Resonance

by A. J. Scudiere

  With force, she shoved her brain in gear. Her frogs should be re-orienting at the magnetic halfway point. That meant they were either very close to a smaller site, far from a big site, or exactly as far away from a site of the same size. Becky turned the wheel and followed the frogs’ noses.

  Jordan looked at the page from the cheap printer they had brought along to spit out test results. It seemed a shame to get the scoop on whether you would likely live or die from a $79 printer that wheezed and beeped like an abused photocopier when it ran out of paper.

  Dr. Carter’s results rested in his fingertips at the moment. The only person that they weren’t sure of until just now. His white count was textbook, and he didn’t test positive for anything else interfering with normal immune function. Meaning it was highly unlikely that he’d be in the next batch to come down with Brookwood-Abellard, as Jordan was already calling it to himself. It also meant the geologist was likely to come around trying to read the slopes on Jilly again. Maybe he just shouldn’t start ‘David’ on the supplements yet, give him a little time to weaken up.

  While it was supremely tempting, it did violate that whole Hippocratic Oath thing. Jordan scowled to himself.

  Instantaneously, Jilly’s voice reacted to his expression. “Does David have something?”

  “No, David doesn’t.” He forced a smile, and forced down the thoughts that were bubbling up about Jillian. He set the printout aside, stacking it on top of the pages of blood tests from every person in McCann. His and Jilly’s were at the bottom of the pile, along with a flood of nerves. “What we need to do is go out and get the good sheriff and his boy to help us set up the road blocks.”

  Jillian’s giggles mingled sweetly with the harsh ring of the old yellow phone and, covering her mouth, she ran off to the kitchen to answer it.

  Jordan knew what she was laughing about, too. In an earlier attempt to find the appropriate methods of shutting down the town, they had set up your basic D.O.T. barricades. Only McCann wasn’t a town. So they set up James Hann’s two sawhorses at the east entrance of Main, and Sheriff Beard produced a real barricade from the trunk of his cruiser, only it said “City of Kingsport” in black, sprayed-on letters. Neither Jordan nor Jillian had questioned the sheriff on that.

  Sheriff Beard was McCann born and bred, and he’d informed them in a deeply twisted drawl that ‘them bear’cades ain’t gone keep anyone in or out, folks’ll just pick’em up and go on by.’ So they had hopped into the Rav4, desperate for a trip out of town anyway, and searched every store they could find, finally stumbling across some old Halloween barricade tape reading “Beware. Beyond this point lies certain death”. Jordan had wound up being the voice of reason on that one. Jilly had begged him to get it and laughed herself into tears. And Jordan knew then that it was true: when the serious ones go, everybody better watch out.

  She came back into the room now, all trace of laughter gone from her face. She took in a deep breath to help expel the nasty thought she was about to speak. “Jeb Parson’s daughter just found him on his living room floor.”

  He bit his tongue to keep from making the inappropriate response that Jillian should claim that ten dollars she had wanted to bet. She had the first piece of her Trifecta. Jordan pulled up to the conversation on a medical level instead. “He’s in a coma?”

  Her head shook slightly. “He was dead when she found him.”

  It was only then that he noticed she was fingering the rolls of yellow ‘do not cross’ tape that had arrived via one very perturbed FedEx driver this morning. His truck was splattered in mud unbecoming a professional. But he had delivered thousand-foot rolls of bright red biohazard and yellow quarantine tape, warning signs and corrugated waxed paper road barricades that assembled like cardboard dinosaurs. None of it would keep out a scooter, but it looked pretty official.

  “We need to go to the Parson’s house then and-”

  “We need to seal up the town.” Jillian’s firm voice pushed his concern down deeper. “Mr. Parson went down fast. We need to keep everyone who’s in in and everyone who’s out out. Until the men in suits get here tomorrow. Then we need to visit Sandy Parson and . . .” She turned around to walk out, but he heard her voice from the hallway. “-pray.”

