Our Three Rules for Surviving 8 Billion Buttons

There were people who still believed it had been a military experiment, even when the militaries and governments collapsed. For the rest of us, we stopped asking how this new world came about, and just tried to survive.

*

About eighteen months ago, I woke up one Sunday morning and found a mechanical button on my tummy. The first time I touched it, I wrapped my fingers around it and threw it on the floor. Like garbage. An hour or more passed as I slept away the morning. When I finally opened my eyes, my wife, Emma, sat up in bed holding the button in her hand.

"What is that thing? Found it on my tummy this morning." I craned my head up towards the ceiling lazily, trying to see if one of the fixtures had fallen in the night. She shook her head. She was looking at her phone.

"No, this is mine. I picked yours up while you were sleeping." She tilted her phone towards me; a young woman was holding up a button just like the one my wife had. "It’s on the bedside table," she said softly. The young woman flitted about on the screen, her finger hovering over the button.

"What's going on?" I asked. My wife opened her mouth to respond when an awful sound screamed from her phone. An emergency alert appeared on her phone. The screen turned red. The alert simply said: "Do not under any circumstance press the button."

I looked at my wife and she looked at me.

"I was watching videos of people pressing them before you woke up."

"What happens if you press them?" I asked sleepily.

"Nothing?” She flicked the video back on and the young woman returned to the screen. Her finger hovered over the button, then she pressed it. There was a moment she looked into the camera, worried. Then fell to the floor. She got up again with a smile on her face.

I put my finger on the phone and flicked down to the comments. "Prank", "not real", "I'm pressing mine now, nothing is happening", "guys there is no button, what?".

I switched my phone on and it beamed out another emergency alert. "All buttons will be collected. Do not leave your homes until they have been collected. Unless it is to travel to a collection facility. You will be informed if there is a collection facility close to you. There will be more information on where these facilities are located in the coming hours."

"Where did they come from?" I asked my wife.

"I don't know. Seems like the most elaborate prank in history, but it seems like everyone has one." She showed me the news, social media, it was all the same. Buttons, identical, simple, everywhere.

I scrolled through my phone: articles, messages, alerts and questions. It didn't seem like anyone had answers. "We shouldn't press them though, right?" I asked.

"I pressed mine immediately."

"What?!" I exclaimed. "What happened?"

"Nothing, nothing happened."

"Why would you do that?"

"It was a button. It was quickest way to understand what it did…."

Our phones lit up again with another government alert. This one simply said, "Anyone pressing the button will face a mandatory custodial sentence and an unlimited fine."

"Do you think they can tell who's pressed it?" I asked. She held the little button up to me, about twice the size of my thumbnail, black and made of metal.

"I don't see how. It's not connected to anything. No batteries, no electronics I can see."

"So why don't they want us to press them?"

"Well..." she said. "The government don't know and they're just being appropriately cautious."

"Or?"

"Or they know exactly what they do."

*

The world was buzzing with conspiracies and news and commentary. Emma had seemingly moved several monitors along with just about every device we had into the kitchen. She had created a makeshift control room. Someone online had done the maths and worked out how much money and time it would take to manufacture 8 billion tiny buttons, announcing it was possible. The problem was the delivery. There were many articles on the utter impossibility of coordinating millions of co-conspirators. People posted pictures of their well-secured homes, yet they held a button. The stories were all the same. The button appeared while you slept and all within the last 24 hours. Those that had not slept simply did not have one.

Video feeds began to appear online. "'Not slept for 30 hours, watch me sleep and see if you can see my button appear.'"

There were so many rumours. I'm not sure when this one first appeared, but it was about lunchtime when it gained traction. "The US president was dead." There was no official word, of course, but the rumour exploded across the internet. It was given more traction by the lack of a public appearance.

"Where is he?" I asked my wife. "If he's alive, where is he?"

"Have you seen any world leader? How many have appeared in public?" I flashed her with a picture of our prime minister with a statement, the usual milquetoast nonsense.

"But where is she? That's an image and a statement. Why isn't there a video?"

She was right. I hadn't considered that. I searched for the world leaders I knew by name, looking for videos within the last 6 hours. "Here!" I said triumphantly. "The Japanese prime minister spoke around 10 hours ago." I played the video.

