H10N1 Read online

  Footsteps rumbled on the stairs behind Rick. Devin trotted up the last few steps and slapped a hand on Rick’s back.

  “You should check out the ocean,” Devin said. “It’s incredible. There’s even a few lobsters down there.”

  “Why didn’t you catch some? I’m dying for some meat.” Rick reached the top of the stairs and turned toward his apartment and a much needed shower. As he and Devin shuffled past the conference room doorway, Michael dashed out.

  “Hey! Come and check this out!” he said.

  Rick and Devin looked at each other.

  “Come on!” Michael urged them. “Hurry!”

  He pushed them over to the windows facing the front, but as Rick scanned the yard, nothing caught his eye. The stiffs were still rotting in the afternoon heat; it looked like another rabbit had hippity-hopped to his death.

  Michael must have sensed Rick and Devin’s lack of enthusiasm.

  “Someone set off the sensor in the shopping village,” he said. “They should be coming around the bend any second now.”

  Like a kid, Michael pressed himself against the glass, his whole body vibrating with excitement. Sure enough, some dude in skater shorts and a backpack came sauntering down the sidewalk.

  “Excellent!” Michael said. “Now let’s see if this kid’s as smart as you, Devin.”

  The odor alone stopped the kid in his tracks. He pulled his tee shirt up over his nose and mouth, like that would actually help. Then the kid stood still, studying the dead bodies and trying to put it all together.

  Michael perched his hands on his hips. “Either of you gentlemen interested in a little wager?”

  Devin’s head reared back as he took a sideways glance at Michael. “You mean like whether or not the kid fries?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Jesus, Michael,” Rick blurted.

  “Hey, it’s not like there’s anything I can do to prevent it,” Michael defended himself. “If I turn off the lasers and open the hatch to tell him to beat it, he could take a shot at me.”

  “So you’re going to watch to see if he figures it out,” Rick said.

  “And take bets on the outcome,” Devin added.

  “Oh, I don’t have anything to bet.” Michael dug his hands into his pockets. “It’s more like a friendly wager.”

  Rick stepped back from the window. “I think I’ll pass.”

  “Hey, I thought you’d get a kick out of it,” Michael said. “It’s not like I’m pulling a gun on the kid.”

  He turned to Devin for support. “Tell him. That’s what the lasers are for. To keep trespassers away, and to serve as a warning to anyone who tries to get in.”

  “Sorry, Michael,” Devin said. “I saw enough sick shit while I was in the military. I understand how your security works and why. I don’t need to see it in action.”

  Turning away, Devin walked with Rick towards the doorway, but before they got out of the room, Rick heard the faint hum of a power surge. The kid was toast.

  Rick fumed as he stood under the showerhead. Michael was a total prick. This place would be a paradise if he weren’t around. Good luck with encouraging him to shove off.

  By the time Rick was dressed, he’d decided not to tell Sanchez about Michael’s shenanigans. She was too busy rehabilitating Kat. The two women were sequestered in the kitchen fixing dinner. One sniff of whatever they were cooking shifted Rick’s attention from his head to his stomach.

  Then he saw the puny helping of beans and rice they were dishing onto plates. He tried to stretch two bites into four. When that didn’t put a dent in his hunger, he helped himself to another banana—the only thing they had in abundance besides sweet potatoes.

  He grumbled about the portions, and Judith assured him that once a nanny gave birth, Devin would slaughter one of the older kids.

  Mai made an announcement of her own. “I just want to point out that our feast tonight was the last of the rice. So, ready or not, we need to drain the paddy and let our crop dry out.”

  “What do you do?” Rick asked John. “Pull a giant plug?”

  John chuckled. “Actually, it’s quite a sophisticated system of drains and filters. When you’re spending taxpayer money,” John winked, “why not?”

  “That’s the spirit. I’m going to vote for you next election. I can tell you’ve got my best interests at heart.”

  Sphincter-face Carol seemed to be taking their banter seriously, as usual. Such an angry woman, and yet she probably wasn’t that much older than Sanchez.