  They didn’t bother to unpack the remaining two boxes of barricade supplies, just shoved back what they had already inspected and threw the boxes into the trunk of the Rav4. They would have what they needed when they got there. Jillian tossed Jordan the keys, and was already flipping open her cell phone and dialing up some number she knew by heart. She paid little attention as she climbed into the passenger side of her own car. “Yes, David please.”

  David please. He tamped down the urge to tell her that the polite form of address was ‘Doctor Carter’. Then he spent another round of thought on the fact that she had known the number by heart, and even if he was beginning to think something, he was too late. Too bad, so sad. And he’d better shove it down quick. If Jillian wanted to monkey around with someone it would have to be David Carter the second. Jordan had critical work to attend.

  The conversation was brief and since the cell reception was so horrible, Jillian had to repeat everything she said at least three times. And Jordan had the whole conversation by the time she hung up. David Carter was not to leave his hotel room unless he spoke to her first. Not them, her.

  It took fifteen minutes to drive the less-than-mile to the edge of town where Parson became Main. Hann’s sawhorses were still there, but true to Sheriff Beard’s prediction, they had been moved. Whoever drove through must have stopped to put them back, the gap wasn’t wide enough for a car.

  Jordan parked the Rav4 right in the middle of the street after abandoning the idea of pulling over, and was greeted by a series of fresh hoofprints, dead center of the slightly widened gap. And he didn’t have a guess as to who the hell they belonged to. At this point in the game he wouldn’t have been shocked if a Conestoga wagon full of settlers showed up.

  Jillian joined him and silently they each grabbed both red biohazard and yellow ‘Do Not Cross’ tape rolls and handfuls of wire. They separated and went about a hundred yards out from the road, winding tape around trees and wiring it to branches, sealing off the place at waist level. Jordan added tape and wire to hold the sawhorses into place. Someone would basically have to rip his work down in order to cross. Or jump it on their horse. He put his hands on his hips, and went about adding another level of tape at eye height. The yellow and red barricade looked flimsy but the tape was strong and wouldn’t rip. A good pair of shears would make short work of it though.

  He wished that just for a moment he could tip his head back and be blissfully unaware, and enjoy the weather and the coming season. But he had worked hard and was still paying good money for the privilege of having his ignorance stripped away. So he simply opened the driver side door and she followed suit. They drove along, neither of them saying a word until they hit the west entrance of Main. The Kingsport D.O.T. roadblock still stood where they had left it, and Jordan looked specifically for horse tracks this time but saw none.

  Meticulously laying out yards of the tape, Jordan hoped that being this far backwoods they wouldn’t wind up with a bad case of media crawling all over them. He and Jillian were both trained in what to say and how to refuse interviews should the news vans appear like vultures circling the town edges. He also knew how to keep things quiet and pray.

  He was winding the last piece of red tape around the orange and white barricade, when he heard the gasp.

  Knowing it didn’t sound right, but having no other explanation, he looked up at Jilly, who was looking straight at him. They both turned to find a redheaded girl wearing jeans and low pigtails with a smattering of freckles just across the bridge of her nose. Jillian’s expression gave away that she was rapidly searching her brain for a hint of recognition. Jordan knew instantly that he had never seen this girl before.

  “Um?” Even with just that sound, it was clear that she wasn’t
the girl he had first thought her to be. After her next sentence it was clear from her accent that she wasn’t a local and she was well educated. “I think you just taped my car in. . . . I . . . I have lab specimens in the front seat.” She looked back and forth. “Oh dear God, what’s biohazardous in there?”

  Jordan’s eyes narrowed, she didn’t sound scared. But excited. Intrigued. And she was carefully trying to cover it. Jillian didn’t catch that. She offered her most soothing tone, a mother to her child after a bad round of nightmares. “Oh, that’s just to keep people out.”

  As the girl wiped her hand off on her jeans, he watched her stance shift. She knew what she was about and she held the cleaned hand out to him. “Dr. Rebecca Sorenson, UT Biodiversity Laboratories. And you are?” She said it with a lilt - that upward turn at the end af all sentences that females used to play inferior to their male counterparts. And she used it very well. Jordan heard the confidence behind it. She had known she didn’t look the part. And he glanced down at his own sweatshirt and now dirty sneakers just briefly before sticking his own hand out to take hers.

