Анатолий Шигапов – EXPIRATION DATE (страница 13)

Charles nodded, not knowing what to answer.

Listen, - Goldberg continued, - I heard that the corporations are offering a deal. If the city officially recognizes their authority - transfers management of utilities, police, courts to them - they will turn on the electricity. Not fully, but at least heating and hospitals. The mayor is thinking about it. Many are already thinking. New York cannot survive another week, Charles. We cannot survive.

Charles was silent for a long minute, looking at the murky water in the bottles. He had heard these rumors. Heard how the authorities of Boston and Washington were already conducting backroom negotiations with representatives of Solar-City. But he also knew what signing a capitulation meant.

If we surrender, - he finally said, - they will never turn the lights back on. They will keep us on this leash forever. It will not be help - it will be control. We will become their dogs, getting food only for obedience.

And if we do not surrender, - Goldberg interrupted, - we will die here. I do not want to die in the dark, Charles. I am already eighty. I want to see at least one light bulb before I die.

Charles looked at the old man, and a dull, helpless ache rose in his chest. He could not argue with him, because every word was true. He just nodded and walked back, heavily treading the concrete steps, carrying two canisters of ice-cold water that would be someone's last drink in this house.

October 2070. Boston. Massachusetts General Hospital.

Third week of total shutdown. The medical center building, once one of the most modern in the country, now looked like a field hospital after an artillery strike. The backup generators that powered the ICU and surgery had failed five days ago - fuel tanks were empty, and attempts to get diesel from military depots had failed due to drones blocking all approaches. The operating rooms were dark; sterile lights did not work; surgeons operated by candlelight and battery-powered flashlights, but the batteries were also running out. Incubators did not work, ventilators were silent, refrigerators with medications had become warm cabinets, and vital drugs - insulin, antibiotics, vaccines - had spoiled within the first day.

Dr. Emily Wilson, thirty-five, with dark circles under her eyes and an overgrown fringe, knelt by a metal cot in the pediatric ward. She wore a soiled white coat over which a woolen scarf was wrapped to keep warm. Before her - a girl, six years old, with huge brown eyes and blond hair in two uneven braids. Diagnosis: bilateral pneumonia complicated by respiratory failure. She needed continuous oxygen, but the oxygen cylinder connected to a manual mask was almost empty - twenty, maybe thirty minutes left.

The girl looked at Emily with the trust that only the very young possess. She still did not understand she was dying - she just felt that breathing was hard, that something in her chest was wheezing and blocking the air.

Mommy? - the girl whispered, her voice weak and intermittent. - Where is my mommy? She promised to come when I woke up.

Emily squeezed her tiny, cold hand, trying to pass on her warmth. She knew the truth she could not say: the girl's mother had died the day before yesterday, frozen in her apartment when the heating was cut off - neighbors had found her in the morning, already cold, hugging a pillow. The girl was left alone. Emily had taken her under her care, but it changed nothing.

She will be here soon, - Emily lied, trying to keep her voice steady. - She was just delayed, sweetheart. Just breathe, please, breathe…

The girl closed her eyes, her breathing becoming slower and shallower. Emily pressed the mask tighter, but the cylinder let out a final hiss and fell silent. Life was leaving the child before her eyes, thread by thread, her pulse weakening under her fingers.

A senior nurse burst into the room, her face twisted with panic.

Doctor, there is a huge crowd outside. Thousands of people. They are demanding we open the gates, they say it's minus five outside, they have no roof, many with children. They want to take shelter here, in the building. They have started beating the gates with metal bars.

We have no free space, - Emily replied without taking her eyes off the girl. - We have no fuel, no heating, we can barely warm our own patients. If we open the gates, they will bring in infections, chaos, and then everyone will die.

And if we do not open, - the nurse's voice cracked, - they will die out there. And they will still break through sooner or later. There are too many of them. They are peaceful now, but in an hour they will be angry.

