Chapter 12: WATCHING THE WORLD BURN
Sam, the first to finish exploring his own quarters, had just started to move towards the eleventh door (an imposing thing made of steel) when Future-Malik suddenly appeared into the lobby, like he had teleported there.
He looked haggard. Wait, but why? Wasn't this version of himself merely an avatar that he could project into the simulation at will? However he looked could only be because he chose to look that way, so for whatever reason, he must have decided to appear as though he hadn't slept in about a week.
Was he trying to seem more human? Or did he not have as much control as they had assumed?
He waited for a few other members of the Rockborn Gang to finish exploring and wander back out of their rooms. Malik was first after Sam, then Edilio. Dekka next. Apparently that was enough.
"The virus is mutating," Future-Malik said, in a voice filled with regret, but loud enough that those still in their rooms might hear. Simone, Astrid, and Shade poked their heads out of their respective doors. "I'm so sorry. I tried to stop it, I tried to write a cure into the program, but-"
"Yeah, we know," Dekka snapped. "One of us got a new power. We know it's mutating."
"No, you don't understand!" Future-Malik shouted suddenly. He paused, regaining his composure. "We have at least a dozen cases of mutant-to-human transmission. People who have never even been directly exposed to the ASO. No ingestion, no injection, not hit by shrapnel, nothing, who are now suddenly developing morphs and powers. The virus, it's, well, it's doing exactly what regular Earth viruses have always been able to do. It's spreading." He cradled his head in his hands. "It isn't all that virulent, yet. But it's only just beginning to mutate. And any kind of quarantine would obviously be impossible to maintain."
Sam had a sudden mental image of the Earth, covered in tiny pinpoints of green. Not a natural green like the surrounding grass and trees covering the imagined globe, but a glowing, sickly, radioactive green. Gaiaphage green.
As he watched, helpless even in his mind's eye, the points began to expand and grow. They grew like cancers, fusing together at their edges into an unbroken blanket of that terrible and deadly green.
The Gaiaphage had finally gotten what it had always wanted, Sam thought grimly. Ever since before the FAYZ, all that terrible viral intelligence had ever wanted was to spread its grotesque influence and power to all corners of the world. They had stopped it. They had fought and sacrificed and so, so many of them had died, but they had stopped it.
Now, Sam saw clearly, it had been for nothing. All that pain and violence and sacrifice and suffering, all of it for nothing!
"Maybe it will be okay," Sam said weakly, knowing that he was grasping at straws even as he spoke. He glanced at the ceiling as he briefly struggled for words. "What's it called, that concept where everyone is powerful enough to blow everyone else up if they wanted to, but nobody actually does it, because they know that if they do they'll get blown up in return?"
"Mutually assured destruction," Astrid supplied, but distantly. "That's called mutually assured destruction."
"Yeah that's it," Sam said with a shuddering sigh. "Mutually assured destruction." He repeated it, as if the phrase itself would make him feel better. It did not. "Maybe, even if everyone gets powers, nobody will kill each other exactly because they know they can all kill each other."
"Yeah. Maybe," Edilio agreed uncertainly. He was staring at his arm as though he didn't quite trust his own skin. He noticed Sam looking at him, and took a shaky breath. "So. It's spreading," he said, trying to hide the alarm, the panic, in his voice. He alone of the Rockborn Gang did not have a morph, did not have powers. He had flatly refused to take the ASO substance that the rest of them had taken. He had wanted to take no part of that harsh reality, the awful responsibility to fight and hurt and kill. That's what this power meant, didn't it? Power meant fighting and killing. And while he might have been a fighter, he was not a killer.
"Yes," Future-Malik answered Edilio simply.
Edilio felt himself almost subconsciously edging towards his own room. Away from the rest of the group. They were contagious, they could infect him, they were . . . but no. No. As an immigrant in the United States, he knew precisely how awful it felt to be treated like you were inherently 'dirty.' He would not, could not, treat his friends that way.
Astrid said, "It's okay, Edilio. If you need to isolate yourself, nobody will blame you." It apparently hadn't yet occurred to a couple of the others that Edilio was the only one of them not exposed, and they looked at him with shock and pity, but then quickly nodded their agreement with what Astrid had said.
That did it. "No," Edilio said firmly. "You are all my friends. I will not cut myself off. This isn't some disease, it's just . . . " He drew a blank for what it was "just," so he repeated, "It isn't a disease. For one thing, its permanent. Meaning I'd have to stay away from all of you, permanently. And hey, it isn't like this is something that kills people. Not directly, anyway." He muttered that last part under his breath. Then he shrugged helplessly, a gesture of defeat. "Besides, it's probably too late, right? I've been around you guys for weeks now. If I'm going to get it, chances are I already have."
He looked to Future-Malik, looking for answers, but the man only shrugged. "I can only see those who have morphed," he said. "Morphing is what activates the Dark Watcher subroutine. Affected, or not, without morphing you won't show up to me, either way. That's part of what makes tracking this so difficult."
"Fantastic," Edilio groaned.
Throughout it all, Shade was looking at Future-Malik with a curious but skeptical expression. Maybe she was being cynical, but she couldn't help but wonder why he actually seemed to care so much about this world. So he had figured out that his simulations were all real people with thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams or whatever. So he felt guilty about creating them. So what? None of that explained the tired and hollow look in his eyes as he tried desperately to stop yet another nail being driven into the coffin of the world.
What did he have to lose, if this world ended? He was outside the simulation. Safe.
Wasn't he?
What are you hiding, Malik-from-another-world? What is so important, and yet so terrible, that you would conceal it from us, even now?
What secret could possibly be any worse than what we already know?
I just wanted to add a little post-script, since I know that a chapter about contagion is a bit poorly timed right now (to be fair I've had the idea since long before I knew about the Coronavirus threat). I tried to write it so that it was clear, but just in case it's not: the ASO virus is not even remotely meant to be a metaphor for the Coronavirus. If you get the Coronavirus, or if you're around people who have it, you should absolutely self-isolate. Don't panic, especially if you're young and healthy. You'll probably be fine. But even if you are young and healthy, please spare a thought for those who aren't. Quarantine measures help keep hospitals from being overwhelmed, which in turn saves lives.
