Plague. Chapter 5

Hi

You may remember that I have three novels under construction. I want to share one of them with you as I put it together. I am hoping you will help me steer the events within it as they unfold. I would also love to discuss the writing process with you. And would love to hear from other writers about their processes.

This is a dystopian novel set in the near future. In it, a plague of sorts has decimated the world, throwing it back many decades in functionality.

I will post chapters here, one my website (garyrsimonds.com), and Subbstack, under the title “Plague.”

Please, check it out. Let me know what you think.

I hope you enjoy the adventure with me!

Chapter’s 1–4 are on previous posts. Here is Chapter 5, where we learn about the rapid de-digitalizaiton of society and the resultant fallout for those who were least affected by the plague, “the Resistors.”

Chapter 5

In the decade leading up to the plague, the world was dipping its toes ever deeper into autocracy and fascism. With the plague, it plunged in, unreservedly. Here in the U.S., the already bombastic and intellectually-challenged President made his move when the death rates hit their peak. He put the country under martial law and reconfigured the government under one party, The Party. Oppositional politicians, disaffected journalists, and contrarian scientists were whisked away, vanishing into night.

Reportedly, they were being taken to religious training centers where they could be re-introduced to the word of God. Where these centers were located, or what happened within them, was never explained. It was clear, though, that once someone was taken there, they never came back. Nor were they ever heard from again.

Not that communications were as we had once known them, linked as we were by interconnected computers in our pockets, with their video calls and electronic messaging of every imaginable kind. That all became history.

You see, once the religious connotations were affixed to the plague, and The Party proclaimed it a good thing, those in power were terrified that the scientists would come up with some sort of cure, or at least a preventative measure, and flip the script on them. They were almost correct. With gene-editing, it was possible to convert newborns to a more resistant genotype (nothing could be done for those whose brains had already been pillaged).

Just as real progress was being made, The Party banned all related research. Suddenly, genetic scientists started to disappear. Then the biomedical engineers. Most of those left behind had lost too much intellectual capability to do anything useful, so were made the heads of labs and Chairs of academic departments.

Yes, The Party wanted the OP to continue doing its thing. Continue cull the herd. Continue to create a new race of beings. A superior race — one freed of the type of abstract thinking that had tied up human spiritual evolution in its philosophic and relative-moralistic knots. A superior race, of supremely submissive sheep.

Next to disappear were the computer engineers, coders, and analysts. With the right design and programming, there was a risk that even without the genetic scientists, computers might come up with workable solutions. So the computer nerds had to go too. But, to The Party’s dismay, through integrated systems, the computers continued to communicate with each other and spit out biomedical instruction manuals on how to prepare and administer the critical genetic insertions — completely on their own — no scientists, no programmers, no engineers required.

Until they started spewing out garbage.

Whether through a deliberate act(s), or an unanticipated weakness in digital functionality, spontaneous errors began cropping up in codes across the computational universe — like the random mutations in DNA base pairing that was responsible for evolution. And apparently, without human oversight and correction, the errors compounded themselves with astonishing rapidity.

Artificial Intelligence crashed. Then, all interconnected systems. Any computer still linked to the web became sick and died. Older computers gathering dust in closets and attics continued to function but without those annoying upgrades that used to pop up every few weeks (days?), they began to crash as well — or degrade to the level of glorified word processors. Satellites became electronically untethered so all large scale telecommunications went down. Most messaging reverted to wire-dependent transmission.

Transportation was also affected. Newer vehicles, that synched automatically with the cloud, fried out in the blink of an eye. Older versions, that were kept isolated from external digital influence, kept running, until a slow attrition due to natural chip decomposition and decompensation started sidelining them. At the same time, though, various vehicles were being converted to straight-up internal combustion and mechanical functionality. At least for the rich and the powerful. And the military. But not for the rest of us. Gas had become hard to acquire and prohibitively expensive. We depended on our feet, bicycles, Jerry-rigged motorized bikes, and hyper-crowded buses and trains.

The world had gone from digital to analogue in a matter of months, and that was just fine with The Party. Their actions and decrees could still be broadcast through radio and disseminated via newspaper and newsreel. Collective protest was impossible, short of small local rallies. These were easily quashed by a newly inaugurated national police force, and assorted deputized paramilitary groups.

Rallies of another kind sprung up everywhere, however. The party had begun attacking the Resistors, making sure the cognitively-decremented masses knew who was at the root of any of their problems. Malignant torchlight parades wound through the streets of every major city, calling for the deportation and/or elimination of the Resistors. Resistor homes were marked with a blue schematic depiction of the OP with a dripping read line running through it. Stores were looted. Books were burned. Resistors were blocked from free movement within the cities, and were often physically abused and even lynched out in the country.

Then, the great roundups began. Those least affected by the OP, those of too much skin pigmentation, the Resistors, began to disappear. In ever-increasing numbers. Always in the dark of the night.

Caleb and I? Well, we should have been a couple of the first to go. Neither of us suffered much melanocyte degradation and thus, for the most part, kept our natural skin tones. Caleb’s mother was Lebanese, his father African American. My father was a mutt, of widely mixed, but dark heritage. My mother was Native American. We both stood out like sore thumbs. But it was still acceptable to be black or brown in professional sports — as long as you didn’t populate marquee positions. Caleb was a defensive end for the Broncos. And, The Party quickly learned that doctors required a certain amount of cognitive flexibility — particularly when computerized diagnostic and prescriptive services crashed. So, Resistor physicians were absolved from deportation, as long as they toed the line. I, thus, was allowed to continue training in a neurosurgical ressidency at the U.

Despite watching the madness escalate, and friends, colleagues, and relatives disappear, we conned ourselves into believing that we were exempt. That we would remain exempt. Of course we took precautions. Naively more concerned about the mobs than The Party. But we believed the storm would pass over us. In fact, we thought that it had passed over us. Us, and our very white neighbors. Our Chosen neighbors. Our Chosen friends.