Ralph Bellamy.
* * *
Eddie headed back to his office. His step was slow. His mind was heavy with concern.
Moira had the same relentless smile on her face when he got there. “Hi, Eddie. How did the meeting go?”
He glanced at her with a smile that felt like hard work. “Fine, thanks,” he said.
He sloped through to his office and closed the door.
Why was he feeling this way? What the hell was wrong with him? It was after-all, his job. He was exposing himself to arrest. And if that happened, there would be nothing he could do for Ellen because he’d probably be thrown in the cell with her.
He tapped his mouse, and his monitor came back to life. Opened his inbox and browsed the new messages.
Ralph had sent his proposal for the rocking horse.
He clicked the message. Downloaded the proposal and the schematics. He examined Ralph’s argument that the rocking horse was a toy the Pre-War kids loved. His argument that if the kids were kept happy, the parents could be kept happy. The more happiness there was, the less Gloom there was.
And as the tears formed in Eddie’s eyes, he realised that Ralph had a point.
* * *
At clocking-off time, Eddie trudged back home through the burnt streets and piles of rubble in his Sunshine Suit. He felt repulsed just looking at it all. Sick to the stomach. He was thankful for not having bumped into Ralph, and dreaded the prospect of seeing him the following morning. He was relieved that no-one else was around to see the sorrow on his face.
Eventually, he bent down, unlocked the hatch and stepped down into his decontamination chamber.
After ten minutes of jet-washing, Eddie entered the dug-out. Hung his Sunshine Suit in the closet and stepped through to the kitchen looking for Ellen. She wasn’t there, so he moved down the hall to the lounge.
She wasn’t there either.
When Eddie finally found her, he screamed. He screamed into the silence of the dug-out and he thought he might just completely lose his mind altogether.
Ellen was lying in the bath-tub, wrists slashed up to the crook of her elbows.
* * *
Eddie woke.
The clock said it was morning.
He went into the wash-room and splashed water on his face. His wife’s corpse was lying behind the shower curtain. But he stared straight ahead. Into the mirror above the sink, where the face of an unshaved ghost looked back at him.
The best advice he could give himself was not to look at her.
Just don’t look at her.
He’d slept in his shirt and tie and looked rumpled up and scruffy but he didn’t notice. He went down the hall, and retrieved his Sunshine Suit. Clambered into it. Wrestled the zip up the back until he was satisfied he had it.
Then he went and put coffee on and sat down to think.
If he didn’t go into work, someone would notice. They’d send someone out to check on him. They’d discover Ellen. They’d realise he’d hidden his suspicions about her; that he’d covered up her Gloom.
They’d condemn him as a traitor. For putting his own needs above the needs of the Pre-War Ethos. Anyone who sympathised with The Gloom either suffered with The Gloom, or was susceptible to The Gloom.
Eddie knew that, because he had written the Law.
He would be discovered and arrested and Quarantined. He was left with no other option. He had to go into work and buy more time. Time to figure out what to do. To carry on as normal and not draw attention to himself.
As he sat at the breakfast table, sipping coffee in his Sunshine Suit and mulling this over, he became aware of the chirping coming from the lounge.
It was Sylvester.
He got up and shuffled down the hall. Left his helmet in the kitchen. In his Suit, he looked out of place, even in his own home. Like a visiting spaceman.
As he entered the lounge, he saw the bird-cage. He saw the bright yellow canary he’d bought for Ellen. A past birthday gift. When she’d first seen him, she’d clapped her hands together with joy.
“He’s beautiful!” she said. “I shall name him Sylvester, after those Pre-War animations.”
Eddie decided not to tell her that it was the black-and-white cat whose name was Sylvester. The canary was Tweetie Pie. But it didn’t matter. She was happy, and that was what mattered.
And thinking about this, Eddie looked at Sylvester in his cage, hopping around. Chirping. The memory stabbing needles in his eyes and bringing fresh tears.
Which was when he noticed that something wasn’t right with the bird.
He looked closer, and was aware of two things.
One of Sylvester’s eyes was missing. The black bead had popped out, leaving a small hole in Sylvester’s head. A tiny light winked and blinked inside the hole. And there was a sound, too. The unmistakable whirring of mechanical parts failing, every time the bird moved its head.
The canary was broken. It was faulty and he realised then, that Ellen had probably known all about it. That she could not deny the fakery of the thing and uphold the pretence any longer.
