H10N1 Read online

  “Hi, John.” Sanchez gave a little finger wave before she plunged into another rendition of As the World Ends.

  “As far as the influenza virus, I’d say that last wave a month ago was probably the end of it. The problem is we’ve discovered some new viruses. We were unable to determine if they were mutations of the flu virus, or if they were intentionally developed and released in the U.S.”

  “Do you have any estimates on how many survivors are still out there?” John asked.

  Taeya shook her head. “I wish I could answer that. But with no organized communication, we just don’t know. We were keeping data for a while, but—” she shrugged.

  “Do you have any idea how this all happened in the first place?”

  “We have a pretty good idea. I saw some video from a surveillance camera at Penn Station in Manhattan. A woman wandered through the rotunda, stopping now and then to spray what looked like a bottle of cologne. On closer examination, we noticed that the sprayer was aimed away from her. In the course of an hour, she went down to each platform.

  “At five o’clock in the afternoon, thousands of people pass through Penn Station, coming and going anywhere from JFK International Airport to upstate New York.”

  For the first time, the haggard woman spoke. “So the woman wanted to smell good.”

  Mai introduced her as Carol. No last name.

  Taeya leaned on her elbows. “We think the sprayer contained the virus. And I’ve seen similar surveillance videos from Heathrow in London, LAX in Los Angeles. We believe twelve cities were targeted. Once the virus was in the air, everyone inhaled the organism and carried it with them. Since it usually takes seventy-two hours for the virus to incubate before symptoms occur, all of those people had five or six days to keep spreading the virus before they became ill.

  “Then for the next twenty-four hours, symptoms manifested themselves, but no one understood how many were ill until hospitals were deluged with sick patients.”

  Steepling his fingers, John did a mental calculation. “So every hour, the number of victims grew exponentially.”

  “Exactly,” the Doc said.

  “Hang on now,” Carol butted in again. “Why would those women spray germs in the air, knowing they’d die, too?”

  Rick jumped in. “Do you remember years ago when a bunch of Muslim extremists flew suicide airplanes into the World Trade Towers?”

  Carol aimed a bony finger at Sanchez. “She said this flu was all over the world. Was the whole country of Korea willing to die?”

  “Good point,” Sanchez said, “but if the North Koreans could develop a deadly influenza strain, they certainly could develop the vaccine to protect themselves.”

  “So we don’t even know who is still out there,” John said.

  Sanchez blew out a soft sigh. “Sorry. All we know is that there are indeed pockets of survivors just like us. And in time, we’ll get back on our feet, and life will go on.”

  “Tell ’em about the last wave,” Rick prodded.

  “Oh, come on,” she moaned.

  Okay, he’d tell them. “There were all these corpses lying around waiting to be picked up for disposal. But some greedy bastards wanted to get busy looting so they just shoved the stiffs aside. Or they stole their watches, necklaces, diamond rings. They didn’t realize that the flu was still feeding off dead bodies. So, some of those fools got sick and died, too.”

  Rick eased back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head.

  “Are you done now?” Sanchez asked.

  “I believe I’ve sufficiently grossed everyone out—yes.”

  “Then can we move on?” Judith asked.

  He waved a hand. “Be my guest.”

  Before introducing herself, Judith glared at Rick. Probably pissed she didn’t have a topper for his story. She rattled off some quick facts about being born on a kibbutz in Israel, and how she had served in the Israeli Defense Force as a captain.

  “Devin and I know a lot about farming,” she said. “We lived in a commune for a while, so we’ve got a good background for this kind of socialist environment.”

  “We’re not socialists!” Carol barked.

  “I think what she means, Carol,” Michael said softly, “is that we don’t own private property. We all share the duties here, and we all get paid with food for our work.”

  “Oh.” Carol went back to eating her second banana.

  “I’m Devin and I’m with her.” He pointed to Judith. “Not much more I can tell you.”

  Rick shoved the rest of his banana in his mouth and reached for another. “I don’t have any kind of specialty, like strangling a man with his own shoelace, but you show me what you want done and I’ll do it.”