  He spoke quickly enough to divert the doctor’s eyes from Jilly’s surprised expression. “Dr. Jordan Abellard. CDCP Atlanta.” He motioned to Jillian, who thankfully now had it together. “This is Dr. Jillian Brookwood, my colleague.”

  “Becky.” Dr. Sorenson corrected as she slipped her grip out of his and transferred the handshake to Jillian. And just as quickly as she gave a good hard quick stare, indicating that she knew the score and she’d play fairly, she spoke again. “I won’t go to the media.”

  “Thank you.” Jillian’s voice held unknown volumes of relief.

  “Are people sick?” Becky looked them both in the eyes again. If he didn’t answer her straight he would have to simply say he wouldn’t tell her.

  So he gave her one word. “Dying.” And ignored Jillian’s combined look of surprise and disapproval, but he saw that disappear even as he looked away and ignored her.

  Becky turned the conversation toward him. Like Jordan, she knew an ally. “Why aren’t you in full suits?” Then she answered her own question. “We’ve already been exposed.”

  She didn’t show the emotion he expected.

  But he nodded, confirming her answer.

  “It’s contagious.” Her eyes wandered, focusing far away. And in a moment he realized that she was listening. And she frowned. Becky mumbled a word that sounded like ‘warblers’ but he didn’t know what that meant. She looked him in the eyes again. “Wanna share?”

  “Yes.”

  Jillian hid her shock better this time.

  Becky sighed. “I have a series of mutated frogs and other species. You’re standing in a spot that I just realized today when I came in has a reversed magnetic field.”

  Jillian’s voice finally cut into the conversation. “We know.”

  Jillian paced the room, finally keyed up enough to ignore her hideous surroundings. The bed still had not been fixed. And she desperately wanted to sit on it, lay back and maybe even cry. But she knew from experience that that would lead to rolling off. Which led to humiliation and frustration. And she couldn’t sit in that horrible little ladder-backed chair for another moment. So she forced her feet to keep going. At least she would sleep at the end of this interminable day.

  The motion served another purpose, siphoning off energy that she would gladly use to fillet Jordan alive. He had simply opened his fat mouth and spouted off to some girl with no ID a good portion of what the CDC knew, and what they didn’t. And Jillian had no idea what reasoning he had. If any.

  Not that they had been able to talk. Jordan had brought the girl back with them, and even called James Hann to see if they had a spare room for Miss Becky. Dr. Rebecca Sorenson and her mutated frogs had just left, finally, headed out to the Whippoorwill Inn. And Jordan sat in the wooden chair, re-reading printouts like the case was closed.

  Jillian bit her tongue. She swallowed repeatedly. She pressed her lips together, as though that might keep it all down. But she knew better and of course it all came out anyway, with all the harsh air she had been holding back. “How the hell did you reason out telling her all that?”

  Jordan looked up at her, not at all startled by her outburst. “She’s not going to the media. She’s with UT, and Biodiversity could be a big help.”

  Jillian’s mouth hung slack for a moment before she put it in gear again. “She had no ID on her. You didn’t even call UT to see if someone by that name works there!”

  “She’s trustworthy.” Jordan remained calm.

  Which just served to send Jillian rocketing to the other end of the spectrum. “Trustworthy!? How would you know? You just met her!”

  He clenched his teeth then slung it right back at her. “Would you accept an argument from a blind man about the color of the sky?”

  “Uh!” She knew she looked and sounded stupid standing there with her mouth open again. And she couldn’t shut it off. The offended part of her brain stepped in to fill the void. “Blind! Well, I’m so sorry I wasn’t born with your handy trust-o-vision, but you don’t just blurt out classified material like that.”

  She had done it. She knew it. Jordan snapped, and came up out of the chair at lightning speed. He towered over her, his face close enough to fill her field of vision with the anger and hurt in his eyes, with his chestnut brows drawn tight together, with the clench of his jaw. “If we don’t solve this, it’s going to be named after us. And other people will die. What would you have me do, Jillian? Refuse help?”

