One Billion Drops of Happiness (17 page)

He snapped out of his reverie and resumed watching Okadigbo, not for the first time questioning his mental capacity. He turned the sound back up. Okadigbo was now waggling his sausage-like fingers at what Henry assumed was his mirage.

‘….was supposed to be my little cash-cow, not this humongous problem…’ he was ranting. ‘I refuse to face them…and the people you stole! You nit-wits, you flumps! Never poke the sleeping lion! Now you will see what monster you have created….just you wait!’

Henry abruptly ended the current call, scrolling down a list on his mirage until he found the contact he was looking for. He dialed and waited momentarily.

‘Yes, is that the hospital? I’m going to need some assistance…’

As Xandria was about to enter the kitchen the next morning, an intuition she had never possessed before told her to stop. She instinctively listened outside the closed door.

‘…why do I have to?’ Lars was saying to his mother, ‘she’s quite frankly abhorrent. Everything she stands for.’

‘Darling…’ Mrs. Olsen’s voice could be heard soothing her son, ‘now what is the Christian thing to do?’

‘Of course, but I don’t see why we have to. It’s a very different situation.’

‘Lars, we must have compassion. She’s gone through a lot, losing her whole family like that. And so sudden too…’

‘But she doesn’t feel a thing!’ Lars said, ‘only intermittently that object she wears around her neck will give out and there’ll be a flicker of life up there. What is that thing anyway? She looks ridiculous. Everywhere she goes it’s tap, tap tap…’

‘Shhh son, she will be awake soon…’

Xandria stared at the door, feeling a boiling feeling in the pit of her stomach. Was it shock? Resentment? Disappointment? She was not sure. She touched her Suppressitor, causing it to bounce back a dose of hatred; hatred for both her compulsion to use this damn device, and hatred for the man on the other side of the door mocking her.

After a couple of minutes had passed and her Suppressitor had returned to normal, she entered the kitchen.

‘It will be my last day today,’ she announced without any feeling whatsoever.

Lars looked at his mother but said nothing.

‘Oh my goodness Xandria, are you sure?’ Mrs. Olsen looked at her with eyes full of concern.

‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, ‘I think I have overstayed my welcome.’ She shot Lars a plain look. He looked down.

‘Nonsense, my dear. You can stay as long as you like here. There’s still so much for you to see, the bird islands…’

‘Thank you Mrs. Olsen. But I need to get back now,’ Xandria cut in. Her Suppressitor may have been working at the current time but that did not stop Xandria from remembering the bubbling emotions she had felt just minutes earlier.

‘As you wish,’ Mrs. Olsen said, ‘but it will be a shame for you to go so soon.’

Gabe came hurrying into the kitchen.

‘Quick, get a mirage up! There’s a speech from the other world…’

Lars quickly summoned an image. The family gathered around in rapt attention. Ever since the island travesty it was as if the whole world were teetering on the edge of their seats, barely breathing, fully expecting the next day to bring further appalling new revelations.

Xandria gasped as the mirage blew into a larger than life version of Henry Excelsior. She clutched at her chair to steady herself.

‘Are you okay?’ Lars asked, feeling a conscious need to be nicer to her. He had a suspicion that she had heard his harsh words about her and seeing her ashen face, regretted them instantly.

‘I know him…’ she stuttered, still shocked. ‘He’s my…’ She stopped short, remembering the truth. Oh, but she missed him. Did he miss her too?

‘Well whoever he is, he’s rather handsome.’ Mrs. Olsen commented, attempting to artificially raise the mood of the household. Since the island revelations, the family had been fraught. By papering over the all-too-obvious cracks, she could try to kid herself that the world wasn’t about to end.

Xandria looked perplexed. Appearance and attraction were completely irrelevant in New America. What did it even mean to be handsome, she wondered, sneaking a peek at Lars trying to assess this quality. But it was no use. She felt nothing; her Suppressitor was back in action.

‘Good morning to our glorious nation of New America, and greetings also to the Old World.’ Henry said, staring directly out of the mirage.

Gabe shuddered. ‘Creep.’

‘I am speaking to you all today with a dual purpose. Firstly, to address the issue of our new Ophelium, which I understand the Old World is particularly unsettled about. And secondly, to make a surprise announcement.

