THE DOG WHISTLE

THE DOG WHISTLE

Frankie Twister threatened the tv with a chicken leg. “That’s the problem, you see, Janice.”

Janice Twister sat next to her husband on their couch. She looked up from her pad. Her latest effort, dolphins holding Christmas trees.

“What is it dear?” Frankie resumed devouring the chicken leg. “Are you okay Frankie? Is this show bothering you?”

Frankie Twister threw the bone onto his plate. Rolling his eyes, he sighed, “It’s the Antiques Roadshow, isn’t it?”

Janice glanced at the screen. ‘STAR WARS ACTION FIGURES’

“I didn’t know you liked this show,” she said. “The med told you not to watch shows that make you angry.”

Frankie stared intensely at the screen. “I’m not angry,” he replied curtly. “It’s the Antiques-bloody-Roadshow! How could I possibly be angry?”

“Well, you are shouting at the TV again,” Janice remarked, gesturing towards the screen.

Frankie closed his eyes and dropped his head down as though he had been shot in the neck with a poison dart. After a few seconds he composed himself and drew himself upright, his eyes still closed. The antidote obviously dwelled within him.

He opened his eyes and slowly turned to his wife.

“It’s like I told you before, Star Wars episode one came out twenty years later than Star Wars the original. You know, episode four.”

Bemused, Janice regarded the strange little doll being discussed on the show.

“I don’t know Frankie, it just looks like Star Wars stuff to me, don’t worry about it so much.”

Frankie tilted his head back as far as it would go and mumbled something to the ceiling God. He turned slowly to his wife who had now retreated back to her pad. These Christmas jumpers wouldn’t design themselves.

”The difference, Janice, is that most of the people who go on this show don’t know the fucking difference between Star Wars Seventy-Seven, Star Wars Ninety-Nine, Buck Rogers, pissing Battlestar Galactica, or any of that shit back then they used a blue screen.” He picked up another leg.

Sitting quietly on the floor between his parents and the viscreen sat their son, Gater.

Gater was oblivious to his parents conversation, although he did glance at the screen now and then. His main focus was on his own action figures, a ball dropper, his mechano games, and several comic books.

Gater was eleven. He had lived with his parents in the hab unit for over six years. The Government usually returned children to their parents when they were three-years-old, but they had kept Gater until he was five. The Twisters did not know why, and they certainly never asked.

Frankie Twister was preparing to point his latest chicken leg at the screen, when suddenly a loud, high-pitched grating noise began to emanate from the tv speaker. It was so loud that it drowned out the conversation between the two men on the show. It was a horrible noise, it pulsated and rattled his soul. Frankie felt his brain vibrating. He dropped his chicken, covering his ears, and turned to his wife, who had done the same. Gater regarded his parents, seemingly oblivious to the terrible noise.

“What the hell is that?” shouted Frankie. He looked as though he was trying to crush his own skull. Janice picked up two cushions, using them as impromptu earmuffs. She squinted at the scroll that had appeared on the screen.

”It’s the emergency signal,” she shouted in reply, “They have to broadcast it sometimes.”

“But why?” pleaded Frankie, his head still not crushed.

“In case there’s an emergency, you know, a flood, or if the atmosphere collapses again, or...”

Frankie cut her short.

”I know what it’s for, Janice, for fuck’s sake. I want to know why they have to put it on right in the middle of the Antiques Roadshow? I would rather suffer any of that antiques bollocks than have to listen to this torture. I’ve gotta mute this, where’s the remote?” He began to scan the table in front him, no positive results.

“Well?” He demanded, “Where is it then?” He turned and glared at his wife.

“I don’t know, do I? I haven’t touched it for months.”

Janice saw her husband’s face turn colour.

“Look, you had it last. Why don’t you just stand up?” she offered. It was bold, and she was nervous. It was all she could think to do.

