Toxxic

by Jane Hennigan

Genres: Feminist; Post-Apocalyptic sci-fi; Dystopian; Horror

Synopsis

Forty years ago, the world changed. Men became crazed killers and threatened all humanity. Now the world might be about to change again, but will it be for the better?

Forty-four years ago, as any schoolgirl can tell you, the moth’s eggs hatched and an army of caterpillars spread their tiny toxic threads on every breath of wind.  Since then, men have been cloistered, protected from birth against the deadly poison.

But now there’s a vaccine - a way that men can leave the facility without dying or suffering from psychosis.  Emerging, into their new world, eyes wide with wonder at every new experience, the truth soon becomes clear.

This world was not made for men.  And they are not safe.

File Under: Science Fiction [ Threads of Chaos | Long Road Ahead | A Changed Society | What Remains ]

Release date: March 12, 2024

Publisher: Angry Robot

Print pages: 400

Sample

RECAP

“Out they came, away from natural predators, nesting in damp corners and in the tops of trees, crossbreeding with common cousins and laying thousands upon thousands of eggs. Then… the eggs hatched and an army of hungry caterpillars spread their tiny toxic threads on every breath of wind.”

Mary drifts in and out of a moth-induced coma, having succumbed to the huge amount of toxin produced by the moths in their annual mating eclipse. As she sleeps, she dreams of her sons: Ryan, who was a teenager in the first infestation, who she saved back then by swapping his wristband, condemning another boy to death in his stead. Ryan, whom she called Nicky and pretended was not a relation so she could visit him at the sanitorium where he was infected, addled, violent. She cries out in her sleep, reliving the horror as the sanitorium burns, and she watches on, paralysed, unable to save him from the flames.

She pictures her younger son, Nathan, so similar in looks and build to her late husband, unsure of himself in a room full of women, subject to their desires, lacking agency. She remembers fleeing with him and an ex-facility resident, Logan, trusting Sophia with the secret of the vaccine, the secret her friend Olivia died to protect.

She dreams of Tony, her favourite resident. Sweet, naïve, Tony, still locked inside the facility, with his nose pressed up to the glass in the viewing room, and wonders what he will say when he finds out that his love Logan is not dead.

She struggles to wake then – but her mind is muddled, and she cannot catch her thoughts; like minnows in a stream they dart from her grasp.

One thought remains as she slips further away, cocooning her mind in sticky threads. Is the world ready for a vaccine? One which allows men to once more walk free?

Did she do the right thing?

 

CHAPTER 1

XX104

One day, a long time from now, people might ask why.

Why did we choose the method we chose – why did I do these terrible things? But those people, those women, will ask such questions from a place of safety. Those women will be in command of their lives, free to live and look as they wish. Those women will not have to check their bodies against a list of standards nor feel the grasping fingers of a man’s ego choke off their words. They will be central to their own lives.

The hard truth is that the men in the facilities are not men. Your generation doesn’t know what a man is. You may have learned about them at school, maybe even had a visitation with one, sipping cheap wine and giggling about the strangeness of it all. But those mild-mannered boys with soft hands and shaved heads are not the real thing. They’re a dormant version. When the moths came, they didn’t just infect the men, they revealed their true and complete nature. They worked together to hunt us during those first days of the outbreak. Something glossed over in schools is the sexual violence. The infected, the Manics as they’re known, violated women’s bodies before slaughtering them.

But men are not like that now! I hear the liberals call as they wring their hands and offer up their daughters as sacrificial lambs. We have a vaccine!

Yes – we have a vaccine. We may never see another Manic again – if it works.

But it’s not the Manics whom I fear. It’s the men, the uninfected men. How long before we’re back to where we were? Forcing ourselves and our daughters into grotesque shapes to please the greedy eyes of men, pretending that we have it all, when really we work twice as hard for half the reward. Oh, but you don’t know what I’m talking about. You have only known this world – a hard existence, but a safe one. A fair one.

Perhaps, if I explain, I’ll become a person to you, not the monster Union State radio would have you believe me to be. Or maybe you’ll diagnose me – the trauma of the infestation made her do it. Then you can label me damaged, condemn me gently whilst offering excuses. All so understandable… It would have made a good TV show – if such a thing still existed.

