H10N1 Page 21

  Rick struggled to stand, but his wobbly legs nearly buckled under him. “What the hell is going on?”

  Gripping the metal rail on the spiral stairway, Rick led Taeya down the steps. When he opened his door, John tumbled in. He was barking like a seal again, the way he had that day with his asthma attack in the garden.

  Were they all having some kind of cosmic reaction to the same dream?

  “Sickbay,” she croaked.

  Between them, Rick and Taeya dragged John down the hallway, his toes scrapping along the carpet, his head wobbling. Each time he tried to suck in a breath, it sounded like his last.

  Taeya was doing her best to keep John propped up and moving, but her knees were sagging. She was panting like she’d just run a 5K. She heard an annoying beep, beep, beep, but she was too confused to understand what it meant.

  Once they got into sickbay, Taeya snapped an oxygen mask over John’s mouth. He sucked in a couple breaths before yanking the cup off and handing it back to her. When she tried to refuse, he slapped her hand away.

  “The air’s turned off,” he gasped. “You need to breathe this, too.” He pressed the oxygen cup to her mouth and she took a deep drag. Then she handed it to Rick.

  “How can the air be off?” she wheezed.

  “I don’t know.” John was laboring for air again. Rick held the cup over John’s mouth, then moved on to Taeya before taking another breath himself.

  “Is this some kind of computer malfunction?” Rick asked.

  John shrugged as he took another hit off the mask. “As soon as I woke up, I came to your room.”

  “Let’s check it out.” Grabbing the cart handle, Rick rolled the oxygen tank to the door. As soon as he opened it, the beeping started again. “It’s coming from the conference room.”

  The high-pitched signal made it hard to concentrate. Weaving unsteadily, Rick and Taeya got John to Michael’s computer. The monitor was flashing all kinds of red lights and warnings.

  Taeya rationed oxygen while John fumbled at the keyboard. She’d let him have two or three good drags of air before she gave Rick one quick hit. But the extra oxygen didn’t help. John tried a few passwords, but couldn’t get in. And he couldn’t get the alarm to stop.

  “Okay, screw this,” Rick snapped. “Can you get the air back on from the basement?”

  John nodded. Slinging John’s arm over his shoulder, Rick hauled him to his feet. He trundled both John and the oxygen tank to the elevator across from the kitchen. Taeya careened ahead to hit the call button.

  She didn’t want to think about how the air got turned off, or why they were locked out of Michael’s computer. At least not until she could breathe again.

  The minute the elevator door opened to the basement, cool fresh air hit them in the face. After a couple deep breaths, the wooziness faded, the spots in front of Taeya’s eyes disappeared. But John wasn’t pulling out of it as fast.

  Rick grabbed a tall bucket and brought it back for John to sit on. Taeya forced his head between his knees.

  “Just take it slow and easy,” she told him. “Don’t rush it.”

  But John waved them both away. “You must check on the others.”

  Rick flew ahead of Taeya, taking the steps two at a time. He was standing at the edge of the garden when Taeya caught up with him.

  She froze. There was no light-headedness. No confusion. The farm had plenty of air, too. So it was just the habitat that had been closed off?

  “Goddamn that Michael,” Rick fumed.

  Up on the catwalk, the double doors burst open. Devin stumbled out with Mai over his shoulder. Judith wobbled out seconds later with Kat, wrapped in a sheet.

  After propping open the bottom doors with a couple shovels, Rick rushed up the metal stairs. Devin was just returning with Carol. Was she unconscious or dead?

  Taeya gave her mouth-to-mouth while Judith pumped her chest. With a throaty gasp, Carol sucked in a breath, and then broke into a hacking cough. Rick sprinted to the kitchen for water.

  Leaning back on her heels, Taeya glanced at Mai. She was teetering on one of the wrought-iron chairs, and babbling about the children in the east wing. She must not have had the ocean dream.

  Rick returned with a pitcher of water and cups. By that time, Mai had stopped worrying about orphans and Carol was breathing steadily. But circling the café tables, Kat was muttering and jerking like she’d just come down from a bad trip. Pulling out a chair, Rick got her seated and pushed a glass of water into her hands.