Frankie stood, slowly, as if he had been asked to walk to his own death. Janice looked at the sofa crater, then retrieved the warm remote her husband had been incubating, offering it to him.

“Here you go...” Frankie snatched the remote from her. Now trying to cover both ears with his left arm, he turned and aimed the remote at the screen with determination. He located the mute button with his big thumb. He began to squeeze down on the button, when at that second, the noise stopped.

“About fifty thousand Ecreds.”

“Oh really, I never would have guessed.”

Frankie stared at the screen still pointing the remote. After what seemed like a long time to Janice he finally sat back down. A rush of air escaped from the depths of the couch.

“Thank fuck for…”

The horrible noise had stopped, only to be replaced by a new horrible noise. Gater, their son, was screaming his head off.

The next morning Janice and Gater left the hab, the night before swirling around in her head. They had managed to calm Gater down eventually. After much angry, scared conversation, it was decided that Janice would take him to the med unit at the mall.

Frankie watched them leave in silence. The door slid shut, and they were gone.

Janice held Gater’s hand tightly as they headed along the walkway towards the elevator tube.

“Hello Mrs. Twister.”

Janice spun around. “Oh, hello Mrs. Sabine.”

Gater liked this woman. She lived two or three habs down on their level. She was always kind to him and smiled whenever she saw him.

He heard his parents talking about her, worried about why she was always trying to talk to them. It was rumoured that she used to be a teacher once, before the schools were closed.

“How are you, Janice? I hardly see you at all these days.”

“I’m fine,” Janice pulled Gater’s arm and they started off again. “We’re fine, I’m taking Gater to the lake,” she said, without turning around.

Gater looked back as he was being ushered along. He saw Mrs. Sabine smiling at him with concerned eyes.

She watched them until the curved walkway took the women and boy out of her sight.

MWMWMWM

STREET LEVEL

Janice stuck her head out into the vast street. It was empty. The transport shelter was about two hundred yards away. She often wished that they would build one closer to the main door. She heard that some hab units had the transporters integrated into the lobby. She would really like that.

She looked left and right while they trotted across the street. To the east, the street rose up and the horizon was hazy this time of day. She noticed two fuzzy silhouettes standing at the top of the road.

The figures were now moving.

Maybe they had seen her.

Maybe they were moving towards her and Gater.

She pulled the boy into a run.

Breathless, they reached the shelter. She strapped Gater into his metal seat, pressing the button, then sat down herself, just managing to fix her straps before the platform dropped into the ground and attached itself to a tube ferry.

Gater read the engineer’s graffiti as they flashed by. It was a short trip, within minutes their platform was shooting up to the mall level.

Janice unstrapped them both and they stepped out of the travel shelter and into the mall. She was relieved to be in the mall. She wanted this trip to be over and be back in her hab with Frankie.

Gater loved the mall. He had been here twice this very cycle. He wondered why it was so big; there were hardly ever any people here. As they walked along the shiny white marble floor he looked up through the high, crystalline ceiling. The sky was clear today, just a clear blue. The Skyscratchers zoomed across the sky. They were so high they appeared as glints of light. They left thin trails behind them, different colors, red, blue, green, gold, and silver too sometimes. Nobody had ever seen a Skyscratcher up close, and nobody knew what they did. He had heard his father say it was a government thing.

Frankie always had a good laugh when Gater told him he was going to be a Skyscratcher pilot someday. He did not understand why his father did that. “He won’t laugh anymore when I’m flying around in my Skyscratcher,” Gater planned to have a silver trail.

The cybermed unit opened out to the mall floor. It had twelve booths, six on each side. Two units were busy on the right side, both single women. Janice led Gater to a booth on the left hand side, they sat down and looked at the screen in front of them. A GovMed logo floated around the screen. The logo faded out and was replaced with the instruction,

“Please scan your med card.”

After Janice scanned her card the screen flicked into life. A nurse appeared on the screen wearing a bright green uniform. Her face was pale with heavy makeup. Gater liked her ruby-red lips.

