“So, you finally admit that The Splits is real?” Michelle, talking on her cellphone in her bedroom, said.

“Yes,” Peter said with a sigh of embarrassment. He, too, was calling from his bedroom. “I’m sorry for having been so pig-headed about this whole thing. It’s just that there’s so much bullshit out there in the media, it’s hard to tell the difference between fact and fiction.”

“I know,” she said, “but the media didn’t split our parents’ bodies into pieces. Our eyes aren’t the TV. We can trust what we see, and you can trust me to tell you the truth.”

“Yeah, but still,” he said. “There’s something strange about this ‘disease.’ As they say, it isn’t like anything we’ve ever seen before.”

“Split-off body parts acting like entities unto themselves. I know what you mean.”

“They were talking, Michelle. My mom’s and dad’s body parts were actually talking.”

She felt a shudder at those words, remembering her father’s death. “It seemed that way to me, too. I thought I heard the parts of my dad saying, ‘No, no, no…’.”

“I saw faces forming on my parents’ ripped-off body parts,” Peter said. “What looked like eyes and mouths in their innards, saying, ‘I don’t want it. I don’t want it.'”

“It’s more like demonic possession than a disease.”

“Exactly. No disease does anything that freaked out.”

“Anyway, have you been tested?” she asked. “And do you have a protective suit?”

“Yes, and…yes,” he said with a sigh of annoyance. “I’m gonna hate wearing it. It’s so uncomfortable.”

“I know, but it’ll be less uncomfortable than feeling your body tearing up into pieces, and nowhere near as traumatic as seeing other people’s bodies tear up into pieces, especially if we’re the ones responsible for passing The Splits onto them.”

“Yeah, I guess. It still sucks, though.”

“But at least we can be together, and since both of us have been tested recently, we can be intimate. When did they test you at MedicinaTech? Earlier today?”

“Oh, I got it done today, but it wasn’t there. I know a doctor in Regent Park.”

“Regent Park? Why’d you go to that poor-as-fuck place? Why not in your parents’ business, where they have the best medical equipment and doctors?”

“Because I don’t trust the doctors there,” he said. “Dr. Teague, our head scientist, is a carrier, and he infected my mom and dad, though nobody saw it was him, and nobody believed me when I said it was he who passed it on. I think many of the staff are carriers, and trying to keep it all a secret.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. That’s why I doubt that this is just a new virus. There’s a weird, body-snatcher kind of thing going on.”

“Like my mom and her fake smiles,” Michelle said with another shudder.

“Yeah. I’ll tell you another thing. Now that both my parents are dead, I’m supposed to succeed them as head of MedicinaTech, right?”

“Yeah, and what’s going on there?”

“They made Wayne Grey, head of R and D, the new CEO of the company.”

“What? Why him? How could your mom and dad do that?”

“Oh, come on, Michelle. You know why.”

“Because you’d end the company and its rule over Toronto as your very first act as new CEO.”

“Exactly,” Peter said. “And this Wayne guy, who’s been with the company since it began, has shown more loyalty to MedicinaTech and its government than even any of the surviving members of the Board of Directors. Mom and Dad would have given it to that Derek Gould guy, the old CFO, but The Splits killed him, remember? And his replacement is too new to be trusted to lead the company and government.”

“I see,” she said. “But why did you get tested in Regent Park? It’s so filthy dirty there. How can you know they did a good job there?”

“I don’t trust rich people. And I know the doctor there personally. He’ll test you without any agenda. He doesn’t buy into any of the older diseases, though he acknowledges The Splits. For me, that’s reliable enough.”

“OK.”

“In fact, I suggest we go over there and rent a room in a hotel there.”

“Eww! Why there?“

“It isn’t all that bad. There are some nice places there. The hotels are nice and cheap, too, and we won’t have to worry about surveillance cameras watching us and penalizing us for not wearing the suits, the way we do even in our own homes now. The government doesn’t care about the people in Regent Park, because they’re too poor to do anything against the powerful; they’re not allowed to enter the middle- and upper-class sections of the city, so nobody worries about them spreading any diseases among us.”

“Well, I guess that makes it OK,” she said, still wincing. “If we’re alone and don’t have any of the residents near us.”

“We can wear the protective suits all the way to the hotel room, then when we’re all alone, we can take them off…and everything else. Then we’ll leave with the suits on, we can get tested by my guy again, just in case, then go home.”

“You think it’ll be romantic in Regent Park?” she asked with a sneer.

“I like the poor a lot better than the rich,” he said. “I like to be reminded of how the other side lives. And I think you need to be reminded of their plight every now and then, too.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right about that,” she said. “I feel a little guilty about my ‘Eww!’ before. I need to be reminded of how lucky we are. When do you want to meet up?”

“How about tonight at around 8:00? I’ll meet you in MedicinaTech. I want to talk to Wayne about the progress they’re making on finding a cure for The Splits. Not that I trust him all that much, but I’m so desperate, I’ll do whatever I have to so we won’t have to wear these suits anymore.”

“OK, I’ll be in the lobby at about 8:00. Bye.”

“See you then,” he said, and they hung up.

The next day, Peter, still without a protective suit, went over to his parents’ office in MedicinaTech. As he walked through the halls, passed the other offices, and went up the elevator on the way there, he frowned and sneered at the sight of everyone else who, without exception, not only wore the protective clothing, but had that passive, almost trance-like look on their faces, because of the vaccines they’d taken.