  Mai rested her chin on her palm. “I can’t believe that prick tried to kill us.”

  Taeya felt the deck vibrate when the air handlers kicked back on.

  “Thank God,” Rick said. “John’s in his zone again, too. Now all we have to do is find Michael and tear him apart.”

  No one expected to find him in his room. Eventually a search party combed the wilderness biome. They found Michael on the beach, curled up under a blanket, his head nestled on a pillow.

  How did the man’s mind work? When he woke up and everyone was dead, was he going to do the work himself? Or had he been on the radio, looking for new recruits? Taeya remembered seeing him gaze out the window the other day. Had he been expecting someone?

  Drawing her boot back, Judith let Michael have it right in the kidneys. He screamed and rolled onto his back. But when he looked up and saw Devin and Judith and Rick hovering overhead, he scrambled onto his hands and knees to crawl away.

  Devin grabbed his head like a bowling ball and yanked him to his feet.

  “I didn’t do it,” Michael whined. “I swear I didn’t.”

  “Do what?” Rick asked.

  “I don’t know.” Michael’s eyes were wild, jumping from Judith to Devin to Rick. “I woke up and felt woozy so I came out to the beach to sleep.”

  Gripping Michael’s shirt collar and waistband, Devin drove him head first into the stone steps at the edge of the beach. His face hit with a thunk.

  “Hey!” Taeya yelled, trying to get someone’s attention, but that mob mentality was gripping all three of them.

  Michael clambered up the steps, trying to stay ahead of Judith’s boots. As he stumbled through the savannah, Michael had the nerve to insinuate that John had been in the conference room late last night, like he was the one who had turned off the air. Taeya was almost tempted to slap him herself.

  He was working on yet another lame excuse when he saw Devin crank open the hatch door. Michael blubbered about how sorry he was, that he didn’t know what had gotten into him.

  “I think I got too high,” he told Devin. “That pot just made me crazy.”

  Devin shoved Michael into the hatch.

  “Don’t do this,” Michael pleaded. “Give me another chance.”

  “You’ve had too many chances already,” Rick snarled. “I’d say you’re damn lucky we’re giving you a head start.”

  “You’ve got ten seconds,” Devin said. Then he pushed on the heavy metal door.

  When Michael tried to keep the door from closing, Judith stomped on his fingers with her boot.

  “Please!” Michael screamed, blood and spit spewing from his battered mouth.

  The door clanged shut. Taeya heard Michael inside the hatch, wailing. “It was an accident!”

  Devin cranked the hatch wheel tight. “The clock’s ticking, bro.”

  Judith was already on her way upstairs to turn the lasers back on.

  “Now this is the kind of wager I wouldn’t miss for the world,” Rick said, racing to the windows in the game room.

  From the doorway, Taeya and Mai watched Michael explode out of the hatch and scramble for the perimeter before the lasers cut him down.

  Mai muttered a faint “Yeah,” and pumped her fist.

  * * *

  Taeya escaped to the café table at the end of the catwalk. The rest of the crew was high-fiving and backslapping as they made their way to the kitchen for breakfast. Propping her elbows on the wrought-iron table, she buried her face in
her hands. The air felt heavy with moisture from all the waterings Judith had given the garden. As Taeya inhaled the mugginess she felt nauseous.

  She’d stood by as Devin shoved Michael into the hatch, and didn’t say a word when Judith smashed his fingers with her boot. When that door clanged shut, Taeya’s heart cheered.

  It wasn’t until Michael reached the perimeter safely that she noticed she’d been holding her breath. Hoping, like the others, that she’d get to witness his death? The realization of such hatred made her physically ill.

  She felt the tremor of footsteps on the catwalk and glanced up to see Rick with two mugs of coffee. He placed one in front of her before sitting.

  “Rough morning,” he said.

  “If we hadn’t come here,” she said, “none of this would have happened.”

  “What?” Rick sputtered.

  “We showed up, and everything fell apart.”

