One finds them huddled in the corners of shopping malls, or secreted in stairwells, bemused expressions on their collapsed faces, as if they are surprised to find themselves dead. Most businesses have closed, and it will take many years for the Economy to recover. Maybe it will never recover. E ntire commercial areas have gone silent, a charnel smell rising from the fountains and piazzas. The media has largely gone off-air, as employees die, are killed, or simply declare for nature and flee the centre for the periphery.
Disconnection is the new buzzword.
At night, under the crematoria smoke, one can see thousands of orange smudges, as citizens burn books and storage media, praying before their bonfires that by giving up knowledge and communication their lives will be saved. Radicals are locking themselves away, declaring that they will give up human interaction entirely. The Administration has disbanded. Civic unity has disappeared. We are still no closer to finding the cause of the plague, and one cannot help but think that this is the start of a new dark age.