All this conveniently overlooks the fact that you live in the freedom I protected. One I fought for – literally fought. Despite how unfashionable it is to talk about the time before, my story deserves to be told. And I know things about men – things that you, who’ve grown up without them,

couldn’t possibly know. I stand in the breach so you can live – because that and so much more is what this vaccination will take from you.

I’ve decided that, if I can make you understand what it was like before, and what happened that summer in London, at Waterloo, four decades ago, then you might not rush to condemn me. You may not agree, but at least you will understand why I have done the terrible things I have.

Tony

Dear Mary

They said you’re sick, so I thought I’d cheer you up with a letter. Sorry about the paper – this crackly stuff is all they’d give us, thread-proof they say. You remember it. My handwriting is getting better, at least.

So many things have happened around here, you wouldn’t believe it. Yesterday, Artemis – from E-block – said loudly and in front of everyone that one carer – Lillian – had been familiar with him, without his permission, and not on a visitation day. That was the word he used: familiar. Everyone was amazed. Lillian was furious. She replied that Artemis was mistaken and that she was just trying to be nice to him, and he was exaggerating. This argument happened over breakfast three days ago, and everyone is still talking about it. The thing is, Lillian has disappeared. She’s not on the rota, no one has seen her on the rounds – we think she left. Artemis is being tight-lipped over the whole thing. He blushed and shook his head when I tried to get him talking during a gardening session last week.

The other thing that everyone is talking about, of course, is these rumours of a vaccine. People have been saying – and by people, I mean the carer Isla – there’s a way men can actually go outside, out into the air and the sun, that the moth threads won’t affect us as long as we take some medicine every month. Isla says that it was you, Mary, that made sure we had a chance at the medicine. If that’s true, I’m so proud. The other carers and ward-sisters won’t say anything about the medicine and some of them get quite annoyed if I mention it, so I’ve let it go. But there’s an odd fidgetiness with all the women who look after us, lots of shared looks and awkward pauses. When you’re locked up your whole life, doing the same thing day in day out, you get a sense of when things are a bit off. Change has a vinegary smell.

Anyway, if it’s true, and one day I can go outside, the first thing I’ll do is come and see you. I’ve been practicing my guitar, and I think you’ll love one song I’ve made – it’s about Logan. Also, the drama club has been working on an adaptation of The Tempest – maybe when you’re better, you can come back and watch us? It’s a crazy idea, but what if we

could perform it outside! They offered me Prospero or even Mirando, but I chose Caliban. I like his style: “When I waked, I cried to dream again!”

Get better soon.

Tony

Evie

Mary hasn’t moved in two days. She used to wake up at about lunch time for a few sips of water, perhaps some soup – not anymore, it seems. I ought to get on with other stuff. I’ve three older women on my round, and one of them, Emma, likes to chat. She’s from before and she wants to tell me about what it was like: the aeroplanes, the cities, her favourite sweet-and-sour chicken. I smile and nod. The thing is, when you work in geriatrics, you get this a lot. It’s when they start talking about their sons and husbands that most of the girls here find it awkward, or they freak out completely. I was in the nurse’s office yesterday, and one of our new girls burst through the door and could barely get her words out. Emma had told the poor girl a story about the first infestation, about how her father had killed her mother in front of her by tying her up with a skipping rope on the kitchen floor, before pouring lighter fluid over her clothes and setting her on fire. These stories can catch you out. I’ve been doing this for a while now and I sometimes think the dollies sneak these stories in just to see how you react. Anyway, apparently, Emma had gone into the gory details about the smell. No wonder the poor girl freaked out!

The problem is, they don’t get taught about it at school these days. Twenty years ago, when I was at school, we learned all about the infestation, the reformation of the government, the fertility and contribution programmes. I remember one social history project, I was about fourteen, when we were taken to the records office in the nearest village, and each given the name of a victim or a family. We had to research them and find out what happened then present our findings to the class. I had the ‘Sullivans’ and their story was average. The mother survived the initial infestation but succumbed to suicide three years later. An Abidance Unit found her body in woodland on the South Downs way, wrists cut, a small, blood-soaked child’s sweater in her arms. That’s how they identified her. The sweater had Marcus

Sullivan sewn into the label. The records officer explained to me that records in the first five years were sketchy. Mr Sullivan died overnight – a so-called ‘Blue.’ The son was seven years old, and he went manic. It’s not known what happened to him, but they suspect it was exposure. That’s what got most of the younger boys that didn’t get picked up and taken to a sanatorium in time.