"So nothing after 2am our time, roughly." I opened my mouth to reply but said nothing. I could feel my heart beating. I searched for anything more, news on the American president. The first was simple, titled: The Pictures Are Gone. Reading it gave links to Wikipedia, news sites, YouTube. Clicking on one, I could indeed see that photos of several senators had been removed, along with the president's picture too. I checked our local news site and the prime minister's picture was still up. Then right before my eyes it disappeared. The page refreshed and was replaced with a simple statement. Hand over the buttons to military depots. Type in your address to be directed to the closest pick up point.

"What if the buttons did do something bad?" I asked slowly. "And it's being censored? Taken down? What if someone has worked out what they do but every time anyone tries to post it, it's removed?" Emma thought for a moment.

"There are billions of us. They can't do that forever."

At 2pm, the internet went down.

*

Emma had been in the attic since we lost connection, trying different network configurations and frequencies. When she came down, she just shook her head. I suggested a walk.

As we walked, an old woman came out from one of the houses as we passed.

"Hey," I called. The old woman smiled and walked over.

Emma waved sheepishly as we ambled over. "Why does the end of the world mean people think they can just come over and talk?" Emma whispered to me.

"What is going on with these buttons?" The old woman said with excitement. "My friend says they're an experiment, look at them." She held one up. "I don't know what all the fuss is about, a little metal button. Who would have gone to the trouble to give us all one?"

My wife interjected. "Well, either it's possible that we don’t all have them, i.e. we're being fed false information." She said, gaining some confidence.

At that moment there was a scream, deep and long and low. I looked at the two women. They shared my look of concern. The scream returned but it became a wail. The noise was coming from the house close by.

"That's Tom and Rebecca's place," the old woman said urgently and began to make her way towards it. I took my wife's hand, and together we followed.

As we got closer, the wailing seemed to die down, only to return. It sounded like an animal suffering, like a bear in a trap. It came and went in waves, this terrible undulating cry. The old woman knocked on the door and started calling.

"Tom!" she said, beating on the door. "Rebecca!" It seemed the noise was coming from the garden, so I made my way around to the side of the house. I tried the back gate, a large wooden door, but it was locked. I turned to see my wife standing and watching. Our eyes met and she nodded. I turned and kicked down the door. It opened in one try. I felt a swell of pride, but it only lasted for a moment. Emerging into the back garden, I saw an older man, presumably Tom, slumped on the ground with his arms around an older woman, I assumed Rebecca. He was cradling her, screaming, wailing. I walked towards him slowly.

"Tom," I said quietly. He didn't seem to move, didn't seem to acknowledge me. "Tom," I said slowly, coming to stand in front of him. The woman in his arms was lifeless, like a doll. She didn't have any marks, no evidence of harm. It was as if she were just in a deep sleep. I crouched down and moved my arms to check the woman's pulse. But Tom violently batted them away. I withdrew. I picked up my phone and began to call the emergency services.

At that moment the old woman came through the gate. She ran over. "Tom!" she screamed. "What happened?" She moved to stand next to me. "Rebecca!" she wailed. "Oh God, oh no," the old woman said.

My phone connected. "Please hold. Your call will be connected as soon as possible." I felt my wife's hand on my shoulder. I turned to look at her and her gaze was fixed on the three of them — Tom, Rebecca and the old woman, now all down on the floor, as Tom rocked holding Rebecca in his arms. "I'm on hold," I whispered to my wife, hoping she would share my incredulity at being on hold to the emergency services, but she didn't seem to acknowledge me.

"It was an accident," Tom stammered. "I just pressed the button." Now my wife looked at me. "We were just talking, just talking and I pressed it, my finger, I just pressed." Tom was crying. The phone never connected. Just kept ringing with the message to stay on hold. We moved the body inside, into the bedroom. Perhaps not the best idea, but we didn't have any others.

My wife and I were in the garden, on the patio, and the old woman and Tom were talking. Tom was still wailing. But every now and then the words "all I did was press it" could be heard before another wave of crying.

"Why are we still here?" my wife said.

"We can't leave, can we?" I asked gently.

"We need to help them, right? We need to do something?"

"He said he pressed it and she died?" I asked slowly.

