The Watch in the Sand: Part 1

7:31 am, October 3, 2055

It was raining hard as Jack Reed ran from the train station, heading further from downtown Chicago. The high-speed train had taken only four minutes to get to the northern suburbs, and from the station it was a three minute run to Erin’s office. Jack wasn’t sure why he had decided on Erin — had he even decided? Or had his body taken over, guiding his footfalls towards the north-bound platform while his brain was confused? Was he deciding anything, he wondered? All he could remember was staring at the bodies, scared and alone, and then running for the northbound train.

The rain clattered noisily against Jack’s hat while mirrors of water shattered as his feet stomped through them. He needed to speak to Erin. His mind reeled as he rehearsed in his head exactly what he would say to her, the questions he would ask, and how he would beg for her help.

As he ran, some small part of his brain, a part not consumed with what he had just seen, noticed the billboard across the street. “Slow down, Jack, the journey is what matters,” the letters proudly proclaimed. A young attractive blond — just Jack’s type — was smiling at him, and holding a soft-drink with the logo proudly displayed on the can and strategically placed on her sweater. Jack ignored the intrusion, trying not to think of Connie as he ran, while silent electric cars drove through the streets guided by their computers, analyzing desired destinations and local traffic to get their passengers where they needed to go.

Jack forced himself to breathe slower. He couldn’t panic. Not yet. He needed to talk to Erin first. He ran faster to fight the tears that were building up. Uncertainty began to creep through his brain like water through cracking concrete. What if she wasn’t there? Perhaps she stayed home today, or had seen the news already and was running towards someone else? When he finally arrived outside her office building, he heaved a sigh of relief to see her walking towards him from the parking lot. He stopped under the front awning, and caught his breath as she drew near. She was putting something back into her purse as she looked up and caught his eye. Surprise, delight, and concern flashed in sequence across her face. She walked over to him.

“Jack? What are you doing here?”

Jack could barely grunt as he took off his dripping hat. He breathed hard through his nose, not daring to release his jaw to open his mouth. Not just yet.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Seven years of experience delivering bad news to confused family members while on the police force abandoned him as he looked at Erin’s concerned face. Erin never checked the Boards in the morning until she got to work. It was one of the things Jack and Connie liked about her. He had planned how he would tell her, carefully choosing his words to keep her calm, and then convince her to help him, but now the words rang shallow and callous in his mind. He couldn’t be the one to tell her.

“Check the Boards,” he said. Erin cocked her head in confusion, but Jack saw her eyes gently unfocus as she tapped into the Boards through the Line. Jack could imagine her daily routine — getting into the office, sitting down and enjoying a cup of coffee, while she tapped into the Boards, glancing at her friends, checking on their moods, reading her favorites, scanning her recent posts to see how many Pluses and Negs they have received from millions of other posters, maybe even skimming the PostCenter feeds to see if there was anything to look at more carefully later.

Today would be different, though. Jack watched as Erin’s face twisted. First the eyebrows rose in a classic face of shock and amazement. The jaw loosened and her lips parted in confusion and uncertainty. A split second later the parted lips tightened into an ‘oh’ of horror as the scope of the event hit her.

“My god,” she whispered, finally. There was little else that could be said, Jack knew. Everything she could ever want to say had already been said on the Boards. He reached for her hand, but her eyes barely flickered as she pulled away to wipe the threatening tears from her eyes, and then returned to staring straight ahead — her eyes frozen in place. The rain fell unheeded onto the awning above their heads. Jack waited for a few moments, then broke in.

“Anyone you know?”

“Steven, and Kelly,” Erin nodded once. “And a few others I follow. Some people from work…Oh god, Connie… Jack, I’m so sorry.” She wiped her face again. Jack noticed her eyes were still unfocused as she flew across the Boards, looking for friends who were not marked as deceased — looking for facts, opinions, guesses, and solace. Jack could guess exactly what her Board was doing. First, her mood would change. Either consciously or involuntarily, her Board would now register her as ‘shocked,’ or perhaps ‘distraught.’ She would post next: a few lines about how she just now found out, linking to the appropriate news or opinion posts. Now she would be reading other people’s posts, Plussing or Negging each one, depending on if she liked or disliked what she read, all through the Line — the direct mental connection to the Boards. Aided by the Algorithm, which would point her in the right direction for whatever she was looking for, the whole process would take less than a minute. She’d be finished before her breathing could become regular again.

Jack didn’t have that kind of time — he couldn’t afford to be sensitive to her emotional state. He took a step to the left to stand in her line of vision. Her eyes snapped back into focus.

“I need your help,” he said, gently taking her shoulders. “I was downtown with… when it happened. I was there.”

“My god, you were?” Erin muttered, still in shock. “You survived? Why didn’t you post about it? You saw it happen?”

“Hey!” he barked, snapping his fingers in front of her face as her eyes began to unfocus again. “Get out of the Boards. I need you to stay with me here. Don’t bother checking my Board — I locked it down. I don’t need the attention right now.” He paused, choosing his next words carefully. “I couldn’t have posted anyway. The Line went down. Everywhere in downtown Chicago was cut off from the Boards.” Erin nodded slowly, and licked her lips.

“It’s back up,” Erin was saying. “The Line was restored eight minutes ago. What did you see?”

“I…” Jack paused. What could he tell her? What had he seen? The images rose in his memory like murky bubbles. Jack could feel the tears and panic start to surge from his gut again — he choked it down, and took a deep breath.

“I saw… It was about 7:20. We were walking towards the high speed train, when everyone… so many people… just dropped. Fell to the ground like they had all been knocked unconscious. There were only four of us still standing… Two of them were just looking around… the third ran… I checked a few of the bodies, and they were dead. Connie was…”

The mental dam Jack had built crumbled. The burning tears poured from his face and mingled with the rain on the wet pavement. Erin gripped him on the shoulder, and he collapsed into her, holding her tightly as wracked sobs shook his body.

The faces. The faces had scared him the most — they hadn’t changed. He had been looking at Connie’s face when she fell. There was no flash of pain or surprise on her face — her eyes hadn’t even flickered. She simply collapsed, like a puppet with cut strings. The other bodies were the same — crumpled in a heap like so much dirty laundry, their flat affects supplying their gruesome death masks. Connie was gone. He hadn’t even doubted it for a second — he knew she was gone the second she fell. He remembered staring at the collapsed form of his lover, wondering who had put this strange and lifeless doll in her place.

Jack and Erin hugged each other tightly, together in grief. After a minute, Erin reached out and touched the small brown strip next to the door. A small click joined the pattering of the rain in the street. She opened the door, and pushed Jack gently inside as the door closed silently behind them.