* * *
Eddie climbed the steps of the police department precinct with a sense of dread. Misery and despair.
How could he have been so stupid? How could he have missed the damn canary?
Ellen’s Ethos had suffered because of it. She got The Gloom, because she saw through the façade. The pretence of Post-War Earth. And it was all his fault. He’d given her the canary to maintain her Ethos. But he hadn’t maintained the canary. He hadn’t had it serviced.
And due to his own failings, Ellen saw the lie and it depressed her.
With a sense of sickening clarity, Eddie understood that he was to blame for his wife‘s suicide.
As he shoved the revolving door round, Eddie heard the crunching of footsteps in the ash and gravel behind him. He turned, and saw Ralph Bellamy climbing the precinct steps.
“Good morning, Eddie!”
Eddie stopped pushing the door. “Hi, Ralph. How are you?”
Ralph continued towards him. There was something about his stride. Something unsettling. Something determined.
“Oh, you know,” he said cheerily. “As well as can be expected, considering you got me scrubbing toilets, you cheap, pen-pushing bastard!”
Eddie knew what was about to happen. He saw it coming and was helpless to evade it. He was frozen to the spot by fear.
Ralph moved quickly, considering he was in his Sunshine Suit. He strode up to Eddie, who was still on the outside of the precinct. He bent down, picked up a rock, and rammed it into Eddie’s visor. The visor cracked. Not by much, but Eddie could smell the outside air. The stink of a world burnt beyond repair. The stink of filth and pollution in the atmosphere.
Eddie stumbled back, clutching at the helmet. Scrabbling madly to cover the crack with his gloved hands. He fell, and found himself unable to get back up. A bug trapped and defeated, stuck on its own back. He rolled around in a panic, screaming. Hands pressed to his visor.
Ralph looked down at him with disgust. “How’d you like that?” he said, then pushed his way through the revolving door.
* * *
Eddie woke up in the infirmary. He looked around, and saw Maynard sitting beside his bed.
“What happened?” Eddie said, confused and disorientated.
Maynard leaned closer. A stern look on his face that Eddie was unable to read. “You were attacked,” he said.
Memories flooded back. “It was Ralph,” he said. “Ralph Bellamy. He was angry about being relocated to Janitorial.”
Maynard nodded. “We got him,” he said. “He’s in Quarantine as we speak.”
Eddie coughed. “How long was I exposed?”
“Long enough to wind up here,” Maynard said, gesturing to the infirmary beds. “But thankfully, not long enough to do any significant damage. The doctors flushed the toxins out pretty quickly. You’ll be fine.”
Eddie sat up. “So he got The Gloom?”
Maynard nodded. “Looks that way. My men are interrogating him now.” He stood, and stepped away from the bed. “I’ve got to head off,” he said. “But there’s one last thing. Ralph wants to see you. Says he wants to apologise to you, face to face.”
“Sounds to me like he might want to finish what he started,” said Eddie.
* * *
Eddie located Ralph’s cell and knocked on the door. It was opened a moment later by a guard. Eddie stepped in and immediately saw Ralph. He was lying on the bunk, arms and legs splayed open. Ankles and wrists bound by leather belts.
Eddie gestured to the guard.
Give us a few moments.
The guard nodded back, stepped out of the cell. The door slammed shut.
Eddie moved closer to Ralph’s bunk. “I’m sorry about the relocation,” he said. “It had to be done.”
“You were just following orders,” said Ralph, sheepishly. “I understand. I’m sorry about attacking you. I never planned to. It was…”
“An impulse,” Eddie said.
Ralph looked at him. His eyes were ringed with dark shadows. He looked miserable. “They say I have The Gloom. Do you think I have The Gloom?”
Eddie stepped closer to the bunk. “It’s possible,” he said.
“And they’ll keep me like this? Tied up forever?”
Eddie nodded. “If they’re convinced you’re a danger, yes. You’ll be Quarantined anyway, to prevent the spread of your beliefs.”
“But don’t you see?” said Ralph. “This is inhumane. What they think is illness, and what they think of as Pre-War Ethos - it’s all mixed up.”
Eddie gestured to Ralph.
Lower your voice.