  John chuckled and gave Rick a little slap on the back. “That’s the spirit.”

  He made eye contact with each of them as he spoke. “Like Mai said, I’m John Parker. I came here almost three years ago as a consultant. My company designed most of the equipment here, and I was needed for a little fine-tuning. I’ve been here ever since.”

  Carol was next, but she didn’t look too eager to join in. “I work in the garden, I cook, and I clean.” She glanced at Michael. “I don’t know anything about socialist communes, but I do know we barely got enough food to feed the bunch we got.” Then she turned to Judith. “I hope you got some fancy tricks up your sleeves. We’re gonna need ’em.”

  Michael flopped back in his chair. “Why, thank you Carol, for making our guests feel right at home.”

  Judith came to her defense. “She’s right. You’ve got four more mouths to feed, and I think the sooner we start earning our keep, the better.” She pushed her chair out and stood up.

  “Absolutely right,” Michael agreed. “How about if I give you the nickel tour?”

  Michael swung open the double doors with a flourish and said, “Ladies and gentlemen. Biosphere Two.”

  Rick and the others pushed and shoved to get out onto a catwalk that overlooked the farm. Sunlight streamed through the glass arches above, beating down on a garden as wide as a soccer field, but longer. Set up in a grid, each section had its own crop, with narrow aisles separating each bed. A wider main aisle cut through the middle lengthwise.

  Sucking in a lungful of the moist air, Rick blew out a sigh. “This is incredible.”

  Judith and Devin immediately ditched the tour. Rick followed as his friends thundered down the metal stairs to the garden below. At the first plot, Judith came to a screeching halt. The broccoli had gone to seed before it was ever picked. In the next bed, there were barely any leaves on the plants. Two plots down, the entire bed lay empty.

  From the balcony, Michael clapped his hands to get their attention. “You are standing in what was originally called the Intensive Agriculture Biome. We just call it the farm. On approximately one acre, we grow everything we need, plus food for our animals.”

  He sounded like a tour bus driver talking to senior citizens as he led Sanchez and Mai down the stairs. Rick had a bad feeling that they were going to get more than the nickel tour. Michael even recited the number of pounds of food per person per year that could be produced.

  Judith whispered to Devin. “What bullshit. They aren’t getting close to that yield.”

  When she squatted to pluck a potato bug off a vine, Michael hesitated. He watched the insect squirm between her fingers.

  “How many of those pounds per person do you suppose these little fuckers consume?” She squeezed until the bug popped.

  Michael flinched. “We’ve been doing the best we can. Naturally, any pesticides we use must be organic. Sometimes those ‘little fuckers’ get the upper hand.”

  “Not with me around, they won’t.” Judith wiped the bug on her pant leg. When she caught the scowl on Devin’s face, she gave Michael a thin smile. Geez, she was going to get them thrown out before Rick even had a chance to use the bathroom.

  As the group filed along the main aisle, Michael rattled off a few factoids about the Biosp
here. “There are approximately twenty-five hundred electronic sensors throughout, to monitor our air and water. We can make it rain wherever and whenever we want.”

  “Too bad it didn’t rain on these,” Judith mumbled as she passed a bed of wilted plants.

  At the far end of the garden, Sanchez spotted a small grove of trees and made a beeline for a big, juicy orange dangling from a branch.

  She batted her eyes at Michael. “May I?”

  Michael nodded. She ripped open that sucker, and dug her top teeth into the fruit.

  As she slurped, Rick snorted. “You act like you haven’t eaten a fresh orange in months.”

  She gave him a big grin, the bits of pulp clinging between her teeth. “Try one.”

  “I think I’ll wait until I have a knife.” He caught a drip of juice clinging to her chin. “Not that it doesn’t look delicious on you.”

  Dropping the rinds, she yanked at Rick’s tee shirt like it was a paper towel dispenser in a public toilet and wiped her face on it.

  “Hey!”

  Michael linked an arm through Sanchez’ and tried to snag Judith. It didn’t work. “I can’t wait to show you the banana trees in the rain forest.”

