2022
Out in the old anchorage of Port Stanley a pyramid of ocean basalt rose hundreds of meters from the water. This stone behemoth was composed of cubical megaliths that had been cut from the seabed, dredged up by immense trawlers, and stacked on top of each other in the ancient fashion. Embedded within the structure were insulated chambers containing everything needed to sustain life - connected by a webbing of passageways and wires. Those deemed worthy of survival within this protected habitation were various officials of the United Kingdom, including a Royal Emissary answering directly to the King. Another notable among the ranks of the saved was the self-styled "Enumerator of Mortality", an administrator who had already dedicated himself to keeping track of the losses sustained by humanity within the coming years.
The port itself was a stinking shantytown. The ranks of Stanley's dwellings had been swollen by the desperate shelters of the wretched. All day and night groups of these damned and frantic supplicants would row out in dinghies to the pyramid and beg to be let inside. Soon the begging rose to an incessant roar, a constant screaming imploration not to have to leave this world. But this shouting was inaudible to those in the pyramid. A few souls drowned in the breakers off those stark stone steps, falling into the waves unnoticed by all but one.
The Enumerator watched it all dispassionately from his office. Served by its own generator, the room was fully equipped with the West's latest spy equipment. But that didn't matter anymore. Those expensive instruments of espionage were now useful only for the task of watching people cling to life with the same ferocity of two departing lovers clutching each other.
On a cold morning a storm swept in from the north. It rained so hard that even the pyramid-dwellers could hear its patter. To all but the Enumerator and the King’s Emissary the deluge was barely noticed, dismissed as mere ambient noise. But it meant far more to the exposed people of the town that had been Stanley. Each drop contained within it poison dust and isotopes. All those who were out in the elements when the rain fell died quickly. For those who had shelter that withstood the downpour, drinking water from the wells brought them death. By the end of three days the entire port was left cold and barren. The Enumerator saw this all from the comfort of his computer screen. His interest in the struggle of the survivors was morbidly practical, and he obsessively catalogued the habits of those who managed to live the longest. Alongside him, the Emissary watched the screen, his face as white as a sheet.
Half an hour after the last man in Stanley succumbed to his thirst and died of it, the Enumerator and the Emissary shuffled into the common room. A woman sat there. Wordlessly, the Enumerator held out a screen for her to examine. The resultant howl was enough to pull everyone else into the room. On his tablet computer the Enumerator showed edited photographs that showed what radiation had done to the former town of Stanley. Mass grief ensued. Only the Enumerator stood unaffected. He was bothered only by the fact he had nothing left to observe.
While all the rest slouched around sobbing ostentatiously, the Royal Emissary’s pallor deepened and he hung his head in abject shame. He disappeared immediately to his room and was heard from no more.
They had to kick down the bedroom door to get at the Emissary. When it fell they saw him lying unmoving in his desk chair, a large puddle of blood on the tiles below him. Shards of bone and slabs of pink flesh lay among the blood. Lacking any weapon, the man had carved up the roof of his mouth with a steak knife. A grainy video was looping on his computer screen.
Before the video file was examined the King’s old Emissary was lifted out of his soiled chair and taken to the clinic room. Astoundingly, he was still alive, if comatose.
Having transferred the file to his own tablet computer, the Enumerator retired to his bedroom, where he could watch the video alone.
It was low resolution, the lowest resolution he had seen in his life, but he could make out a familiar bald head and an aged, kindly face. The King himself! After a moment of staring into the camera, the magnanimous old monarch began his address.
“British citizens! The impossible has come to pass. A confirmed nuclear strike is minutes away from striking this country. Every major city is a target. I have decided that I should... er... go down with the ship, as it’s said. Do not think that this is merely a show of the old stiff-upper lip mentality—no, this is a mark of my devotion to Britain and her people. I would encourage you to follow my example and not live your last moments in cowardice. If you live in a large city like me, you mustn’t wait around for the bombs to fall. Keep calm and follow my example along with those you love.” The King raised an object, slate gray and roughly L-shaped. When the Enumerator realized what it was, an involuntary shudder seized him, his stoicism shattered.
The King went on, “For those in rural counties and in the Overseas Territories, you have already received... information on water and air filter collection. But remember, the seat of government is moving to New South London. They will oversee the rebuilding of the nation. Physical destruction will never crush the spirit of this great country—I know that much. The United Kingdom will survive, even if this Isle is made into dust. God save us all.” With an air of finality, the King shut off the broadcasting device and the video ended. In the last frame, the object moved towards the King’s mouth. The Enumerator wept, for his nation and for the world.
While the Enumerator had been watching the last address ever from a British monarch, the Emissary had expired. Nobody had prompted it, but he had issued forward a declaration shortly before his death. His last croak went, “I have failed”. And indeed he was right. As a direct servant of the King, the Emissary was sent His Majesty’s final broadcast to show to not only the people living in the pyramid, but also in the town of Stanley. Perhaps they would’ve had a more dignified end if they knew their importance, for the Royal Emissary had neglected to relay the fact that “New South London” was in fact Port Stanley. Because of this catastrophic failure, he had destroyed himself in the same ruinous act of hopeless devotion the King had.
Some weeks later the Enumerator sent a drone north. This unmanned glider passed over deep waters which teemed with sharks that drove their teeth into one another in frenzied hunger. Somewhere over this abyss the signal back to the pyramid was lost, but the drone continued. It would reach the shores of a great continent, where cities lay in scorched ruin and the dead whose faces had not been marred by the inferno were frozen in agony as if in a tableau of eternal torment. The once lovely coast of the Rio de la Plata had been burned with such fury that the water had boiled away from the beach and the sand had become a sort of glass.
Of course the U.S. had been nuked to ashes. Every small town, vibrant metropolis, and sweltering Pacific base had been blown to hell. East Asia and Europe too. Every city in China, France and Britain was little more than a pile of smoking rubble layered with corpses. But even isolated South America, reduced to a nuclear wasteland? If the Enumerator still had connection to his drone and could see what it saw he may have followed the example of the Royal Emissary and the King. His interest in death extinguished, replaced by a hollow love for his extinct nation.