This is so pathetic, he thought.

On the top floor where his parents’ office was, however, he eyes widened to see the few employees working on that floor not wearing the protective suits. They were no longer wearing the old surgical masks to prevent getting any of the earlier viruses, either.

“Membership in the upper echelons has its privileges,” he whispered as he approached the office door. Funny how the older diseases have suddenly been forgotten about now that ‘The Splits’ is here, he thought.

He went in and sat in a chair by his father’s desk as his parents were reading emails on their desktops.

“What brings you in here, Peter?” his mother asked.

“Oh, nothing much, just hanging out,” he said.

“We’re very busy today,” his father said. “Don’t distract us from our work with any of your petty problems.”

“I was just wondering,” Peter said. “How come everybody downstairs has to suit up, but nobody here on the top floor has to? The staff up here aren’t even wearing the old surgical masks anymore.”

“Every morning when we come in, Dr. Teague gives us a medical check first thing to determine if we’re carriers, of The Splits or of any other viruses,” his mother said. “He can get quick test results, too, within just a few hours. Since we’re all cleared of all of the viruses, and the employees downstairs are all suited up, we don’t have to be.”

“How convenient that the rulers of the city don’t have to live by the same rules as everyone else,” Peter said.

“You enjoy the same privileges,” his father said. “And you’d be crying like a baby if they were taken from you.”

“The point is that none of those people downstairs should be in those stupid suits, either,” Peter said. “Why doesn’t the doctor test them, too, to see if they have The Splits?”

“Because there are too many employees for him to test every morning,” his father said.

“On this floor, there are only about a dozen of them to test, then himself and the two of us,” Peter’s mother said.

“Besides, Dr. Teague is working on a vaccine and making some progress,” his father said.

“Well, I’d say the real reason everyone down there has to wear suits, but we up here don’t have to, is because Teague and both of you know that ‘The Splits’ is nothing but a goddamn hoax.”

“If he knows it’s a hoax, why is he working tirelessly to make a vaccine?” his father asked.

“For the same reason as with all the other vaccines MedicinaTech makes,” Peter said with rising anger. “To profit off of everyone’s fears. This hypochondriac hysteria is good business!”

“Oh, not this again,” his father said.

“It was Dr. Teague’s idea to do the tests for us, not our idea,” his mother said. “He knows that we up here do all the hard brain work, and if we’re in those uncomfortable suits all day and night, it will be harder for us to do our jobs well. It’s only a dozen or so of us up here, so we should be safe.”

“As I said before,” Peter said with a sneer. “How convenient.”

“Can you quit belly-aching?” his father said. “We have a lot of work to do today.”

“Fine,” he said with a sigh.

Just then, Dr. Teague came in the office, without a protective suit, of course.

Speak of the Devil, and he appears, Peter thought.

“Here’s a report of the test results from this morning,” the doctor said, handing a folder to Peter’s father.

“Thank you, Paul,” his father said, taking the folder and feeling his thumb brush against the doctor’s finger.

White dots of light flew out of Dr. Teague’s hand and into Peter’s father’s arm.

“Uhh!” his father moaned, then fell off his chair.

“Ray?” his mother said after turning her head away from her computer monitor. She got up from her desk and ran over to him. “Ray!” Those red cracks were all over his hands and head.

Peter jumped up from his chair and backed up to the glass wall to the left of the office door.

She held Ray by the arms, and some of the glowing white dots flew into her chest. “Aah!” she screamed, and fell on the floor beside him. Now the red cracks were visible on her skin, too, and both of them were shaking and groaning on the floor.

“Holy fuck!” Peter said, then went out of the office and closed the door. He watched his parents through the glass wall. This isn’t happening, he thought. This can’t be happening!

His parents’ body parts started ripping open, making tears in their clothes. Other office staff were looking through the glass wall on either side of Peter. One of them got out a cellphone to call 9-1-1. Another was shouting about getting protective suits up to their floor.

Peter was shaking as much as his parents were. He tried to disbelieve what he saw, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t the hallucinating kind, and what he saw couldn’t have been the fakery of movie special effects.

He saw their shirts and chests rip open. He saw their exposed hearts, stomachs, and intestines.

No blood sprayed anywhere.

There’s no way this is really happening, he thought. I must be dreaming. He pinched himself–no waking up.

His parents’ heads split open. He saw their brains, then remembered Michelle saying she’d seen her mom’s brain.

“I am such an asshole,” he whispered among the screams of the staff around him. She’s going to say, ‘I told you so,’ big time, he thought.

His parents’ pants ripped open. Now Peter could see the torn muscle and sinew on their legs…and their bones.

Finally, the body parts ripped apart into several dozens of pieces and flew in all directions, a few pieces hitting and cracking the glass wall. The left half of his father’s bare right foot struck the glass right by Peter’s face.

“No!” he yelled.

Screams of the staff pierced his eardrums.

His mom’s and dad’s torsos lay there, each in halves beside each other, rocking side to side, limbless, and split open, on the floor by his dad’s desk. Moving holes formed in their lacerated hearts, lungs, stomachs, and intestines. Some of the holes flapped open and shut like mouths. Holes to the top left and right of the flapping holes seemed like eyes; it was as if faces were being formed in his parents’ innards.

“I must be going nuts,” Peter said among the shrieks and gasps of disbelief among the horrified staff.

