</recollection>
So here I was, thirteen years later, in that other place Miach had told us about.
Already, several small-scale disturbances had broken out across the globe. The police forces, accustomed to the peaceful routine of everyday life, were immediately overloaded, and many cities and admedistrations had gone weeping to those few remaining countries with standing militaries to beg for assistance.
<movie:ar:id=6aehko908724h3008k>
<fear>
Franz Recht picked up the knife his wife always used and looked at it.
It was the knife she used to cut cabbage for her sauerkraut.
The knife she used to slice blutwurst.
Franz Recht had never been very good at cooking. He had left all that to her. He would clean up around the house and go shopping, but he had never cooked a single meal. It had been a long time since he had even set foot in the kitchen.
Once he had stepped in though, his eyes had started to swim. Perhaps he was dazed by the sheer variety of potentially lethal items he found there. Practically any of them would suit his current purpose. Which made sense, when he thought about it. This was a place for ending and processing life.
Cutting, carving, beating, burning, stewing, steaming.
Many religions have rules about food.
<dictionary>
<item>Kosher</item>
<definition>
Dietary restrictions followed by those of the Jewish faith. As blood is life, goes one teaching, the blood must be removed from food in the proper manner. A strict observer’s kitchen will have two sinks. One to drain the blood and purify the food, the other for typical kitchen use. Pork, considered to never be clean, is prohibited.
</definition>
<item>Halal<item>
<definition>
Tenets of Islam, especially those pertaining to food. Halal literally means “that which is permitted by Allah.” All meat must be slaughtered according to the method called dhabiha if it is to be halal. Dhabiha requires that you use a sharp knife to cut the windpipe, esophagus, and carotid artery swiftly, so as to cause the animal as little pain as possible, while leaving the spinal cord intact. The preparer then says “Bismillah Allahu akbar” to ask for Allah’s blessing, and only then is the meat considered to be halal.
</definition>
</dictionary>
This was the way food used to be. Only consumed after all the necessary, annoying protocol had been followed. That was how killing was too.
“Honey!”
A call from the door. Franz’s wife was home. His eyes went to the entranceway. Franz went down the hall to greet his wife just inside the door, where he plunged the carving knife he had just picked up in the kitchen into her chest.
Being a rather moderate Christian, Franz had no need for halal or dhabiha. He certainly wasn’t going to say Allahu akbar. He just had to thrust out with his arm to bury the knife—the one she used to cut the cabbage for her sauerkraut—into her rib cage.
Her eyes met his in surprise.
Perhaps he was frightened, or perhaps—being an amateur at this—he wasn’t sure how much force was necessary to actually kill, or whether he had managed to hit a vital organ. So to be safe, Franz knelt over his fallen wife and stabbed her again and again. He stabbed her in the chest and the stomach and everywhere except her head, that head with the beautiful face. He kept stabbing for several minutes until her body was in ribbons.
</fear>
Then Franz put a hand to one ear and called the police, while he was still straddling his wife’s corpse. Yes, I just killed my wife. Yes. You know, what they were saying, how we had to kill someone or we would die? I figured there’s no death penalty in this country. And I don’t mean to be demanding, but could you please send a patrol car to pick me up? What?They’re all out? I see, well I suppose everyone is busy these days. Busy like me.
Franz hung up the phone and stared at the body beneath him for a few moments before he began to weep.
</movie>
“And that’s just one example,” Stauffenberg was saying. Everyone participating in the AR session was standing, stunned, wherever they happened to be in the real world.
“It appears the declaration started to take hold in earnest yesterday. We’ve had other killings and many suicides as well. Even with the gag order on the media, everyone seems to be getting the same idea.”
Someone asked what the admedistrations were doing.
Stauffenberg shook her head. “Those admedistrations with enough wherewithal to hire civilian police forces have sent them all out already. In addition, at the general assembly of the admedistrations, they made a request for national police forces and armies and, if possible, Geneva Convention forces to be placed in every city, but it’s already getting difficult to find available troops, and many places are already too destabilized to help. Riots and lawlessness are spreading. It is, in fact, looking like the second coming of the Maelstrom, at least to hear the older folks tell it. No place is safe. Kill another, kill yourself, or be killed. It’s the perfect recipe for chaos.”
Different images flickered on the virtual screen. A pile of bloody corpses, thirty high, resting on a cobblestone street in some typical European village. Medical troops wearing pink gas masks were adding bodies to the pile, trying to clear a path for vehicles to pass. Another clip showed men and women breaking through barricades, wielding sticks and pipes against the army; the troops turned to using nonlethal microwaves to keep them back. The rioters would just run off in some other direction. No matter what the soldiers did, it was ineffective.
“The day after tomorrow is the deadline, so to speak. Fear has swallowed many already, and it will get worse.”
A satellite image showed a group of half-dressed men in a circle around two combatants wielding knives, caught by the satellite’s cold gaze. The men around were urging on the two in the middle. Once each of them had killed one other person, the group would disperse. If men had the rational capacity to make rules for killing like this, how could they lack the rational ability to choose not to believe the declaration and let the deadline come? Our hyperbolic valuing system overestimated the clear and present fear, driving us to illogical action.
We were breaking open the piggy bank with money still in our wallets.
“There are, at present, no reports of any murders within our police or military forces. However, I would not be much surprised if those reports came—merely disheartened.”
“Even if the killer was a Helix agent?” I asked with dark sarcasm in my voice.
Prime’s lips thinned, and a twisted smile came to her face. “Yes, even then. I fully intend to stay at my post until the moment of reckoning, as I believe all of you will choose to do, but with such chaos before us, I can understand if you are finding your resolve tested. Not that I’m worried about you, Agent Kirie. You’ve already killed someone, haven’t you.”
“In self-defense.”
“Lucky for you. Must be nice to kill without feeling guilt.”
“Shouldn’t we be talking about the investigation?” I asked, countering Stauffenberg’s sarcasm with duty. Prime nodded quietly and motioned for me to continue.