How Far Would You Go to Keep Living?

It would have been a beautiful game, with São Paulo looking as if they just might turn the tide on the nigh-invincible Santos. The television screen had blacked out though, text flickering into existence on it.

 

TOO MANY TO CROSS TO THE OTHER SIDE.

 

Jorge, Rosana, Beatrice, Good Pedro, Bad Pedro and Izabel gave a collective roar of indignation.

'Fuck is this? Get back to the football,' Bad Pedro said, hitting the television.

'Might be the aerial,' Jorge said. He shifted it from side to side before moving it to the window from which the Favela could be seen. 'Anything?'

 

DEPOPULATION NEEDED. FIVE TESTS. DESTROY THOSE WHO FAIL.

 

'You're not doing it right, needs to be facing upwards,' Rosana said, putting her arms around Jorge's waist to help him.

Beatrice winced and turned away. Izabel was mashing the remote control buttons in vain, then resorting to biting them.

'Give me that, you lunatic,' Beatrice said, rescuing the remote. 'I've stolen better working TVs than this, Jorge.'

'It was free,' Jorge said.

 

TEST ONE. COMMUNICATION. SHAKE SOMEONE'S HAND. 

 

'Oh, okay,' Izabel said. She shook everyone's hand except Bad Pedro, who slapped her palm away.

'Get out of it,' Bad Pedro said. 'Probably the police fucking with the Favela again. First the fires, now this.'

A knock on the door. Good Pedro answered. It was a neighbour.

'Hey, friend,' the neighbour said. 'Is your TV working okay? Ours broke down in the middle of the game.'

'Nah, man,' Good Pedro said. 'It went black, other channels don't work either. Some writing about a test keeps showing up.'

'Mmm, ours too...you guys want some weed? I can hook you up.'

'We're stocked.' Good Pedro shut the door.

 

With the entire Favela robbed of its scheduled programming, most likely by the police, everyone took to playing poker. At the table, the teenage players measured each other. Jorge, the white prostitute, Rosana, the brown lookout, Beatrice, the black thief, Good Pedro, the black courier, Bad Pedro, the brown gangster, and Izabel, the white...something. They didn't know what Izabel did to earn her keep, only that every now and again she would come home with her pockets stuffed with banknotes. Whatever the case, the gang, as they styled themselves, had been living in the same area and working under the same syndicate long enough to know all about each others' ticks.

I've got this, Beatrice thought, Jorge doesn't even know what a poker face is, bad hand. Good Pedro is tightening his arms, good hand. Rosana, the bitch, is—

'Question,' Izabel said, 'what's a flush again?'

The others groaned.

'Can we kick this spastic out of the game please?' Bad Pedro said. 'She's never going to get the rules down.'

Biting her lip, Izabel began to move her chips off the table. Their retreat was blocked by Jorge's hand.

'Hold on, I think I've got a rule book somewhere,' Jorge said.

Bad Pedro rolled his eyes and Good Pedro laid his cards down.

'Enough,' Good Pedro said, 'I'm not sitting through another interval. I'm out.'

'You got somewhere better to be?' Beatrice asked.

'Maybe.'

With the game stalled, Rosana wowed Izabel with card tricks, Good Pedro put on his shoes to leave and Bad Pedro began talking about work.

'I swear if Red Command keeps pushing into the Favela it's going to end in a mob war, all out,' he said, stroking his pistol.

Jorge plopped the poker rule book on the table. 'So what do you expect us to do about it? You're the gangster, we're just the associates.'

Rosana looked up. 'Hey, I'm a gangster too, I think. Lookouts are more than associates, right?' she asked Bad Pedro, who gave a so-so gesture.

'I've got a plan to stop them,' Bad Pedro said, 'but I'll need all your help. That includes you too, Good Pedro. Don't run out on me, blacky.'

Beatrice leaned forward. 'You have a plan? This I need to hear.'

'Hell yeah, what we need—'

Then Bad Pedro exploded.

A good two minutes of screaming followed, not just in their room, but everywhere.

 

The televisions returned to normal, the football usurped by the news. The incident had been global, with everyone who had not obeyed the televised instructions exploding exactly twelve hours later. It was estimated that over seventy percent of the human race had been exterminated.

In response, the Brazilian Government moved all survivors found in the favelas into the cities, their hovels traded for modern, warm apartments.

Days passed. Those within the gang's apartment lived around their televisions.

'What's going on?!' Rosana said, coughing out marijuana smoke. 'It's been like a week already. When's the TV going to tell us what the second test is?! And who took my chicken pastel?!'

'It's not the TV that tells us,' Izabel murmured, 'it's the god on the other side, where the fairies are.' She'd been chewing matches in front of the screen all night while the rest of the gang and some sixteen neighbours partook in an emperor’s array of food and drugs.

The noise was comforting.

'You want a pastel?!' Beatrice asked Good Pedro, who shook his head, his eyes on the floor.

'Someone burned down the post office last night,' he said.

'What?! Can't hear you!'

'Why would you do that? No one even works there any more.'

'Oh forget it!' Beatrice said, then slumping down besides Jorge. 'Hey, Jorge!'