Those ‘mouths’ were now grunting, over and over again, what sounded like, “I don’t want it.”

My kingdom for a protective suit, Peter thought.

…and amid all the confusion, no one noticed how unruffled Dr. Teague was as he walked out of the office.

A week later, Peter was texting and calling Michelle over and over again, though she wouldn’t answer, until she received this text from him: I won’t stop ringing your phone until you answer and talk to me!

Finally, she, at home, answered: “What’s your problem?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” he replied. “Could it be that I have a girlfriend who hasn’t communicated with me in over a week? Could that be my problem?”

“Would you like to know what my problem is?” she asked.

“I don’t know: could it be believing in a fake disease?”

“Oh, a ‘fake’ disease that I saw kill my father with own eyes?” she said in tears.

“Your father?” Peter said. “I thought it was your mother who had it.”

“She got better, but she’s a carrier now, and she gave it to him. I watched his body explode all over the hospital room. His body parts hit me and the medical staff there!”

Peter tried to keep his chuckling inaudible, but she heard a bit of it.

“It was in the news, Peter! Didn’t you read about it, or see it on the TV? The Splits killed my father!!”

“I don’t follow the news anymore, Michelle. You should know by now that I don’t trust the media.”

“People have been reporting cases of this pandemic all over the world. It’s real, Peter! Millions have been infected, thousands have died.”

“I’m sorry, Michelle, but until I see it with my own two eyes, I’m simply not going to believe it.”

“And until you’re in one of those protective suits, I’m simply not gonna be anywhere near you.”

“Oh, come on, Michelle. I miss you. I miss your touch.”

Her jaw dropped. “You want sex?“

“No, not just that. I miss all of you. Your company, your smile, your closeness. I’m lonely.”

“Well, I…I miss you, too,” she said with a sigh.

“Then let’s get together. Come on!”

“Peter, if I see those white dots of light fly into your body and tear you apart, all because you’re too proud to wear a protective suit, I won’t be able to handle it. I’ve seen the Splits kill my dad, and it almost killed my mom. Dad wanted Mom’s touch, they took off their head coverings, and it killed him. I don’t want to see that happen to either of us. So, suit up, or stay away.”

Peter let out a sigh and asked, “How’s your mom?”

“She’s OK now, I guess. She’s back at work at the newspaper and governing Mississauga, with a special marking on her protective suit so people will know she’s a carrier.”

“Is she acting strangely, or anything?”

“She is, actually. She doesn’t show much emotion. She gives me these reassuring grins, telling me she’s fine, but the grins look fake. She didn’t look at all broken up about Dad’s death, and that makes absolutely no sense. She totally loved him.”

“No crying at all?” Peter asked.

“None,” Michelle said. “At his funeral, she frowned in what looked more like boredom than grief.”

“Really? That’s weird.”

“Yeah. What’s even weirder, though actually a good thing, is she says she wants to make some democratic changes to her administration of our district, and to be more objective in the reporting of the news here.”

“Whoa!” Peter’s jaw dropped now. “That’s even harder to believe than all these diseases. Still, I’ll be glad if it’s true.”

“Well, it isn’t going to be easy for her to make these changes, since all the other people on the Board of Directors for the magazine/government have a major say in the decision-making, and none of them will be easily persuaded by her.”

“Now, that sounds believable,” Peter said with a sneer. “Anyway, are we gonna get together or not?”

“Are you gonna wear a suit, or not?”

“Oh, come on!”

“No suit, no cuddles.”

“How can we cuddle in those confining things? With the plastic in front of our faces, we can’t kiss.”

“It’ll be difficult, but at least we’ll be together.”

“Look, I’ll think about it, OK? Just answer my calls.”‘

“I’ll answer them, but I won’t see you until you suit up. Got it?”

He moaned. “Got it. Bye.”

“Bye.” They hung up.

Peter and Michelle exchanged text messages over the following week. Each exchange was a variation on this:

Peter: When am I going to see you again?
Michelle: Are you wearing protective clothing?
Peter: No way!
Michelle: You’re not seeing me until you are.

In her living room, she looked down at the messages on her phone, having just sent that last text. Please, God, if You exist, she thought, make Peter see the light.

Her father came in, wearing a yellow protective suit, but with the head covering in his hands. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she said, putting her phone in her purse. “Is Mom really better?”

“That’s what the doctors said,” he said. “They say there hasn’t been any splitting of her skin for the past three days. Your mom doesn’t even have those red crack lines on her body anymore. She is a carrier, though, so suit up.”

“OK.” Michelle put on her suit, they both put on their head coverings, and they left the house.

As they went in the car to the hospital, she looked out the window to see all the pedestrians and people in neighbouring cars, in protective clothing from head to toe, all those essential workers who didn’t need to stay home. She could see through the plastic, transparent face coverings of those close enough to the car to see the blank expressions on their faces.

“MedicinaTech’s vaccines sure have taken the life out of everybody,” she said with a sigh. “They’re all just a bunch of passive automatons. So easy to control. What the hell has happened to the world over the past ten years, Daddy? How did the 2020s turn everything into, well, Nineteen Eighty-Four?”

“Just be glad you’re exempt from taking any of those vaccines, Michelle,” he said. “We didn’t want you to be a zombie like them, and our money and influence ensured you wouldn’t be, so be grateful for that.”

“Yeah, but it isn’t fair to all of those other people.”

“Life isn’t fair.”

“That’s an easy evasion of responsibility, Dad.”