Ralph saw it, but didn’t stop. “Pre-War Ethos, Eddie. That is the illness. It’s a concept fed into us, conditioned into us. To make us happy little workers. But the problem is it actually gives us something to worry about. It creates tension. The very existence of Pre-War Ethos makes people feel they have to live up to something. And sometimes it’s something they can’t achieve. By criminalising the depressed feelings associated with failure, they enhance the stress. Working day to day under these stressful conditions can actually drive people to The Gloom, Eddie. Do you see? It’s the way we live - it actually makes us more susceptible to The Gloom.”
Eddie stepped even closer to the bunk. He looked back to the cell door. Checking to see if anyone might be able to hear him. And through the glass panel, he could see the guard. His back to the door.
“Yes,” he said to Ralph. “I do see.”
Ralph looked up at him, disbelief in his eyes. “Really? Do you really see, or is this some sort of mind game?”
“No game,” Eddie said. “I believe you, and what’s more, I know it for myself. I think that I too, have The Gloom. Ellen had it, but I didn’t spot it in time. She killed herself yesterday, just when I was beginning to understand. But I have hope, Ralph. Hope that I can use my position to change things for the better, you see?”
Ralph was nodding. “I do see,” he said. “I do. I understand.”
He lifted his head from the bunk and shouted: “Guard!”
The guard opened the door and stomped into the cell.
Ralph gestured to him. The guard stepped forward and took a firm hold of Eddie’s arm.
Ralph looked at him with disappointment and said: “Eddie, you’re under arrest for Suffering and Sympathy offences. You will henceforth be Quarantined under the Gloom Laws. Do you understand?”
Eddie felt the world as he knew it come to an end.
* * *
Maynard paced around in front of Eddie’s bunk. He’d taken the decision not to restrain him. Eddie had never shown signs of violence.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this, Eddie. You were one of our top men. But like all top men, we had to bug your dug-out. We knew your wife had The Gloom long before you did. We knew it was a matter of time before all this happened, and I had no choice but to involve Internal Affairs.”
Eddie looked up at him. “Ralph?”
Maynard nodded. “That’s not his real name of course, but yes. He’s been on your case for quite a while. As I say, we knew it was just a matter of time before you fell. You’ve done the Agency a great service, and it’s a real shame to find ourselves in this position. Without you, we wouldn’t have the Gloom Laws.”
Eddie shook his head in disbelief. “You bastards,” he said.
“I know, I know,” said Maynard. “But you’ll come to realise that we had no other choice. They were your proposals, after-all. I’ll make sure they go easy on you, Eddie. For what it’s worth, I always liked you.”
Maynard stepped closer to Eddie. A hand outstretched, offered as a gesture of goodwill. No hard feelings.
Eddie reached out to shake with him, but as he did, an image flashed before his mind’s eye. An image in which Eddie, in a rage-fuelled moment of revenge, grabbed Maynard’s hand, ripped his entire arm from its socket and beat Maynard to death with his own disembodied limb.
There was blood. There was lots of blood.
He quickly pulled his hand back without shaking.
Maynard didn‘t look surprised. He lowered his hand, turned and walked towards the cell door.
The last thing Eddie heard before the door slammed shut was Maynard, whispering to someone beyond the cell door.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think he’s got it bad.”
“Anything interesting this morning?” he said.
Ellen sighed. She flicked the page over without answering him.
“Darling?”
She looked up. “What do you want, Eddie? Can’t you see I’m trying to read?”
“Sorry,” he said. “I guess I…”
He trailed off. They sat there, at opposite ends of the breakfast table. Staring at each other.
“You guess you what?” she said at last.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Ellen snorted. “No. There isn’t much you do know is there, you stupid little man!”
Eddie watched as she lifted her reader and scanned the headlines again. He sipped more coffee, and after a moment, his chair squealed backwards across the tiled kitchen floor as he got to his feet.
“I’d better get ready,” he said.
Ellen ignored him. He turned and disappeared down the hall to the wash-room. Showered, shaved and dressed. Combed his hair. He stepped back out into the hallway adjusting the knot of his tie. Watched her out of the corner of his eye as he pulled open the closet and removed his Sunshine Suit.
She was oblivious to his concern. Flicking the pages of the electronic-news. He stepped into the Suit, keeping an eye on her the whole time. Then he appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Can you zip me up, please?”
She sighed again. Placed her reader on the table and walked over to him.
“Turn!”
Eddie turned his back. “Ellen… is everything okay?” he said.
She yanked the zip up forcefully. “Everything’s fine. What do you think?”
Eddie turned to face her again. “Well, if something’s bothering you, let’s talk about it,” he said gently.