There was a picture of them as a family. The original records officers must have taken it from the house shortly after the infestation. It was a big picture, about the size of a book, with a crease at the edge where the frame had bitten into the paper. Melanie Sullivan was wearing a cream shirt and had long, mousy brown hair, parted in the middle, a moony freckled face and plump painted lips. Mr Sullivan had a lean face, very blue eyes, and stubble. Pictures of men are weird. I stared at that photo for ages. It was probably only the second or third time I’d seen the picture of a man’s face and I marvelled at all that extra hair. I wanted to reach in and run my fingers over the dark shadow. Was it soft like the hair on my head or thicker like the hair on my legs?

The boy in the picture, Marcus, was a freckly faced kid. He was pretty, a bit babyish for seven years old, but not that different from the girls in the village. His chubby face was cute and moonish like his mother’s, and his eyes were the same bright blue as his father’s. He looked lost, like he wasn’t used to having his picture taken like this, in some kind of studio. Smiling shyly, he had a mark on his top lip, a smudge of what looked like milk. Why hadn’t the photographer got him to wipe his face?

I got permission from the office to take a copy of the picture – black and white, of course – so I could include it in my presentation. I snuck it home and stared and stared at Mr Sullivan’s face. I still have it hidden in my dresser, and now and then I slip it out and just look at the young boy’s cute half-smile and Mr Sullivan’s stubble.

Sean was his name… Sean Sullivan.

My friend Bankie got an interesting family, the Couzins. I’ll never forget the story. Mr Couzins went manic and tied up his wife and their sixteen year-old daughter. Then he drove them to a nearby cathedral. He made them

climb all two hundred and fifty steps before pushing them off the top. An hour later, probably suffering from a moment of horrified lucidity, he jumped off himself. Bankie’s presentation was by far the most interesting, but she didn’t have any photos, so at least I won on that front. These are all horrible stories, of course, but that was so long ago. Even when I look at Sean’s picture, I don’t think it’s real. Just a cold detail of history. But there’s something that draws me back to the image hidden in my bottom drawer, some fascination with this strange old-fashioned family.

But since my school days, the syllabus has changed. I mean, it was always heavily skewed towards science, but now they study social engineering, civil logistics, agricultural and marine development, genetic research and so much more. There just isn’t the space in the timetable for history. Which is all very well – until a young nurse turns up in the staff room hyperventilating because a patient has told them a story about a woman being cooked alive on the kitchen floor.

XX104

Last year I followed the Harting case on Union State radio.

I saw her once, about forty years ago. After Waterloo, they drafted me into the communication corps at a base near York, running comms for one hundred and fifty women as they went out to round up survivors of the first wave. She visited our barracks, spoke for an hour about her vision for the future, about how we needed to work together to create a new world. We hung on her every word, desperate to make any sense of the chaos outside. And now to find she’d created a vaccine, used it to create a personal harem and a club for powerful women to ‘unwind’. I, like many others of my age, felt torn between the love we felt for our saviour and the shame of what she’d done. I don’t think she should have been exiled, though. Not after everything she did for us before. We wouldn’t have survived without her.

The existence of a vaccine was the worst part. Some retired carer had given the formula, along with proof, to the Council and now it was out there. It was something I’d been thinking about for years – like the sword

of Damocles hanging over us all. As I watched society’s ideas change from the embarrassment and indignity of the sire houses at the beginning – those women who volunteered to become pregnant when the only option was have sex with an infected at a sanatorium – to the insemination programmes that came after, followed by the hetero-recreation visits. I knew what was coming. Men went from being monsters, to a necessary evil, and eventually becoming a novelty, a rich woman’s pastime. It seemed inevitable that one day some bright spark in a laboratory would come up with a cure, and what then? Cold anger gripped me at the idea – the men lost their right to freedom that hot summer at Waterloo station, over forty years ago.

The Women’s Conservation Society seemed the obvious choice as allies to our cause. A network of women committed to protecting the way of life developed just after the infestation. They had a chapter in most regions of the Union, campaigning against hetero-recreational visits, decrying the large amounts of Council funding channelled into facility improvement, and objecting to boys’ education in prep houses. They’d long spoken out about the purity of our society, some going as far as to suggest parthenogenesis – reproduction without sperm – was the future.