“Look, if you want to blame someone, blame the company the parents of your boyfriend is running, not me. Our newspaper constantly criticizes MedicinaTech for not doing anything about the bad side effects of their vaccines.”

“But your employees, especially the lower level ones, all take the vaccines, too.”

“We have to vaccinate them, honey. No choice.”

“But they all have that same half-asleep look on their faces. I wonder how your reporters can be sharp enough to get the facts of their stories straight.”

“We give them a stimulant to counteract the lulling effects of the vaccines,” her dad said.

“Yeah, everyone’s on drugs,” Michelle said with a frown and a touch of anger in her voice. “How wonderful. As long as you and Mom are profiting from all of this, though, right?”

“Oh, here we go again,” he sighed. “You haven’t forgotten that you, as our daughter, benefit from those profits, too, have you?”

“No, I haven’t, and that’s part of why I feel bad for all those Mississaugans out there that our newspaper business-slash-government is ruling over. We enjoy all those benefits–wealth, exemption from lockdowns, influence–that those zombified people don’t have.”

“Governing a city is no picnic, Michelle.”

“Then give up on the governing! Put it back in the hands of the public; then we can create some social programs to help the poor, and we can have an unbiased media that doesn’t twist the facts of current events to reinforce and justify this family’s rule over the city.”

“Social programs for the poor,” he scoffed. “That’s Peter’s commie influence on you, isn’t it?”

“That’s my own, independent thinking, and you don’t have to be a ‘commie’ to believe that! Peter just happens to agree with me on that one point. You’re just mad because I’m not under your influence!”

They arrived in the hospital parking lot.

“Look, let’s just drop it, OK, Michelle? Let’s try to be in a good mood when we see your mother. I’m so grateful she didn’t die on us; this is going to be an emotional moment for me, and I don’t need your arguing to make it even harder.”

They got out of the car and went into the hospital. They were in a waiting room flooded with visitors, nurses, orderlies, and doctors all in those protective suits, some yellow like Michelle’s and her father’s, and others in blue, pink, red, and orange. In fifteen minutes, they were allowed to go into Siobhan’s quarantine room.

Lying on her bed and also in a protective suit (purple) with the head covering on, she had a blank expression, though one not so passive as those vaccinated workers Michelle had seen outside.

Michelle and her dad approached her bed.

“Mom?” she said, troubled by Siobhan’s emotionlessness. “You look far too peaceful to be believed.”

“Hi, sweetie,” she said with a smile that seemed almost forced. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. The struggle is over.”

Tears ran down not only Michelle’s cheeks, but also her father’s. He would find it harder and harder to resist the temptation to take off his head covering, so much did he hate feeling any separation from the wife he almost lost.

“Don, I’m OK,” Siobhan said softly. “I’ve also been thinking about all Michelle has said about what’s wrong with the newspaper. We should make some changes…”

“Well, let’s not get carried away, Siobhan,” he said.

“Yeah, as glad as I am to hear you say that, Mom, I think that for the moment, we should just focus on you getting better.”

“I am better, honey,” Siobhan said, removing her head covering. “Ah, that feels better. I can breathe now.”

“Mom, I don’t think you should do that.”

“I’m 100%, sweetie,” Siobhan said with a grin for her daughter.

“But you’re still a carrier,” Michelle said. “You might infect somebody. People could die.”

“Only if they resist, Michelle,” Siobhan said.

“Resist? Resist what, Mom?”

Tears of relief were soaking Don’s face. An urge to hug and kiss his wife was overwhelming him. “I don’t think I can resist any more.”

He took off his head covering and reached forward to kiss Siobhan.

“No, Daddy!” Michelle screamed.

Siobhan accepted his kiss on her left cheek and his arms around her with a serene smile.

Then the little white dots flew out of her and into him.

“Ungh!” he groaned, then fell to the floor.

“Dad!” Michelle screamed, bending down to help him, but already the red crack marks appeared all over his face. He was shaking and grunting. “Help! Somebody out there! Any doctors? Nurses?!”

Within seconds, a doctor, a nurse, and two orderlies ran into the room.

Now, Michelle could see her father’s brain through the opening cracks.

They would open wide, but close only slightly between even wider openings. His protective suit would show fidgeting bulges where the rest of his body was cracking open.

The medical staff just stood there in a daze of astonishment, not knowing what to do. The doctor was on the verge of tears, hating herself for her helplessness at watching a man die and doing nothing about it.

“Daddy, don’t die on me!” Michelle sobbed.

But the inevitable happened. Don’s body parts ripped apart so violently that they tore out of his clothes and protective suit, flying in all directions in an explosion, and causing an explosion of screams.

Body parts smacked into Michelle and the medical staff, knocking them all back onto the floor. They all looked on with wide eyes and mouths at the fidgeting pieces of the separated four quarters of Don’s head, his bifurcated neck, pieces of his arms, chest, stomach, groin, legs, and feet, all torn into halves, thirds, and even more, smaller fragments.

There still was no blood. The pieces shuffled and wobbled back and forth on the floor, as if alive. Holes formed in the exposed inner anatomy, opening and closing like mouths talking. In fact, Michelle, Siobhan, and the hospital staff could hear something being said through all those ‘mouths.’

Over and over again, grunts of the word, “No.”

“Oh, my God!” the nurse said.

