Scales

Chapter Seven (Part One) | Table of Contents | Chapter Eight

Corneille Blanche: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to Mister Monday! Last time, things went to hell in high water, as we saw that there is a likely epidemic going on. Before we begin, let me address two things:

The first one is that Scales has managed to get hold of an older edition of this book, which formed the basis of the Dutch translation that they’re familiar with. Let me go through those points, then:

And those are the major differences!

The other news is that Scales has decided that there ought to be a third person on this book. Through the power of random number generator, I have decided that is… Kerlois! And they will be here immediately next chapter, too!

For now, let me go on with the chapter. Arthur says he recognises exactly what’s happening: the school is being closed off “and everyone in it [is] being taken away to a secure hospital.” It means that the “Federal Biocontrol Authority” (which the newer edition changes to “National Biocontrol Authority”), has declared an outbreak and “assumed control over the situation.” They must think that the school is the origin or a large source of the virus.

He says it also means that people must have already died from it, and he thinks back to Leaf’s email. He recalls what he read in the Atlas about the Fetchers, namely that they are “less inimical” than most creatures.

He explains that “inimical” means “harmful”, so they are only not as bad as other creatures. “Like a small earthquake was better than a really big one. Though not if you were right in it.” Which is certainly true. In this series, for example, the happenings are mostly confined to Arthur’s city, which is naturally better than the whole world being affected, but it is still not good for everyone in it.

He then says that the Fetchers probably are the source of the disease, and that Emily and her team will be working on it, trying to find a vaccine or a cure for it. Only they don’t have a very good chance if it’s from the House. He thinks that the disease might even get through the protective measures, and then he might lose Emily. And then surely Bob will get it as well, and his brothers and sisters…

Someone asks if Arthur is okay, and tells him to take a deep breath, which breaks Arthur from his anxiety spiral. It turns out to be a paramedic, who also has a mask and a breathing apparatus. He says he is okay, and he thinks it is at least the case physically, as he tries to keep his panic under control. He takes a breath, again surprised at how easy it is while holding the Key. Of course, the situations where he can’t hold the Key in his hand will probably overlap the situations where he’d be having trouble breathing quite a bit, so it’s still quite inconvenient.

The medic asks if Arthur breathed in any smoke, and Arthur shakes his head. I don’t know exactly why, since he did breathe in smoke, but then again, it’s cleared up by now, and he has every reason not to want to go to the hospital.

The medic asks if Arthur has been burned anywhere or if he has any pain. Arthur says that he’s really okay, and that he got out before the fire started. The medic looks into Arthur’s eyes, then attaches “some sort of tiny electronic diagnostic device” to Arthur’s neck (futuristic), and checks Arhtur’s skin.

He tells Arthur to lift his arm, and then notices the Key. Arthur says it is his “metalwork project”, and he will fail the course if he loses it. The medic thankfully accepts this, and then tells Arthur to lift his other arm, wiggle his fingers, and then lift his feet. Arthur complies, saying he feels a bit like a puppet.

The medic says Arthur is in much better shape than he ought to be, as he looks at the read-out of the device. They both look back at the library, which now has a massive column of smoke rising out of it. He says that some people are just lucky, which he immediately amends to “not that lucky”, as a police officer comes by, unrolling quarantine tape.

The medic says that Arthur’s school has “been listed under the Creighton Act as a Potential Biohazard Threat”, and Arthur says that that is a hot spot. He says that saying it out loud helps him to make it a real problem, “something he [can] analyse and react to”, instead of a nagging fear. He asks if they are being taken into quarantine.

The medic says that’s right, and then pulls out a “plastic card”, so he can read Arthur his rights as a quarantined citizen. He does so. It reads that Arthur is “detained under the Creighton Act”, and that he has the right to “electronic communication” while there, and he has the right to appeal to it. He may not be held for “more than 365 days longer” than the incubation period of whatever he has been quarantined for “without formal extension by a Federal court.” The new edition changes this to “a national security court.”

