Phage: Deluge Book 2: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story)

by Kevin Partner

  Patrick watched as the scientist attached the bag of blood to the stand and attached a catheter. He’d never been especially squeamish, but he turned away as Buzz inserted the catheter. “That’s completely safe, is it?”

  “No, it’s not. But Jo doesn’t have any other options.” He straightened up and let out a big breath. “I hope it works, I really do.”

  Patrick nodded, looking down at the sleeping figure. “Yeah. You won’t only have saved Jo, but maybe developed a new treatment.”

  “Perhaps, but it’s not exactly innovative. Anyone desperate enough might have tried it. I’ll sit with her, you go get some sleep. You look all done in. You can use my bedroom.”

  Patrick said thanks and left as quickly as the darkness and his exhaustion would allow. He briefly thought about taking the car back to the boat and picking Ellie up, but abandoned that thought as he emerged into the downpour. His chances of making it more than a few hundred yards in these conditions would have been low enough even if he wasn’t dead on his feet.

  Ellie would be alright. She always was.

  He used the last of his energy to scamper across the distance between the converted barn and the farmhouse, emerging into the dark kitchen dripping from head to toe.

  Slowly and carefully he made his way up the stairs—the last thing he needed now was to wake anyone up, but as he passed one door, it opened to reveal Anna. She looked half asleep, her hair tied up behind her head as she rubbed her eyes. “How’s your friend?”

  “Tom? He’s okay,” Patrick whispered, wondering what kind of a friend he was to rely entirely on Buzz’s word. “Buzz is with Jo. He’s transfusing the blood, if that’s the right word. It didn’t look like a lot, to be honest. But he seems hopeful.”

  “I hate to think what he’ll be like if she doesn’t make it.” She patted Patrick’s arm, leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek.

  He padded along and up one more flight of stairs to the attic space where the monitoring room, and Buzz’s camp bed, were. As he went in, he noticed light leaking from a connecting door.

  He found Max asleep on the floor, his laptop’s screen showing a bouncing equation that was probably some sort of scientific joke. Shutting the lid, Patrick crept past him, but didn’t quite make it to the door.

  “Who’s there?” Max asked.

  “Patrick. I’ve come to get some sleep. If I can in this storm.”

  “It’s passing,” Max said. “Will you wake me up in the morning?”

  “Sure.”

  Max rolled over. “I have…to tell…you.”

  Patrick gestured dismissively and had just enough energy to throw off his wet clothes before collapsing onto the bed and falling instantly asleep, the storm forgotten.

  He didn’t have to wake Max as the boy was up before him, and Patrick found him hunched over the laptop when he staggered in stiff-limbed. “You’re up, then?”

  “Yes, I was going to wake you up, but I thought you’d be angry.”

  Patrick smiled. “You were correct.”

  “Old people need twenty percent more sleep.”

  The smile disappeared. “Charming. So, how’s the map coming?”

  “Oh, I finished that yesterday. Would you like to see it?”

  “Sure.”

  Without getting up from his swivel chair, Max handed over a pile of papers. At the bottom, he found the familiar shape of the United States, overlaid on a distinctly alien outline. It looked a lot like Jodi’s map, but with much more detail.

  Then he leafed through the other sheets and found that they were closer views that would form a much larger map if they were stuck together. “This is really impressive, Max. Well done.”

  He could see the back of the boy’s ears coloring, but Max acted dismissively. “Pretty simple, really. It was made a lot harder by this crappy laptop, patchy access to academic servers and Buzz’s thermal printer.”

  “Well, you did it anyway. Are you going to come down and grab some breakfast?”

  “Nah. I’m not hungry.”

  Patrick tutted. “Did you have anything yesterday after I brought you those eggs?”

  The boy’s silence spoke for him.

  “Come on, let’s get you fed. Your brain can’t work without energy.”

  He pushed on the backrest to twist it around, but Max resisted at first.