She looked at him for a moment, then she shook her head in reproach, turned and sat back down at the breakfast table. “You’ll be late if you just standing there gawping at me,” she said.
At that moment, Eddie heard Sylvester chirping from the lounge. He looked in its direction. “You’ll be sure to feed Sylvester, won’t you?” he said.
She waved him away with an impatient flap of the hand.
* * *
Eddie’s lead-lined boots clanging on the metal rungs of the ladder. He reached up and swivelled the wheel on the hatch. Pushed it up and open. The muscles in his body working their daily routine with ease.
The decontamination chamber was briefly lit with the dreary light from above. A gentle sprinkle of acidic drizzle.
He clambered out, slammed the hatch shut and secured it. Stood up straight and looked at the sky. The morning’s readings scrolled across the digital display in his helmet. Radiation levels, temperature, acid content in the rain. But he paid no attention. His thoughts were with Ellen as he set off across the blackened hills. And for once, it wasn’t the sight of the ruined surface that concerned him.
* * *
Barely thinking about it, Eddie regulated the heating controls from his forearm panel. All around him, the landscape was black rocks, rubble and ash. Ragged tree stumps sticking up, blackened and gnarled like the arthritic fingers of petrified corpses.
The sky was grey and hung low. He could see the blotted out sun through the noxious filth saturating the atmosphere. A pale disk, feeble and cold. A rough wind buffeting and blustering with corrosive drizzle.
As he trudged through the blasted suburbs of the city before him, the familiar signs of a long-gone civilisation began to appear. The burnt and twisted frames of children’s bicycles, up-turned cars strewn around like toys, hollow and lifeless. The remains of collapsed buildings, brick and metal structures, fallen, cracked open and exposed. Furniture and material things that once pleased the folk who lived here, now soaked with chemical-rain and poisonous muck. Abandoned goods, trinkets and discarded memories.
Eddie normally felt uneasy stepping through the streets around him. Like trampling over silent graves. Peeking through the cracks of private tombs, where he had no right peeking. No right to make intellectual puzzles of the things he saw. The evidence of so much suffering.
But this morning he couldn’t stop thinking about Ellen.
There was something very wrong with her. Very wrong indeed. And he knew his obligations. He knew the Law. He had helped write it, after-all.
She might have been having a down day, he told himself. She might have just been annoyed at him for forgetting something that was important to her, perhaps. And although he tried, he couldn’t conjure any possibilities. He returned to the same conclusion every time. And it scared him.
It seemed that Ellen had The Gloom.
* * *
The Agency had set up a base beneath the police station. By the time Eddie reached the stone steps that led up into the building, he caught sight of another Sunshine Suit trudging towards him. As the figure drew closer, Eddie recognised the face of Ralph Bellamy through the visor.
They waved to each other.
“Hi, Eddie! How are you this morning?” Ralph sounded a little out of breath. Stumbling over loose debris on the pavement.
Eddie nodded. “Fine, thanks,” he said. “You?”
Ralph gestured with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Oh, you know me,” he said. “I’m always good.”
Eddie smiled. They stood there for a moment. A vaguely uncomfortable silence descending upon them.
“Hey!” said Ralph, breaking the awkwardness. “You mind if I get your advice on an idea I had? I’ll inbox you with it later if that‘s okay? It’s a new design I came up with for a Pre-War artefact they called a ‘rocking horse’. It should do wonders for Pre-War Ethos; research suggests that people went mad for them -”
Ralph suddenly stopped.
Eddie smiled politely. “Sure,” he said. He turned and started up the steps, with Ralph beside him. “Drop me a mail with the proposal and I’ll get back to you.”
At the top of the steps, the men entered the precinct through a seized up revolving door. They helped each other to shove it round in front of them in great jerking lunges. It scraped loudly on loose gravel, the dust and ash that had settled overnight.
Once through, Eddie looked at it disapprovingly. “We’re going to have to have this thing seen to,” he said.
Ralph nodded. “Too right, mate!”
* * *
The stairs took them down to the levels beneath the police station. Eddie and Ralph complied with the obligatory decontamination scrub-down in silence. Hung their Sunshine Suits in a communal closet.
Afterwards, in their shirts and ties, they stood side by side in the corridor beyond. Once again, Ralph was the first one to speak.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be off. And I’ll inbox you that proposal today.”