"But I pressed mine and you didn't die." I sighed. And my wife slid her button from her pocket.

"You brought it with you," I said in horror.

"I thought we'd see a collection depot."

"Well don't fucking press it now."

"I'm not going to press it," she exclaimed. "I just... it was coincidence, right?"

"I don't know. Probably. Maybe. But I think we should get to the depot, now."

We made polite offers to stay, knowing they would be rejected. We insisted they call us if they needed anything, knowing the phones weren't working. And we left.

*

When we arrived back home, my wife gave me the car keys. I went into the bedroom and picked up the little metal button. Perfectly black and so small. Returning to my wife, she asked me:

"Where are we going?"

"To the collection depot?"

"But where is that?" she asked. I hadn't looked when the internet was up. There had been no more emergency broadcasts on our phones.

"Do you want to drive around until we find one?"

"No," she said slowly. "Not really."

"Yeah, agreed. Well, the last broadcast said they would be collected."

"The broadcast said they would be collected and to drop them off."

"So we should just stay here, until someone comes?"

There was little else to do. I went into the attic and broke out the DVD collection, only to realise that not only did we not have a DVD player, none of our devices even had disc drives anymore. So I spent the evening reading. Emma sat by the window, one eye on her laptop, the other on the street. Around 8pm, she stood up slowly, looking at something outside.

A moment later there was a knock. I got up and moved towards the door. I could see Emma run to the kitchen and remove a knife from the drawer. I looked at her and mouthed 'why? it's just the door'. She mouthed back 'people' and took up position behind me, out of sight.

"Like living in a bloody Jason Bourne film," I muttered at her, as I opened the door.

"Hello?" Two men were at the door. They were dressed in casual clothing and looked somewhat dishevelled.

"Hello," said the first man, the younger of the two. "We're here on behalf of the government collection agency. We need to collect your items."

"Ask to see some ID," Emma called, still in her hiding place.

"Is there someone else in your home, sir?" the younger man asked.

"That's my wife, and yes, we would like to see some ID." The older man stepped forward.

"Due to the evolving emergency of the situation we do not have official government identifications. We are volunteers appointed by the local mayor."

I turned around and looked at my wife. She just stared at me.

"Do you know what's going on? Phones are down, the net's down, even the emergency line. There was a couple about ten minutes down the road, one of them died." Both men looked at each other and hesitated. The older one answered.

"We will need your items, sir. If you do not hand them over, you will be subjected to an unlimited fine and a mandatory custodial sentence."

"So you'll arrest us? If we don't comply?"

"No, sir. We have been given the right to take your items, the buttons in question, using whatever force we deem appropriate." The younger man interrupted.

"We will come in, beat you, and your wife, until you give us the buttons."

From behind me, I heard the tiniest click. At that moment the younger man fell down. Unmoving. He was dead.

"Fuck!" the older man screamed and his arms were around my throat as he rushed forward. His fingers pressed into the flesh of my neck, but equally I did the same, both of us trying to grapple and strangle each other. He pushed against me and I pushed back as he tried to make his way into the house. I didn't notice my wife slip the knife into the man's neck until she pulled it out. He didn't go down. It wasn't like the films. He wasn't just dead. He let go and backed away, spluttering, covering his neck. He hobbled away from the house. I looked at my wife as she held the knife, covered in blood. She dropped it and started screaming.

*

We were in wordless agreement. We silently packed our things, and within a few minutes, I found myself driving along the main highway out of town. We didn't know where we were going. We were simply running. Emma looked as if she was trying to hold back tears. After about 20 minutes with the lights of the city behind us, I asked her:

"What happened?"

"I killed that man," she whispered.

"No," I said, taking my eyes off the road for a moment. "He ran off, I saw him." She shook her head. "Yes, I saw him run away. I'm certain he's not dead."

"Not that one. The other." I thought for a moment. The younger man that fell down dead. Her hand shaking, she removed her button from her pocket and handed it to me. I examined the button. It had been fused. It no longer depressed. It was stuck in the pressed state. "I looked at him and pressed it and he died," she said softly. I didn't know what to say. A car whizzed past, breaking the speed limit by a few dozen kilometres at least, and my attention was immediately pulled back to the road as I moved the car out of the way. Another two cars zipped past, as if they were in pursuit.