After a minute or so of the fidgeting body parts repeating, “No, no, no, no…,” they all lost colour, stopped moving, and lay there, dead. White dots of light flew out of the body parts and out of the room. Blood poured out in lakes all over the floor.

“Was I hearing things, or were they speaking?” one of the orderlies asked.

“We all saw and heard it,” the doctor said in sobs. “And we don’t believe our eyes or ears any more than you do.”

“Let’s clean up this mess,” the shaking nurse said, then he looked at Michelle and said, “I’m so sorry, Miss.”

The doctor went over to weeping Michelle and put her arms around her. She sobbed, “I’m sorry, too. I’ve seen this happen so many times, and I just can’t do anything! I can never sleep.”

“I don’t blame any of you, Doctor,” Michelle said between sobs. “This whole thing is getting so crazy.”

They left the room together while the nurse and orderlies began picking up Don’s pieces.

In all of the confusion and shock, no one paid any attention to Siobhan or her reaction to her husband’s death…a rather calm reaction.

A week later, Michelle was in her bedroom, chatting with Peter on her smartphone.

“So, have you got your test results back?” he asked with the expected tone of disbelief.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m OK. I’m not a carrier.”

“I could’ve told you that a week ago,” he said.

“Peter,” she said, struggling not to raise her voice. “My mom has it. She’s in quarantine, struggling to fight it off. You weren’t there when she caught it. I was.“

“What did you see? An acting job?”

“It’s real, Peter! She wasn’t acting. I saw red cracks all over her body. They were opening and closing. I could see bits of her brain showing!”

“Did you see any blood?” he asked. She could almost see his sneer. “Blood must have been flying all over the place if her head was opening up.”

“No…oddly, there wasn’t any blood.”

“Which makes this whole thing all the less believable.”

“Oh, go to hell, Peter! Don’t talk to me again until you grow up!” She hung up on him. “Ignorant, arrogant asshole!”

Her father was standing by her ajar bedroom door. “Michelle?”

She looked over at him. “How’s Mom?” she asked.

“She’s about the same,” he said with a sigh. “Still struggling with it. According to the people taking care of her, those cracks on her body keep widening and narrowing, back and forth, in a kind of stalemate.”

“Have the doctors learned anything about how to help her get better?” she asked with teary eyes.

“No. All that seems to help is the wearing of decontamination clothing. A week has gone by and no one wearing that clothing ever catches The Splits. People on the news are already telling everyone to buy those suits and wear them everywhere. Stores are all getting stocked up with them as we speak.”

“I know. Peter’s gonna hate it. He’ll never comply.” She started crying.

“Oh, honey,” Her father walked over to her and put his arm around her. “We’ve both been tested, so I guess we can make contact. But Peter’s still being stubborn, eh?”

“Yeah,” she sobbed. “He’s too proud to admit he’s wrong. When…er, if…he catches it, I don’t wanna be there and see his body cracking into pieces.”

“He might just be a carrier.”

“Then he’ll carelessly give it to me, or to you, or to somebody else, to many other people, and at least some of them will die. I might be there to see that, and I’ll have to explain why I wasn’t insistent enough to get him to wear the protective clothing.” She sobbed louder.

“Do you still want to go out with him?”

“Yes, of course. I still love him. I’m just mad at him, and really afraid for all of us.” She knew her father’s real motives for asking the question: if she’d stop being Peter’s girlfriend, she wouldn’t have his influence, and maybe she wouldn’t be so against her parents’ business and governance of the Mississauga area. And he was much more adamant in defending his business than her mom was.

Still, she bit her tongue: now was not the time to be fighting with him.

Now was a time they all needed to pull together.

Michelle arrived in her mother’s office in their newspaper, The Mississauga Exposé, about an hour after Peter had arrived in his parents’ office. “Hi, Mom,” she said as she walked through the doorway.

“Hi, sweetie,” her mom said. “How’s everything? How’s Peter?”

Wearing masks, they didn’t get close to each other.

“Oh, he’s fine,” Michelle said. “Still anti-mask, as usual. How are you?”

“Oh, good,” her mom said. “You know, there’s a new virus we need to worry about.”

“The Splits?”

“That’s what we’re calling it. Our reporter, Ann Carleton, thought up the name. Stroke of genius on her part. All the other media outlets are using the term, too–all over the world.”

“Peter doesn’t believe it’s real.”

“He doesn’t believe any virus is real,” her mom said.

“I know, but this new one sounds a bit on the unbelievable side to me, too, to be honest. I mean, seriously? People’s bodies split and break into pieces as soon as they’re infected?”

“I know it sounds incredible, but Ann was on the spot at the time a paramedic’s body split into fifty pieces right in front of her.”

“And you believe her?” Michelle asked with a slight sneer.

“She’s been a trusted journalist for over ten years, eight of which she’s worked for me. She’s never once reported a story we needed to retract.”

“Yeah, but this virus sounds a little…out there. It’s the kind of thing that feeds easily into Peter’s paranoid government conspiracy theories.”

“What do you think?” her mom asked. “That we made it all up? That Ann was high on drugs or something? Look, I’ll agree with you that this is a pretty wild new virus. It’s unlike anything anyone has ever encountered. It seems like something from outer space or something.”

“That’s what Peter said it sounded like.”

“Still, there were witnesses who confirmed what Ann saw and heard, including the wife of the CFO of MedicinaTech, a company we hardly have any sympathy for, as you know. We rule our district far more humanely than they do theirs. The lockdown and mask rules aren’t so strict here, and income inequality isn’t as bad.”