Emily closed her eyes for a moment. Through the old, dusty walls of the hospital, she heard the rising roar of voices - hundreds, maybe thousands, chanting: "Open up! Help!" Somewhere a baby cried. Somewhere a man hoarsely shouted that his wife was pregnant and unwell.

The girl under her hand stopped breathing. Emily checked for a pulse, put her ear to her chest, tried to perform CPR, though she knew it was useless. After a minute she leaned back on her heels, covered her face with her hands, and sat there, feeling tears mix with sweat and run down her cheeks.

Open the gates, - she said dully. - Let them in. We will do what we can.

The nurse ran out. Ten minutes later, sirens began to wail in the hospital corridors, people flooded inside - dirty, frozen, frightened. Doctors and nurses, now three times fewer, tried to distribute them in the corridors, wrap them in blankets, give them hot water. But there was almost no water, blankets for no more than a hundred. Chaos grew - shouts, crying, swearing. Someone started pushing, trying to get to the reception desk. The sound of breaking glass was heard.

Emily remained in the pediatric ward, alone, next to the body of the girl she could not save. She took her cold hand, straightened her braids, and quietly, voicelessly, cried in the silence broken only by the noise of the dying city outside the windows.

November 2070. Chicago. City Hall.

The city administration building - once a glass cube, a symbol of modern urbanity - now looked like a bunker. Inside, dark, cold; employees sat in coats and gloves, on tables - kerosene lamps and candles, the smoke from which settled on the ceiling in a thin layer of soot. The city's mayor, Frank Miller, a man about sixty, in a worn wool suit, sat in his office on the top floor, from which there had once been a view of Lake Michigan. Now the lake was invisible - the windows were fogged, and outside there was only gloom and occasionally flashing lights of "Locust" drones circling over the square like vultures.

The mayor had gone seven days without sleep, without communication with the outside world, without support from the federal government, which simply stopped answering calls. He knew from radio intercepts that Philadelphia had capitulated two weeks ago - its mayor had signed an act transferring infrastructure to Cyber-Fund, and the first lights had come on in the city. Houston surrendered a week after Philadelphia. Detroit - three days ago. Now it was Chicago's turn. On his desk lay the only message received via a satellite communicator running on its last battery. The text was short, typed in perfect font:

"To His Excellency, the Mayor of the City of Chicago. On behalf of the united council of corporations Solar-City, Cyber-Fund, and Green-Matrix. The corporations are ready to restore power to Chicago within two hours of signing the agreement on the transfer of control over city grids, port infrastructure, and public safety systems. You have twenty-four hours to make a decision. If no response is received, the complete shutdown mode will continue until April 2071. Estimated number of casualties: 780,000 people. We trust in your prudence."

The mayor read this letter for the hundredth time. He knew it was not an ultimatum - it was a farewell. If he signed, he would go down in history as a traitor, the man who surrendered the city without a single shot, handed it over to the mercy of corporations. But if he did not sign, by April more than seven hundred thousand people would die in Chicago - from hunger, cold, disease. He had already seen the lists of his citizens, obtained from humanitarian organizations: about three thousand people died daily, mostly the elderly and children. One thought circled in his head: "I cannot let this continue. I must do something. Even if it is wrong."

He took a steel pen, dipped it in ink - modern styluses had long been gone - and signed his name on the thick sheet of paper brought by his assistant. His hand did not tremble. It was just tired.

Fifty minutes later, with a slight delay due to technical procedures, the first streetlight on the square outside city hall came on. It burned with a steady, white, cold light - too bright after weeks of darkness. Behind it, a second, third, a dozen, a hundred came on - and Chicago awoke, but it awoke as a different city. A city that no longer belonged to itself.

The mayor looked at this light and felt neither relief nor pride. He felt only emptiness, like a room from which all furniture had been removed. He understood that he had just signed democracy's death warrant, but he could no longer distinguish victory from defeat.