"We have to get off the road," I said. My wife was looking out of the window. We drove for another half an hour and found a country road and parked in a field. I put my arm around Emma and we slept.

*

I was woken up by the emergency alerts on our phone. A piercing sound. Opening my eyes, it was light, but only barely. I looked around immediately and couldn't see my wife. A moment of panic and then my eyes found her in the mirror. She was in the back seat, feet up, looking at her phone. I grabbed mine. The alert came in big red letters. "There will be no collections. Everyone MUST deposit their buttons at the designated collection facilities. Alerts will be issued in regional batches — when yours arrives you MUST go to the nearest facility listed, no other. You MUST hand your button to the official at the station. You MUST NOT press the button. Anyone who presses the button will face an unlimited fine and a mandatory custodial sentence."

I looked at Emma, she didn’t look up.

"Are you ok?" I asked.

"I found a network,” Emma said, ignoring me. “I don't know if it's Tor or peer to peer or FidoNet or something. It's super slow, but there are posts."

I leaned into the back to see the phone.

"What have you got?" She started reading.

"'The first rule is to guard your face,'" she said. "'If someone knows your face they can kill you. Anyone with a known face is already dead.' That's one of the titles. Another, 'There are no government officials left.'" She looked at me. I looked at her. There wasn't much to say. I started the car and we kept driving.

"So the first rule is to hide your face," my wife said from the back seat.

"What do you mean hide your face? This is going to get fixed. The government will sort it out."

"Look, even if you were the nicest person in the world, someone's gotta hate you. Do you think politicians, any politician, is going to survive 24 hours?" I shook my head.

"So you think this is real? The government, they're all dead?" She ignored me.

"The second rule. The rule of two."

"Where did you get that from?"

"It's logic. Look, if I'm alone and I meet someone who is also alone, no one is going to press their button. We both have the same ability to kill each other. If I meet two people and I'm alone, then I can kill one, and my button fuses and I'm at the other person's mercy."

"So why two? Why not ten?"

"The bigger the group the more likely there is for disagreement, for dissent. No more kings, no more presidents. If one of your underlings has a bad day you're dead. No one can rule like that."

"But why two?" I asked.

"Two is the minimum number. What happens in a group of three? Eventually human emotion takes over. One person disagrees or gets pissed off and presses on one of the others. The more people around you, the more likely it is someone is going to press on you."

"So only two? Well that is quite a coincidence," I said, trying to lighten the mood. She looked at me and then back down at her phone. "So what's the next rule?"

"That's all I've got so far."

"Anything else on your peer to peer network?"

"It's slow. It took hours to get those two text posts. I’m not sure where it's coming from even. Where are we headed?” There was nowhere to go, not really.

"I saw a film once. It said when the world was ending, put your back to the sea." A few hours later we arrived at the coast.

*

We hadn't seen any other cars since last night.

"Do you think everyone is following the government advice? Staying indoors?" my wife asked.

"I think if everyone had been staying indoors, there would have been no need for the guidelines." After a while I saw a police station and pulled over.

"There are people," Emma pointed out, almost disappointed, as we pulled the car to a stop. We got out.

"We don't want any trouble," one of the men called out. At that moment the door opened and a young police officer stepped out. "Back in your car and keep driving," she said.

"Listen," I said, "we're just looking for some help."

"Government guidance is to stay indoors until you're called for collection. Get back now." The woman said, taking a taser from her hip.

"We were attacked in our home," my wife chimed in. "Some men tried to take our buttons." The police officer held the taser up. "The men told us that the buttons are weapons. They took them and attacked us. We don't know, we don't understand, but we don't feel safe. Please help us." My wife lied. The police officer lowered her taser.

"Robert and Ishmael, search these two and then bring them inside." I slipped my button into the glove compartment just before the men reached us. My wife and I exchanged glances.

"Where is it?" one of the men, I later came to know was Robert, asked me. Ishmael, searching my wife, looked at Robert and then to the police officer and shook his head.

"If you don't give them up you're not getting in. Simple as that," the police officer called from the doorway.

"We don't have the buttons," Emma said meekly.

