Day 39 - Babel - Chapter 1 (1411 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Babel

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 1

It started with a cough and was followed by a slight headache that would last a couple of days, then you'd get better and think that it had passed, but it had not. It would sit in the body for six months, and then it would come back with a vengeance and you would get a full on fever and the shakes, a mind splitting headache and nausea as you got sicker and sicker. Very few people died from the illness, the very old and the very sick would of course suffer more than most and some of them, tens of thousands worldwide it was thought were dying from it, but the counts were interrupted when the real symptoms arrived.

When the other people who caught the disease got better, as 99.9% of them did, they felt like they had dodged a bullet and felt healthier than they had ever been before. Some of the better than they had been before they got sick. They survived this awful disease and came out better for it health wise, with one major and consistent symptom.

The first few cases were thought to be delirium, an output of the fever stage but soon it was happening to everyone, long after the secondary symptoms left the infected. While the media still existed and while there were still governments left to react and to tell the people of the world what to do next, they gave the disease a name.

The Babel Virus. The first cases after the secondary symptoms appeared started talking gibberish, unintelligible and gutteral noises that replaced whatever language they were speaking. Scientists worked to isolate the areas of the brain affected and concluded in short order that the affected people had a swelling, an infection in that area of the brain that powered speech and language and that caused the gibberish, the inability to read or write, no matter what language it was. They saw that it was connected to the earlier world wide outbreak of a what was thought to be an innocuous flu virus that spread around and got everyone earlier that year.

Then it started spreading exponentially fast and all the studies and the work on vaccines came to an abrupt halt as the very people studying it felt victim to the disease's progression, could no longer read their notes, read the results of tests or communicate with any one else either. One by one the countries fell to the Babel virus, it knew no borders and made no racial distinctions. There was panic and fear which lead to all sorts of disasters and disagreements unable to be resolved. People with guns took drastic measures to protect themselves from other people simply because their intentions were unknown. Families barricaded themselves indoors and things like money and communication networks became irrelevant as they could not be used for anything.

There was violence erupting and governments no longer existed, no one could tell anyone what to do. The police tried to do their job, but unless the crime happened right in front of them it was impossible. Supermarkets and shops were looted, but in the least dangerous ways. No one stopped anyone taking anything except food and drink, they were the new precious resources. People fought and died over precious metals and jewellery and luxury cars were just being driven away, but with little or no rule of law it was the quietest destruction of civilisation imaginable, mobs did not exist because no one understood each other. It was less a matter of making peace with people of like minds, because no one was talking to one another. If you already knew someone, you were lucky if you trusted them, because you could predict and communicate in a very rough fashion by knowing how and when to react to them.

No army, no hospitals, no essential services were being manned. Alarms went off all over the world but unless the resolution had obvious and non communicative components there was no way to deal with them effectively.

Many, many more people died in the months that followed and small independent communities sprung up to band together for protection and companionship where they could find it. Power stations collapsed and phone lines were no use, the internet still worked, but was much smaller than it had ever been and no one was in a position to update it or to manage any of the infrastructure.

Uninterrupted power supplies and back up systems kept a lot of services running and even though they could not communicate with each other, a number of skilled individuals became key members of their communities and could build power systems from hydroelectric generators or solar panel arrays and slowly some of these small communities began to live a semi normal life again, teaching and guiding each other through mime and sign language to communicate and pass on skills.

One in a thousand people had a natural immunity to the initial virus and retained their abilities, and this gave them an advantage in finding and passing on knowledge to others. They could read manuals and follow instructions and figured out ways to help where they could, becoming central figures and leaders in the Tribes that sprang forward from the aftermath of the Babel Virus. Each Tribe had different attributes and some worked well and for the benefit of all, while others were abusive and centred on the strong and selfish people at the core. The immunity was no respecter of character at all and some of the Tribes were animalistic and vicious inside, with no benefit to the people inside. Most of the time this meant that those Tribes imploded though violence borne of frustration or disintegrated through he inability to communicate their control.

Humanity began to find its balance again, with some basic communications through Radio as a few language enabled people sought out the one in a thousand people like them and used a small network to work with other communities to help humanity survive.

It was hard and despite the best efforts of humans to try and find a solution that worked for everyone a lot of people died, sometimes with no fault of their own or the support of people around them. Occasionally dams burst, power stations exploded, the nuclear ones in particular were devastating in their destructive force when left alone to rot. No one knew how many people had died, and there was no way to know what was happening in other countries.

People who knew how to fly could still fly, but fuel production was stopped entirely, and there was no air traffic control any more so flying was by sight only, in small craft only using fuel found in storage. The situation with boats was similar but much easier to manage, sail-boats were the best option for sea travel and for moving some things around the various lands, but with society compressed in on itself and the city’s being death traps of decaying time-bombs made of systems taken for granted, humanity moved en masse to the country areas of their lands. More arable land meant more production of food and managing of livestock.

There were skirmishes and fights over certain areas and access to water and food stock, but any enemy mindset was unable to take off too far as you could not rally people to any cause even a selfish one. It was in everyone's best interest to work together, those who could not suffered from being unable to cope alone. They could not protect themselves when asleep or alone.

Things were starting to settle, people were getting along and the new way of living was working and the hope that had been just out of reach in the minds of the people unable to talk or connect with any other people in any detailed fashion, was now felt keenly and communally.

Then the ships arrived. At various stages, night or day around the world ships descended from the sky and landed near the bigger cities on earth and from them the aliens arrived. They had no name because there was no unified presence to name them, those who could talk, in the limited way that they could to other tribes, just called them “Them”. With no one able to organise against them in any effective way, the earth was invaded, occupied and claimed for another species within twenty four hours.