An emergency broadcast

After Arias eyes found the screen, they had a hard time turning away. What was happening on the TV absolutely captured her, the program was just too bizarre. The background showed people running about, presumably screaming. They context was hard to decipher with the volume set to mute.

Richard had the same problem and turned on the volume.

“… entirely unprecedented!”, a reporter commented from the off. The picture changed and instead of the chaos in some inner city, it now showed a studio. The man whose voice they heard was sitting in the center of a talking panel. On his left and right sat two people each, a woman on the far right and men in suits on the other positions. They all had dour expressions.

“In light of todays events, it was hard to come by competent experts, but we did anyway. So, I’m happy to have with me Dr. Steve Martin”, he gestures to his guests, starting on his left, “the head of the New Californian Institute for Advanced Medicine.”

“Thank you for inviting me”, the bold scientist answered.

“Kardinal Maxwell O’melly, your Excellency”, the host continued.

The man in question bowed his head a little in acknowledgement.

“And to round it up, we have senator Nick Santiago and, in a happy coincidence, his wife Allana Santiago, a published Sociologist and researcher on behaviors in western societies. Thank you for making it on such short notice.”

“Well, we could have hardly waited for a better time”, the senator put on an obviously **** smile.

“He’s joking, but not wrong. We have to act now, before it’s too late. This is neither the time for uncertainty nor hesitation.”, his wife added, looking determined to say the least.

Richard and Arias eyes meet for the first time since they found the emergency show. The unspoken question “what is happening?” wavering in the air. None of them had an answer and so they simultaneously returned their gaze to the TV. The cast was debating in an orderly matter, that much was obvious. The topic however was not.

“No one could have seen this coming…”

“…. was completely unprecedented…”

“… a crisis on top of another ...”

“…could mean the end of civilization the way we know it.”

In their lustful haze and shocked at what they were hearing, the couple only understood half of what the panel was saying on the matter. They might have explicitly said what happened, but if they did, it flew completely over the vacationers heads. The picture changed again, more footage of the mayhem in multiple cities appeared. This did look catastrophically and far beyond the tragic, but by now known, Corona-aftermath.

This was outrages, if he wasn’t naked Richard might have stormed out of his room in an instant. A phone. He should find a phone and call his brother on the west coast. What was happening here? Maybe the inhabitants of the next cabin would know. Or the staff maybe. Outside is … something… something BAD happening and here what? A limbo contest at five on the upper deck.

Aria was more clear-headed. Maybe a side-effect of dishing out the oral sex as opposed to receiving it. The only way to understand the situation is to watch the news, get the facts and act on them. Sure, she also has relatives. And of course she fears for their well-being. But the ship already set sail. Even if she could contact them, there’s nothing she could actually do for them now. All she can do now is find out what the crisis really is.