"Well then you can be on your way," the police officer said.

"Glove compartment," I said. My wife shot me a glance as Robert stuck his hand into the glove compartment and retrieved the two buttons. One mine, and the other my wife's.

"Got 'em," he said, holding them up. "Follow me." Robert and Ishmael walked us to the door and handed the buttons to the police officer who examined them.

"So you know what they do?" she said, looking at my wife's button.

"Yes. We do," I said simply.

"Alright, come inside. You can call me Edie."

We were led inside the police station, into what seemed to be a waiting room, and we sat down. Edie and Ishmael disappeared but Robert stayed with us.

"Are you going to tell us what's going on?" my wife asked Robert.

"Sure," he said, a bit uncertain, looking around. "Sorry, sure, a bit tense outside. I'm Robert, run the local pub. We've set up this safe area. Just holding up until things get fixed." My wife nodded.

"What about the rest of the country?"

"Well, can't say for certain. Phone lines are down, same with the internet. But whether they're down because the systems are failing," he paused for a moment, "if you ask me, the government is taking them down on purpose. What we do have here, though, are lots of radios. We're in communication with police stations all over the country."

"So what's the word, who’s in command?" my wife asked. Robert made a sound and sucked his teeth.

"Don't even know who's in charge. We're talking but no one is giving their names out, especially over the radio. At the moment we're just trying to coordinate basic necessities, keep order, but we don't have the manpower for much else."

Edie returned. "Before you go in, I want to collect some basic information from you. I'll speak to you," she said, gesturing to Emma, "in interrogation room 2. And Robert will take you," gesturing to me, "into interrogation room 3. After that we'll get you guys inside and something to eat." We both nodded.

Robert obviously was not a police officer. Inside the room he asked me basic questions, but we were soon chatting about sports and local history. I felt a little more relaxed and asked him about Edie.

"She looks a little young to be leading you all. Where are the rest of the officers?" Robert shrugged.

"She's kept everyone in line. She's kept us safe so far."

I shifted subjects and told him all about the collectors that had tried to rob us. We speculated about the origin of the buttons and their function.

"So from what I understand, anyone you're looking at while pressing the button dies and—" Robert cut me off.

"No, no, I don't think it's even that," he said conspiratorially. "Why do you think they were removing everyone's pictures from the internet? Why do you think they shut the whole thing down?" I shook my head, uncertain. "No, I reckon all you have to do is know someone's face. Imagine it. Looking at them, sure, that's easy. But even if you see a picture, even if you just remember them — as long as it's clear enough in your mind..." He pulled his finger across his neck.

After about 20 minutes, Robert took me into the main dining area. There were about a dozen others there, from children to seniors. Robert pulled out a chair for me at a table with two women. I sat down.

"Hello," I said, offering my hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Don't stand on formality," Robert said. As I ate we exchanged stories. After about 45 minutes I started to get anxious, until I saw Edie come through the door. She gestured towards me and I got up.

"Where's my wife?" I asked.

"Well, as I'm sure you know, your wife pressed her button. She's admitted this to me." I narrowed my eyes. "This is a crime."

"She did it to save me! We could have been killed by those men!" I shouted, raising my voice, as everyone stopped to look at me.

"Or those men could have been from a local station trying to keep order. We don't know. What we do know is your wife has committed a crime and must be held."

"You can't do this," I said.

"However, you are more than welcome to leave. But if you choose to stay here you will abide by the rules we have set." My stomach dropped. Later, Robert gave me a sleeping spot on the floor of one of the offices. I didn't sleep.

*

Before dawn I got up and made my way towards the cells. I saw Ishmael half asleep at a desk. I coughed and he opened his eyes.

"I need a word with my wife." Ishmael looked at me.

"She's being held for murder," he said.

"She pressed a button, that's all." I countered. "It's the end of the world. What's the plan here? Has she been charged? Has she been officially arrested? Is there paperwork? Come on, man, she pressed a button. I just want a word." He was silent for a long moment. I was surprised when I noticed my hand in my pocket, searching for the button that wasn't there. Ishmael nodded and unlocked the door to the cell.

I went inside and found Emma sleeping. I sat on the edge of her bed and put my hand on her arm. "Emma," I whispered. She opened her eyes and looked at me. She didn't seem surprised to see me.