The nurse looked down at Gater and smiled thinly. She looked to her side and wrote something. “Mrs. Twister, what can we do for you today?” The nurse asked looking at them both.

“My son, Gater, he had a turn last night” The nurse wrote something on her pad.

“It’s been a while since you last logged in with us. You know that the government requires…”

”We’ve been terribly busy,” interrupted Janice, “and healthy.” she added quickly.

The nurse stared emptily, tapping a stylo somewhere.

“It’s my son, Gater,”Janice Twister continued, “While we were watching tv last night, he just started screaming, and we couldn’t get through to him for ages.”

After a few moments the nurse asked, “What time did this occur Mrs. Twister?”

“Around eight-thirty,” Janice replied with nervous words, “the Antiques Roadshow was on, then….then the signal….so, yes around eight-thirty.”

The nurse nodded then said,

“Gater, please place your hand on the scan vent.”

“Go on Gater, do like the nurse says.”

Gater stood up and pushed his palm onto the glowing vent.

He looked up at the nurse. She was staring at him. Those lips.

Lips that parted slowly, then said,

“Okay, please wait.”

The screen went blank, then a green cross appeared on a white background, then static, then a vid of summer meadows with matching music, then back to static.

After a few seconds, the static faded and a young man appeared. He wore heavy, green doctors robes and wore thick round glasses.

“Okay. Mrs. Twister. What seems to be the problem.” He pushed his glasses up onto his nose and looked down at something.

Janice, deciding not to show her frustration at having to repeat herself. Where did the nurse go? Don’t they communicate with each other? Once again she recounted the previous evening’s events.

“I see.” The doctor looked down at Gater. “If you would, er, Mrs. Twister, just give me one moment.”

The screen went static for one second, then back to meadows.

Janice felt her sleeve being tugged. She snapped her eyes from the screen and looked down at her son. “What did he mean Mum?”

“I don’t know Gater, he just has to diagnose and sort the meds, that kind of thing.”

Gater shook his head, “Not that. What he said.”

Janice looked puzzled, “What do you mean?” Just as he was going to answer his Mother the screen crackled back to the young Doctor…….

OR,

The screen cracked back to the young doctor before Gater could answer….., Janice thought he looked even more tense than before.

“Well, Mrs. Twister, it appears you have nothing to worry about. Call it modern stress-related expressiveness. Er, anyway, I’ve prescribed meds for Gater, and well, for you and your husband..”

“But we don’t...”

The doctor cut her off.

“Now, now, Mrs. Twister. To help deal with the stress. It’s.. it’s hard,” he pushed his glasses up and shook his head slightly, “It’s hard in these times to raise a child, especially in a hab.” He looked directly at Janice. “Trust me, Mrs. Twister, I have only your best interests at heart.”

Static.

On the tube ride home, Janice asked Gater what he had heard the doctor say.

“We’ve got one,” he answered.

Frankie was waiting for them at the hab door, and as unusual as that was Janice did something unusual too, she embraced her husband. All three entered the hab.

MWMWMWM

NEWS REPORTS STATED THAT INTENSE FIRE HAD RIPPED THROUGH THE HAB UNIT. OCCUPANTS DEAD, BURNT BEYOND ANY RECOGNITION.

Mrs. Sabine stood on the walkway outside of her hab, watching the fire crews deal with clean up. Tendrils of smoke still escaped the charred home.

She watched as two body bags were carried out.

Something overcame her. She approached an officer and said outright, “What about the boy?”

The officer glared back at her, his face stern, “What boy?” Without waiting for an answer he said, “Get back to your hab.”

Mrs. Sabine said nothing. She looked at the smoking entrance to the Twister’s hab. The officer she had interacted with spoke into a link.

She backed up, turned and hurried to her door. Unlock, push yourself in, hope you didn’t hear that officer mention your hab number.

Far overhead a Skyscratcher left a silver trail.