  “Oh, for chrissake!” He banged down his cup. “What are you thinking? If only you’d gotten to that parking garage five minutes earlier, you’d have come out here without me or Judith or Devin?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “So, did you mean, if you hadn’t personally come here, everything would have been hunky-dory? Kat providing blowjobs, Mai putting up with Michael’s shit, John working his ass off keeping this place running?”

  A month ago, Taeya would have spewed her frustration right back at Rick. But she understood him better now. Reaching out, she laid her hand on top of his.

  “I just think we could have handled his ‘dismissal’ a little more …diplomatically. Didn’t that whole scene smack of mob rule?” When he looked away, she gently massaged his hand. “Isn’t that who we’ve been criticizing? The looters and burners and robbers?” Her voice cracked. “This morning we became those people.”

  With his foot, Rick scooted Taeya’s chair away from the table, then pulled her into his lap. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he held her close. She laid her head on his shoulder, and for the first time, she noticed Devin and Judith.

  Devin shuffled toward the table, his shoulders slumped. “Mind if we take our share of criticism?”

  Judith made a couple feeble attempts to justify why they’d gotten carried away. And Taeya agreed that their military background didn’t emphasize diplomacy. It was strictly a kill or be killed mentality.

  Given Michael’s erratic behavior, their only choice was to remove him. Taeya didn’t dispute that. It was the way they’d become a lynching party.

  “Haven’t we seen enough of that?” Taeya asked.

  “Yes, we have.” Mai’s bamboo sandals slapped on the metal grate. “And I guess I could spend the morning in self-flagellation for not trying to stop it, either.” Her voice rose to a shout. “But I’m starving! So can we get to work?”

  For the first time since Taeya had arrived, working in the garden was a burden. Every bead of sweat that rolled into her eyes burned; the searing heat threatened to suffocate her. A couple times, she scanned the plots to see how the others were faring.

  Mai had chosen to work at the far end alone. Rick and Devin were staking new tomatoes, but as the morning wore on, they began to bicker over inconsequential things. At one point, Taeya noticed Judith leaning on her hoe, staring at the doors out to the wilderness biome. Was she thinking about Michael curled up on the beach, sound asleep?

  Right after lunch, Taeya headed for the library. With the shortwave radio under her arm, she climbed the spiral staircase to the tower perched at the top of the Biosphere. Every day, she checked transmissions, gathering news from the outside world.

  At first, she’d tried using the radio in the conference room where Michael kept it, but sometimes he would hover too close, or make inappropriate comments. So she’d gotten into the habit of bringing the radio up to the library. When Michael questioned her, she said she got better reception in the tower.

  Taeya twirled the knob on the radio, scanning the 9,000 kilohertz frequency range. That was usually where she found most transmissions, but not today. She scrolled up to the 13,000 frequency used more in Eurasia.

  She picked up a broken conversation between a woman with a British accent and a man named Nigel. Taeya turned the tuning knob slightly and the voices came in clearer.

  “It was absolute carnage, Bertie,” Nigel told the woman. “People have been packed into Saint Petersburg like sardines for weeks. Thugs roam the streets, no one can find food, poor sots are sleeping in doorways. It was just a matter of time before the government stepped in.”

  The woman called back. “I can’t believe the police are gunning down people for loitering.”

  “Ah, Bertie,” Nigel sighed. “You know the Russians. Give a man some rations and a dry bed, he’ll follow any orders given.”

  Bertie replied, “I’m so thankful you got away when you did. Are you safe in Stockholm?”

  “It’s certainly more civilized here,” Nigel answered, “but there is definitely a police presence. Andrew and I plan to set out for Copenhagen directly.”

  Taeya broke into the conversation. “This is Doctor Taeya Sanchez in America. May I inquire about conditions over there?”

  There was a short pause before Nigel answered. “Certainly, Doctor Sanchez. Where in America?”

  “I’m in Arizona,” Taeya said into her microphone. “Are people still getting sick, or has the influenza run its course?”

  “The sickness is gone, but there seems to be a new pandemic sweeping through Europe. People are killing each other for food. And you might find this interesting, Doctor. In some countries, the influenza never appeared as a threat. For instance, here in Sweden.”