"Get me out of here. Now," she said flatly. I looked at the door. I wondered for a moment if we could rush Ishmael and leave, but I knew he wasn't the only guard. Even still, that wasn't the point. This place was safe, ordered, at least ostensibly.

"I'm going to talk to Edie. I'll explain the situation. I'm sure she'll listen to reason."

"Why?" Emma said, hugging her knees.

"She's a police officer. She'll see that the situation is absurd." Emma lay her head down and turned away from me.

"Three meals," she said.

"What?"

"They say people are only three missed meals away from barbarism. Scared and hungry, people go bad, real fast." I sat with Emma until Ishmael gave me the nod that I had to leave.

*

That morning I went to find Robert. I hoped that if I could get him on side he might be able to reason with Edie. I found Robert in the radio room.

"Morning," I said, placing a cup of tea beside him. He nodded. "What's going on?"

"Got some teams out talking to people, collecting buttons."

"What? You're going door to door? Collecting the buttons?" Robert nodded.

"Edie says it’s imperative that we do what we can to collect these from everyone in town. Once that's done, once we're safe, then we can distribute resources and maintain order."

"You know that's what happened to us? Some guys were collecting our buttons and it all went to shit?" Robert shook his head as the radio squawked.

"This is Nathan, reporting to base," a voice came through the radio.

"This is base,” Robert said, adding a “roger”, perhaps trying to sound official.

"Yeah, we're having some problems here. A family won't give up their buttons."

"Did you explain who you were?" Robert asked.

"We did. They asked to see IDs and we don't have these."

"Can you put them on?" Robert asked. "They can speak to Edie."

"Hold on." Robert disappeared. A moment later Edie strode in and picked up the radio.

"This is Captain Edith Keitha of the Westbrook Constabulary. This is a lawful order for all button hand overs. You have nothing to worry about." There was no answer. "Hello?" Edie said again into the radio.

"Which station are you from, Captain?" the voice on the radio came through.

"I am a captain at Westbrook station, and this is a lawful order for you to comply," Edie said.

"I'm a sergeant at that station. There is no Captain Edith Keitha." A pause. "Wait, Gemma? Andrew's daughter?"

Edie whipped out a button. She pressed it.

"Base, this is Nathan. Someone pressed? Not sure where it came from, but someone pressed. He’s dead." He shouted, then stammered. "Shall we move into the house? What do we do?"

"What the actual fuck," Robert said, looking at Edie. She reached into her pocket. I dived at her.

"Stop her from getting her hand into her pocket!" I screamed. Robert wasn't a big guy but he was quick. He hit her across the face and in the moment, managed to pull another button from her pocket.

"Help!" I screamed. In a moment the room was filled with a dozen or more people, and Robert and I explained what happened. That evening it was Edie (or Gemma) in the holding cell and my wife was free.

We combed through the records. Andrew Keitha was Captain of the station. Edie wasn't talking. As we sat around, the topic of what to do with her devolved into what to do with the buttons. People wanted to carry on with the plan, but the problem of what to do with people that wouldn't give up their buttons couldn't be agreed on. Logically, if someone was reluctant to give up their button, they were dangerous. But were we any better hoarding dozens of buttons ourselves?

It was decided that each of us would be given a button. That way, ostensibly we would all be safe. The argument for who should have the key to the button storage continued into the night. By dawn, someone had pressed on someone else. By early morning we were on the road.

"Rule three," Emma said as she looked out of the window. "People can never be trusted."

*

Summer had quickly turned to autumn and now air was starting to get a bite to it. A thick black woollen mask enclosed my face. It was hard to breathe but we never left our cabin without them. Our little cabin was 30km away from the nearest town. We had spent the last month finding and securing the supplies, but with winter approaching, we needed more. I looked across and saw Emma, her face covered same as mine. After the police station we stuck to the rules religiously. I missed people, but being sequestered away in an idyllic cabin in the woods with your wife certainly wasn’t a bad way to spend the end of the world.

It was close to noon when Emma whistled. She wordlessly pointed ahead a few hundred metres. There was a person with a mask. It had been about 6 weeks since we had seen another person.

