Bernard Marlowe stepped up to the microphone, and a hushed silence swept across the auditorium packed with twenty thousand greying baby boomers. After enjoying decades of wealth, prosperity and stability these people, who were older than a Rolling Stones audience and whiter than a Ku Klux Klan rally, were thrilled to finally have something to be angry about. That was what Marlowe provided for them, and they had all given up their evenings of watching The Mentalist in their comfortable suburban homes for the chance to catch a glimpse of their idol.
“This is the most dangerous and incompetent government in our nation’s history!” Marlowe thundered. “The Prime Minister has blood on his hands!”
This, like everything that disgorged from Marlowe’s mouth, was met with raucous cheers.
Supporting Marlowe tonight was his loving family: wife Celine, proudly displaying her new surgically-enhanced shrink-wrapped face, and twin daughters Madison and Stephanie, both outfitted in the latest runway designs.
The girls had jumped at the chance to act as stage props in front of such a huge audience. The two of them had eagerly embraced the famous-for-being-famous lifestyle ever since they were thrust into the limelight, and wasted little time in taking advantage of their newfound celebrity-by-osmosis. Barely a day went by without their picture appearing in The Daily Ink’s social pages, whether they were modelling in fashion shows, attending glamorous A-list events, promoting their range of designer handbags, DJing in clubs, or whatever else people did when they had a high profile but possessed no discernible talent. Their enthusiastic partying had come at a cost, though – they were now the oldest-looking twenty-two-year-olds you were ever likely to see.
“When we are elected to government,” Marlowe continued, a statement that was met with a deafening roar. “When we are elected, we will repeal the NEVADA law and implement CADAVER. We pledge to reinstate the rights of ordinary citizens. We will not be held to ransom by enemies of democracy like the Former Human Defence League and the Tribe of Zeroes. Because I believe in democracy!”
Marlowe’s voice reached its crescendo as he built to a climax. “We will take back this country from the grip of horror! Because the undead don’t run this country – the people run this country!”
This brought the crowd to their arthritic feet.
Wearing a ten thousand dollar Desmond Merrion suit and two thousand dollar Tanino Crisci shoes, Bernard Marlowe, the son of a wealthy investment banker who lived in a seven million dollar mansion and had a personal fortune of over eighty million dollars, had somehow convinced these people that he was one of them.
He thrust his arms in the air triumphantly, and was joined by his family to soak up the sustained applause.
“I believe in democracy!” he declared once more.
It was said that anyone who wanted to run for public office was unsuitable and should therefore immediately be disqualified. The type of person who would want to run the country is the type of person you definitely did not want running the country. It wasn’t that a career in politics made you a bad person; it was that politics attracts only the most vile people.
Bernard Marlowe was a prime example of this. His quest for power was nothing short of sociopathic, and there was no level he wouldn’t stoop to in order to achieve his goal. He would do anything for political mileage, whether it be dragging grieving mothers before the media to underscore the human cost of the zombie scourge, to digging up dirt and spreading innuendo about political opponents and their families and passing it on to his former media chums, to ignoring all expert advice regarding how best to handle undead issues in favour of populist slogans and simplistic solutions.
No one enters politics to serve their community. They do it to feed their own rampant egos. Self-interest remains the number one priority. A politician’s sole objective is to win office, and everything else, including what’s best for the country and its citizens, comes a distant second.
Marlowe’s pledge to repeal the NEVADA law, which protected zombies from unprovoked and excessive violence, was his most brazen display of pandering to the overfed masses. The National Law to End Violence Against the Dead Act had received bipartisan support when it was first introduced, and every other developed country in the world had similar agreements protecting former humans from such atrocities. Ethicists and other leading authorities on the issue were unanimous in their belief that these laws were essential for a civilised society to function.
Now, Marlowe was promising to replace NEVADA with CADAVER (Citizens Against Death And Violence Entering our Residences). He claimed this would restore the rights of civilians to protect themselves against any undead interlopers. CADAVER stated that landowners could use as much force as they deemed necessary to handle a zombie, including lethal force, if one trespassed on or near their property. A citizen was also permitted to use “an appropriate level of force” in the event of “a perceived threat from an undead being”. Put simply, anyone could kill a zombie just so long as they explained to the police afterwards that they felt they were in danger.