  “Hey, wait a minute.” Rick’s brain veered to the left. “Aren’t there fish in the rice paddy?”

  Now he got a smile from Mai. “That’s right, Ricky. And we’re going to catch them.”

  * * *

  “Okay, here’s the rules.” Rick stood in water past his ankles, surrounded by green stalks of rice. At the far end of the small glass pyramid, the rest of the group lined up for his last-minute instructions. “Catch as many of these fish as you can.”

  He held up a hand to silence Mai when she started to speak. “You cannot trample the rice, fall into the rice, slide over the rice, trip through the rice, look at the rice in an unkindly manner—” he glared at Mai. “Does that pretty much cover the protection of the rice?”

  “You’re the one always complaining that there isn’t enough to eat.” Mai gave him a squinchy-faced smirk. “The way you pack it away, we’ll be lucky if this harvest lasts a month.”

  My, my. Hadn’t Miss Saigon gotten bold the last few days? When Rick and the others first arrived, she always deferred to Michael, taking crap from him. But she was coming around.

  Michael did not appreciate her new attitude. In fact, Michael seemed to be having a problem with everyone’s attitude lately. He’d hardly spoken to Rick after he refused to watch that kid get fried by the lasers, and the only time he got chummy with Devin was when he needed some smoke.

  “Come on, come on,” Devin complained. “Get on with it.”

  He shook one of the spears he and Judith had sharpened for gigging fish. They stood on the sideline now, jabbing those spears in the air like African bushmen. Judith had even smeared mud on her face. Devin wore a do-rag on his head. They both were decked out in cammo.

  Neither Mai or Michael had any kind of net or spear. She just held the bucket each team had been issued for their catch. Was she going to try and scoop up the fish? Michael looked totally uncomfortable standing barefoot in the muck with fish nipping at his rolled up cuffs.

  Amazingly, when Rick announced the fish competition, Kat was the first person to dash to the kitchen for the big colander. She’d actually begun cleaning the common areas of the habitat, mopping the kitchen floor, dusting the game room. It looked like the felt on the pool table had even been vacuumed. But Rick never caught her in the act. Maybe she cleaned at three in the morning.

  He took another long look at Sanchez. She was scorching in a pink tank top and khaki short-shorts that showed off her long legs. He’d been trying hard not to rush things with her, especially after being such a horse’s ass on the trip out to the Biosphere, but the woman was making it very difficult this morning in that get-up.

  His hands wrung the extra large tee shirt he and Sanchez had chosen for the fishing contest. They’d cut small slits front and back to help reduce drag in the water. He ran his arms up through the bottom opening of the shirt and poked his hands out of the sleeves. When he pulled the shirt taut, it made a perfect net. The plan was for Sanchez to chase fish in his direction and he’d scoop them up with his shirt/net. Then she was supposed to grab the fish before it flopped away, and toss it into the bucket.

  “Okay, folks.” He waded back to Sanchez who was clutching their bucket. “Wait for my signal.” When he said “Go!” everyone took off.

  Rick pulled the shirt tight and lowered it into the water. Sanchez waded out, tracking a small school of fish. Circling around, she dipped her hands into the water and herded them toward the shirt. He spotted a nice two-pound
er heading his way.

  Wait, he chanted to himself. Wait. A couple fish darted away, but the big boy swam right over the shirt. Rick jerked up, raking the fish in with about a gallon of water. Before the water could drain out, that sucker flipped up and out of Rick’s net.

  Sanchez moaned.

  “That’s okay,” he assured her. “I know what I did wrong. Try it again.”

  She sloshed away.

  While Rick waited for his next quarry, he glanced around at the others. Judith and Devin had split up. They both stood hovering over the water, tracking. Devin jabbed his spear but came up empty-handed. Farther down, Carol was using the Sanchez technique, shooing fish toward the colander Kat held in the water. But when she yanked it up, the water couldn’t drain fast enough and the fish flopped out.

  Sanchez was herding more potential catches his way. Rick readied his net, and when a small fish swam in, he straightened, gathering up the sides of the shirt. The son-of-a-bitch darted out of the end, brushing against Rick’s bare belly. He pulled the shirt against his gut and the damn fish nearly swam down his pants before diving back into the water.