“Mom, that fact that you and Dad rule our district is precisely what makes it not done so humanely,” Michelle said. “There I find myself in solid agreement with Peter over all this corporate government. Income inequality isn’t as bad, but it isn’t all that much better here, either.”

“Oh, the idealism of young adulthood,” her mother said. “We do the best we can here.”

“Mom, we can do much better.”

Her mom sighed in annoyance. “Anyway, the CFO’s wife, Hannah Gould, has been quarantined, for though she’s infected and a carrier, it isn’t killing her. Doctors can learn more about The Splits: what kind of virus it is, where it came from, why some are susceptible to dying from it, and why others aren’t. Our reporting on this research can do a lot of good for everyone, while MedicinaTech will just profit from selling vaccines of questionable worth to treat The Splits.”

This paper profits from the news stories, too, Mom, Michelle thought.

A masked woman in her thirties entered the office.

“Ann, there you are,” Michelle’s mother said. “She’s the one who got the scoop for us on The Splits story.”

“Here’s the report on those tests you were asking about, Siobhan,” Ann said, handing her the papers.

“Thank you, Ann.”

Ann scratched at her afro, just above her right ear, then little dots of white light flew out of her eyes and at Siobhan’s chest.

“Ungh!” Siobhan grunted, then she staggered and fell to the floor, shaking and screaming in pain. The papers flew all over the floor.

“Mom?” Michelle said, bending down to see her.

“Don’t get close to her,” Ann said with surprisingly little emotion. “Or to me. I’d better go into quarantine myself. I’m so sorry, Siobhan.” Ann ran out of the office, putting out her hands and warning the staff out there, “Don’t come near me!”

“Mom!” Michelle screamed, her eyes watering up.

Siobhan’s body had red cracks all over it, which opened and closed, over and over again, as she was shaking and grunting on the floor in agony.

“Somebody get a doctor!” Michelle screamed out the wide-open office door. “My mom’s in trouble!” Why didn’t Ann call a doctor? she thought, then, Why haven’t I? Stupid! She took out her smartphone and called 9-1-1.

Shaking almost as much as her mother was, Michelle looked down at her. Her eyes and mouth widened to see those red cracks opening and closing, back and forth and back and forth, like many mouths speaking but making no sound. It was hard for her to speak coherently on the phone, making articulate words through her sobs and trembling voice.

To keep her self-control, she had to look away from her mother while explaining the emergency. After finishing her 9-1-1 call, she looked back down at her mother. The cracks kept opening…and closing.

It seemed to Michelle that her mother was fighting the virus. “Keep fighting, Mom,” she sobbed. “Don’t let it kill you.”

Her father was hurrying over to the office, having heard from an employee what had happened to Siobhan. Michelle looked over and saw him coming.

“No, Dad!” she screamed. “Don’t come in here!” She closed the door in his face.

He froze in front of the closed door, standing there with a stupefied, helpless expression.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked in a trembling voice.

“She has The Splits!” Michelle yelled. “It’s contagious! I could have it. Paramedics are on the way. Keep out!”

In five minutes, paramedics in decontamination suits arrived. Siobhan was put on a stretcher in her own decontamination suit, with a bag valve mask on her face. Michelle and her father stood back, separate from each other for fear that she was a carrier, as they watched the paramedics take Siobhan out of the building.

Michelle went up to one of the paramedics just before he was to leave the office.

“I was nearby when the virus was passed on to my mother,” she said. “I could be a carrier showing no symptoms.”

“Come with us,” he said. “We’ll have you tested. Let me get a decontamination suit for you to wear.”

Why couldn’t Ann have gone into quarantine before? Michelle wondered.

An hour later, Peter had arrived in MedicinaTech, his parents’ pharmaceutical and vaccine-making corporation, and also the seat of government in his district. He waited in his parents’ office for them to arrive.

As he waited, he looked out the glass walls of the office and at all the masked employees rushing about doing this and that. He sneered in disgust at their, in his opinion, thoughtless compliance to all the rules meant to protect us from the viral variant of the time.

He thought about what had been happening over the past decade. Not just about the viruses, but also about how corporations no longer used the government to protect their interests…how corporations gradually replaced governments. It all started with certain tech companies in Nevada creating their own governments, as proposed by a bill back in early 2021. Over the 2020s, this idea caught on little by little as a way for capitalists to cut out the middle-man of the state.

There was some resistance at first, of course, but gradually people became used to the idea, and just passively accepted it. By the end of the decade, pretty much the whole world was being run by corporations as local district governments. No longer was it even pretended that governments looked out for the interests of the people: what had once been only implied was now explicitly understood. Corporations were the government, because they were the only thing the government had been there to care for anyway.

Though Peter benefited from the privilege of being the son of governors of his area, he still sighed, sad for all the people, the vast majority, who didn’t get to enjoy his benefits. When his parents died, and he was to succeed them, he planned to give up the whole MedicinaTech company and give the power back to the people…if he could.

His parents arrived after about five minutes of his waiting. His father followed his mother through the doorway, and they saw Peter sitting by their desks. “Hi, Peter,” his mother said. “What can we do for you?” His parents sat at their desks.

“I heard that Derek Gould died last night,” Peter said.

“Yeah,” his father said without a trace of emotion.