  As he ushered the women toward another set of doors, he rambled on. “The wilderness biomes must be closed off from the greenhouse to keep the proper humidity. We have four tropical biomes here, the rainforest, the savannah, an ocean, and a marsh.”

  The double doors closed, cutting off the rest of Michael’s lecture. Devin trotted after them. When he pulled open the door, he asked Mai, “Do I see wheat?”

  “Yes!” Her stubby little legs churned like Fred Flintstone’s as she trundled into the so-called wilderness biome. “This is the savannah. We grow wheat for flour and cereal.”

  Rick got his first look at the enormous glass pyramid they had seen outside. It must have been ten stories high, and jammed to the top with plants.

  “I think there’s acacia trees,” Mai said. “But I’m not sure what for. We should catch up with Michael. He knows all about the ecosystems.”

  “Just for fun,” Rick ducked his head closer to Mai’s, “let’s pretend I don’t know the first thing about biomes and ecosystems, and you just tell me what all this is.”

  She laughed, her slanty eyes squinting shut. “Basically, we need the rainforest because plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. We need the marshes and the ocean because they have lots of water to keep it humid. And that keeps the rainforest happy. Plus all that humidity condenses on the glass overhead and runs down into some trays that eventually funnel all the water to a tank in the basement. That’s the water we drink.”

  Now things were starting to make sense to Rick.

  Devin nodded to a drop-off ahead. “It looks like part of your savannah fell off.”

  “Oh, this is fabulous.” Mai snatched their hands and dragged them to the edge of a sheer-faced cliff. They looked down at a small ocean, about the size of a municipal swimming pool, with waves that broke on a sandy beach to the left. Rick could see fish cruising a small reef.

  Mai tried to remember how many gallons of water were in the ocean, but Devin assured her they would never need to know that.

  Down at the beach, Rick saw Sanchez kick off her shoes and wade into the water. When Michael turned to suggest Judith take off her boots, she waved him off before disappearing into the thick stand of banana trees. No doubt she was searching for food sources in the jungle like the guy on that survivor TV show. Hopefully, not giant hissing cockroaches.

  Rick trotted down the long stone staircase that led to the beach, kicking off his shoes as soon as he hit the sand. “Can we swim in here?”

  “Oh, we do more than swim,” Michael said. “There’s so much plant life it’s sometimes necessary to strap on an air tank to weed the reef. Although, since our ag specialist Charlotte left, it has been neglected as well.”

  So far, it sounded like Charlotte had done most of the work around here. What did Commander Michael and the rest of the citizens do all day? This thought was overridden by more pleasant images. Like taking a moonlight swim with the lovely Doctor Sanchez.

  “Fantastic!” Devin said. “I’ll take over tending the reef.”

  A relieved smile lit Michael’s face.

  “Originally, the designers included a fog desert, like the Baja.” Michael reverted to his tour speech. “But it was just too damp in here. The last time the Biosphere changed hands, the owners ripped up that lower pyramid and reconfigured it for rice. Did you see the paddy?”

  Rick nodded. “Mai was just telling us how she’s been working her ass off getting the crop ready for harvest.”

  Michael smiled and gave Mai’s butt a little pat. “Well, maybe not quite off.”

  Mai playfully slapped his hand away, but the smile on her face looked forced.

  * * *

  Judith walked between Rick and Devin, their legs swishing against the wheat in the savannah. Sanchez hung back with Michael and Mai.

  “Jesus!” Judith scratched her head with both hands. “I was afraid he was going to tell me how many light bulbs they used annually. All I want to do is get busy on that garden.”

  Rick shivered. “Did you see what they were eating for breakfast? God, we fed our terminal patients better than that.”

  “Hey, that may be all there is for a while,” Devin said. “We haven’t seen their larder, but if they’re living off what they produce, they must be starving.”

  Catching up, Michael insisted they check out the animal bay, but instead of letting him turn it into another production, Judith whittled it down to a quick glimpse at the two pens.