  Sanchez laughed so hard she slipped, then broke her fall by bracing a hand on Rick.

  “Better watch it,” she said, tickling his chest hair, “those guys have sharp fins.”

  He gave her his best scowl. “I suppose you think you can do better.”

  “Give it.” She waved her fingers at the shirt.

  Instead of handing her the shirt, he flipped it over her head and around her neck. Then he reeled her in. She squealed at the cold water running down her back, and wrangled to get away. He pulled her tighter.

  “Get sassy with me,” he growled, “and I’ll give you something, all right.”

  He felt her purr through his chest and all the way down to his toes. Obviously, she felt something jump in his britches, because she cocked an eyebrow, and gave him a devil-in-a-blue-dress smile. Before Rick could stop himself, he was on that mouth.

  Dear mother of God, she parted her lips. He pressed hard against her body, and suddenly felt himself free-falling.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Devin shouted. “Can you two please keep your hands off each other, and your minds on task?”

  It would have taken a crowbar to get Rick off Sanchez, but she shut down the roller coaster ride by backing away. She sucked in her bottom lip though, like she was tasting him. And when she rolled her eyes up to his, her eyebrows twitched. Now, he never got into any of that religious crap, but if that wasn’t a sign from God—.

  Kat shrieked. Rick swung around to see if she’d been impaled on Judith’s spear. The little bitch had caught a fish!

  “Oh, that does it!” He handed Sanchez the shirt and made a beeline for a school one row over.

  Once he had a fish in the shirt, Sanchez would yank up the sides, and he’d clamp off the top and bottom. They were going to catch a fish, goddammit!

  It worked. Rick shimmied the tilapia into his bucket and then tilted his head back and howled. He stuck his tongue out at Kat. Then he noticed Mai and Michael still standing on the sideline. Had Michael convinced Mai not to participate?

  Rick studied Mai’s face. She had this haughty expression like she knew exactly what she was doing. Her arms were crossed, and when she caught Rick’s eye, she had the gall to yawn.

  “Oh, you’re going down!” he yelled at her.

  The water was at his ankles now, and the fish were running out of room. He saw a beautiful three-pounder. Grabbing the shirt from Sanchez, he scooped that big boy up, and dumped it into his bucket.

  But Mai missed his triumphant catch. She was calmly walking down her aisle, hooking her fingers into the flopping fishes’ gills, two and three at a time, and dumping them into the bucket Michael held.

  “Cheater!” Rick yelled.

  * * *

  John had set up a table for their assembly line in the basement. He scaled the fish, Devin beheaded and gutted, and Rick filleted the larger ones, saving the bones for Mai’s soup stock.

  “Michael certainly was in a chipper mood this morning,” Rick said.

  “So I noticed.” Devin wrenched off a fish head and dug a finger inside to rake out guts. “Judith thinks Kat cut him off.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Ever since Judith and Taeya started badgering Kat to get some self-respect, she’s been weaning the wienie, so to speak.”

  John raked his knife up the side of a fish and scales went flying. “I don’t know why the man can’t be satisfied with Mai.”

  “Love the one you’re with?” Devin asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Rick clicked his tongue. “No tits.”

  “Excuse me?” John leaned past Devin to give Rick a fatherly scowl.

  “Hey. I’m sorry. But I know what I like. Maybe I wasn’t breast-fed long enough.”

  “Just don’t ever let Judith hear you say that,” Devin warned.

  “I’m not saying Mai might not be a firecracker in the sack,” Rick continued. “She sure talks a good game.”

  “She does appear to be willing to accommodate Michael’s lascivious tastes.” John hesitated, like he was wondering whether to continue.

  “Come on, spill it,” Rick insisted.

  “Well, when she first arrived, she asked me to install a hook in the ceiling of their bedroom. For some sort of …apparatus.”

  Devin hooted. Rick nearly sliced off a finger. “You’re kidding.”

  “I am not.”