“We need to find a new CFO, and fast,” his mother said with an equal lack of emotion. “It’s going to be a real pain.”

“You two don’t seem too broken up about his death,” Peter said. “He’d only been with this company since it began, hadn’t he?”

“When you run a business, you focus on the business,” his father said. “Not on feelings.”

“And that goes double for governing a district,” his mother added. “Your head has to be clear when dealing with the kind of pressure your father and I have, dear.”

“Yeah, but you’ve never focused on anyone’s feelings here,” Peter said with a hint of aggression. “Not Derek’s or his wife’s, not the workers you overwork and underpay, not–“

“Oh, let’s not start that up again!” his mother said.

“This is the influence of your girlfriend’s family’s liberal newspaper, no doubt,” his father said.

“The newspaper that governs our neighbouring district, and that demonizes our company and all the good we do for the world,” his mother said.

“Yeah, all the profiting off of other people’s suffering!” Peter shouts. “Michelle’s newspaper doesn’t criticize you enough, as I see it. Their writers think these viruses are real. Michelle isn’t influencing me one tenth as much as you think she is. I was just debating her earlier today about whether this new virus is real, which she believes it is. My opposition to what you’re doing here is from my own heart.”

“Yet you hypocritically enjoy all the benefits of being the son of wealthy, politically powerful parents,” his father said with a sneer. “You, as our son, who doesn’t have to wear masks or stay in lockdown.”

“And an ungrateful son, at that,” his mother growled. “Maybe we should deny you those benefits, so you can learn some appreciation.”

“I knew it was pointless coming here,” Peter said, then stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind him.

“Why did I have to have Friedrich Engels for a son?” his father said with a sigh.

Peter Cobb-Hopkin was on the other side of town in the early afternoon of the next day, reading an online newspaper article on his phone about the incident in the park the night before. He was with his girlfriend, Michelle Buchanan, in a Starbucks. She was wearing a mask, pulling it down occasionally whenever she took a sip from her coffee. He wasn’t wearing one. Only two other people were in the Starbucks, masked and buying coffees to take home immediately, out of compliance with the lockdown.

“Oh, look at this bullshit that your parents’ newspaper is publishing!” he said. “Apparently, there’s a new disease for us to be worried about. ‘Something the likes of which has never been seen before’.”

“What’s that?” she asked, her hand darting out of the way of a droplet from his mouth. “And watch your spitting.”

“They’re calling it, check this out, ‘The Splits’,” he said with a chortle. “When you catch it, you may show no symptoms, but still be a carrier. Haven’t we heard that old line before.”

“And if you do show symptoms?” she asked.

“Oh, here’s where it gets interesting,” he said, snorting and chuckling. “Your body tears itself to pieces. Splits apart.”

“What?” Her eyes widened.

“According to the article, Derek Gould, the CFO of my parents’ company–which has governed this municipality for the past four years, as we know–was taking a walk with his wife, Hannah, in Queen’s Park last night…because ruling class privilege means they don’t have to comply with the lockdown.”

“Like you and me, who have the same privilege, through our families.”

“Yes, of course, I wasn’t denying that,” he said. “Anyway, Derek Gould suddenly became infected with something, he fell on the sidewalk, shaking and screaming in pain, then his body cracked open into many pieces…with no blood spraying anywhere, oddly…and then he died.”

“Wow.” Michelle said, then pulled her mask down to sip her coffee. “What else does it say?”

“The infection spread to her, but she hasn’t shown any symptoms. When the paramedics arrived, they found her sitting on a bench, just zoned out.”

“How do they know she’s infected?”

“They gave her tests at the hospital. Also, one of the paramedics got infected, and his body split into pieces in the same horrific way, hence they’re calling it ‘The Splits.’ Small, white dots of light flew from Hannah’s body into his.”

“I see. I guess we’d better be careful.”

“I guess it’s just more mainstream media bullshit.”

“Come on, Peter. You’re always saying that.”

“Because I’m always right.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Michelle said.

“I never wear masks, and I haven’t caught anything…over ten years.”

“You’ve been lucky. You’ve also been lucky to have parents who rule over this municipality, so they can bail you out when the cops give you a hard time for not wearing a mask.”

“Your parents could bail you out for defying this b.s., too, if you had the guts to, like me,” Peter said. “The media corporation they’re a part of governs your neighbouring municipality, too. We’re not like the unlucky poor people who don’t have family in the corporate city governments. And I’ve been lucky not to get sick? I’ve had my eyes open! All these viral variations of Covid we’ve had over the past decade. It’s just seasonal flu.”

“Oh, not this again.”

“What ever happened to seasonal flu, Michelle? People used to die of it yearly by the thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, prior to 2020, then the global financial crisis hit in early 2020, and the capitalist class needed a distraction: the flu rebranded as a global pandemic. Millions of people plunged into poverty, while the billionaire class, now directly our cities’ governments, have made billions more over the years, and everyone’s misery and loss of freedoms can all be conveniently blamed on a virus.”

“The flu disappeared because people, unlike you, were masking up, social distancing, and taking fewer flights.”

“Assuming the flu and the ‘rona are separate diseases, those preventative measures might reduce the flu cases, but we’re talking about a virtual disappearance of the flu, while the pandemic remains unabated, even stronger. I’m not buying it, and I’m not buying into this new one, ‘The Splits’.”

“Fine,” Michelle said, rolling her eyes. “Believe whatever you want. As soon as we’re done here, I’m going over to Mississauga District to talk to my mom and dad about this new disease.”

