The Testimony

RECKONING

Ally Weyland, lawyer, Edinburgh

I stayed up all night watching the news, because I couldn’t sleep, because I still didn’t know what it meant, not hearing it. Sometime just after midnight – this was on the BBC News Channel – they started talking about how British hospitals were totally understaffed, that the initial Broadcasts had stopped some people going to work, and that those places were machines: you remove a few cogs, they get backed up. The presenter said something about how, in the wake of the protests – though she called them riots, there was some real confusion those days about exactly what they were – there were far more people in the hospital than usual, that we should stay at home from hospitals unless it was absolutely urgent. Then, around three in the morning, the American news played their second video of that terrorist, and it was like it all just collapsed even more than it already had, if that was even possible.

Tom Gibson, news anchor, New York City

We had hundreds of thousands – millions even, people were saying, without any real means of doing a proper head-count, bar computer software guesstimates and sending people out to literally count heads – hundreds of thousands of people camping in the parks of NYC, camping out all over the States; just as many people, if not even more, making spur-of-the-moment pilgrimages to churches, to pray to Him to stay with us post-Broadcast; and we had thirty of us in the station, running everything. A full-slate day, you’d have a crew of fifty, maybe more, taking care of all the little jobs. The news had exploded with stuff from all over the country, things that were related but not; hospitals were full because people were fighting, getting themselves in trouble post-Broadcast, for example, and schools were all shut. Public transport had been down for days now, and that was making its own waves outwards, financial problems; the airlines were making statements, threatening to sue for loss of revenue, the trains edging toward the same conclusion, and we kept getting emailed videos from people trapped all round the world, US citizens unable to get home. There was too much news, and there can never be too much news. Then, same as before, a DVD appeared in the mail, unmarked, unlabelled, no traces of anything on the envelope other than an NYC postmark. The FBI didn’t even bother telling us to hold it this time, because they knew it would be everywhere else again, and they’d be showing it as soon as they found it.

It opened like it did before, that same terrorist – we felt safe to call him that, in lieu of a name – sitting in that same cave, on the same chair, wearing the same black robes – though there’s been debate about whether it was a cave, whether it wasn’t a studio, but I can tell you, it was a fucking cave, from the echo in his voice – and he sat there and spoke about how we were trying to trick him. You say that your God is dead, but he has never existed. We have unleashed a fury into your air to make you all suffer for your ignorance, and you will bow your heads and beg for mercy, and know who is the true God, when this is over. We have unleashed, past tense now. Even the FBI guys looked scared.

Ed Meany, research and development scientist, Virginia

POTUS had us checking the air straight away, moving all our teams away from researching The Broadcast and onto another completely futile branch of research. We didn’t find anything in the air around DC, not in our labs, not in the White House. And that means we didn’t find pathogens, viruses, bacteria, toxins, nothing radioactive (apart from the standard low-level stuff where you would expect to find it). The President was ready to completely lock the country down, do everything you’d expect during what should have been the worst attack we’d (probably ever) seen, and he asked us to judge what it was, to tell him how dangerous it was, and we had nothing for him. If it’s been released, it’s not been released in DC, I said, so he ordered me to put together teams all across the country, start testing everywhere (which, of course, we were already doing, but their results were taking longer). They started trickling in, one by one, same results as we had in DC; there was nothing in the air, nothing anywhere. Just like The Broadcast, it didn’t exist.

Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC

POTUS kept saying, We have to find out what this thing is, and where this cave is, because I can fight this one. We asked people to stay indoors where possible – only asked, at that point, because we had a threat, but threats frequently happened, and rarely went to anything – and POTUS debated telling people that we were at Threat Level Black, scare them a bit more. There was no Threat Level Black, but, he figured, the people wouldn’t know that; or it might reassure them, trick them into thinking that we were prepared for this sort of eventuality. There was probably a solid thirty minutes there where none of us mentioned The Broadcast because we were worrying about toxins and biological warfare.