  “Take a few minutes’ break. You can be back up here working on your new project in a flash. What is your new project, by the way?”

  Now Max swung around. “I got to figuring why Buzz was trying to slow me down, and why he doesn’t want to talk about the flood.”

  “And? Why doesn’t he?”

  “Because it’s his fault.”

  “What? No way Buzz would do that,” Patrick said, while trying to dismiss the image of the crazy scientist he’d seen in the storm last night.

  Max shrugged. “I don’t think he meant to do it. But he was responsible. He knows it, and he doesn’t want me to find out. But I will. I’m very close.”

  Intrigue overcame hunger, so Patrick pulled up a chair and sat beside Max, moving back slightly at the pungent aroma surrounding him. Mental note: make him take a shower.

  He glanced over at the laptop screen which showed green text on a black background. It reminded him of his time on the set of Asteroid, though he suspected the letters he was seeing on the screen were more meaningful than the mixture of pseudo-code, swear words and the names of female movie stars that passed for humor among the props department.

  “What’s this?”

  Max jabbed a finger lazily at the blinking green cursor. “It’s the Life Science Institute in Denver.”

  “And that’s above the water?”

  “It’s in Denver! It’s 5,280 feet above the old sea level.”

  “Oh, right. What have you found out?”

  “Nothing yet, it’s taken me hours to get in. This system might look primitive, but they’ve got multiple levels of security.”

  “You still got in?”

  Max snorted. “Obviously. Their systems are rock solid, but they’re unfortunately run by evolved monkeys.”

  “What?”

  “People. They’re always the weak point into any system. And you only need a list of personnel, which is publicly available, and one of them to use an infantile password, and you’re past the first level of security. From there, it’s a bit harder.”

  “But why are you targeting them?”

  For answer, Max simply folded the laptop screen back on itself and pointed at the sticker.

  “Bonn Institute?”

  “Yeah.”

  Patrick paused for long enough for Max to catch on that he hadn’t caught on. The boy sighed. “Bonn Institute is affiliated with LSI Denver.”

  “Isn’t that a bit tenuous?”

  “Not when you find Edwin Baxter’s name on the faculty of both.”

  Patrick sucked his teeth. “You’d make a great conspiracy theorist. But come on, let’s get something to eat. You can carry on with your infiltration later.”

  Max looked at him doubtfully. “Well, I’ve got it downloading the core database into a flash drive at the moment so I guess that’ll be a while.”

  “Cool, let’s go. I’m starving.”

  They found Hank in the kitchen, but while he fried up some eggs, Patrick went over to the makeshift hospital, picking his way between the puddles. Jo lay where she’d been the night before. The bag of blood was gone, but he couldn’t tell if she was any better. She certainly wasn’t awake. There was no sign of Buzz, so Patrick went through into the room beyond. Tom lay on what looked like a dentist’s chair that had been extended to make a bed. He looked as white as a corpse but his eyes flicked open when Patrick came in.

  “Hey,” he managed.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Like death.”

  “Where’s Buzz?”

  “Gone to get me something to eat.”

  Patrick shook his head. “I’ve just come from
the kitchen and I didn’t see him.”

  Tom grunted. “Well, I am going nowhere. How is the little girl?”

  “Oh, Tom. She died before you got here.”

  “What?”

  “But there’s a young woman. She’s been given a transfusion.”

  Tom flopped back onto the makeshift chair.

  “Can you make it into the other room if I help you?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  Patrick squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring you something to eat and drink, and I’ll also fetch someone to help me move you.”

  “Gracias,” Tom managed before slumping back.

  “You did a good thing by agreeing to help, Tom. I’m not sure I’d have been so kindhearted,” Patrick said, as he exited, leaving the door open this time.

  He was halfway back across the farmhouse yard when he heard a cry from inside. Breaking into a run, he charged upstairs closely behind Hank, who’d responded first. “It was Max!” he said. “He just finished his eggs and went upstairs.”