'Hey, Beatrice!' he said, screwing up his name in the pile of cocaine powder and cheese puff dust on the table.

'Cool end of the world party, huh?! I stole you a pastel!'

'Thanks! Can't really steal anything any more though! Everybody's dead, everything's free!'

'I guess. So you want to—'

'Quiet!' Izabel said. 'The screen's changed!'

 

TEST TWO. REPRODUCTION. IMPREGNATE SOMEONE / GET IMPREGNATED.

 

Rosana took hold of the chair Jorge was sitting on and shifted him to the bedroom while the others crowded the television. 'You think it'll still be a bastard if we get married the day after?' she asked. 'I've always wanted a big celebrity wedding.'

Beatrice tried to wipe away the nonsensical words on the television. 'What kind of fucked up god kills half the human race and then tells the rest to get busy?'

Izabel took a bite out of the pastel. 'What does impregnate mean?'

 

Thankfully, there were more females than males in the apartment. Beatrice made do with Good Pedro. With Izabel it was trickier, she didn't like what impregnate meant. Nevertheless, she didn't like the idea of exploding like Bad Pedro either, so eventually it got done.

 

Two days later, the apartment dwellers headed out for routine cleaning duty.

'So what are you going to name yours?' Rosana asked Beatrice as they extracted body parts from car interiors, then throwing them onto roadside piles.

'Nothing, I'm hoping I can get rid of it.'

'You want to blow up?'

'The test said get impregnated, didn't say anything about going through with birth. Can't be sure though, not until someone has tried the pill.'

'I guess...I was thinking maybe Fabiano, like from that movie. You know what I'm talking about?'

'No. Man, it smells.'

'Oh, you know the one—hey, Izabel, don't do that!'

The sitting Izabel had been inching a brain closer and closer to her face, but dropped it upon hearing Rosana. 'Why not?'

From behind the crashed helicopter came Good Pedro. 'Everything okay?'

Beatrice pulled out a large intestine from beneath a fuel pedal. 'Peachy.'

'Where's Jorge?' Good Pedro asked.

Beatrice shrugged.

'Being sick,' Rosana said, 'he hates this kind of thing.'

'Not going to last long with that attitude,' Good Pedro said. 'The Mayor says we're burning the piles at three now, wind's getting too—'

'Fairies!' Izabel said with a laugh, lifting up her arms so the brain was flung into the air. 'Burn the bad and call the fairies!'

Beatrice wiped her forehead.

 

Like before, the next test was revealed a week after the last.

 

TEST THREE. MATERIALISM. DESTROY A BUILDING.

 

Naturally, the Favela was set upon with the Brazilian Government's blessing. However, the fires that started there soon spread to the City.

'Cool,' Jorge said, the dogs were fleeing the fire storm through the streets alongside their Jeep. 'I had a dog once, customer gave it to me—cough. Used to do tricks—cough cough.'

'Can't this thing go any—cough, faster?!' Rosana asked the driver. 'The smoke's going to kill us!'

'No!' the driver said, running down a dog at a turn. 'We told you to keep it contained in the Favela's east side, east side! Fucking niggers can't do anything right!'

Beatrice and Good Pedro flinched, but he was the driver.

Izabel let her shirt cover her belly again. 'I want to get out.'

Only Beatrice heard. 'What—cough! You can't!'

Izabel gave Beatrice a big smile and threw herself out of the side of the Jeep. After getting back up, she ran through the pack of dogs and into a wall of flame.

The Jeep's speed increased.

 

'So what now?' Beatrice asked Good Pedro, both sitting by the rainforest the convoy had parked by.

'Head west and then wait until the fires stop,' he said. 'The Mayor says Cascavel might not have been hit so bad.'

'The Mayor this, the Mayor that. You sound like a cop.'

'Hey, at least I'm taking responsibility. Someone's got to keep things organised.'

'Whatever.'

'Nothing stopping you from joining the Government too. It'll keep you from worrying, give you something to focus on.'

'Your friends been asking after me?'

'You think the worst of people.'

'Yes I do...I took the pill.'

'Yeah?'

'Yep, a bunch of girls took it yesterday, none of them exploded. The all-powerful TV God has been defeated by birth control.'

'Good, I'm real glad you're okay.'

'Sure. How many of us are left now? Twenty percent? Ten percent?'

'Less, most like.'

'What do you think it's all about?'

'First line shown was too many to cross to the other side. Sounds to me like something is trying to weed out all but the most capable for crossing over to that other side.'

'More like the most obedient.'

'That too. What do you think?'

'I think it's all a game for some powerful asshole who likes hurting people, same as always.'

'Huh. I used to want to be powerful.'

'What? As a footballer?'

'No, after that. Thought if I stuck with the Syndicate and kept my head down I'd end up as one of the big shots.'

'From working as a courier?'

'Stranger things have happened.'

'Now they have...you know, I used to be jealous of Izabel.'

'Why?'

'Because as crazy as she was, she could do things I couldn't. Any time we went to the City, she could stroll on into a jewellery store and I'd get stopped at the door.'