Katy Kasher, high school student, Orlando

I completely forgot that there weren’t any planes flying, so the airport floor was like some sort of orgy or something, people sprawled out asleep or eating or just resting, waiting until they put the planes back on. I went to the counter for one of the airlines, asked them if there was anything I could do, said that my mom and dad were in London, and I was left here, and they couldn’t get home so I wanted to get to them because my Grams had just died, and they didn’t look like they were buying it, so I started crying for them, and eventually one of them said, Hang on. She took me through the back part, sat me on a chair, went into a room without me, told me she’d be back. An hour later she was, and she told me to follow her, through the bits at the back of the airport that you never see. We’ve got you on a flight, she said. There are still planes running, mostly freight, but private planes can still fly – it’s a loophole, she whispered – and there’s one running staff back across to Heathrow later on today. We can get you on that, but there won’t be any cabin service. It’s fairly bare bones, she said. Yeah, because I cared.

Isabella Dulli, nun, Vatican City

The people cried as one; they shouted, called for Him – him, because it was not their God, despite their thoughts, could not be their God – called for Him to return to them. Do not leave us, they said, we have worked for you, we have prayed, we were promised our day of reckoning. You could hear their tears through every corridor of the City, every open space filled with them. The police called for them to depart, although even they didn’t want to be keeping chaos. All of my order were called to prayer, but I denied them. Why won’t you come? Mother Superior asked me, and I told her, It’s because it is a false god, and there is no truth in its words. In the same way that a parent could never leave her child alone to suffer, so no God that we have worshipped so, that created us in such a way that we were in their own image, the perfect child; so no God could abandon His people in this way. She did not reply, nor did she force me to follow her. Instead of going to prayer, I packed a small trunk that I had been given for trips to undertake missionary work and left the City, walking out through the gates. All the people here to worship were in their own pain, and did not notice me leave, as if I were only a spirit, and out of their vision.

Phil Gossard, sales executive, London

It wasn’t until the morning after The Broadcast – the last one – that Karen got home. It went fucking mental, she said, like I’ve never seen it. I’d still be there if I didn’t have to have a shower, because some idiot threw up all over me. Her clothes had been washed, so she changed, and we talked about what we’d heard as she did. I didn’t even stop and think about it, she said. I mean, it wasn’t God, right? So what was it? I don’t know, I told her. It’s easy to not be sure when something tests you; maybe it was God? She smiled at that. Have you been drinking? she asked.

Jess had some of her friends round, and they were praying in her room. Suddenly it had become a new thing, like the cycle of toys they all went through, or pretty-boy bands singing mushy pop songs. They sat in a circle and prayed. My mother, one of the girls said, says that we should pray for God to come back, and tell Him how much we appreciate Him. They did that, and I listened, then drove Karen back to work. When we got there the people were queuing out of the doors, literally onto the ambulance driveway, onto the pavements and the road. Holy shit, Karen said; I have no idea when I’ll be back, alright?

Tom Gibson, news anchor, New York City

We picked up on the British hospitals story pretty quickly, put the feelers out to US hospitals, others around the world; every single one was reporting higher-than-usual cases. For most of them it wasn’t something they saw as anything other than a burst brought on by stress, by people being in the streets, by hypochondria. We got people out to Mercy, to a few others in various cities, to see what was happening. Within a couple of hours we had a good idea of how busy they were; and only a few hours after that, they were twice as busy again. One of the correspondents put in her report, and, when she signed off, she said, It’s clear that something here at St Mark’s isn’t right, and that was putting it mildly.

Mei Hsüeh, professional gamer, Shanghai

When people started dying we were down to eight of us, the core. There was me, Morgaena (Lycan Witch), Misty (Dark Elf Warrior), Kazmere (Goblin Caster), Bexoma (Goblin Rogue), Dreadclaw (Troll Warrior) and Snowfire (Undead Rogue). The Demon-God we were meant to be facing was called Droggs. He was a twelve-man raid at best, but we had been planning for weeks. You heard stories about people spending hours fighting him, days, even, because he was in stages, and once you passed some of them, there was no going back, even if you all died. So you stayed on it, plugging away. And some of us were worried about whether we could get ill or not, but I said, stay inside. What can happen if you stay inside?