  Patrick overtook Hank on the attic landing and flung the door open. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Buzz had Max in a headlock and was trying to wrestle the young man to the floor. “I’ll kill you! I swear I will!”

  He glared at Patrick. “You’d better get him under control or so help me God I’ll throw him out of the compound!”

  Between them, Patrick and Hank managed to pull Buzz away from the red-faced Max, who immediately jumped up and tried to attack. Hank wrapped his arms around Max and said, in a calm voice, “Come on, son. I ain’t gonna let you go until you calm down, so you might as well give in. I know you don’t like me holdin’ you like this, so relax while we sort this mess out.”

  Patrick stood between Max and Buzz. “What happened?”

  Buzz didn’t make eye contact. “I took back what is mine.”

  “He stole the laptop while I was downstairs!” Max spat.

  “Why don’t you let Max finish what he was doing?” Patrick asked, closely observing the scientist’s face.

  “He has finished. He succeeded in generating an accurate flood map—I see you have a copy,” he said, looking down at the paper sheets sticking out of Patrick’s pocket. “That was our agreement. Now I am reclaiming my property.”

  “But why would you do that, boss?” Hank said, letting Max go, but holding on to one shoulder. “He’s doin’ no harm, and there’s not much for him to do until we start the plantin’.”

  Buzz held his breath and then slowly exhaled as if he’d pressed a reset button. “Using my equipment is a privilege, Hank. Max abused that by attempting to hack a secure server.”

  “You did what?” Hank said, pulling Max around to face him.

  “It was research…”

  “But Buzz lent you his equipment fer you to make yer maps, not to become some cybercriminal.”

  Patrick didn’t know why he did it, but he chose not to reveal what he knew about Max’s activities and one look at the boy’s face told him it was the right move.

  “I’m not the guilty one here,” Max said. “I ain’t got anything to hide.”

  Patrick saw something that might have been fear—or perhaps hatred—flicker across Buzz’s face, but the scientist simply hefted the laptop under one arm and stalked off. “I expect you all out of here within the hour.”

  “You saw it, didn’t you?” Max hissed, once the coast was clear.

  Hank put himself between them. “What’s this all about, son?”

  “What do you care? You took his side!”

  Sighing, Hank shook his head. “Listen, I figured I should keep him sweet so I could ask you what was goin’ on. He’s mighty volatile, and if he feels cornered, then we’re all for it. You gotta remember, without him we’d both be dead by now.”

  “I finished creating the map program last night, but what I really wanted the laptop for was to find out more about him.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “He’s involved in the flood.”

  Hank rolled his eyes. “Not this again! Son, we agreed that he knowed it was comin’. But we ain’t gonna get him to admit it if we go snoopin’.”

  “No, it’s more than that. I think he knows exactly what happened because he was working on it.”

  “I’m completely lost now, Max.”

  Max glanced across at Patrick as if working out if he was to be trusted. “He was a member of SaPIEnT—the climate change team.”

  “Oh, don’t you start on the global warming conspiracy theories,” Patrick said.

  Max’s jaw dropped. “Conspiracy theories? We had a global flood! Buzz was working on an exobot project.”

  “What’s an exobot?”

  Sighing, Max put on his most patronizing tone. “It’s like a nanobot, but organic. They’re genetically modified cells designed for certain tasks. Like converting ocean pollution into clean water, or digesting plastic.”

  “So?”

  “…or raising the temperature that ice melts at. That way, the global temperature could go up, but the ice would stay where it was.”

  Patrick felt as though the sun of understanding was peeking out from behind a cloud. “But if he was working on that, why would the ice melt?”

  “Because it went wrong, moron,” Max spat. Then, as he saw Patrick’s face, he said, “Sorry. That wasn’t the right word. You’re not a moron, you’re ignorant. And I honestly don’t know the exact answer—that’s what I was trying to find out on the institute servers.”