It wasn’t hard to find a local chapter, and three months ago, I went to my first meeting in the backroom of an old flooring warehouse. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I had visions of a well-organised campaign headquarters, teams of enthusiastic young activists ready to take to the streets and win over the hearts and minds of communities and espouse the dangers of integration. What I found was three old women sitting at an old desk in a musty, cramped office, three little white heads like three stalks of cauliflower, shuffling a pile of dog-eared leaflets. All three peered at me with suspicion. Behind them in the grim brown room lay a confusion of files and papers, even a few rolls of ancient carpet stuffed in the corner. Beyond that, a kitchenette awash with tea-stained cups and dirty tea towels. The whole place smelt of damp and rotting rubber.

“Hi,” I began tentatively, “Am I in the right place? I’m looking for the regional headquarters

for the WCS.”

The three women said nothing, just exchanged a few glances.

I tried again. “My name’s –”

“No!” one woman sitting at the table snapped. “We don’t use names anymore, only codes. 19” – she pointed to herself – “29” – she pointed to a woman on her right who was knitting – “and 62. Since the Council has come out as a bunch of manfans, the organisation has had to adapt. I’m sure you understand.”

“Oh,” I replied. “Yes, I do. I’d like to help if I can.”

“Really?” number 19 raised her eyebrows. “Cos you look like one of those hand-wringing liberals. You can’t have been that old when it all happened.”

My eyes fell on the leaflets. “Where did they come from?” I asked. They were terrible – I could tell from three feet away, cheap looking with no headlines, no strong message, just black and white pages with huge blocks of blurry text.

“Head office,” she replied. “They arrived yesterday. It’s our job to get the message out there.”

“Where is it? Head office?”

“I’m not telling you. I don’t know you. You could be an Abidance agent, undercover. You could be sent from the Council.”

I nearly said it then – I’ll tell you who I am, I’m one of the survivors of Waterloo, I watched women being torn apart. And when faced with the threat of a vaccine, I think your set up here is woefully inadequate. But instead, I smiled my best smile. “I’m sorry. Of course, you need to get to know me. I believe men have their place in this world, just not anywhere near me or my family. I’m worried that by introducing men into society, we risk destabilising our culture.”

My words had the desired effect and 19 visibly thawed. “Yes, so what we will need is for women to deliver the leaflets to a list of addresses that we think may be more receptive to the ideas of our movement. We’re a bit long in the tooth for traipsing about, but you look strong enough. In the

prime of your life, eh?” She winked. “I bet you could go out a few nights this week. Unless you have family commitments, of course.”

I had no family commitments. My wife spent most of her time working. Neither of us wanted any children.

I smiled wider. “Oh, I’m sure my wife won’t mind. By the way, does The Women’s Conservation Society have a radio station?”

The women looked at each other, their faces stretching into blank expressions. “I guess it’s something that head office might consider, if they knew someone who could set it up,” said 19 dismissively, before pushing the pile of pamphlets towards me. “I’ll get you a list of addresses. Do you have a bike?”

I nodded.

“Good. You should start right away.”

“No problem,” I replied, taking the smudged pamphlets. “Should I make you all some tea before I go?” I gestured to the small kitchenette. “You look like you’ve been working for a while.”

All three women smiled.

Two weeks later, I visited the head office in the Citadel to tell them about my plans.

Tony

Dear Mary,

Don’t worry about not replying, I’m sure you are busy getting better. I wanted to tell you some amazing news! Two men from our facility have been chosen to take the vaccine – just two – and I’m one of them! The day after tomorrow, I’m going to have an injection and then they say I can go outside. Apparently, after that, we can’t stay at the facility (all this filtered air and anti-thread security would be wasted on us, and our rooms are needed for other men). We’re not sure where we’ll be taken, and I’m a bit nervous, I mean I’ve been in facilities since leaving the prep house at eighteen – ten years is a long time to go through the same routines every day. So, just the idea of going anywhere is worrisome. But it’s exciting Mary, I really can’t believe it.

Artemis has also been picked, which is a surprise. He’s having a hard time at the moment. Some of the carers won’t talk to him because of the things he said about Lilian, and the other men are avoiding him in case being

 seen with him suggests they believe him. The thing is that some of us do believe him. Sometimes, certain women want you to rub their arms and thighs. At the prep houses, one carer asked the teenage boys to kiss her on the mouth, like at visitation sessions. Some boys liked it, not me of course – you know how I feel about women’s bodies – urgh. Anyway, we all know it happens, and, if you’re friendly and cheerful about it, the women can make your life a lot easier. On the other hand, if, like Artemis, you shout out in the cafeteria that a woman has been too familiar, then they can make your life a lot harder. So, it’s strange, isn’t it Mary, that he’s been picked for this honour?