Phil Gossard, sales executive, London

Karen’s hospital was on the news, so we watched the report in case we saw her. We had the news on constantly, I remember, but we only turned the volume up when something important happened, and Karen being on TV was exactly that. She didn’t say anything, she was just in the background, checking on people in the waiting room. There were people bleeding, clutching at wounds; people holding areas of their body, clearly in pain; and people coughing and sneezing, hacking away in the background. The report was flaky, not pinning this on anything, but even the reporter seemed concerned. They went back to her a few hours later and, by that point, her nose was streaming, her eyes red, and I knew that there was a real problem.

I tried to call Karen, but they were too busy to even answer the phone. I did it while they were on air, live at the hospital, and I was sure that I could even hear it ringing in the background as all the nurses tried to stop people from bleeding all over each other.

Ed Meany, research and development scientist, Virginia

One of the worst – busiest, I mean – hospitals in the country was George Washington, right on our doorstep, so I went down there with some of the Institute of Health guys, did as many tests as we physically knew how to run, even some that, frankly, we knew were a waste of time. We did air tests, random blood samples, random X-rays, looking for anything, searching the lungs, the throats, and we did all the tests in record time, and we still had nothing.

I reported back to Brubaker and POTUS, and categorically told them that there wasn’t anything in the air, that there wasn’t anything making people ill. It’s coincidence, I told them.

Simon Dabnall, Member of Parliament, London

We managed to prove at least two stereotypes about the British that day: one, that we love to queue; the other that, given a situation where we can turn into louts, we damned well will. The protests were still happening, still clogging the streets, and the churches were still full, and then we had the hospitals to contend with. We had scientists doing readings, looking for biological agents, but they didn’t find anything, so we – that is, the government – decided to write it off as hypochondria. All around the world we made that same decision, based on the same blank statement: that if there wasn’t a gas or a poison in the air or in people’s blood-work anywhere that we could find, there wasn’t one, full stop.

If you can’t measure it, it isn’t there, right?

Ally Weyland, lawyer, Edinburgh

When I woke up, they were saying that all the hospitals were insanely busy, that was it, but I read around on the internet about it, and there were loads of sites saying that people were dying, that they had something fatal. Of course, that wasn’t on the news, because they didn’t want to panic people, I reckon, but it was there. Where there’s illness, there’s death; the two follow, hand in hand. About half eight that morning the government announced that all schools were to either be or stay closed, and only essential workplaces – public services, that sort of thing – were opening. They didn’t say why, but it wasn’t hard to guess. You get a terrorist warning about some sort of special new attack, and then there’s something making people ill, making them sick? They’ve got to be related, that makes sense, and you can’t pretend otherwise. On the internet people were saying, Oh, it’s in the water, so I didn’t have a shower that morning, and I only drank bottled water, even in my tea. Better safe than sorry, I figured.

I called the office to check that they weren’t open – knew they wouldn’t be, because most of them were too lazy to turn up even when we were operating normally – and then decided to pop out, get some eggs, treat myself to a fried egg sarnie for breakfast. I was pulling on my boots when there was a knock at the door, and there, on my doorstep, I find this tiny little American thing with a bad fringe and a T-shirt for a band that I’d never even heard of. I recognized her from her profile picture.

Katy, I said, what the fuck are you doing here?

Katy Kasher, high school student, Orlando

Ally looked different than in her picture: she was really stern in the picture, in a suit, but in real life she was in a sweat suit, trainers, and she had greasy hair. She invited me in, asked me how I got there – so I told her the story, how I spent all that time on a plane with some seriously peed-off flight attendants and pilots, and how none of them would say a word to me – and then worked out that my mom didn’t know a thing about it. She didn’t say she was going to, but she snuck off to use the bathroom and called her, told her where I was.

Ally Weyland, lawyer, Edinburgh

Mrs Kasher, I said, my name’s Allison Weyland, and I’m a lawyer in Scotland, in the UK. Your daughter’s just turned up here, on my doorstep. She flew here, I said, like an idiot. I don’t have a daughter, she said, and I said, Oh, don’t be so bloody melodramatic; she’s here and she’s upset. Tell her to call me when she’s heard The Word, she said, and then she hung up. I didn’t tell Katy that I’d called, because she would ask what her mother said, and I didn’t want to tell her; not that, at least. Instead we sat in the living room and I put the TV on and made us some toast – the eggs would have to wait – and we watched as the newsreaders started to let it out that there was something terribly, terribly wrong.

