Another way of looking at it is that I am personally trying to succeed in sparking widespread panic and pandemonium.
You’re welcome.
DAWN
London, United Kingdom
Day 43
Have you seen the article?” Zara, my boss, looks so angry she’s practically swivel-eyed. Yes, I have seen the article. No, I don’t want to talk about it. Best to play dumb until I can decide what to do.
“The fucking Washington Post article. How is it, Dawn,”—give me strength, you don’t need to repeat my name, Zara—“that a reporter in the United States of fucking America has managed to simultaneously make us look incompetent and corrupt, as though we knew there was a problem that we refused to fix and couldn’t have fixed it even if we tried?”
“The mind reels,” I murmur. What else is there to say? The British Intelligence Services have been cut off at the knees by the Plague but the article is painful to read because it’s partly true.
We’ve been playing catch-up for weeks as the country descends into chaos around us. If only I could go back and shake myself when we first started hearing reports of an infectious disease in Scotland. WAKE UP, DAWN, I want to scream. THIS WILL BE WORSE THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE.
Alas, hindsight is twenty-twenty. Balls, Zara is still looking murderous. I need to be careful. I’ve been working here for over thirty-five years and yet, still, I’m careful. Always. I was the only black woman recruited into the program in my year. I’m almost always the only person of color, and often the only woman—what a double whammy!—in a meeting. I suppress a frustrated sigh. Maybe I’m too old for this nonsense. I’m retiring in six weeks, the day I turn sixty, not that she knows that. I’m going to tell her in a fortnight and if she’s not on board with it I’ll quit regardless, if we don’t have martial law by then. I’ve got a cottage by the sea, enough cans stocked up to last me six months and very few shits left to give.
Nonetheless, while I’m still here, I need to be kind. Zara is scared and grieving, so Zara’s not really herself. I’ve worked with her for over a decade. She’s changed completely. Can I blame her? Her husband died last week, followed by her son a few days later. Her daughter is only fifteen, reeling from the loss of a father and brother, but we are public servants. There is no such thing as time off in a public crisis. So, not only is Zara grieving but she’s also feeling the mammalian urge to be with her child in the face of danger.
“I’ll draft up a response,” I say with a polite calm I don’t feel and trudge to my desk （small office on the second floor, no natural light—depressing to say the least）。 The defenses start rolling through my head like a ticker tape. It just didn’t seem to be in our authority. Not in your authority? How could a global pandemic not be the responsibility of the security services? Well, funny you should ask that, journalist lady whom I really dislike right now, but pretty bloody easily actually. We’re not doctors, we’re intelligence analysts. My job within this organization is to convince my superiors—who used to be two men called Hugh and Jeremy, RIP—that there is in fact a credible threat that only we can address. Well surely you should be safe rather than sorry? Again! Maria, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? But we’re not made of money and we can’t throw our weight around like bulls in Pamplona. And, might I add, there’s a not-so-little organization called the WHO, which has basically done sweet fuck all for the past two months. Shouldn’t they have been sounding the alarm, not us?
So why didn’t you spring into action when it did become obvious that this was a disaster? Because by that point, Maria, it was too late. The critical mass of infection occurred so quickly we didn’t know what had hit us until we were reduced to glorified damage limitation. I will grant you that we should have clocked sooner that the low recovery rate and the fact it only affects men means it creates unique security concerns. Police, army, navy, fire services, paramedics, security services; primarily male professions each and every one.