Eddie smiled at him. “Indeed,” he said. “Make sure you do. And have a good day.”
“You too!” Ralph waved, and set off down the corridor to the right.
Eddie turned left. To Admin.
* * *
His secretary greeted him with a coffee and a smile.
“Hello, Eddie,” she said.
Eddie took the mug of coffee. “Thank you, Moira. What kind of day have we got?”
Moira scanned the day’s schedule. “You’ll find plenty of Approvals to go through. And you have a meeting with Maynard.”
Eddie sipped his coffee and nodded in thanks to Moira. “Ralph Bellamy in Artefacts may be inboxing me later. Look out for it, will you? Let me know when it gets here. I told him I’d take a look at a proposal.”
She looked at him with mock reproach. “Your Approvals list is already bursting at the seams, Eddie. You should have insisted he go through the proper application process.”
Eddie nodded. “I know,” he said. “But I’m too nice.”
Moira chuckled. “I’ll hold off with the calls. Unless it’s Maynard, that is.”
“Thanks, Moira.” Eddie turned and stepped through to his office.
As he sat down behind his desk, he was still thinking about Ellen.
* * *
The Gloom. Severe depressive episodes. Negative thinking and impulsive, destructive behaviour. Often it led to suicidal thoughts. Sometimes, to murderous ones.
When someone was struck by The Gloom, it could spread like a virus to those close by, and contaminate their thoughts. People in Pre-War days used to say that bad news spreads quicker than good, and so it was that The Gloom was a highly contagious state of mind. It could infiltrate the Pre-War Ethos quickly and destructively. These were dark days indeed, but succumbing to The Gloom would hold back much-needed progress. Consequently, it was one of the biggest threats they faced to the success of restoring the planet Earth to a habitable state. Survivors were few, and good mental health was essential.
Eddie himself had proposed the Quarantine Law to Maynard. It was drawn up and passed immediately. A very clear, very strict responsibility was placed on anyone who suspected that another person might have developed The Gloom.
A responsibility that Eddie now understood he was under.
* * *
At half-past one, Moira poked her head round the door with a cheery smile.
“Meeting with Maynard,” she said. “Half an hour.”
Eddie looked up from the proposal currently before him. An application for Approval to manufacture Pre-War guitars. He was up to his eyes in research when Moira interrupted him. Research that so far led him to believe that the guitar posed no risk to the Pre-War Ethos.
He glanced at his clock. “Ah,” he said. “Thank you, Moira. I lost track of time there!”
* * *
Maynard waved Eddie into his office. “Sit down, Eddie,” he said, signing some paperwork.
Eddie stepped in and closed the door behind him. He seated himself opposite Maynard, who was finishing up with some Authorisations.
Finally, he dropped his pen and shoved the paperwork to one side. He looked up at Eddie with a polite smile. “Some of these Approvals are pretty impressive,” he said. “They should really help Pre-War Ethos.”
Eddie felt pleased with himself. “Thank you, sir. I’m working on some proposals at the moment. There are some that are pretty useless, to be quite honest. But there are also some that seem very well thought out. I‘ll be going over them with a fine-tooth comb, as usual.”
Maynard nodded. “Good,” he said. “That leads me nicely into what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve been looking over the statistics. The number of Quarantine incidents has almost doubled in the past year, and quite frankly, I am very concerned about it.”
Eddie frowned. “Well,” he said. “The idea-teams are working hard, as you can see. Unfortunately, some of them aren’t quite so inspired. Out of every ten proposals, we’re only getting just two or three Approvals.”
Maynard shook his head. “It’s just not enough,” he sighed. “The rise of Gloom episodes seems to suggest that we need more beneficial Pre-War artefacts. You don’t need me constantly going on about the importance of Pre-War Ethos. We are living in very bleak times, Eddie. The atmosphere is more polluted than we realised, and we can’t predict with any accuracy when returning to live up top will be possible. It could be generations away yet. For the time being, we have to ease the negative response to all this devastation. To living in holes underground.”
Eddie nodded. “I agree, sir.”
Maynard scrutinised him. “Yes,” he said. “I know you do. How is your own Pre-War Home?”
Eddie nodded. “I would say it’s convincing enough.”
“Are you sure? I can’t have my top man living in a hovel. You and your wife need looking after. The last thing we need is an outbreak of The Gloom under our very noses.”
