https://www.scribd.
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Ghost Town.
Most of the time the only sound was the faint hissing of the air-supply.
Tirelessly the machine pumped ozonated, filtered air into the carrier
vehicle. Always at a slightly higher pressure than outside, so air would leak
out, but never in. So accustomed was he to this background sound that
Carter’s voice made him start.
“What a twatwaffle!” Carter observed.
Shane glanced at the main screen. A man had rounded the corner.
Shane rewound the feed a couple of seconds. There had been a definite
hesitation as he had seen the parked police vehicle. You didn’t often see
police on the streets. You didn’t often see anyone on the streets. An IC1
wearing a surgical mask. The latter had provoked Carter’s comment.
Information that such masks were no defence against infection had been
around for decades. Still some people insisted on wearing them. Shane’s
own protective mask was a sophisticated filter device, currently hanging
just below his chin.
Policemen senses focussed on the subject. Possible east European
features. Probably a descendent of the migrant families that had been
unable to return to their own countries when it had all went down. Most of
those were honest families who had been trying to accrue a nest-egg by a
few years work in the west. But with them had come some of the most
ruthless criminals London had seen in a long time. Prostitution and human
trafficking mainly, but side-lines in drugs and blackmail. Perhaps the man
had a better reason for wanting his face covered?
“Dealer, you think?” asked Carter, obviously noting the same thing. The
man didn’t look like he was out for some shopping. Most people had their
stuff delivered. Carter’s hand hovered over the control that would open
the doors. Shane waved him off. It wasn’t worth breaking the seal for. If
they had to open the doors, the interior and the officers would have to go
through an elaborate wash-down later.
Shane tagged the suspect for possible drone surveillance. See where he
goes, who he delivers to. The odds were still with the suspect. Even with
only a small fraction of the population ever on the streets, there were still
more people than police drones. And drones could lose people, particularly
if an Underground journey was involved.
Shane pushed the main screen away from him. It was mounted on a
jointed arm, the joints fitted with inertial devices. The screen could be
moved around with relatively little effort. Violent accelerations and
decelerations locked the arm so it would not flail around. This was all
explained in a sticker on the arm. Shane had read that sticker multiple
times on long watches. It was more believable than the news-strip feeds.
This particular police-carrier had no windows, hence the screens and
numerous camera pickups on the outside. Cutting some real windows in
the half-inch armoured sides was scheduled for some unspecified time in
the future when there was a budget for it. There were also some periscope
affairs on the roof that were seldom used. Non-electronic, 1940s-style
tech.
Once, such a vehicle would have carried a dozen men. The idea was
repulsive, disturbing, even. Carter and Shane were the only occupants, and
sat in opposite corners, as one might expect. The driver’s compartment
had been sealed off. If Shane and Carter had to dismount the driver would
remain clean. Today’s driver, like most, was an auxiliary, not a full cop.
Shane had not bothered to learn who it was.
The diversion passed, both officers settled back. They had long since
exhausted any topics of conversation. The two veterans would continue to
wait and watch. Ignoring each other was the best way to get through the
ordeal of being in such close proximity.
Shane panned a camera up and down the street. Empty, as expected.
Most of the parked cars had not been driven in years.
Shane was a little older than Carter. If he tried, he could just about
remember the city as it was before. Once the pavements had been full of
people. And cars had flowed up and down the streets. So many they
formed a continuous river of vehicles, be it, admittedly, a very slow-
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moving one. So frequent was traffic that few streets got a chance to
become clogged with derelicts and rubbish. And there had been pubs,
clubs, and cafes where people had crowed together, and that had not
seemed scary back them. People seemed to have enjoyed it!
That had changed when Shane had still been young. Everyone had been
ordered to stay at home. Luckily the country was sufficiently advanced that
it could handle such an extraordinary change. Many people found they
could work from home, and groceries could be ordered by internet and
delivered. So they did, and it all went on much longer than anyone had
expected.
