New World Order

Kamilla’s eyes focused slowly on the ceiling and memory took its time returning, but when it did, she grinned and sprang upright. Today was the long, long, long-awaited day when the new overlords of the human race would finally reveal themselves and change everything, and make Kamilla the most important human alive. No, scratch that—the most important human ever to have lived.

She danced a samba into the kitchenette, put the kettle on, and checked her messages. Ervankaromerotamo had sent a brief one with nothing but “T-6”, as agreed. Six hours to go… no, five hours and forty-six minutes. Kamilla’s toes danced on the tiled floor under her kitchen table.

The newsreader on the BBC wore an eyesore of a tie and had not combed his hair properly. Kamilla sniffed. She would put paid to that sort of sloppiness when she was in charge and no mistake. That man would look good in a blue tie, even given that he would have to wear it with the tinfoil suit that Ervankaromerotamo’s people were about to mandate for all humans. Certainly having his hair shaved off would be an improvement over that undisciplined mess.

Reminded of her important task she got up and hurried—not dashed, no, that would be undignified—back to her bed and bent double to retrieve a low rectangular box from underneath. Inside the orderly rows of egg-shaped somethings gleamed exactly as they had when Ervankaromerotamo had entrusted her with them. Kamilla wished she knew what they were. Weapons? Food? In her favourite imagined scenario they were eggs, wirmen eggs, and she was the proud caregiver to a new generation of Ervankaromerotamo’s offspring. (Not that she knew how they reproduced, she had to admit. That was not the sort of thing you asked your overlords.)

Her second favourite scenario involved hand grenades.

She padded back into the kitchenette and poured her tea, and then listened idly to the news while buttering a slice of bread. Some stuff about farming subsidies and blowing up the polar ice caps, same old same old… until a funny insert about a waterskiing parakeet was rudely interrupted by the BBC World logo that just sat there spinning in an infinite loop. Kamilla stared in shock. There was still more than five hours to go, surely the wirmen had not started already? She double-checked her messages; nothing. As the logo continued to spin her nervousness mounted. Had they been discovered? The very existence of the wirmen was a closely-guarded secret and the revelation would delay the execution of the plan, not to speak of the disaster that would ensue if the plan itself were revealed.

The logo flicked out, replaced briefly by a blank screen and then by the face of another newsreader. This one was at least appropriately dressed, Kamilla noted.

“We apologise for that short interruption,” the newsreader began. “We have just received momentous news. I can hardly believe it myself.” The woman smiled, then laughed, and Kamilla was astonished to see two enormous glittering tears roll down her cheeks. She bent to read from a paper that, judging by its floppiness, had already been wept upon. “Following secret talks that have lasted for weeks, the leaders of every nation on Earth have pledged their allegiance to a new world order. They have signed a universal treaty, making the entire world one single military and economic entity. All armed conflicts have been resolved and universal disarmament is beginning as we speak. A plan is in place to deliver food surplus from affluent areas to those with food shortages. A minimum income is to be instituted that is independent of employment status. All human rights are affirmed in the legal code of this new entity, which is called the Democratic Republic of Earth.” The newsreader lifted her shining face to the camera and she seemed to gaze right inside Kamilla’s pounding heart. “We have world peace. I repeat, we have world peace. It is here.”

The view shifted to show crowds cheering and dancing in front of gigantic ad screens that had been adapted to show the news. London, Washington, Paris, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing, Helsinki… who knew where else. Kamilla sat stock still, unable to tear her eyes away from the screen.

It started to dawn on her that today was not a good day for a revolution.