Eddie suddenly felt uncomfortable. Was Maynard suspicious? Was he on to Ellen already? If he knew, he’d also be on to him for hiding what he knew about Ellen.
This was the perfect opportunity to report her. To comply with his obligation under the Law and have her arrested and Quarantined. Anyone with The Gloom presented a risk to Pre-War Ethos.
Pre-War Ethos was a priority.
As Eddie spoke, nerves tightened his vocal cords. “Yes, sir,” he said, and then cleared his throat. “Yes, I agree.”
Maynard smiled. “I know you do,” he said. “Which is why I need you to look again at the idea-teams. Start rooting out the individuals without ideas. We need positive action here, Eddie. Get rid of the dead-weights. I don’t need you slogging your way through a ton of dumb ideas. I need you sifting quickly through good ones.” He gestured to the pile of Authorised Proposals. “Ideas like these.”
Eddie nodded. “Are we talking redundancies?”
Maynard shook his head. “Redundancies lead to depressed thoughts,” he said. “I don’t want to risk being responsible for causing episodes of The Gloom when we’re trying to prevent them. Find them something else to do. Places you can relocate them. Janitorial, Admin Support, anything.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Good,” said Maynard. “And one other thing.”
He passed Eddie a file. “Start with this guy,” he said. “I’ve been looking over the figures and he hasn’t produced a decent usable idea in months.”
Eddie looked at the name on the file.
It was Ralph Bellamy.
* * *
Eddie headed back to his office. His step was slow. His mind was heavy with concern.
Moira had the same relentless smile on her face when he got there. “Hi, Eddie. How did the meeting go?”
He glanced at her with a smile that felt like hard work. “Fine, thanks,” he said.
He sloped through to his office and closed the door.
Why was he feeling this way? What the hell was wrong with him? It was after-all, his job. He was exposing himself to arrest. And if that happened, there would be nothing he could do for Ellen because he’d probably be thrown in the cell with her.
He tapped his mouse, and his monitor came back to life. Opened his inbox and browsed the new messages.
Ralph had sent his proposal for the rocking horse.
He clicked the message. Downloaded the proposal and the schematics. He examined Ralph’s argument that the rocking horse was a toy the Pre-War kids loved. His argument that if the kids were kept happy, the parents could be kept happy. The more happiness there was, the less Gloom there was.
And as the tears formed in Eddie’s eyes, he realised that Ralph had a point.
* * *
At clocking-off time, Eddie trudged back home through the burnt streets and piles of rubble in his Sunshine Suit. He felt repulsed just looking at it all. Sick to the stomach. He was thankful for not having bumped into Ralph, and dreaded the prospect of seeing him the following morning. He was relieved that no-one else was around to see the sorrow on his face.
Eventually, he bent down, unlocked the hatch and stepped down into his decontamination chamber.
After ten minutes of jet-washing, Eddie entered the dug-out. Hung his Sunshine Suit in the closet and stepped through to the kitchen looking for Ellen. She wasn’t there, so he moved down the hall to the lounge.
She wasn’t there either.
When Eddie finally found her, he screamed. He screamed into the silence of the dug-out and he thought he might just completely lose his mind altogether.
Ellen was lying in the bath-tub, wrists slashed up to the crook of her elbows.
* * *
Eddie woke.
The clock said it was morning.
He went into the wash-room and splashed water on his face. His wife’s corpse was lying behind the shower curtain. But he stared straight ahead. Into the mirror above the sink, where the face of an unshaved ghost looked back at him.
The best advice he could give himself was not to look at her.
Just don’t look at her.
He’d slept in his shirt and tie and looked rumpled up and scruffy but he didn’t notice. He went down the hall, and retrieved his Sunshine Suit. Clambered into it. Wrestled the zip up the back until he was satisfied he had it.
Then he went and put coffee on and sat down to think.
If he didn’t go into work, someone would notice. They’d send someone out to check on him. They’d discover Ellen. They’d realise he’d hidden his suspicions about her; that he’d covered up her Gloom.
They’d condemn him as a traitor. For putting his own needs above the needs of the Pre-War Ethos. Anyone who sympathised with The Gloom either suffered with The Gloom, or was susceptible to The Gloom.
Eddie knew that, because he had written the Law.
He would be discovered and arrested and Quarantined. He was left with no other option. He had to go into work and buy more time. Time to figure out what to do. To carry on as normal and not draw attention to himself.
