Susan's Plague

Chapter 1 - The Core

Sean stared out the picture window, peering across the glistening, rain-slicked street at the empty playground, a portrait of urban blight. It was the only thing out the window that wasn't concrete and glass, so when he stared out the window, he stared at the park. That ugly, forsaken park.

He rubbed his burning eyes and yawned. Lately he found sleep to be elusive, when things were quiet, his mind would race. It was irritating. He noticed a figure in the window of a nearby high-rise, he watched for a moment before the light source extinguished and he could no longer tell if someone was there or not. He couldn't tell if it was mutual curiosity, or coincidence.

The high-rise was a grey, sullen beast of a building, stained concrete and boarded windows 80 floors high, much larger than his. Far older as well. The rent was low, the crime was high and the occupants had few alternatives that were any better. A burning shoe thrown from another darkened window caught his attention, Sean's laurel green eyes followed it down to where it disappeared from view in the adjacent lot. He waited for the fire to catch. To his relief, it didn't, to his greater relief, this time it wasn't a body.

The desolate and unkempt park was largely unused, by children at least. It was however, a mecca for illegal activity, Sean himself had notified the authorities of a dead body more than once. It was certainly no place for children, day or night. A rusty merry-go-round sat dormant while sun-faded plastic swings danced at the end of their chains tossed about by a stiff, cold wind. The overgrown grass, weed and thistle were beginning to brown as the days wound their way through October.

He watched a couple prostitutes trying to seek refuge from the rain under the eaves of a shuttered cantina. They huddled close, appearing to share a Stim-haler, a cheap and popular drug with skin-traders. Although they would be clearly visible from the pole-mounted sensor across the street, there would be no authorities dispatched to this neighbourhood. The Core's veritable panopticon ever evident as the glint of a passing quad-rotor caught Sean's eye. The drone hovered for a second near the women, likely running a quick ID scan. It was hard to discern through the drizzle, but he could have sworn it turned and pointed straight at his window before darting off. Damn drones.

Sean drew a shape on the glass and instantly it became opaque, he tried to push the paranoia to the back of his mind and to focus on something else. Of course, there wasn't a hell of a lot going on in his life to focus on these days. He made another gesture on the wall  and it sprang to life as a two meter wide display.

"News one." Sean said, setting the channel. "Volume fourteen." He crossed the room and sat himself in a maroon, synthetic leather armchair that groaned as it took his weight. He reached for a can on the nearby end table and took a slow sip. He admired the ring of condensate left on the table and made a mental note to get some coasters.

The news broadcast showed an aerial view of twisted, smoking wreckage, some of it still ablaze. The fiery, gaping maw of a tunnel entrance belched a rolling black cloud that swirled high above the immense, castellated wall though which the tunnel passed. A black, sooty scorch mark ringed the entrance like a dark corona. It appeared that an explosion occurred just as the first car of the mag-lev passed into the Core. The voice-over described the scene.

"...how it failed has yet to be determined. What we can tell you at this point is that there was a large detonation of an unknown source that occurred around seventeen-thirty-three this evening as the transcontinental, route ten mag-lev entered the Core perimeter. The mag-lev was entirely derailed as it passed through the wall, a large portion of wreckage still remains outside the perimeter. Meta Med-Tech services and E-Response teams are already on-site. The level of kinetic damage seems to indicate the mag-lev had also not decelerated to subsonic velocity prior to approaching the Core as they are designed to do. Eyewitnesses further confirm this as they reportedly heard nothing before the explosion and subsequent crash. First on scene, E-Response commander Frank Meseller spoke earlier with the media and indicated chances of survival for the passengers was close to zero, saying this is likely going to be a cleanup operation not a rescue."