  Rick paused with his knife in the air. “Do you think he’s ever had Kat strung up?”

  “I shudder to think.” John picked up another fish out of the bucket.

  * * *

  Rick clinked his knife on his dinner plate. “Can I have everyone’s attention, please?”

  Devin quickly said, “No”.

  John asked what Rick was going to do with their attention once he got it. Everyone’s a comedian.

  “First of all, I want to thank the lovely Doctor Sanchez and her effervescent sidekick Kat for this evening’s tasty fish tacos.” He bowed to them both. Kat giggled.

  “And now.” Standing at his place at the table, Rick reached into his pocket and pulled out an old bank deposit slip he’d found in his wallet. “I have the results of today’s competition.” He snapped the slip of paper in an official manner.

  Then he turned to Kat. “In last place, with twenty-three fish. Kat and Carol.”

  Carol didn’t even look up from her plate. Kat’s face shriveled with disappointment.

  “However,” Rick continued. “Kat gets the award for most expressive phraseology. I counted fifteen ‘icks’, thirty-one ‘yucks’, and an astounding…” He glanced back at his crinkled sheet of paper. “Forty-nine ‘grosses’!”

  “You didn’t count,” she said, but her eyes gleamed from the attention.

  Rick reached for the small pouch under his chair. “I present you with these genuine fish scales.” He shook the cloth bag before handing it to Kat. “Perfect for fish scale tattoos.”

  He twisted his wrist and extended it so she could see the fish scale design he’d made on the underside of his arm. It was a fish.

  Kat squealed and snatched the smelly bag.

  “In third place, with thirty-five fish,” Rick said, “the commando kids, Judith and Devin.”

  “Bullshit!” Devin was out of his seat so fast Carol actually stopped eating. “We had more fish than you.”

  Rick raised his hand for silence. “Are you questioning the official tally?”

  “Damn right I am.”

  Judith chimed in with a heavy Jewish accent. “You vud cheat your own mutha.”

  Reeling back in an exaggerated faint, Rick clutched his chest. “Now that hurts.” Then he reached back under his chair for the cup full of their prize. “And to think I spared no expense on your prize for most original costumes.”

  He dipped a finger into the fish guts for a gob of blood and smeared it on Devin’s cheek.
/>   Mai screamed with delight, clapping her hands and bouncing in her chair.

  Playing to the audience, Devin scooped out a handful of tomato seeds that remained from a bowl of diced tomatoes, and flicked them in Rick’s face.

  That brought howls from everyone—except Michael. Rick figured Michael never got into the Three Stooges.

  Using a finger like a windshield wiper, Rick scraped the seeds from his face, and cleared his throat with dignity. “In first place—”

  “Hey, what happened to second place?” Devin asked.

  Rick puffed out his cheeks. “Well, that would have become obvious once I announced the winners. But if you must know, the good doctor and I were in second place.”

  Devin bared his teeth. “How many fish?”

  Raising his chin, Rick announced, “Thirty-six.”

  “Bullshit!” Devin roared.

  There were groans and head shakes around the table. Nobody was going with the one-more-than-you count. Too bad. The evidence was already in the freezer.

  “This game was rigged,” Judith sneered.

  “Oh, hey,” Rick said, “if you want to point the finger at game-rigging—” He made an exaggerated swing around to Mai and shot his arm straight out, “you can attack this little Asian trollop.”

  “What did I do?” Mai sputtered.

  “You let us go through all that nonsense when you knew it wouldn’t be necessary.”

  She crossed her arms. “You could have asked.”

  More groans from the peanut gallery.

  “Well,” Rick referred to his paper again, “with a questionable sixty-three fish, Miss Mai Ling Poontang Chang and her partner, Michael.”

  Rick hauled up the string of fish heads he’d tied into a necklace and held it out for everyone to see. Then he marched around the table and draped the necklace around Mai’s neck. To her credit, she wore it proudly, even after Michael snarled something in her ear.

  * * *

  As the others made their way from the main staircase down to the lounge, Rick cornered Sanchez outside her apartment. “How would you like to take a long walk on a short beach?”