As he sat at the breakfast table, sipping coffee in his Sunshine Suit and mulling this over, he became aware of the chirping coming from the lounge.
It was Sylvester.
He got up and shuffled down the hall. Left his helmet in the kitchen. In his Suit, he looked out of place, even in his own home. Like a visiting spaceman.
As he entered the lounge, he saw the bird-cage. He saw the bright yellow canary he’d bought for Ellen. A past birthday gift. When she’d first seen him, she’d clapped her hands together with joy.
“He’s beautiful!” she said. “I shall name him Sylvester, after those Pre-War animations.”
Eddie decided not to tell her that it was the black-and-white cat whose name was Sylvester. The canary was Tweetie Pie. But it didn’t matter. She was happy, and that was what mattered.
And thinking about this, Eddie looked at Sylvester in his cage, hopping around. Chirping. The memory stabbing needles in his eyes and bringing fresh tears.
Which was when he noticed that something wasn’t right with the bird.
He looked closer, and was aware of two things.
One of Sylvester’s eyes was missing. The black bead had popped out, leaving a small hole in Sylvester’s head. A tiny light winked and blinked inside the hole. And there was a sound, too. The unmistakable whirring of mechanical parts failing, every time the bird moved its head.
The canary was broken. It was faulty and he realised then, that Ellen had probably known all about it. That she could not deny the fakery of the thing and uphold the pretence any longer.
* * *
Eddie climbed the steps of the police department precinct with a sense of dread. Misery and despair.
How could he have been so stupid? How could he have missed the damn canary?
Ellen’s Ethos had suffered because of it. She got The Gloom, because she saw through the façade. The pretence of Post-War Earth. And it was all his fault. He’d given her the canary to maintain her Ethos. But he hadn’t maintained the canary. He hadn’t had it serviced.
And due to his own failings, Ellen saw the lie and it depressed her.
With a sense of sickening clarity, Eddie understood that he was to blame for his wife‘s suicide.
As he shoved the revolving door round, Eddie heard the crunching of footsteps in the ash and gravel behind him. He turned, and saw Ralph Bellamy climbing the precinct steps.
“Good morning, Eddie!”
Eddie stopped pushing the door. “Hi, Ralph. How are you?”
Ralph continued towards him. There was something about his stride. Something unsettling. Something determined.
“Oh, you know,” he said cheerily. “As well as can be expected, considering you got me scrubbing toilets, you cheap, pen-pushing bastard!”
Eddie knew what was about to happen. He saw it coming and was helpless to evade it. He was frozen to the spot by fear.
Ralph moved quickly, considering he was in his Sunshine Suit. He strode up to Eddie, who was still on the outside of the precinct. He bent down, picked up a rock, and rammed it into Eddie’s visor. The visor cracked. Not by much, but Eddie could smell the outside air. The stink of a world burnt beyond repair. The stink of filth and pollution in the atmosphere.
Eddie stumbled back, clutching at the helmet. Scrabbling madly to cover the crack with his gloved hands. He fell, and found himself unable to get back up. A bug trapped and defeated, stuck on its own back. He rolled around in a panic, screaming. Hands pressed to his visor.
Ralph looked down at him with disgust. “How’d you like that?” he said, then pushed his way through the revolving door.
* * *
Eddie woke up in the infirmary. He looked around, and saw Maynard sitting beside his bed.
“What happened?” Eddie said, confused and disorientated.
Maynard leaned closer. A stern look on his face that Eddie was unable to read. “You were attacked,” he said.
Memories flooded back. “It was Ralph,” he said. “Ralph Bellamy. He was angry about being relocated to Janitorial.”
Maynard nodded. “We got him,” he said. “He’s in Quarantine as we speak.”
Eddie coughed. “How long was I exposed?”
“Long enough to wind up here,” Maynard said, gesturing to the infirmary beds. “But thankfully, not long enough to do any significant damage. The doctors flushed the toxins out pretty quickly. You’ll be fine.”
Eddie sat up. “So he got The Gloom?”
Maynard nodded. “Looks that way. My men are interrogating him now.” He stood, and stepped away from the bed. “I’ve got to head off,” he said. “But there’s one last thing. Ralph wants to see you. Says he wants to apologise to you, face to face.”
“Sounds to me like he might want to finish what he started,” said Eddie.