  “Jeez,” Patrick said. “How can he live with himself? Knowing he’d been the cause—or part of it—of the deaths of millions. It would be enough to send anyone…”

  “Crazy,” Max said.

  Chapter 22

  Jo

  Ellie watched as the car stopped just above the waterline, then breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Patrick get out.

  She felt as though she’d barely slept a wink, though she knew that couldn’t be true as she’d woken to broad sunshine that barely hinted at the tempest of the night before. Until, that was, she went onto the fly deck and saw the mud and junk that had been flushed down the hill to pile up at the waterline.

  Patrick picked his way through the natural and unnatural garbage, carefully avoiding the puddles that had sprung up, and finally climbed aboard.

  Ellie embraced him, sensing his surprise. But she was glad to see that he was safe. “How’s Tom?”

  “He’s doing okay,” Patrick said. “I made sure he was fed and watered and transferred to a bed before I left. I also asked Masie to sit with him, just to keep an eye.”

  “Did Buzz use his blood?”

  Patrick nodded. “Yeah. One of the patients died before we got there—a kid called Harper—but Jo got a full dose of Tom’s antibodies. Too early to say if they’re working, but she’s still alive, and that looked touch and go last night. But that wasn’t the only drama.”

  “You’re telling me!”

  “Oh, sorry—I didn’t ask. It must have been pretty frightening out here on your own.”

  She bellowed with laughter as Patrick looked at her, startled. “Honestly, Pat, you’ve got to get rid of this idea I’m some kind of halfwit heroine from one of your action movies. No, I wasn’t frightened,” much, she added silently, “but I picked up some broadcasts. Oklahoma City is dry, at least partly. We can go that way.”

  Patrick produced the sheaf of printouts, riffling through them until he found the one he was looking for. “Max has made a map—like Jodi’s but much more detailed, much more accurate.”

  “Yeah, so the city’s cut in half. That’s what I heard.”

  “You heard?”

  She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the saloon. “On the radio! They’re broadcasting. Here, listen.” She turned the radio on, choosing the frequency she’d used the previous night. A male voice using authoritative but calming tones was reading announcements.

  “And that’s live?”

&
nbsp; “As far as I can tell. They also play some recorded messages, but mainly they’re reading out announcements from the mayor. Here, I’ve been writing them down.”

  She sat him down and laid out the notes—scribbled on scraps of paper and the backs of cardboard packaging—and watched as he read her spidery handwriting.

  “Not exactly welcoming, are they?”

  “All the warnings are aimed at people coming from the west. I don’t reckon they’re expecting boats to arrive.”

  Patrick rubbed his chin. “Maybe, but the main theme of these messages is that they’re looking after their own. Half the city’s been flooded, so they’ve got enough problems without outsiders.”

  “Then we’d better make sure we’re no trouble. We’re just passing through, after all. But if any sort of bus service is running to the west, it’ll be worth the risk. What?”

  She couldn’t read Patrick’s expression, but something was bugging him.

  “You don’t want to come with me anymore?”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t changed my mind. If you’re going, I’m going.”

  “But…”

  “But it’s not quite as simple as that.”

  So, she listened as he told her of Max’s suspicions. To her, it felt as though she were watching a jigsaw being built piece by piece, with no idea of the final picture.

  “We guessed he knew about the flood,” she said.

  Patrick’s expression went grim. “Yeah, but it’s beginning to look like his involvement goes a lot deeper.”

  “You think he did this?” she said, her jaw dropping as she waved her hand at the world outside.

  Leaning back, Patrick shut his eyes and shrugged. “I don’t know what I believe. It doesn’t seem possible that one man could do this, and I’m not sure he had the power to pull the necessary levers. But I am certain that this disaster was manmade and that Buzz had a connection. If only I hadn’t insisted Max have something to eat. He might have found the evidence he needed if he’d had a little longer.”

  “Or he might not.”

  “True, but he’s a clever kid. Really, really clever. And he knows it.”