‘Now, our new Ophelium gas is to be a new cornerstone of our modern society. In every single thorough and conclusive test we have performed, it has truly excelled itself. And of this we are most proud.

‘Therefore, I would like to inform you that as soon as our turbines are ready and complete, we will be turning on the gas ready to supply our people.’

‘No, no, no… they can’t!’ breathed Mrs. Olsen, unable to tear her eyes away from this unfolding disaster.

A background cheer erupted from the mirage, except it did not contain any cheer; it was more like a humdrum shout of acknowledgement.

‘Our message on this matter to the Old World is as follows,’ Henry continued. ‘Tough.’

Even Xandria gasped.

‘What do they mean?’ Mrs. Olsen asked, her eyes fearful.

Nobody said anything; Lars looked afraid, his lip quivering in a mixture of anger and anxiety.

‘You guys can just kill me before then,’ Gabe growled. ‘There’s no way I’m breathing a molecule of that wretched gas.’

But there was no time to fully digest this bombshell, for Henry had started speaking again.

‘Yes, people. I mean that. Tough. We feel that as a forward and modern nation, you will be only too happy to accept our wafts of gas as a gift. It will benefit you greatly and I daresay it may even act as a head start for you to begin innovating intelligently like ourselves.

‘The way we see it, you have no alternative. Perhaps if you were more efficient like New America, you would now have equal clout in stopping us. But that is not so.

‘Now we have warned you, we hope it will not be too long before your anger is calmed by our draughts of emotional suppression. It will be a wonderful day for mankind.

‘And now moving onto my second announcement: For reasons unforeseen, our current President Olivier Okadigbo has resigned his position with immediate effect. In these difficult times, we will be unable to hold an election until after the release of Ophelium. Until then however, I would like to introduce our stand-in, President Bathsheba Ermez.’

Xandria thought her Supressitor would detonate into smithereens with the shock.

Henry stood aside in the mirage, and a woman with short dark hair and a hooked nose ducked into the picture. Her dark eyes darted beadily for a second until she appeared calmer.

‘Greetings, world,’ she said smoothly. ‘I am pleased to take up this position until we can hold a democratic process.’

The woman took to power like New America had taken to suppression, a voice whispered in Xandria’s head. She shuddered, as if to shake it out of her cranial vault.

‘I intend to start by disclosing some news to the whole world - disconcerting news which I recently discovered - that under normal circumstances would not be correct protocol to share with the Old World.

‘Some months ago, Zebediah Voss, inventor of the Suppressitor, went missing. His complete disappearance singlehandedly caused the biggest public threat in New American history. Today, world, I can reveal what happened to him.’

Xandria’s mouth dropped open. She could not feel her legs.

‘Fellow citizens and Old World, this man is gone. This man has been Signed Off; this man is dead.’

The shock was molten; it was as if a plug had been pulled out from somewhere. Signed off?

‘Yes.’ Bathsheba Ermez said calmly. ‘Signed Off. Vapourised… Gone.’

‘This brings me to the crux of my message. I recently learned who the evil perpetrator was, and I warn you now, they will pay.’ She spat the vowels out as if even the mention of this scoundrel was dirty.

‘For reasons which will emerge, this message has been broadcast because this is the only way we can get through to them, hiding out like a filthy coward in the Old World.’

Too right, Xandria thought, wincing under the pressure of the now tumultuous cocktail of emotions. They better pay. Go seek them out, dig them up from wherever they’re hiding. They’ve caused me this pain, this absolute hell, the b-

‘Alfred Reinhardt. That’s the name of the New American traitor. He did this to us.’

Xandria jolted as if she had been shot. What the -?

‘Kill him!’

In the background of the mirage a shout broke out followed by much background scuffling.

‘Kill the devil!’

Bathsheba Ermez’s countenance did not change. It was as if time had ceased to exist. Xandria let out a rasp of breath. Her own grandfather? Was she hearing correctly?

The Olsens were clutching at their hearts. Nobody moved an inch.

