By William Markiewicz
(continued from last issue)
This "archival" story was inspired by a few of my dreams which I linked together.
Suddenly the media exploded with reports of a new start in the conflict between East and West. Detente and collaboration began to founder. The pacifists' indignation never reached the expected proportions. Humanity was tormented by plagues of alcoholism, drug addiction and crime on a hitherto unknown scale. The famous work colonies seemed in comparison to be oases of peace and order, and attracted people in increasing numbers. In expectation of international conflict, scattered mobilization began throughout the world except in the work camps. The draft was completed quickly and with rather strange selection criteria. After a general physical exam a psychological one was given under special conditions. Coloured lights blinked on and off in front of the desks where recruits took intelligence and general orientation tests. The mobilization, which had many aspects of a survey, was carried out in record time. Some of those drafted were isolated immediately after the tests and were not heard from again.
Then, war broke out without any of the usual declarations customary in modern times. Planes, ships, trucks by the hundreds, carrying thousands of soldiers, were sent -- not in the expected direction of the countries' enemies -- but toward the flourishing work camp locations. Other troops, which had not been sent away, received orders to besiege their own countries. Their assignment seemed unbelievable: to treat their own populations as suspects, and, dressed in strange uniforms, they carried out an odd series of tests.
The work camps, wherever they stood, in jungles, on the desert, in mountains or at the seashore, were surrounded by a "sanitation cordon" of soldiers armed with flame throwers. From the sky a rain of multicoloured lights poured on the camps, and loudspeakers on the outskirts started to broadcast orders to the population: "Gather in the central square!" they thundered. "You are in the midst of invisible monsters who have hidden themselves in the very bodies of your husbands, your wives, your children! Those already in their power are already lost. They are part of the enemy. Do nothing for or against them. They are partially hypnotized by the moving coloured lights -- take advantage of this and get away from them. Save yourselves. Do not try to fight. We will take care of them!"
Observers from planes and helicopters and points above the colony saw the tragedy below but were impotent because of their orders not to approach or intervene, as if the camp were contaminated. Any man, woman or child who tried to escape the colony was to be stopped or threatened with flame throwers. It was bloody chaos. Fights broke out. Armed people gathered groups of prisoners; obviously the monsters tried to take hostages of human 'uncontaminated' reserves. Fires started everywhere. Explosives detonated. Some of the people tried to obey orders to gather in the main square. Others fought, defending themselves against their attackers, while still others rolled on the ground under the tortuous discharge from the 'flames.'
The results varied. Certain colonies were completely annihilated in a madness that seemed to stem from self destruction. Despite warnings, people threw themselves against the sanitary cordon and died, blown to pieces by the grenades, or swept by flame throwers.
And as the smoke and fire died down, the soldiers saw the bizarre bluish flames dancing on the remains of what had been human bodies. From time to time some soldiers felt something like an electric discharge in the skull. This was infrequent due to the rarity of contact and thanks to the electromagnetic protection. But everything had been planned for; the subjects were isolated and submitted to tests.
In certain colonies the population submitted almost without resistance to the appeal for surrender and the succeeding tests. Those who remained in a trance were immediately isolated in special enclosures and, if time and space were lacking, were simply trapped in nets.
Outside the colonies, all over the planet, the strange war was being carried out and few knew precisely by whom and against whom it was directed. Factories, houses, hospitals were indiscriminately exploding and perishing in flames. Economic life was totally paralyzed. Multicoloured lights and globes were launched into the skies day and night by squadrons of planes and helicopters. Fireworks were set off in the streets. Towns and villages seemed plunged in a macabre kermis. TV, Radio and loudspeaker broadcasts warned that "those who are frightened of lights, colours and rhythmic sounds" should be avoided and reported immediately. The electromagnetic suit became a must wherever possible. Soon famine and epidemics joined the general chaos; humanity lived in a nightmare of a dimension previously unknown. The monsters seemed to fulfill their promise to draw all planetary life with them to destruction.
A group of men and women rigorously selected and protected awaited, in their secure shelters, the time when they would repopulate the planet.
(To be concluded in next issue)
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William
Markiewicz