Many could not believe Marlowe’s arrogance on this issue. If he did repeal NEVADA, it would be the first time a world leader had rescinded legislation protecting the undead. The proposed CADAVER laws violated numerous worldwide treaties and agreements, all to satisfy one egomaniac’s insatiable lust for power. These new laws would drag the country down to the level of several war-torn African nations, where the undead were routinely beaten to death in the streets and used by the military for target practice and to clear areas of land mines. It would be open season on zombies the moment CADAVER was put in place, since the majority of the population were now irrationally fearful of the zombie threat; a threat that only really existed in their imaginations.
But the facts didn’t matter to Marlowe’s crowd of adoring fans gathered here tonight. They believed in something better than facts; they believed in democracy and simplistic catchphrases. They also had someone telling them exactly what they wanted to hear; that they were the oppressed, the forgotten people, a persecuted minority, and he was the one vowing to correct this inequality.
Politicians think the public are complete and utter fools. For the most part, they’re right.
Fabian would never admit it, but he felt an electric charge shoot through his entire body when he heard Marlowe call out the Zeroes by name. This was undeniable proof of the impact they were making, and that they were now on Marlowe’s radar. They had him worried. The Tribe of Zeroes had arrived.
He hit mute on the TV, cutting off the remainder of Marlowe’s bluster and empty rhetoric.
He stood before the group of assembled Zeroes, crammed inside Miles’ house and spilling out into the front yard. The group had grown exponentially in size over the past few weeks. The release of the footage from the processing centre had given them the attention they so desperately craved, and Fabian had assumed the mantle of leader. He pictured himself as a Che Guevara-type, a revolutionary leading his followers in a mass revolt.
He wasn’t Clea’s lap dog anymore.
“This is our time,” Fabian intoned to his enraptured audience. “This is our moment in history. The time has come for us to step it up a notch and really make things happen.”
Fabian was in his element, high on the attention and drunk on his own self-importance. His footage had gone viral, shining a massive spotlight onto the Zeroes and their cause. Now he could sense a change in the air. They were no longer a joke or a media punchline. They were a legitimate force to be reckoned with. And he was the public face for their cause. He had been granting interviews for weeks with news organisations across every timezone, and the increased visibility had made the Zeroes the hottest underground agitators for every socially-conscious hipster looking for a movement to support. Additional chapters of the group were sprouting up by the hour in all corners of the globe, and their “Z” logo was appearing everywhere, spray-painted on the sides of buses and trains, across corporate billboards and public monuments, and even on the midriffs of sup
ermodels as they strutted down the runway at a recent Paris fashion show. It was the ultimate symbol of resistance.
Fabian was experiencing gargantuan headrush. A month ago he was a feckless wannabe, a rich kid slumming it among the underclass. Now he was like the Pied Piper of Trustafarians. The incident at the processing centre had earned him some serious street cred, as well as a criminal record (even if all they could charge him with was damaging government property, for which he received a small fine). He was both loved and loathed by the public, and it was exhilarating.
“This is a diseased culture we’re living in, and it’s up to us to eradicate the virus.” He pointed at the silent image of Marlowe on the TV as he said this. “Because this is more than a battle. We’re fighting a war. We are at war with the government, with Marlowe and his cronies, and with the planet-raping, billion-dollar corporations they all crawl into bed with.”
Such was Fabian’s surging confidence that he could deliver a rant against corporations while wearing $300 Nike sneakers. They were a particularly eye-catching pair, too – neon red with bright orange swooshes.
“Marlowe has fired the starting pistol for an ideological grudge match. It’s us versus them, and we have to be willing to take it further and do what the other side won’t. That’s where we’ve fallen short in the past. They don’t play by the rules, and we’ve just been willing to stand by and let it happen. Well, no more. I say it’s time we took this to the next level. It’s time we got our hands dirty, yeah?”
A chorus of “yeah’s” and “right on’s” from the group backed this up.
“This is our one chance, and we need to capitalise on it. If we blow it, we may never get another shot. But if we get it right, this may be our opportunity to change the course of history. Now who’s with me, yeah?”
The Zeroes let out a rousing battle cry that set off all the barking dogs in the street.
A wicked grin appeared on Fabian’s face. He had never felt more alive.
Chapter 16