‘People, we cannot kill him. For he had already been Signed Off before we discovered his treachery. That is why his next of kin is on our hit list. ‘

Then her face appeared closer in the mirage until only her eyes and black bushy eyebrows were in view. They were glaring straight at her.

‘Xandria Reinhardt. I repeat, Xandria Reinhardt. You are now the enemy of New America. Your family is a disgrace to civilization and you are the scourge of the Earth. Believe me when I say this, we are going to track you down and mince every odious shred of you.’ Her nose hooked back into view.

‘And on behalf of every citizen whose sanity you have robbed, I would like to tell you that you are never, ever, to set foot here again.’

The mirage emptied.

During the next few weeks the atmosphere in New America ignited. The news that Zebediah Voss was never coming back seemed to tip the already teetering population over the brink. Hysteria was mounting rapidly; more and more Suppressitors were resolutely dysfunctional and their owners were speedily consigned to the previously empty hospitals. It was as if the panic was infectious. Worried citizens would drive their emotional-wrecks of relatives to the nearest hospitals and merely dump them outside wailing and clawing, somehow hoping to transfer the burden onto the government.

In turn, the hospitals were soon bursting at the seams with citizens who were totally unfit to deal with everyday life, as a result of their sudden emotional inundation. The hospitals had never been at full capacity in all their time; the staff had neither the resources nor the know-how to deal with the situation. After a crisis talk where all the bigwigs hummed and hawed from the relative safety of their mirages, it was universally decided to sedate all patients using a drug from the same family as those given to the prisoners.

The trouble was, very soon there were no places left for the multiplying herds of citizens needing hospitalisation. Important people were shamelessly prioritised. The former President Okadigbo was cooped up in the finest hospital in the city taking up several luxury suites, as had been stipulated specifically before he agreed to stand down. That Henry Excelsior was a snitch, he bellowed away to anyone who would listen.

He had been highly peeved and exquisitely reluctant to relinquish the position that he had spent so many years fastidiously working to achieve. Especially to lose it to that stinking woman. She had known what she was doing all along, he was sure of it. Perhaps she had even facilitated his Suppressitor glitch, concocted in that dung-brain behind those beetle eyes. He had called her many choice words before he was carted off that fateful day, but now he was heavily sedated he no longer gave a monkeys.

He spent his days drugged like a mule, his mindset now comparable to that of a small child. Where previously he would have been trying to appear as if he was solving the Suppressitor crisis, these days his most challenging moments came as he attempted to complete menial tasks such as whether or not he was able to lick his own elbow.

The millions of the population who had not managed to wangle their way into hospital were left to their own devices. Frenzied masses of people made their way across the city, their work responsibilities entirely forgotten, bad temper and brawls breaking out between them with alarming frequency. Suddenly there was a catalyst, a meaty cause to get their teeth into. Something they could really direct their newfound frustrations at, and this was Ophelium.

The immediate reaction of the newly emotional swung both ways. Some fervently supported the cause; they were furious at the Reinhardts or whatever they were called for robbing them of their Suppressitors. Even in their highly agitated state they continued to agree with the rest of the country on the subject of the gas. They needed it badly and they all held the general consensus that New America should move mountains, if required, to make it happen.

These people were not the problem, however. It was the opposite faction. The worryingly large proportion of the population who despite being absolutely unhinged, had resolutely swung the other way and decided that the use of Ophelium was frankly reprehensible.

Tens of millions of protestors bombarded the city with relentless zeal. There was no logic as to who would join which side when their Suppressitors eventually broke down for good. Even previously staunch supporters of the cause turned violently on the day they went into irreversible meltdown. Images of the sea of dead animals on the island days earlier were circulated feverishly and only served as fuel for the seething masses. Tears were shed, objects were hurled, people ran blindly across busy roads - kamikaze style - consumed by their newborn passion.

Whether or not they knew what they were protesting about will never be known, but such protests rocked the entire country, grinding it to a spectacular standstill. With nowhere for the police to put the miscreants, they were left to spread their fury further and further afield. In the beginning, the government was reluctant to send these people to prison because they were confident there would soon be a permanent solution to this burgeoning of emotions. There were too many of them besides; the reaction to putting millions of people away was absolutely unthinkable, so a wait and see policy was unofficially yet reluctantly agreed upon.