Pubs, clubs and cafes became a thing of the past. People seldom when
out, and if they did they avoided crowds, naturally enough. Restaurants
only persisted if they could maintain a sufficient volume of deliveries.
Many of the smaller, independent places folded. Government aid money
mainly went to big businesses, those which, coincidentally, had the former
school-friends of ministers on their boards.
Street crime became virtually non-existent. You could steal a car, but no
one was buying cars. You could joy-ride on the empty roads, but were
easily located and caught. Traditional burglary became difficult when most
residences were occupied all of the time. On the other hand, there had
been an unpleasant rise in home invasions. When any movement on the
streets was conspicuous, there was a certain logic to holing up in a
location. Occupancy was often spent in rape and torture. Torture to
discover valuables, or just for amusement. With people confined with
relatives for long periods of time, domestic violence had also risen.
Britain had already been moving towards a predominance of service
industries, so working from home was an easy transition for some of the
workforce. In the past millions of workers had crowded together and
commuted into London every morning, and commuted out again every
evening, spending hours of the day in travel. The move towards working
from home had notably improved their lives. The change was tougher on
some middle managers, who found they had no real function outside of an
https://www.scribd.com/document/453668982/Ghost-Town
office environment. It became obvious that some owed their position
entirely to manipulation of office politics.
Schools and universities had moved further towards on-line learning, a
field in which many were already well-established. A whole generation with
little experience of personal social interaction outside the family had been
raised.
More physical jobs such as construction were transformed by
technologies such as telefactoring. Unsurprisingly, Japan pioneered this,
only to lose the market to Korea, and they to Indonesia and India. Of
course, the fall in population had considerably reduced the need for
housing and road-maintenance.
London had once had a population that had exceeded that of most
countries. Now most of them formed a new layer over Blackheath. Even
more were at the bottom of the North Sea.
A headline on the strip-feed caught Shane’s eye: “European population
still declining. Pope to comment later today.”
No mystery, your holiness, thought Shane, people are not fucking!
There were no pubs and clubs to congregate in, and who would want to be
so close to so many people? The idea was suicidal! For most people the
only contact they had were the immediate family they lived with.
Socializing with others was on-line, and usually remained exclusively so.
Very rarely did such relationships progress to a physical meeting. There
were safer and more convenient ways to deal with any physical needs. Sex
toys and specialized computer peripherals were a big industry. Even many
couples who lived together dealt with such things independently, and
Shane could understand why. He was no stranger to viewing vintage and
CGI porn, but the idea of doing such things to an actual person...to be so
vulnerable, so close! What the pandemic had started, the solution would
continue. The Pope might not approve, but the human population would
continue to fall, and mother nature would breathe a little easier.
A bleep from the motion sensor. Movement on the screen. A brightly
painted van was approaching. Both men relaxed as the pizza van rolled
past. The legend on the side included the word “gnotobiotic”. Like
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“organic” it was a scientific term whose meaning had been hijacked and The Books
perverted by big industry. Shane had not noticed if the van had had an on-
board human driver. Most deliverymen were either “posts” who had had the
disease and survived, or certified “immunes”. Both were required to have
papers confirming they were not carriers. Such workers were relatively
rare. When the lockdown had come, workers in “essential services” were
required to work as normal, and many had been in the lowest paid, least
appreciated positions. Many had not survived, creating a society in the
unusual position that it was short of menial helots. If you could pass the
medical tests, deliveryman was a well-paying job now. Shane earned less as
a cop.
An alert appeared on his screen. Rather than read his own, Carter raised
an eyebrow and listened to Shane’s summary:
“Six plus children playing in the street in Walthamstow. No records of a
family that size, they must be a mix. Christ! Will these people never learn?”
He toggled the intercom to the driver and banged on the bulkhead for
good measure.
“East seventeen! You have the details! Let’s roll”.
The engine of the armoured carrier roared into life.

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