Ed Meany, research and development scientist, Virginia

We didn’t release the numbers that day, but they were getting crazier by the minute. We had fifteen bodies shipped in from across the country, helicoptered in so we could work on them at the same time, and we sliced them all open and tried to find out what happened to them, tried to find out why they died.

Meredith Lieberstein, retiree, New York City

Leonard was so proud when he got home from the second day of protesting, even though numbers were right down, people leaving for church or home or, worse, hospital. He’d heard rumours in the crowd that the people being ill was a government-driven exercise. It’s designed to keep us in check, that’s the rumour, he said. I made us dinner and we watched the news, because there was nothing else on, and I prayed in my head, thanking whatever was up there for making us healthy, for curing Leonard of his cancer years before, because those people at the hospitals looked so sick, and the relatives looked so worried.

Leonard had bruises all up his arms from people grabbing them, all over his chest from the people being in such a crush. It was like a party with nothing to celebrate, but we were all so happy to be there, to have done something. You don’t see results from protests, he kept saying, but the repercussions! They’ll know that we won’t be silenced, that we won’t end this. The buck stops with the government, he said. When we finally lay down – I told him that he had to get some sleep – the rain had just started outside. Tomorrow, he said, I’m taking the day off, and we’re going to go for a walk. They can all protest, and I’ll be there in spirit, but I’m taking the day off.

When I woke, just as it got light, Leonard didn’t. I turned over, shook him, but he didn’t move, and he was absolutely cold. I sat with him until the alarm went off, and then I got up and made my cup of coffee as usual, and then I started making the phone calls. I didn’t go back into the bedroom until the men came and took him away. I’m sorry, the man said with the clipboard. It isn’t your fault, I said. We’ve had a lot of these tonight, he said. It’s a hard time for people to deal with this all, right? Thank you, I said, though I don’t think that was consoling in the slightest. I spent the day answering the phone, people asking for Leonard, people who didn’t even know him. The New York Times called at one point, and asked if they could do an interview with him. He’s dead, I said, he died this morning, and they paused, and then asked if they could do an article. He seemed like an interesting guy, they said – they called him ‘guy’, which he hated, but I didn’t tell them that, because how were they to know? – and I told them that he was. Can it wait a week? I asked, and they said that they really needed it for the day after, so I said that the reporter should come and visit with me that afternoon. Everything moved so fast, those days.

When the reporter turned up he was far younger than he had sounded. He had a tiny little beard, beady eyes, and he wore a cap (though he did take it off when I answered the door, which I appreciated). Mrs Lieberstein? he asked, and I shook his hand. My mother was Mrs Lieberstein, I said. My name is Meredith. Meredith, he repeated, and he wiped his shoes on the mat and then came through to the kitchen. Do you want a drink? Whatever you’re having, he said, and so I poured us both iced tea. I’m sorry about your husband, he said, and then we spoke about Leonard. He put his recorder on the table and asked me questions and I just went on and on. I felt sorry for him, you know, because he really did just sit and listen to me ramble on, chew his ear off, and I don’t know how much of it was actually usable. (I didn’t read the article, though some of my friends told me that it was a very good piece.) I asked him if he wanted to see some photos and he did, so I got the laptop, talked him through some of them. I emailed him a couple to use for the story, and he finished his third glass of iced tea and said that he had to leave. On the doorstep he apologized again for Leonard’s passing, and I said, Really, it wasn’t your fault; God takes us when we’re ready. And then we had a moment, where it sort of clicked that neither of us had thought about the implications of God in all this, in Leonard’s death. Did He let him die? Did He choose to not save him? Does He even have that power? Or, actually, if it was Him saying Goodbye, is that why Leonard died? It had stopped raining as heavily by the time the reporter left, so I went for a walk in it, this must have been around four in the afternoon. I ended up in Central Park and I sat on a bench and watched the wildlife on a pond, and then I walked down toward 5th, looked at the wreckage of the bomb, which they were still struggling to clear up, walked down toward Times Square and just stood around waiting for it to get dark. The city looked beautiful at night, and I watched it all for hours, until well past midnight, until it was just drunk people stumbling along to their hotels. I was looking at the advertisements, at the sky, and I heard a crackle, and I held on for The Broadcast to tell us that God was sorry, that He wasn’t going to abandon us. It was only lightning, though, and more fool me, because when the rain bucketed down and I had to rush to get cover under an awning, I realized that I didn’t want it to be The Broadcast anyway; I wanted it to have been Leonard, back for one last message, back to say goodbye.

