Black Dog White Plague

The year is 2457. Humanity has lost more than 62% of its population to the white plague.

The virus affected everyone, young and old alike. It spread slowly at first, then like wildfire. After the first rounds of vaccinations, the variants mostly affected those older than 25.

Scent, taste, touch, sight, hearing. Every sense was lost in that order, sometimes simultaneously. It took them a year to create a vaccination, which worked, and then didn’t work, as the virus mutated. For years, the pattern repeated until steady rhythm was achieved, a yearly round of vaccinations for those who could afford it. The world was segregated into heavily guarded sections, everyone’s interactions and whereabouts documented and traced. Day and night, the survivor towns are patrolled, and citizens are tested. Often, people disappear without further explanation, sometimes the guards claim that their “immunity status” allowed them to travel to Crystal City immediately.

The only hope left for those living on Earth are the castles in the sky.

I am a great, black dog. My fur is matted and grimy and patchy with bits of skin exposed to the bite of the sun. I am drenched in sweat. My yellowed teeth feel soft and loose, I imagine there is a foul stench coming from my mouth. I can feel my skin stretching taut over my rib-cage, I am more bones than muscle. There are mosquitos all around, flying close to my ear. I feel bugs crawling around inside and out … worms and fleas and ticks and mosquitos and flies. It’s the mosquitos, though, that brought Death with them. I can’t see them, but their unmistakable whine mocks my frail shadow of a body, their noise promising new bumps which will itch and swell and fill with pus. The indifferent sun keeps burning into my fur. My pads feel swollen and blistered. I don’t even feel the pain any more.

I slowly make my way through the empty street, which isn’t empty at all, just very, very still. There are bodies all around, leaning against the yellow earthen houses with their rigid backs, lying face down or in foetal position in the middle of the road. Their bodies are covered in itchy red blotches, filled with pus. Their eyes are open and completely white.

I keep walking, but suddenly I am no longer a dog. I am just me. And before me is my home, or what is left of it. The bombs had fallen, and people kept shooting each other despite the white plague which already shut down so many countries. Hatred made everyone blind until the end, and if hatred didn’t, then the virus did.

Now I see a young woman and a girl, who is me. The woman already has eyes as white as a cloud, but she can still speak. She can still hear. Hearing is the last sense to disappear, before the darkness takes you. The girl who is me cradles her older sister in her arms, among the ruin of their house. She sings for her, as tears drip onto her sisters’ face, leaving a dark smear on her dusty cheeks.

The girl who is me is alone now.

She looks at the great black dog lying on the road. It is quite small actually; its breath is shallow.

The dog wonders when it fell on its side, it didn’t remember falling yet. The girl feels a gentle hand on her shoulders. She looks up, and looks Death in the hollow face.

Kaya opens her eyes and for a brief moment she doesn’t remember where she is. The images of the dream linger in her mind like a disturbing aftertaste.

As the sedative wears off, feeling returns to her limbs. She remembers where she is headed.

She is inside a sleek white box, curled up in order to minimize the space she occupies. Her sedative wasn’t supposed to have worn off yet. She wonders if it had malfunctioned, perhaps they forgot to adjust it. She can hear the faint electric whirring noise of the flying car as it floats across the sky lane, among the other aircars. Her leg feels asleep, but pins and needles don’t bother her. Meeting Mr K tonight is a greater concern. Amongst all of Madame’s Clients, he enjoys inflicting pain the most.

Soon Kaya hears the sounds of Crystal City beneath and all around. There is bird song, which she knows is artificial. There are no birds nor trees here. Humanity had escaped the white plague by creating floating islands powered by gigantic nuclear waste diamond batteries within. Huge numbers of people were left behind on Earth. The floating cities depend on the survivors to mine, to harvest, to fish. The people die young, most start dying at the age of 25, some younger. If they are lucky, they make it to 30 before the plague takes them. They work hard to feed the floating cities, keeping the dream alive that one day they too can escape this nightmare and live up high above the clouds. Furthermore, by working for cloud cities, they can buy another year of life every time a new vaccination becomes available for the newest variant of the virus.

The sounds are much softer here than those of Prism, the largest floating city above the country, and the loudest, most chaotic and notorious one, plagued by gang fights and crime of all kinds. In Prism, Madame’s Fantasy Tower is her current “home” at the very edge of the floating city. Naturally, her kind lives on the edge, while the elite remains sheltered deep within. Rarely, Kaya would stand at the window and stare at the first stars as the blue and black of night veiled the horizon, and then her eyes would wander over the contours of the grey clouds beneath and she felt like a completely different person, like someone who is from a different planet merely visiting very briefly. Mostly, though, she doesn’t have time for these kinds of thoughts. She pushes her own thoughts and feelings as far away as she can. In her life, there is little use for either. She is considered a mere object here, so she behaves like one. It helps to forget. She has already lost it all, her family, her home, her country, the ground beneath her feet. Neither her body nor her will belong to her.