"The rule of two," I whispered, moving closer to her.

"You think there's another?" I nodded. We watched the person and it became apparent that they were young, perhaps even a child. It was hard to tell.

"What do you think?" my wife asked. I was already halfway towards the kid.

"Hello?" I said, holding up my hands.

"Hello," the person said. By their voice it was clearly a child, so I took a chocolate bar from my pocket slowly and handed it to them. They took it.

"Where are your parents?" The kid looked at me unsure; they seemed afraid. "It's ok, you don't have to tell us." A moment passed and they said, "At camp." I nodded.

"Do you live close by? We don't live so far away. Haven't seen you before." Emma joined us and hit me on the arm. I was giving too much information away.

"You promised," Emma said quietly. "The rules. Always."

"It's a child."

"It's a person we don't know, with people we haven't seen." She wasn't wrong. But this kid was on their own.

"I'm not sure which way to go. I'm lost." The child began to cry.

I crouched down.

"It's ok. Don't worry. Which way did you walk?"

The child looked around and started to cry again.

"I don't know."

"It's ok. You were facing away from the sun, so let's try walking the other way." I could feel my wife rolling her eyes under her mask.

After about 45 minutes we saw campfires through the trees.

"There!" the kid cried, letting go of my hand and running towards the camp.

When we arrived we saw two people with their arms around the kid.

"Where did you go?" one said.

"We've been so worried about you!" another said. As we got closer, it became apparent that both of the people were wearing masks like the child's. They turned towards us as we approached.

"There are three now. Three of them and only two of us. The rule of two," my wife whispered.

They waved us over. "Thank you so much for bringing our boy back."

"Mom?" the kid said. "I'm Annabelle." She did have a female voice. The parent didn’t seem to pay any mind. "He's been lost for so long. Days wandering around. Thank you so much." It was now clear there were others. We could see that this camp had ten or more tents. "Look, please let us return the favour. Why don't you eat with us?"

"This is fucked," my wife whispered, her hand squeezing mine. "There are like a million of them and two of us and we only have two buttons between us."

"No one can see our faces. We can't see theirs. Maybe this is just fine?" Our supplies were running low and we had been rationing our food for a few weeks. I could smell meats and vegetables and my mouth was beginning to water.

"We'd love to stay for dinner."

"This is gonna go bad," my wife whispered.

*

I hadn't heard Emma laugh so much in weeks. The sun set and we drank and ate a feast. We exchanged news and stories and it was like being part of the world again. After the children had been put to bed, someone brought the liquor out. I don't remember much of that night. One drunken conversation while pissing, leaning against a tree, comes to mind.

"The masks," I slurred. "The first rule."

"Aye," he said. "We all learned pretty quickly that showing your face was a no-go."

"So you wear the masks all the time?" The man nodded.

"Always. Gotta be safe. What did you call it? Rule number one."

"Wait, wait, wait. So even when you're sleeping?" The man nodded. "Even when you're with your partners?" The man nodded again. "Even when you're…?" The man shrugged and nodded. I laughed madly. The laughter seemed to echo until the morning.

When I woke my head hurt in a way I had forgotten it could. I was getting too old for hangovers. I was staring at the ceiling of a tent, canvas roof. It was cold. I brought my hand up to my face. My mask was still on. I put my hand in my pocket. My button was still there, unpressed. I looked down to see a hand on my chest. I placed my own hand around it.

"Good morning. Does your head hurt as much as mine?" the woman next to me said.

"Who the fuck are you?"

The woman laughed. "I'm your wife! We came here yesterday. I think I'd like to stay." The voice was unfamiliar. I immediately went to lift the woman's mask.

"Don't touch my face!" she screamed. "What has got into you? You didn't seem to have this problem last night. You were all over me," she said slyly, as she came closer and put her arms around me, pressed her masked lips to mine. "It's ok. I'm your wife."

I stormed out of the tent. This was a bad idea. A really stupid one. Without society people were crazy. The third rule. The woman that was pretending to be my wife emerged from the tent behind me.

"Babe, don't be like this. Come back to bed. It's so cold outside." I vomited as my head swam and my stomach lurched. I turned around and caught the woman by the shoulders.

"Why are you doing this? What's the point? Where's my wife?"