And while he is in quarantine, anything he does that violates the quarantine or endangers others is “a Federal offense” (which the new edition changes to “an offense”), that can be punished by every penalty possible, including the “death penalty”. He asks if Arthur understands. Arthur says he does, and he realises it’s “one of the most significant things” he’s ever said.

We get a bit of backstory on this. Arthur’s studied the Creighton Act in school. It’s a remnant of the epidemics that killed his birth parents. It’s “almost been repealed several times since then”, because there were no new outbreaks, and it gives the government naturally “tremendous powers”. And the part about the death penalty is especially controversial, “as it [has] been used to retrospectively justify shooting people who [try] to escape quarantine.”

So it seems we have a somewhat dystopian setting on our hands. I like it, really, especially since it’s because of epidemics, something I haven’t read about very often. I can also see why a large part of the population might support it. After all, as we’ll see in chapter 9, the epidemic that killed Arthur’s birth parents killed “almost a million people” in eighteen days, with quarantine in place. (Yes, let’s ignore the realism of this for now.)

Given that, I can see easily see why someone might prefer the “keep everyone in quarantine for very long” option over the “deadly epidemic” option. The problem, of course, is that this gives the government the power to kill anyone who stands in their way. Also, if the government can give 12-year-olds the death penalty for not wanting to spend a year in quarantine, the alternative might be more desirable, really.

Thankfully, this won’t be just a background element in this series; we will often see just how bad this particular set-up is, especially in Sir Thursday. What does bug me, though, is that there won’t be a resolution to this. Yes, I know that focussing on what happens after Lord Sunday would not fit with what Nix intended, but, on the other hand, if he wanted to focus on the epidemic part so much, there ought to be some pay-off for that. Maybe showing us a bit of the general reaction to what happens might help…

Anyway. Arthur thinks that he might be shot, too, but if he doesn’t go to the House to find things out, no one will stand a chance anyway. He gets off the stretcher and asks the medic what they are being quarantined for. Yes, that’s a very good question.

The paramedic says no one knows yet, looking away from Arthur. The old edition notes that his voice is muffled by his mask (thank you for that). He says it starts as “a very bad cold” (like with Leaf’s family), which lasts a few days, and then the patient goes to sleep. Arthur says that doesn’t sound bad.

The medic says no one can wake them up anymore, by no means. Arthur says that sleep is good for you, trying to convince himself. The medic explains that “[they] can’t make them eat or drink, and they don’t absorb anything intravenously as they should”, and no one knows why. Yes, that’s quite scary indeed. After all, if no one can make them absorb anything, everyone who catches the disease is doomed to die. So, yeah, I can certainly get behind the strict quarantine here, though I doubt that it would solve everything… Then again, this virus is clearly less infectious than the one that caused this epidemic mess in the first place, so if the quarantine was good enough, it might actually solve this.

Arthur looks at the paramedic, and he can see that the medic’s scared. The man says that “[a]ll of the cases are connected with this school”, before arresting himself and saying that he shouldn’t be saying this. He tells Arthur not to worry about it, as the quarantine will work, and they’ll find a cure. Arthur sees right through this, and says the man thinks they’re all going to do.

The medic takes the diagnostic unit off Arthur’s neck, checks it again, and then puts it into a wastebin for biological waste. With a trembling hand, he points to the buses, and tells Arthur to report with “Sergeant Hu”. Arthur complies and slowly goes to the buses, “thinking furiously”.

“He had to do something. He was the only person who could do anything about this outbreak. But what?”

Hmmmm. I think this might be an appropriate spot to complain a bit about how the story has been so far. Let me just put out some bullet points, because my thoughts on this aren’t very organised:

· We don’t have an idea of what the plot will be right now. Yes, it might be “fighting Monday” (or rather, “fighting Noon”), but the epidemic plotline muddles that considerably. It also breaks the flow of the chapters. We ended chapter 4 on the cliffhanger of discovering the epidemic, then there were two chapters of fighting Noon, and now there’s the epidemic again.