  The goats looked like midgets; at first Rick thought the nanny was a baby until he saw the kids. They weren’t much bigger than cats. The chickens were nothing but bones and feathers, but Judith assured everyone that they would soon have milk and eggs.

  Michael threw his head back and crowed. “You’re the answer to our prayers. What other talents do you possess?”

  “Well, let’s see.” Judith propped her hands on her hips. “I can weave cloth on a loom, and I can break a man’s neck with one arm.”

  “Whoa!” Michael held his hands out in front. “That sounds pretty intimidating.”

  Judith gave him a more genuine smile. “Good.”

  Michael seemed to find her insinuation entertaining. He was about to grope her again when she turned away.

  “If this concludes the tour,” she said, “perhaps we can put in a few hours on the garden?”

  * * *

  Carol was already on her hands and knees, weeding one of the plots.

  “So, who’s in charge here?” Judith asked Michael. “I mean, since your ag specialist left?”

  He gave her a politician’s smile. “I’d say you are.”

  Carol’s head bobbed up, her face pinched.

  “You got a problem with that?” Michael propped his fists on his waist. “Do you think maybe we should check out her credentials more thoroughly before we let her get started?”

  Carol shot him the bird then went back to weeding. Turning on a heel, Michael stomped to the double doors and went back inside the living quarters.

  Judith hesitated for a moment, thinking he was coming right back. He wasn’t.

  “Okay.” She gave Carol a tight smile which she ignored. “Why don’t we all head over to the first bed. I’ll tell you what needs to be done, and one of you can do it.”

  Brushing the dirt off her knees, Carol grudgingly joined the others.

  At the first plot, Judith squatted and grabbed a handful of leaves. “These are beets, but the tops are too thick. The plant is spending too much energy on the leaves, and not on the root, the beet. So, you’re going to nip off some of the older leaves, and then pinch out this cluster of young leaves in the middle. Got it?”

  Rick didn’t notice any change in Carol’s expression, but Judith took her deadpan stare as an acknowledgement, because she stood back up. />
  “Great,” Judith said. “Get a bucket. I want all the greens you cut taken to the kitchen.”

  The scowl on Carol’s face got deeper, if that was possible, and her eyebrows flickered at the idea of eating the beet leaves. She must have watched that survivor guy on TV, too. But then she shrugged and went to get one of the buckets stacked at a workbench.

  Judith moved down the line barking out orders for the rest of them. Then she grabbed Rick by the front of his tee shirt. “You’re going to pick bugs off these plants. See if you can find something to put them in, because they’re all going to the chickens. Got it?”

  He gave her a Nazi salute and snapped his heels together.

  The trick was to get the lid off the jar without bugs crawling back out. If Rick banged the jar on the ground, all the bugs fell to the bottom; then he quickly dropped in his latest victims.

  He rose up on his knees and stretched his stiff back. Drops of sweat rolled down his cheeks and made rivers that soaked into his shirt. His bug jar wasn’t even half full and he was dying from the heat. Holding the container so Judith couldn’t see that it wasn’t full, he snuck to the animal bay.

  It was a lot cooler than out in the sun. Unlatching the coop gate, Rick shuffled to the middle of the pen and sat. With his shirt, he wiped sweat from his face, smelled the orange juice from Sanchez’s face, and smiled for like the hundredth time. How had he lucked into this gig?

  He opened his jar and laid it on its side, then lounged back on an elbow. The instant the chickens spotted the grub, they came squawking and gobbled up the treats—way too fast.

  With a groan, he hobbled to his feet and brushed the dirt off his butt. Pushing open a side door, he investigated a hallway leading off the animal bay. Ahead, he spotted the hatch they’d come in and the stairway up to the second floor. Slowly plodding up the steps, he fanned his sweat-soaked tee shirt to cool off.

  In the kitchen, he opened drawers until he found a paring knife. He pulled out a fistful of fabric in front of his thigh and cut a slit, then with both hands he ripped the pant leg free and let it drop to his ankle. When he had the second leg cut, he kicked off his shoes and shook away the cut ends. The cool air felt great on his legs.