"I'm your wife, I’m Emma," she said simply. "Don't you remember? We came up with the first rule together. Don't show your face." I let the woman go and started screaming for Emma. Masked people started emerging from their tents.

"Look guys, we're just going to go, alright? You can swing as much as you like or whatever it is you do here but I'm just looking for my wife."

There were the sounds of a scuffle and I could see my wife fighting her way out of one of the tents, followed by two more masked strangers. She got a couple of meters before they grabbed her shoulders.

"That's my wife! What the fuck are you doing to her?" I screamed as I made my way towards her. Two masked people grabbed me, giving me a push.

"You stay away from them. That's Hannah, William and their son Elliot. They don't know you and you don't know them."

"That's my wife!" I screamed, pointing at her.

"That's Elliot," the man corrected me.

I placed my hands up and started to back away towards my tent. Grabbing the woman that was insisting she was my wife, I tore her mask off. She screamed and she wouldn't stop. She screamed like she was dying, going limp in my arms. The camp encircled me. I could see my wife fighting to get free. I removed the button from my pocket.

"Give me my wife or I'll press on her. I'll press on this woman."

"Do what you want. She's your wife. We don't know her." I held the button in the air. "I'm not fucking around." There were whispers and murmurs and someone let go of my wife and she ran towards me. We left together while the imposter curled up on the floor crying.

*

The cabin seemed colder when we returned.

"We have to move," my wife said.

"I mean... they don't know where we are?"

"That's not the point!" Emma screamed. "I told you that it would go to shit and it did. We didn't follow the rules and look where that took us." I couldn't argue. We had ignored the third rule.

"North," she said while packing the food we had saved into a box.

"It's too cold and will be colder still once winter sets in."

"But there won't be anyone there," she said sharply.

"We'll die there," I said. She kept packing.

"There won't be any crazy people. Look what we've encountered. No one is coming to save us. We can't be around people ever."

"We've had some bad experiences."

"Bad experiences?" she screamed. "Bad fucking experiences! We've been locked up, threatened, impersonated. We need to find some place safe and this isn't it."

"We can't go north. It's suicide."

There was a knock on the door. Emma grabbed my arm, finger to her lips. We pulled our masks on in silence. She picked up the lamp, opened the door, and swung.

"What the fuck!" I cried. I went to stand behind my wife to see a person clutching their face on the ground, groaning. They were wearing a black mask.

"They found us," my wife said, going back into the house. I leaned over and lifted the mask up and I could see it was the same woman that had pretended to be my wife. Emma returned with a baseball bat and lifted it up as if she were about to smash the woman in the face.

"What are you doing!" I screamed, standing in front of the woman.

"They found us. We have to go. Now."

"Wait. Just wait." I turned towards the woman. "How did you find us?"

"They left me. Moved south. They said they had all seen my face so I couldn't come with them. I haven't got any food. I followed your trail as best as I could." I removed her mask and the woman simply covered her face with her hands.

My wife looked fierce holding the bat. After a moment she backed down, and continued packing.

"We're leaving," she said.

"I can help you find food. I won't eat anything, only a tiny amount. Please. It's too cold. I just need some help," the woman on the floor moaned. I gave her my hand and helped her inside, sat her on the couch with a drink of water. By this time my wife was loading boxes in the car.

"Let's just talk about this," I said. "Where are we going?"

"I'm going north. Are you coming? Or not?" I couldn't let her go. I reached into my pocket and produced my button.

"Please. Listen to me." She stopped and looked at me. She removed her mask. She had been crying. I realised I was crying too.

"What are you doing with that?"

"I'm asking you to stay and talk to me. You'll die if you go north."

"So you'll kill me to keep me from dying?" She walked up to me and took the button out of my hand. "Stupid. Crazy." She stopped. Looked at me. "You broke the rules." She drove away. I didn't see her again.

*

The cabin has kept the world out. I was right. We didn’t see any more people. We wear our masks all the time. It’s only the way to be safe. I haven’t taken my mask off in over 6 months. Emma is getting better and better. We hardly have any mistakes anymore. I’ve taught her how to laugh just like Emma, how to sit, how to sleep, how to breathe. When she sleeps next to me, she was always Emma.