But I’ll not worry about that, Mary. I’m off, like Gulliver, like Prospero, out into the wide world – or will I be Mirando? Forever proclaiming in awe: O, wonder! – How many goodly creatures are there here!

I’ll miss Isla. Of all the carers, she’s my favourite (apart from you, of course!). I even saw her sneaking an extra piece of apple fritter to Artemis after his laundry shift, which I think was nice.

A really weird thing happened. When I told Old Nord about the vaccine, he begged me not to take it. Not because he wanted to go in my place – he’s adamant that he will never take the vaccine – but because he thinks that it’s not what they say it is. He says it’s a trap, that me and the others are being experimented on and that we’re going to die. Or worse, the vaccine simply doesn’t work, and we were going to get infected by threads and end up raving and dribbling at a sanatorium. They were all muttering when we did our grooming before bed, talking about whether they were going to take the vaccine when they got called. I’m not even sure they have a choice.

Anyway, I don’t know when I’ll be able to write you another letter. I don’t know where I’m going after I’ve had the vaccine. Anyway, I’ll keep thinking of things to write to you, so I can send a nice long letter as soon as I get the chance.

Love,

Tony

 

CHAPTER 2

Evie

I usually avoid volunteering for things. Even at school, I’d blend into the background when they were looking for banner girls for Memorial Day or soloists for the midwinter choir, I stood at the back and mouthed along whilst wishing for the whole thing to be over.

So I surprised myself by deciding to attend an MWA integration and fostering meeting, to learn more about the upcoming arrivals. The MWA – the Men’s Welfare Association – has come under attack recently. Its famous – now infamous – head, Jen Harting, has recently been sentenced to deportation for violence against men, human trafficking, medicinal treason, and a bewildering number of other crimes.

My comatose patient, Mary, had a hand in bringing her down. She talked about it before she lapsed into unconsciousness. That and her sons. Perhaps that’s why I went this evening. Maybe Mary’s words had had an effect.

It was thought Harting might get a reduced sentence, a rehabilitation centre, perhaps, due to how instrumental she was in the building of the Union. But the testimony offered, and the sheer scale of her transgressions, meant that deportation was inevitable.

Spain probably – it might as well be a death sentence.

There were a few dissenting voices when Harting was sentenced. The Women’s Conservation Society had plenty to say – the ones who wanted to get rid of men even before the vaccine was discovered. They think Harting’s a hero, a martyr to their cause. The rumour is that they’ve even started their own radio station – XXFM. Last market day I overheard a few women in Eastor whispering about it.

So there I stood on a damp autumn evening, just outside the Eastor village hall door, dithering about whether to go into the meeting or to abandon the whole enterprise, when from behind me, a voice said, “Evie! How wonderful to see you here!”

I jumped around like a kid caught stealing honeycomb to find the beaming smile of Molly Coombs.

Her smile was so enthusiastic that it was difficult to look directly into her gaze. “Hi Molly, I didn’t realise this was your thing,” I mumbled, although it was no surprise to see her here. Ever since we’d been at school, she’d joined everything and anything: school maths club, young engineering group, debating society. When we’d left school: PTA, Recycling Association, Law Abidance Volunteers, Remembrance Day Committee. Molly even sewed the costumes for the Eastor and Stevenage amateur dramatic society. That was all alongside raising four girls and running a successful smallholding. Sam, her partner, was an odd fish, older than me and Molly, born at least twenty years before the first wave. Sam had a hard time of it on all accounts. Something to do with the army rounding up certain groups of people and sending them to secret sites for their own protection. It was all very hush hush – like many things that happened at that time. It was also rumoured that Molly had contributed twice to gain the good arable land down by the stream, that two of her daughters had shared a womb with a twin brother. Two sons offered

up to The Union – a noble sacrifice.

I was out of my depth, and I wanted to go home. The street lighting wouldn’t be turned on for another few weeks, and the September evening was cool and gloomy. Mae had brought me back a pile of books from her trip to the Citadel and I could have been at home, ...