The patients at this advanced stage turn into violent zombies. Cannibals. They knock people to the ground and bite away at their mouths. They devour skin and flesh, throat and tongue. Finally both the AMPS victim and the AMPS victim’s victim are destroyed by a single violent whip of the head that breaks their necks.
A carnival barker with a blond moustache wicked up either side of his nose is drawn in a panel by a cartoonist, beside a tall open mouth. Smoke curls up over the mouth’s giant upper lip. Greg closes this page, the last one, and he checks the cover price before sliding it behind the next comic on the shelf that’s part of this series.
Their heads sway above their shoulders on Queen Street.
One of the first signs of viral presence is an addiction to Big Town TV. The station repeats itself, quotes itself, touches itself in a way that is somehow comforting to the early victims who cling outside the building tonight. This spectacle used to be reserved for those evenings when Electric Sex Party was broadcast live; now the crowds only appear when the program is rerun the following evening. Greg is standing somewhat apart from the crowd. He tested positive for the disease earlier this week, and though he’s asymptomatic he’s come to observe the people he will soon be forced to join. The crowd is not a dance crowd. They do not dance. They merely stand, watching the monitors, occasionally slumping, smiling weakly. Some have lain down to sleep on the sidewalk. Greg looks at the purple neon band reflected up in a black puddle between his legs. He follows this clean light as it pulls itself out of the water and embroiders a brilliant shadow between the stones in the asphalt. Greg twists at the front of his Monster Magnet T-shirt and whispers, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…”
Greg looks up at a vendor and spits towards him. The vendor picks up a sausage from the grill with a blackened fork and wags it at Greg, wiggling his tongue lecherously. Greg waits patiently, and sure enough his Higher Power, dressed entirely in black, emerges from a donut shop. He strolls out into the traffic holding his chin, sharing with Greg the difficulty of saying anything at this point.
Behind the white glass panels that make up the edifice of Big Town TV, Grant Mazzy is scratching the top of his head, releasing a white dusting of dandruff that showers onto his pants. He presses his palms against his thighs and, pulling them aside, admires the glittery effect. Out of the corner of his eye he spots a technician strolling breezily through the open concept.
“Hey Bob.”
“It’s Carl.”
“Yeah, sorry Carl. Anyway, when the hell are those production people gonna be done with the closed coupling thing, whatever it is?”
Closed coupling is an idea developed by Big Town TV to accommodate its AMPS viewer. The closed coupling involves a tight repetition, a delay sample that they believe would conform to the rhythm that AMPS consume information. It is a woefully unscientific instrument, utterly useless to the AMPS victim, whose chaotic process wildly outmanoeuvres this primitive compensation. The technology does attract viewers, however, who are exhilarated by the idea.
A Max Headroom who cannot be cancelled.
Grant Mazzy catches his own face in a monitor and moves his chin quickly. When he is satisfied that he is “now,” he stares squarely at his handsome face, frankly assessing his own good looks. His own best critic, Grant judges his appearance harshly. He never solicits a better angle from his image: he expects every angle to be good enough. The technician checks his watch and widens his eyes above the clipboard he holds.
“Five minutes, Grant, then we’re rolling live again.”
“You know, this place gives me the creeps. Everything reminds me of that damn virus and those fuckin’ zombies outside. I don’t know. Where do they go? I mean, when they get worse, where do they go? These ones aren’t that far gone you know.”
“I don’t know, Grant, they say that some really sick ones are making appearances up north. Like gangs of them in North Bay, places like that.”
“I just hope that somebody’s monitoring this situation. I’m not sensing a lot of organized thinking around this problem. Oh, wait, my prompter’s up. Here I go. Shut up. Get lost. Shoo.”
Grant takes one last look at himself in a monitor and then makes his professional gotta-take-a-shit face into the camera.