Mark Kirkman, unemployed, Boston

I think the producers forgot that I was there, in the hotel, on their business account. They either forgot or didn’t care, because I wasn’t thrown out, and neither were the Jessops. I met Joseph and his family my second day there, in the restaurant, at breakfast; I recognized them from their TV appearance, introduced myself. We ate together, told each other our stories, and then we spoke about what we thought it meant, that we didn’t hear it. We watched the news as people got sick, as they tried guessing what was wrong with them, and the Monday morning, when we heard that we weren’t going to be on the show at all – that the main stories had shifted again, and now the interest came from sick people, dying people, dead people – we spoke about what we could do to find more people like us. There must be more, we said. Anomalies like us never happened in tiny quantities, surely?

Joseph Jessop, farmer, Colorado City

Mark decided to ask the producers of The Role Call if they had any more names and numbers of people like him and Joe, and that took him out all day. We spent the time in our suite watching cartoons, trying to stop Joe from getting too bored. Wasn’t till he passed out in the afternoon that I managed to see the news, to see about just how many people were sick or dying, and I remember, I worried and worried that that could happen to us, to me and to Jennifer and to Joe.

Meredith Lieberstein, retiree, New York City

Some sycophantic relative, a cousin that I hadn’t seen in years, had left a message on my answer machine, telling me how very sorry they were that Leonard had died. At the end of it, they said, Maybe now this’ll start you praying again, praying to bring God back to us; so many years away from the fold, and look what happens. Now we’re all abandoned, we need you more than ever, and you need us. Oh, shut up, I told the machine, and I didn’t call her back, even though she left her number.

Piers Anderson, private military contractor, the Middle East

When we got back to England – we flew into City of London Airport, which had been cordoned off for us – we were escorted off the plane by people dressed like beekeepers, blood samples taken from each of the men, driven in black vans to a sports hall filled with beds, and we spent the entire day there without seeing a soul, helping ourselves to food from the field kitchens that were set up there. This was, we were told, standard practice after a mission: decontaminating us, checking our bloods. Then, before daybreak the next morning, we were woken up and packed into vans by more beekeepers, ushered into decontamination rooms filled with shower-heads like sunflowers, and then sprayed for twenty minutes with freezing cold water, or something like water. Keep your mouths shut and your eyes open, a man said over an intercom, as you never know where enemy agents can get. One of the men made a joke about an enemy agent getting up my arse, but none of us were really in the mood for laughing, tell the truth. When the showers were done the beekeepers showed us into white changing rooms and gave us individual piles of laundry to put on, all in pure white, like bed-sheets. You know why they make it this colour, don’t you? asked another of the men, and then answered his own question: It’s so that if you start coughing up anything they can see it, see exactly where it went. It could be contagious. They called me into a room with a giant mirror and I answered questions to a beekeeper who introduced himself as a scientist and spoke to me through a tinny speaker in his suit. After the questions about the operation, about where we were in proximity to the blast, about how long it took us to clear the area, that sort of thing, he asked questions about what we ate, where the food came from, where we slept. What’s this all about? I asked him, and he told me about the deaths. People have started dying, he said, and we don’t know why. And you think it’s related to the op in Iran? I asked, and he shook his head, then contradicted himself. Yeah, he said, some sort of retaliation. He checked my chest, my tongue, my ears. You seem fine, he said. Just another few days and you’ll be able to go home.