  Bertie wondered aloud why.

  “I dare say it’s all about the temperature,” Nigel said. “Wouldn’t you agree Doctor?”

  “Yes,” Taeya said into the microphone. “Above the fifty-fifth parallel, many viruses cannot survive. So people in northern cities like Saint Petersburg and Stockholm were safe.”

  “Although they were inundated with an inordinate amount of uninvited guests, so to speak,” Nigel said. “I imagine your Canadians have suffered from the same type of invasion.”

  Taeya told him how the Canadians had tried to block the borders, but she was certain Americans had gotten through. She asked if they had power in Stockholm.

  “Oh, yes. Not that it’s doing anyone any good. There are no goods to sell in stores, no raw materials for the factories. The economy is a shambles, food is scarce. How ironic that you Yanks have no manpower to send us what we need, and we have workers with nothing to do.”

  Taeya sat for a moment after she signed off, thinking about how countries were affected so differently. She’d spoken to a man in Alaska the day before who said that Denali National Park was overrun with campers and tent cities. He was incensed that hunters were shooting caribou, moose, even grizzly bear for food. Fishermen fought over boats, and then even if they managed to haul in a catch, they’d be attacked the moment they pulled into the dock.

  Large cities like Tokyo, Sao Paulo, and New York, were riot zones. Survivors had either fled, or become incorporated in roving gangs. Punks in the Bronx attacked gang strongholds in Yonkers. The next day the Yonkers boys would steal their stuff back. Would they eventually kill each other off, or join forces and grow stronger?

  What a shame. The world had a golden opportunity to reinvent itself, but it was seemed destined to repeat its mistakes. What was it about Homo sapiens that compelled them to wreck such havoc? She twirled the dial back down in hopes of catching some local news.

  The radio crackled, and Taeya heard a voice say, “This is Eric the Red, calling W2TMS. You there, Doc?”

  “Eric?” she said.

  “Hey, baby,” he shouted. “How the hell you doin’?”

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “I’m in the fertile valley, mama. The land of milk and honey.”

  “Where?”

  “I found this sweet town near Stockto
n, California. It’s one of those planned communities called Laurel Valley. The developers went bust years ago, during the recession, so all these houses are just sitting empty in the middle of Farmland, USA. There’s a river nearby, so we have access to fresh water. And get this. The town is really close to the Altamont Pass wind farm.”

  “A wind farm?”

  “Yeah. You know, all those windmills up on a ridge catching wind power. We haven’t been able to figure out how to get the power down here yet, but give us time.”

  “How many people are with you?”

  “Not many. But seems like every day somebody else comes straggling in.”

  Taeya heard footsteps on the stairs behind her. She turned to see Rick.

  “Who you talking to?” he asked.

  She was so excited, she knocked the microphone over. “It’s septic tank Eric.”

  Tripping up the last step, Rick lurched over to the table and grabbed the microphone. “Hey, you crazy son-of-a-bitch. How’s the gasoline business going?”

  “Oh, hell,” Eric called back. “That’s on the sidelines now. I’m farming full time on prime real estate. You need to tear yourself away from that sandbox you’re playing in and do some real farming up here. And bring that hot mama with you.”

  Taeya leaned past Rick and spoke into the microphone. “Is it safe out there?”

  For a minute, she thought she’d lost the connection. But then Eric answered. “I can’t exactly say it’s safe, but nobody’s getting sick anymore.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Well, one of our women was raped yesterday,” he said. “She was down at the river getting water when some lowlifes jumped her. We think they were from the next town over. They beat the poor woman senseless.”

  “How is she now?” Taeya asked.

  “Hard to say,” he answered. “None of us has any kind of medical background, so we aren’t much good at something like this. A couple of the other women tended to her, but it doesn’t look good.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well,” Eric radioed back. “We learn from our mistakes, don’t we? But listen, this place is fantastic. There are grape fields galore. And we’ve found crops of asparagus, beans, melons, corn. And orchards! We’ve got peaches, apples, pecans.”