* * *
Eddie located Ralph’s cell and knocked on the door. It was opened a moment later by a guard. Eddie stepped in and immediately saw Ralph. He was lying on the bunk, arms and legs splayed open. Ankles and wrists bound by leather belts.
Eddie gestured to the guard.
Give us a few moments.
The guard nodded back, stepped out of the cell. The door slammed shut.
Eddie moved closer to Ralph’s bunk. “I’m sorry about the relocation,” he said. “It had to be done.”
“You were just following orders,” said Ralph, sheepishly. “I understand. I’m sorry about attacking you. I never planned to. It was…”
“An impulse,” Eddie said.
Ralph looked at him. His eyes were ringed with dark shadows. He looked miserable. “They say I have The Gloom. Do you think I have The Gloom?”
Eddie stepped closer to the bunk. “It’s possible,” he said.
“And they’ll keep me like this? Tied up forever?”
Eddie nodded. “If they’re convinced you’re a danger, yes. You’ll be Quarantined anyway, to prevent the spread of your beliefs.”
“But don’t you see?” said Ralph. “This is inhumane. What they think is illness, and what they think of as Pre-War Ethos - it’s all mixed up.”
Eddie gestured to Ralph.
Lower your voice.
Ralph saw it, but didn’t stop. “Pre-War Ethos, Eddie. That is the illness. It’s a concept fed into us, conditioned into us. To make us happy little workers. But the problem is it actually gives us something to worry about. It creates tension. The very existence of Pre-War Ethos makes people feel they have to live up to something. And sometimes it’s something they can’t achieve. By criminalising the depressed feelings associated with failure, they enhance the stress. Working day to day under these stressful conditions can actually drive people to The Gloom, Eddie. Do you see? It’s the way we live - it actually makes us more susceptible to The Gloom.”
Eddie stepped even closer to the bunk. He looked back to the cell door. Checking to see if anyone might be able to hear him. And through the glass panel, he could see the guard. His back to the door.
“Yes,” he said to Ralph. “I do see.”
Ralph looked up at him, disbelief in his eyes. “Really? Do you really see, or is this some sort of mind game?”
“No game,” Eddie said. “I believe you, and what’s more, I know it for myself. I think that I too, have The Gloom. Ellen had it, but I didn’t spot it in time. She killed herself yesterday, just when I was beginning to understand. But I have hope, Ralph. Hope that I can use my position to change things for the better, you see?”
Ralph was nodding. “I do see,” he said. “I do. I understand.”
He lifted his head from the bunk and shouted: “Guard!”
The guard opened the door and stomped into the cell.
Ralph gestured to him. The guard stepped forward and took a firm hold of Eddie’s arm.
Ralph looked at him with disappointment and said: “Eddie, you’re under arrest for Suffering and Sympathy offences. You will henceforth be Quarantined under the Gloom Laws. Do you understand?”
Eddie felt the world as he knew it come to an end.
* * *
Maynard paced around in front of Eddie’s bunk. He’d taken the decision not to restrain him. Eddie had never shown signs of violence.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this, Eddie. You were one of our top men. But like all top men, we had to bug your dug-out. We knew your wife had The Gloom long before you did. We knew it was a matter of time before all this happened, and I had no choice but to involve Internal Affairs.”
Eddie looked up at him. “Ralph?”
Maynard nodded. “That’s not his real name of course, but yes. He’s been on your case for quite a while. As I say, we knew it was just a matter of time before you fell. You’ve done the Agency a great service, and it’s a real shame to find ourselves in this position. Without you, we wouldn’t have the Gloom Laws.”
Eddie shook his head in disbelief. “You bastards,” he said.
“I know, I know,” said Maynard. “But you’ll come to realise that we had no other choice. They were your proposals, after-all. I’ll make sure they go easy on you, Eddie. For what it’s worth, I always liked you.”
Maynard stepped closer to Eddie. A hand outstretched, offered as a gesture of goodwill. No hard feelings.
Eddie reached out to shake with him, but as he did, an image flashed before his mind’s eye. An image in which Eddie, in a rage-fuelled moment of revenge, grabbed Maynard’s hand, ripped his entire arm from its socket and beat Maynard to death with his own disembodied limb.
There was blood. There was lots of blood.
He quickly pulled his hand back without shaking.
Maynard didn‘t look surprised. He lowered his hand, turned and walked towards the cell door.
The last thing Eddie heard before the door slammed shut was Maynard, whispering to someone beyond the cell door.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think he’s got it bad.”