'Well, you are a thief, Beatrice.'

'Not back then I wasn't, and how were they to know anyway...? Fucking Izabel...I miss her.'

'Me too. Bad Pedro as well. He was alright, he was just...troubled.'

'He was a prick.'

'Have you ever heard the saying do not speak ill of the dead?'

'The dead don't care.'

A gust of wind passed them by. Within the Jeep Rosana tried to keep Jorge from shivering. Something was wrong with him.

'You want my coat?' Good Pedro asked Beatrice.

'No.'

 

They had almost made it to Cascavel when the next test was broadcast, the convoy receiving the order via radio from the central Brazilian Government.

 

TEST FOUR. MANOEUVRABILITY. TRAVEL TO ANOTHER COUNTRY.

 

With that, the convoy's destination changed to Paraguay.

 

The clouds reflected the light of the forest fires. Rosana held the unconscious Jorge in the back of the Jeep. Beatrice and Good Pedro took turns driving up front. The convoy had split into individual cars hours before, with drivers speeding to and from Paraguay all the way down the wreckage-strewn two way road.

'Just hang on, Jorge. There's just one more test after this one,' Rosana sobbed. 'And after that we'll sail to our own little island on the coast. You and me and the baby and...and we'll be happy.'

A bump on the road made them jolt upwards. 'Don't leave me here, you selfish whore, I won't be abandoned again. I'll leave you out in the rainforest. I'll throw our baby into the sea. I'll destroy every trace of you. I'm going to rule this place and...don't leave me.'

Beside the road a stranger tried to wave down the Jeep, Beatrice drove on.

 

Soon the road became too cluttered with vehicles to drive on, so Beatrice redirected the Jeep onto the grass. Then they ran out of gas.

'We're not leaving him here!' Rosana said, trying her best to haul Jorge along by herself.

Good Pedro shook his head at the pair. 'Come on, two hours left,' he said to Beatrice.

'Beatrice!' Rosana implored.

A green ladybug landed on Beatrice's left shoulder. After a moment of hesitation, she swatted it. 'We're orphans, Pedro. If we don't look out for each other, who will?'

Good Pedro looked Beatrice up and down, and then walked away.

 

The bridge leading to Paraguay was burning too, so Beatrice and Rosana carried Jorge through the streams and the rainforest, pestered by bugs all the way. Beyond exhaustion, the pair finally emerged from the trees into a field. Everything was dark, so they slept. The dawn's light revealed Spanish safety signs.

'We made it!' Rosana said to Jorge, not yet noticing the smell of decay.

Lacking the shovels to bury him, Beatrice and Rosana left Jorge's body sitting under the shade of a silk floss tree.

 

The pair found a commune of survivors near the far side of the bridge. A few times Beatrice caught Rosana speaking to strangers, speaking to her stomach, speaking to herself. Good Pedro was nowhere to be found.

'Isn't that the President?' Beatrice asked while the two of them were fishing. Someone of the right height, build and look but the wrong colour was filling buckets from the stream.

Rosana remained silent.

 

A week of panic rolled by. Then the emigrated Paraguayan Government aired the fifth and final test on the radio.

 

TEST FIVE. SELF PRESERVATION. KILL SOMEONE.

  

Beatrice wished Spanish was not so close to Portuguese.

Grouped around the car radio were perhaps thirty of them, most were armed. Beatrice and Rosana shared a look. The shacks of the commune were wooden, but they were there. A man in a suit started to appeal to the others, Beatrice and Rosana bolted for the cover of the shacks. They were children of the Favela, they had done this before. Gunfire bit holes in the scenery behind them as they ran. Soon the commune was a distant echo.

 

Unarmed aside from a couple of skinning knives, Beatrice and Rosana headed for the rainforest. For what seemed like an age they were hunted by the crackling of leaves.

It rained.

The water drove them to a cave, where they found what might have been the sat body of the President, a hole in her head and a pistol near her groin.

They dragged the body out of the cave to get rid of the stink. Then they sat facing one another, the pistol between them.

'So,' said Beatrice.

'So,' said Rosana, 'look at us, all melodramatic.'

'We could probably still find a couple of people out there.'

'Maybe, if the rain doesn't kill us first... But what then, after that?'

Beatrice shrugged. 'We pass the tests, we cross to the other side...'

'I was never that religious, just keeping up appearances really.'

'Huh. Whatever the TV God wants from us, it's going to be disappointed.... We'll probably turn the other side into a big favela.'

They chuckled.

'It's funny,' Rosana said, 'I used to dream about something like this happening, something that would make me important...but now....'

'Same.'

Silence.

Beatrice moved her arm to scratch a bug bite, her hand gliding before her sheathed skinning knife.

Rosana took the pistol and shot Beatrice in the heart. '...Sorry.'

 

At midnight the rain stopped.

Rosana felt a painful little pop in her stomach. 'Right...pregnant...should have killed for two.'

She stepped out of the cave. A vast wall of darkness was engulfing everything in sight. There was a message on the surface of it.

 

PREPARE TO CROSS TO THE OTHER SIDE.

 

Rosana laughed, and stroked her pistol.