· Relatedly, it bothers me that the epidemic is a byproduct of the Fetchers, and that Noon seems to be entirely oblivious to it. If we had Noon spread the virus, or even make a cruel remark about it, it would be more personal to Arthur, and that help the investment, too. We might even wonder if Monday’s responsible for the epidemic that killed his birth parents (which doesn’t seem very unlikely to me, given how ridiculously deadly it was).

· Now, it feels more like a natural disaster. And, just like a natural disaster would, it stalls the plot without exactly adding much. Sir Thursday, for example, will handle a plotline similar to this one considerably better, by actually making it the focus. Here, it’s an obstacle for the plot to go on, and at this point, we can’t yet see how Arthur can circumvent it.

· On that point, why did we need to lose the Atlas? Yes, it might be too overpowered, but Arthur will get a free tutorial anyway in this book, and he’ll still be very weak against Monday (because the latter has had 10000 years of experience, duh). Also, 1) the Atlas can be kept from being too OP in other ways in the later books, and 2) even if he could use it, there’s still the issue of actually being able to do it. After all, if he wants to make sure Monday doesn’t keep sending people to his world, he must go to the House.

· And also, Arthur asking the Atlas for directions would at least give the plot some kind of direction a little earlier. Yes, some might argue that this means that a prominent plotline from the later books can’t go through, but I’d say that’s easy to solve by not having the Atlas dissolve along with the Fetchers (something we’ll never get an adequate explanation for anyway).

· For a more general gripe, the story has been quite slow so far, especially compared to the other books from the series. True, it’s the beginning of the series, so there needs to be a fair bit of introduction, but there could certainly have been some cut-down. It’s just a little boring to me, so far, especially combined with how unclear the plot is so far.

Well, that griping aside, let me go on. These issues should soon clear up, after all. Arthur looks back at the burning library, trying to figure out a plan. He sees a wisp of smoke curling out, “like a strand of candy floss” being pulled out. Then the strand moves in all kinds of way that a strand of smoke wouldn’t do. Arthur realises it’s forming letters and words. He looks around and sees that no one else notices, like with the Fetchers.

He has trouble working it out for a bit, and then it turns out to be this:

Arthur. Get near the House and I will help you. Will

(The book displays it in a special smoke-like font, which makes it quite hard to read, and it renders as a picture, which also messed up the chapter division for a bit. So thank you.)

Anyway, the Will has shown themself again! Only to tell Arthur what he already planned to do anyway. Oh well, at least there’s the promise of something happening when we get there…

Arthur says that it’s easy for the Will to say, as the words break apart again. He says it’s much easier said than done, and says he first needs to get out of quarantine “without being shot or stunned”, because once he’s on the bus, escaping would be very hard. He runs through all kinds of possibilities, though most of them end up with him running away and getting shot. The new edition uses “police” instead of “policemen” here.

He slows down to think, with “less than a minute of freedom” left. He thinks that he might use the Key in some way. As he looks down at it, he realises there’s another problem. The police officer searches all the “kids” as they get on the bus, and there is “a pile of small knives, mace sprays and other stuff” at his feet. We’re told the pile is considerably smaller than he’d have gotten from Arthur’s old school (the new edition changes this to “would have emerged from his old school”), and there are no guns, but there are some lethal weapons.

Must be a great school he went to before this one, then.

Arthur explains that the Key would look like “a long, thin and weird-looking knife” to the officer, and it would surely be taken away from him. And then he will have an asthma attack. He does have his inhaler, but he doesn’t think it will do him much good after all he’s been through. He suddenly realises that “the Key [is] the only thing keeping him alive.”

The chapter ends with the policeman shouting at Arthur to hurry up. Wow, cliffhanger.

Kerlois will do the next chapter, and I will be back for chapter 10. Until then!