Despite herself, memories flash through her mind of the day they had found her and picked her up from among the bodies, tested her for the virus, brought her to Prism once they found that she was immune. When she was brought before Madame, she was ceremonially given her collar. And the next day they took her arms. Every one of Madame’s girls was personally amputated by Madame herself. Both forearms were replaced by bionic arms, as was her custom. Over the last five years serving Madame’s Clients, Kaya had fulfilled their every fantasy, as instructed. Her arms were constantly replaced, morphing in shape, colour, texture, even taste and scent, and function. She had become one of Madame’s most successful servants. She never complained. She never spoke unless necessary.

Inside the box, she carefully unfurls her arms. Tonight, they are two tentacles. She gently moves one up towards her neck. The collar is beautiful, a small silver heart shaped locket daintily hung from an elegant black velvet collar. A couple of small needles were inserted as part of permanently attaching the collar mechanism. When the silver heart is pressed once, she rapidly loses strength as complete paralysis overcomes her body. Is it pressed twice, a sedative allows her to drift into the world of dreams. She considers pressing it twice before arrival, but already the vehicle has landed and her current Guardian opens the doors. She can feel her box glide out of the car. The box sits on a silver hover disc, which allows Guardian to guide it around effortlessly. The box looks like a common delivery box, pure white, befitting the interior of Mr K’s home and his person.

For a couple of minutes Kaya listens to muffled noise vaguely akin to an exchange of greetings and the familiar sensation of receiving a full body scan as they enter through security, Kaya still in her box of course, as is the norm. None of the Clients want to openly receive sex workers at their home, especially cyborx. Besides, receiving the package is part of Madame’s services.

With a soft knock on Mr K’s door and the laboured grunt from inside followed by “it’s open, goddamnit!” and a nasal “you’re late”, they arrive at his bed-playroom. The familiar, detested scent of Mr K’s cologne and sweat fills her nostrils. Guardian opens the box with a professional gesture, exposing the “doll” inside. He then opens an adorned flask with a pink liq-uid inside and holds it under her nose. The acidic yet floral burn of the smell is expected, though usually it wakes her, unlike today. Guardian is wearing a mask, as usual. But some-thing feels off about him, there is a quality of movement that feels unfamiliar. She has no time to think about it further, she quickly falls into character. As Guardian helps her sit up and takes her tentacle as she steps out of her box, she notices that Guardian’s hand feels smaller, firmer, but she doesn’t dwell on it. She catches sight of herself in one of the numerous tall mirrors. She is wearing very little, and what she does wear is suitably reminiscent of the ocean, translucent watery chiffon and silvery scalic details.

She glides towards her Client, whose small blue eyes are alight with a cruel hunger. Some of the wounds from her last visit still haven’t healed. She extends one tentacle towards his knee, glides up his leg, the other towards his face and neck. She is hoping that he will have his fill quickly, so that it will be over faster. This room, with its dim yellow orange lights and coral walls with the green jungle wall paint and the silky red and gold cushions have often been the scene of her nightmares. As his fat sweaty fingers grope her body and pull her towards him with hands which are sticky with the sauce of whatever he ate last, she notices the tiger in the room. Numbly, she reasons that it must be the newest addition to his exotic pets. She tries to ignore Mr K, knowing that this incites his anger and excites him even more, and notices the tiger’s missing teeth and claws. The tiger must have been amputated when it got here, just like her. Neither of them should be here, so high up in the clouds, clawless, fangless, armless.

“What’re ya doin there, standin around for? Get yer ass outta my sight. Or it’ll be the last thing ya do! It’s a long flight back down to San Francisco, and you oughtn’t try me tonight!” bellowed Mr K, in between laboured breaths. Guardian is staring at her intently, through his black and white mask. She cannot see his eyes; the slits are too narrow. But she can feel the tension in his body. Only then does she understand that something is truly off – Guardian never stays in the room with them, or any Client, unless the Client wants the audience.

What happens then, happens too quick for her eyes to make sense of it – a swift motion, a flash of silver through the air, and a knife sticking out from between Mr K’s eyebrows. As Death veils his eyes, his great weight sinks towards Kaya. She steps backwards, before being trapped beneath him. Guardian is already by her side, gripping her tentacle and pulling her towards the door.

“Quickly, now, we don’t have much time!” he says. No... the voice is female. Numbly, she shakes her head. “I…I can’t. They’ll find me, they’ll kill us.”

She snorts.

“They can try!”