“Same here,” Peter said. “I’m heading right over to MedicinaTech.”

[I have just republished an expanded version of the entire novel, with added scenes and further character development. Instead of publishing it chapter by chapter, which would have been too much of a pain, I did it book by book. Here are links to the four books: I, II, III, and IV. As you can see, I’ve also left the original, shorter versions published, because replacing them all with the expanded version would also have been too much of a pain. So I leave you, Dear Reader, with the choice of the shorter versions or the longer ones. You are free to choose whichever ones you prefer: a quicker but less-developed read, or a longer and fuller story. Either way, I hope you like my story.]

2030, a summer night in Toronto

Mr. and Mrs. Gould looked up at the stars as they were walking on a walkway towards the 48th Highlanders Regimental Memorial at Queen’s Park.

“What a beautiful night,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Especially with it so quiet, with nobody else around.”

“Thanks to the lockdown.”

“Yes.” He smirked as he looked at her.

“It really isn’t fair, you know. Everyone else stuck inside their homes like prisoners, except for ‘essential people,’ and even they are usually out only to work or to buy what they need.”

“They aren’t of the same quality as we are, Hannah.”

“I don’t care about people’s ‘quality,’ Derek,” she said with a frown. “They have to wear those uncomfortable masks, just to go outside, and we don’t have to? They’re fined if they don’t comply?”

“Peter Cobb-Hopkin’s lucky,” he said. “He refuses to wear a mask or obey the lockdown, and his dad squares it with the police.”

“That’s because his dad is your boss, Derek.”

“Because he’s of our quality, Hannah.”

She sighed. “Those not of ‘our quality’ have to be given shots of that vaccine your company makes, while we’re given their money, and we don’t have to take the needle in our arms? It isn’t right.”

“You enjoy the benefits of getting that money as much as I do. Why are you complaining?”

“I just feel…badly for them. You know the side effects of the vaccine: the way it makes people more passive and lethargic. And everybody knows it doesn’t guarantee protection against viruses. Sometimes I think it’s designed deliberately to keep the people under our control.”

“Now you sound like one of those conspiracy theorists. And why do you care? I say if it’s true that they’re designed on purpose to make the poor passive, that’s a good thing. We don’t have to worry about them rising up against us. That’s for your benefit, too. How could you be against that? Enough of this silly talk. Let’s just enjoy the walk, OK?”

“OK,” she said with a sigh.

He looked up at the night sky again. “Wow,” he said. “Look at those beautiful stars.”

She looked up. “Oh, yes,” she said, her eyes and mouth widening. “They’re really glowing.”

“Yeah, especially that cluster just to the left of the moon.”

“Shooting stars? They seem to be coming here.”

“Yeah, they seem to be racing at us.”

She frowned. “I…don’t like this.”

“They…aren’t getting any bigger…as they get…nearer,” he said with a frown of his own. “I don’t think I like this, either.”

“Those aren’t stars, Derek,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I feel…like I can’t.”

A cluster of about a dozen dots of glowing white light flew right at him, staying at about the size of the smallest of pebbles. They seemed to go right through him…but they didn’t.

She shrieked on seeing the impact.

He fell to the ground, shaking as he lay there on his right side in the fetal position. He grunted and groaned as he felt something inside him begin to tear him apart.

“Derek?…Derek!“

She saw fiery red lines all over his skin, like cracks in wall paint. His grunts and groans changed to screams as those red cracks thickened.

“What’s happening to you?!”

His body was beginning to rip apart at those cracks; the rips would widen, showing off internal organs, then they would narrow, as if he was struggling to heal himself.

“Help!” she screamed. Why am I not seeing any blood? she wondered. And why am I even screaming? There isn’t anybody out here to hear me.

Finally, those cracks ripped right open. Her next scream was ear-piercingly shrill. The pieces of his body, what looked like about twenty of them, lay fidgeting on the ground, as if each had its own consciousness. The severed internal organs were showing, such as the heart, stomach, lungs, brain, and intestines; but the blood was somehow kept from flowing out.

The openings in those internal organs, where the severing had been done, were now moving like mouths. Grunting noises came out of them, what sounded like an unintelligible, inarticulate language. Eyes agape, she grimaced at the surreal sight.

After a minute or so of these movements, the pieces dulled in colour and lay still. Now, the blood poured out in ever-widening lakes. Her high heels dodged the flow of red.

She was too distracted by the blood to notice what happened next. The dots of white light came out of the lifeless pieces of what had been her husband and flew at her.

She looked up at the glow. “Oh, God…NO!“

She felt them vibrating inside her. She was now shaking more than he had been. She twitched about spastically, as if that would help her get them out of her.

Then she stopped moving.

She still felt their warm glow inside herself.

But there was no pain.

She stood there, frozen still. Only her pounding heart was moving.

Her panting was the only sound.

Still nothing.

Just the inner warmth.

Her eyes darted around in all directions, as if something out there would tell her what was going on inside her body.

Finally, her heartbeat slowed down, her breathing grew softer, and she walked over to a nearby bench and sat down. She’d waded in the puddle of blood, not caring about the red she got on her shoes.

She sat there for several minutes, just staring straight ahead, as if in a trance.

She’d never been so calm.

She took out her cellphone and dialled 9-1-1. “Hello?” she said in a soft, monotone voice. “I’d like to report an accident.”