on.”
Suddenly I could believe the story of the explosion at the power station. I knew that my father would not be coming back.
The Minister was still talking: “Now they’re going round the country checking that there’s no prospect of getting things back together. In every town they round up the young, able-bodied people, and shoot them. You must hide. You must find a way of getting the message out about what’s happening. There are pockets of resistance. We’ve heard about them. People like you have managed to reach us with news. Some truckers in Derby even managed to get an old CB radio transmitter going. It did no good. There was no one to pick up the messages.” He took another bite out of the turnip. I was worried that the guard would notice. The Minister’s chewing was louder than his whispering. “If only we’d known. I can’t think what the intelligence services were doing. We didn’t have any warning of this at all.”
I knew I couldn’t risk staying for long, but I had a few more questions. “What do these people want?”
“Well that’s something I do know. They go on about it enough. They’re not after anything we can bargain over. They want to destroy our way of life. They despise us and everything we stand for.”
“And how did they know their plan would work? Did they plant the Millennium Bug? Was it some sort of virus?”
“No, it was real, but accidental. A weakness built into the design of early computers. We had to warn people about it. The trouble was that by raising the alarm we gave Bin Laden his big idea.”
“Bin Laden?”
“The boss man. The tall one. The one with the crazy eyes.”
“But wasn’t it a great risk, them planning all this? Weren’t they afraid of getting caught? What if the Millennium Bug had let them down?”
“They had other plans if this one didn’t work. Bin Laden would have stopped at nothing to knock us out. Apparently he even had some people training to fly planes into the World Trade Center in New York. He thought that would send us into an orgy of repression and surveillance, killing our own civilization from within.”
“No need for that now,” I whispered.
The guard snuffled. He had fallen asleep.
The Deputy Prime Minister had another nibble of the turnip, but he kept talking. “You get away and hide, son. Go while he’s not looking. I’d come too, but I haven’t the energy, and they’d only take it out on the others.”
“Shoot them?”
“If only. That would be kinder. No, they’ll make them dance together naked, or something like that. There’s no limit to the humiliations they subject us to in the name of their cause.”
I wanted to ask more questions, but he shooed me away. “Go on. Run. They’ll probably find you, but give yourself a chance – and do anything you can to pass on the word about what’s happened.”
I crept away, up the hill. Mum has been low lately, spending most of the day in bed, and she was still asleep when I got back. I knew that Bin Laden’s men would be with us soon, but there was no need to wake her just to tell her of new horrors ahead. What could she do about them? There’s no point running away. Where would we run to?
So that’s why I’m here in the attic with Gran’s typewriter. I’m trying at least to leave some record behind. Not exactly Anne Frank, I admit. I’ve only been up here a few hours, and I’m sure my neighbours will shop me to the enemy as soon as the men arrive. But I’ll put this paper in a plastic bag now, and then into a jar to keep it dry. A sort of message in a bottle, just in case any future generations are interested. Just in case anyone ever wants to know the true story of the Y2K Bug.
AT THE BALL GAME
Frank Cottrell Boyce
The Aztec civilization was decimated when the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés invaded and colonized Mexico in the sixteenth century. One of the ancient beliefs of these doomed people was that the world will end in December
Suddenly I could believe the story of the explosion at the power station. I knew that my father would not be coming back.
The Minister was still talking: “Now they’re going round the country checking that there’s no prospect of getting things back together. In every town they round up the young, able-bodied people, and shoot them. You must hide. You must find a way of getting the message out about what’s happening. There are pockets of resistance. We’ve heard about them. People like you have managed to reach us with news. Some truckers in Derby even managed to get an old CB radio transmitter going. It did no good. There was no one to pick up the messages.” He took another bite out of the turnip. I was worried that the guard would notice. The Minister’s chewing was louder than his whispering. “If only we’d known. I can’t think what the intelligence services were doing. We didn’t have any warning of this at all.”
I knew I couldn’t risk staying for long, but I had a few more questions. “What do these people want?”
“Well that’s something I do know. They go on about it enough. They’re not after anything we can bargain over. They want to destroy our way of life. They despise us and everything we stand for.”
“And how did they know their plan would work? Did they plant the Millennium Bug? Was it some sort of virus?”
“No, it was real, but accidental. A weakness built into the design of early computers. We had to warn people about it. The trouble was that by raising the alarm we gave Bin Laden his big idea.”
“Bin Laden?”
“The boss man. The tall one. The one with the crazy eyes.”
“But wasn’t it a great risk, them planning all this? Weren’t they afraid of getting caught? What if the Millennium Bug had let them down?”
“They had other plans if this one didn’t work. Bin Laden would have stopped at nothing to knock us out. Apparently he even had some people training to fly planes into the World Trade Center in New York. He thought that would send us into an orgy of repression and surveillance, killing our own civilization from within.”
“No need for that now,” I whispered.
The guard snuffled. He had fallen asleep.
The Deputy Prime Minister had another nibble of the turnip, but he kept talking. “You get away and hide, son. Go while he’s not looking. I’d come too, but I haven’t the energy, and they’d only take it out on the others.”
“Shoot them?”
“If only. That would be kinder. No, they’ll make them dance together naked, or something like that. There’s no limit to the humiliations they subject us to in the name of their cause.”
I wanted to ask more questions, but he shooed me away. “Go on. Run. They’ll probably find you, but give yourself a chance – and do anything you can to pass on the word about what’s happened.”
I crept away, up the hill. Mum has been low lately, spending most of the day in bed, and she was still asleep when I got back. I knew that Bin Laden’s men would be with us soon, but there was no need to wake her just to tell her of new horrors ahead. What could she do about them? There’s no point running away. Where would we run to?
So that’s why I’m here in the attic with Gran’s typewriter. I’m trying at least to leave some record behind. Not exactly Anne Frank, I admit. I’ve only been up here a few hours, and I’m sure my neighbours will shop me to the enemy as soon as the men arrive. But I’ll put this paper in a plastic bag now, and then into a jar to keep it dry. A sort of message in a bottle, just in case any future generations are interested. Just in case anyone ever wants to know the true story of the Y2K Bug.
AT THE BALL GAME
Frank Cottrell Boyce
The Aztec civilization was decimated when the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés invaded and colonized Mexico in the sixteenth century. One of the ancient beliefs of these doomed people was that the world will end in December
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