  Her teeth clicked, she brought them together so hard. She turned away out of his space in order to breathe in. And slowly out. It wasn’t enough, and she forced herself to do it a second, then a third time. When she had pulled the pieces of herself together enough she spoke again. But she didn’t look at him. “I may not have that intuition you do, but you should still consult me before you decide to spill secrets.”

  She felt his sigh even though her back was turned. “There wasn’t enough time.”

  This time Jillian squared up and looked him directly in the eyes. “Yes, there was. And if you believe there isn’t then you need to find the time.”

  He took a small concessionary step back as his hand came up to comb his fingers through his already rumpled hair. “You’re right.” His voice washed over her again a heartbeat later. “I’m sorry.”

  Jillian blinked in surprise as she felt all the support leave her, and she sank back onto the tilted mattress, knowing even as she did it that it was a mistake. She spread her knees, planting her feet firmly to brace herself against near-certain humiliation, and sunk her head into her hands. “What if she screws up the investigation?”

  She heard the chair scrape up beside her before she felt the heat of his arm around her shoulders. “She won’t.”

  She sniffed, and even as she did it became mortified.

  “Hey, don’t cry. We’ll figure this out.”

  With his acknowledgment it became impossible to hide the tears. “How am I going to figure this out when I can’t even remember not to sit on this stupid bed?”

  She felt the deep rumble in Jordan’s touch long before she heard the sound of him laughing, and slowly she joined him. Even though her left leg ached from bracing herself upright.

  Jillian finally gathered herself, the one concession to her tears a brief wipe with her sleeve. And she pushed herself off the bed and away from him before she faced him unable to hold back a final sniff. “I need ice cream.”

  She rambled into the kitchen with Jordan following and pulled the carton out of the fridge, ignoring the roosters staring at her while she did it. She fixed two bowls and sat down, “We know that it isn’t airborne. The chain of infection just doesn’t make sense.”

  “If it’s viral or bacterial it doesn’t match with anything known. So it isn’t contagious. And that leaves environmental as the best guess.”

  She sighed, trying to enjoy the food, and grateful it was created outside the
town boundaries. “But . . . we’ve checked everything. We have no standard radioactivity. No toxic chemicals. We’ve tested the water, the meat Parson’s has been getting, the air, the soil. What the hell else do we test?”

  “We do have a magnetic anomaly in part of the town.” His spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl.

  “Yeah, that magnetic reversal. It’s weird, but . . . let’s face it, an MRI is about a thousand times stronger than the earth’s field. And that’s an entirely enclosed magnetic field. And we put people in those every day, some people repeatedly, and aside from it yanking off your jewelry, there are no harmful effects. Certainly not vomiting and coma.”

  She let a few bites melt on her tongue, before she started thinking aloud again. “It makes more sense that it’s immunological. Like AIDS was when they first saw it. It attacks people with weak systems.”

  Jordan stood and politely rinsed out the bowl, which she was relatively certain had a pig staring up from the bottom. “But those people tested positive for everything. Ours test for nothing. Is it the weakened immune system combined with the magnetic field?”

  Jillian shook her head and waited while she swallowed down the pat of ice cream she had just fed herself. “Immuno-compromised patients go into MRIs at five times the rate of non-immuno-compromised patients, without these effects.”

  “How the hell do you know that?” He put his hands up. “Those cancer patients are often nauseated anyway, maybe the MRI compounds it and we just don’t see it.”

  She shook her head in time to the thoughts churning inside. “It’s chemo that makes the patients nauseated, and there’re tons of immuno-compromised patients that don’t have chemo. But even then those patients still don’t exhibit ear pain, or coma and death. And if that is our culprit, those people ought to be going down fast and furious because they have far weaker systems than Mr. Parson did. . . What’s actually more than likely is that the magnetic reversal mucked up the machinery or assays and we have something standard but our results aren’t printing out.”