“Right. Fuck,” was all she could manage.
“That’s the word for it all right,” Seamus agreed.
“So there are two big issues,” said Luckman. “How to secure future food and water supplies, and what to do with the Blanks.”
“What exactly happened to them?”
“It was the Sunburst – a massive EM pulse that exploded off the surface of the sun. It destroyed all our electrical infrastructure, just like people always said it would.
“But somehow it also wiped the minds of people who were hit by its full impact.”
“Like a global computer crash,” said Seamus.
“The Blanks have been stripped of all memory, all identity,” said Luckman.
“Everything it is to be human,” said Seamus.
“Except they still are human,” Luckman insisted. “That’s what a lot of people seem to forget. We may yet be able to help them.”
“You mean it might be reversible, what happened to them?” Mel asked him.
“That is the hot topic of debate. I think it depends on your definition of human consciousness.”
“If we are connected to something greater,” said Seamus, “maybe the imprint of their identities still exists somewhere.”
“Needless to say this isn’t a line of inquiry our surviving medical experts take seriously,” said Luckman.
“But no-one believes the Sunburst triggered the Flood?”
“The two events hit the Earth within minutes of one another – close enough to look as if they might be connected. But they weren’t. American scientists detected a massive violent explosion deep underground in the Antarctic before the Sunburst hit.”
“Meaning either God has a very sick sense of humour or someone did it on purpose,” said Seamus.
The room went quiet as the conversation hit its inevitable brick wall.
Thirteen
“Sod this for a dinner party,” Seamus slurred, in a bid to lighten the mood, “we need some music.” He pushed his chair back untidily and staggered toward Luckman’s hi-fi. Unusually for an Irishman, he was a cheap drunk. In a moment, the room filled with the incomprehensible rambling of Shane MacGowan.
“The Pogues,” Mel noted, almost approvingly.
“You’ve heard of them then,” Luckman grunted.
Seamus beamed. “I thought you looked like that sort of a girl.”
“Hell, don’t wish that on the poor woman, she’s been through enough already.”
“Bollocks to you mate. Give old Shane a go, or I’ll be forced to take you out the back and kick yer arse.”
Luckman sat for a moment, looking like he was trying to resist a sneeze. He got up. “Sorry, I can’t do it.” He walked to the hi-fi and turned it off. “Why are your CDs up here, Seamus?”
“That’s not mine,” Seamus told him, sounding wounded. “I gave that one to you for your birthday.”
Luckman opted for something more melodic.
Mel smiled. “Oh I like that – who is it?”
“George Benson,” Luckman answered, staring triumphantly at Seamus.
“I’m rising above your petty prejudices,” Seamus told him. “But while we’re on the topic of what’s mine is yours, I’m thinkin’ I might have to surrender that luxurious space you so lovingly refer to as a hovel. Seein’ as how you’re movin’ the lovely Mel here into a spare bedroom, I’m thinkin’ I could take the other one – so some of them poor sods outside can leave their tents behind. You know, winter is coming and all that.”
Luckman tried not to look dismayed. He knew Seamus was right, but he also knew his slovenly friend was unlikely to lift his standards of personal hygiene any time soon. “You’d need to work at getting your shit together, mate.”
Seamus laughed like this was an old joke between friends.
“I’m serious,” Luckman insisted. “I can’t live in a dung heap. It’ll do my head in.”
“I can tidy,” Mel offered.
“There y’go, it’s settled,” Seamus told him.
“No it’s not. What are you, six years old? We’re not your…” He stopped himself from saying parents out load.
Mel quickly changed the subject to dodge the elephant. “Is that a Northern Irish accent, Seamus?”
“Dat’s roight.”
“Lord, here we go,” Luckman muttered.
“I was with the IRA for a time. Not a terrorist, like, more your fundraiser. In Dublin. I was up and down to Belfast quite a bit.”
Luckman laughed. “Bullshit. You were a small-time pot dealer in Dublin and it turned out your supplier was funding an IRA commander.”
“Same ting boyo, same ting. And for a while there I thought about gettin’ more heavily involved,” said Seamus.
“The IRA used to raise money by tapping into the Dublin drug market,” Luckman explained. “It was the dirty little secret they didn’t want anyone to know about.”
“Me mam and da moved from Londonderry to Dublin to get away from the madness,” Seamus continued. “Didn’t save me Da – he died of lung cancer when I was 15. Ma was killed in Derry ’bout five years later, visiting May, her sister. Protestant paramilitaries blew up a car outside my aunt’s house. Wasn’t long after I found meself working for the other mob. Serendipity you might call it.”
“What stopped you going further?” asked Mel.
He looked at her for a moment before lowering his eyes, as if struggling to put his feelings into words. “I remember sittin’ in a pub in Belfast one time and havin’ a conversation with a sad drunken bully of a man about IRA history – and how religion had screwed things up. I was sayin’ it never used to be about da Catholics and da Protestants. He looked at me with death in his eyes, pulled out a revolver and stuck it in me temple. He said, ‘Don’t you be talkin’ dat shite around here. You’ll get yourself killed.’ And I’m thinkin’, yeah, by some mad fucker like you mate. They whisked him out the back door ’cos he’d well and truly crossed the line but it scared the crap outa me.”
“Those guys were nut jobs,” Luckman agreed. “The stupid thing is, Sinn Fein was trying to appeal to Protestants for support – they didn’t want the struggle to simply be on sectarian grounds. But you couldn’t tell that to the psychopathic Catholics doing the bombing and the shooting.”
“I decided I had to get out of Ireland for good,” Seamus told her.
“And how did you two meet?” asked Mel.
“If we told you that we’d have to…” Seamus trailed off.
Luckman was glaring at him.
“We met in Baghdad in 2003,” Luckman told her. “I was there with the SAS and Seamus was a medic with the Red Crescent.”
“That’s like the Red Cross, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, Iraqi chapter,” Seamus told her.
“You were working with the Iraqis?”
Seamus didn’t know what to say and looked to Luckman for help.
“This was just before the war,” Luckman explained.
“Oh right, I see. Wait, no I don’t. What was an SAS soldier doing in Baghdad just before the war?”
Seamus chuckled. “Yeah Luckman, what were you doing there?”
“How long before the war?” Mel wanted to know.
“Seamus and I left Baghdad together the day the bombs started falling,” Luckman said.
“Which is more than he’s told anyone else,” said Seamus.
“It hardly makes any difference now, I suppose,” Luckman declared.
“Shite, you mean you’re actually gonna tell us what you were up to?”
Luckman paused for effect. “Have either of you heard of the Office of Special Plans?”
Mel shook her head. Seamus furrowed his brow, as if it rang a vague bell but he couldn’t quite recall.