Climatic Climacteric Omnibus

by L. B. Carter

  “What the fuck,” Reed upgraded the sentiment.

  The girl Reed remembered as a spitfire—with crazy curls the color of fire—was almost quenched, hovering demurely with shoulders hunched and hands twisting at her waist. Next to her huddled what Reed could only assume was her brother. Once a bold and clear-headed hockey player who stood up against bullies, now he was barely standing, period. His arm was slung over Tilly, the rest of him a shivering mass of blankets. Except his head…

  He was already quarantined …if you could call a pet fish quarantined. The device encompassing Liam’s drooping head, gave him the characteristic appearance of an astronaut. Sort of.

  “Is that …a scuba helmet?” Val breathed.

  That was fucked up. “Father?” Reed asked the security guard accompanying the teens, who was currently stationed on watch at the loading dock.

  The guard was fairly new, so he took a second to answer, not yet acknowledging Reed as an authority figure. The older team knew to trust Reed, that Father was fading. Reed stared the man down, until he relented. “No.” He was keeping his vision averted from Tilly and Liam, and stood several feet away. “They arrived like this.”

  “It’s certainly a fashion statement.” Val waved the masks she’d brought. “Guess we don’t need both of these.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Reed squinted, not ready to get closer. Tilly needed one and… “Can he breathe in that?”

  Someone stepped around the siblings. “No, he can’t. We gotta move fast.” The newcomer was wearing a medical mask, but Reed recognized her immediately.

  “Kayna? What are you doing here?” Kayna was Rena’s best friend and… Oh. Liam’s girlfriend. God save Reed from couples who refused to split up when it benefitted the situation.

  “What part of move fast are you not getting?” Kayna griped, stepping under Liam’s other side and hustling the group forward. She was wearing gloves at least.

  Reed backpedaled and opened the door. He didn’t take offense to the normally bubbly girl’s tone; she was obviously stressed, dark circles under her eyes and tension across her forehead.

  Val jumped through, moving away from the infected group. “Tilly?” She lifted an arm, snatching her hand back as if singed when Tilly swiped the mask and put it on with one hand. “Don’t touch anything,” Val warned harshly. “This way.” Like an expert, Val led the group back toward the clean room.

  “No, that’ll ruin the point of the clean room.”

  “Well, we need a place that’s sealed off, where we can keep contamination to one local area. Are any other labs kept isolated? Preferably with a viewing window and anteroom for suiting up if we need to go in? In other words,” she spelled out, “a lab with a clean room?”

  “Not the clean room,” he repeated.

  “Can we make a decision, please?” Kayna urged.

  Reed thought about it. “I’d have to ask Nor. I don’t know about other labs.” He sighed, realizing there was one spot that had all the necessary qualifications. “This way.”

  ◆◆◆

  “Are you going to be able to survive without your training room for a few days?” Val asked, staring through the window as Kayna and Tilly laid Liam on a stack of mats in the room in which he and Val had been sparring that morning.

  “A few days? That’s optimistic.” He glanced at her askance, surprised at how grateful he was to see her full face again. He hadn’t been able to get out of his suit fast enough. He didn’t want to wear that shit ever again. Cramped his style. “I can think of other ways to work out.”

  She snorted.

  Reed acknowledged that she didn’t object this time. However, Kayna and Tilly were exiting the room, heading into the women’s locker room where he and Val had disrobed. That place got cleaned often. They could just increase the amount of bleach used next time.

  Val had moved a biohazard trash can in there for their PPE and another for Tilly and Kayna’s clothes—and that stupid helmet they’d put on Liam before getting out of their car, which the guard was now having incinerated in the compound’s walk-in furnace.

  Val had left new masks and gloves for the girls and some of her clothes. Well, Jen’s. They had been inherited when Val moved in; she hadn’t been allowed to go back to the west coast and gather her things before being put on house arrest at Green Solutions.

  “So, the mirror isn’t a mirror, huh?” Val noted once the girls were out of sight, presumably taking a very thorough shower.

  “Two-way,” Reed agreed. “So Father could evaluate our progress with our trainer.” His jaw tightened. It was a secret he kept from Nor. This room was kept locked under the guise of being above Nor’s level of clearance.

  Reed was exposed to the truth when he’d made such a stupid mistake during a spar one day that Father had stormed out of this viewing room and right into the training room to explain what his son had done wrong. He wasn’t malicious, just thorough, militant.

  “Don’t tell me you weren’t planning on using this room to spy on me and Sirena.”

  Reed smiled, appreciating Val’s attempt to lighten the mood. She wasn’t empathetic, but she could read people. She’d been in the government for a long time. She was quick to mitigate, and discern how to say policy-makers to cater to her needs.

  That phrasing stuck in Reed’s mind—he’d be easy to sway when it came to catering to her needs. “Rena,” he corrected instead of confirming Valerie’s suspicion.

  “Silence is consent.” Val bumped him with her shoulder.

  He frowned at her. “Silence is never consent.”

  She walked up to him, pressing right against his front and lifting on her toes until her lips were a hair from his. His breath stuck in his lungs, heart picking up its pace.

  “Sometimes you don’t need words. They can ruin the mood. There are other ways to give consent—physical ways. We’re all alone in here. Have a few minutes until the girls are dressed.”

  He couldn’t say anything. His chin dipped and his arms wrapped behind her.

  She took that as consent.

  Chapter Six

  “You’re late,” Smith said when five people returned to the control room. The extra footsteps must have registered, because he spun his desk chair around and did a double-take.

  Reed checked his military-grade watch. “It’s thirteen-oh-four. We’re only a little late.” His stomach grumbled in accord with the hour.

  They hadn’t had time to stop at the cafeteria for lunch or breakfast for that matter, downing two protein bars from Reed’s cargo pocket—which had made Val sputter with laughter. “Always prepared,” he’d quipped. Kayna and Tilly were too nervous to be hungry, so he and Val each got one. Usually he liked to ensure they ate heartily after an early morning exercise session. He recalled how thin she felt under his hands, then shoved their make-out session from his mind. A multi-course dinner was in order after this. For everyone. To celebrate. It was time to buckle down and get this shit done.

  “Punctuality is the difference between life and death,” Smith recited. It was a saying Father repeated often. The techie’s attention was no longer on berating Reed, however. “Who the hell is this?”

  “Wow, what a welcome,” Tilly retorted. “Tilly. I won’t ask who you are.” Her nose lifted.

  “Smith,” he replied undeterred.

  “I’m Kayna. Rena’s BFFL.” Kayna pronounced it like ‘bifel.’ “Thanks for helping us.” She was polite as always but lacking the perky enthusiasm Reed had grown accustomed to when he’d been working at Barb’s diner.

  “You know, this is my first time in a control room.” Tilly surveyed all the gadgets eagerly. “This looks like a microwave. What’s it do?” She darted over and began poking.

  “No!” Smith went to save his set-up.

  “Anyway, now that everyone is sanitary, we need to talk,” Reed started.

  “Oh nothing good ever comes after that. Are you breaking up with us?” Val quipped.

  She shifted gears, bringing
Kayna up to speed. “Rena and Nor should be arriving at Greenland’s lesser-used port in about fifteen minutes. The city isn’t far from the coast, now that the sea level has risen, so it should only take about ten minutes between dock and lab. They’ve been instructed to contact us from there, but not before; we’re just tracking the GPS in their phone. Don’t want to tip anyone off who might be listening to the surrounding areas with a radio or phone call. We don’t know the extent of Greenland’s lockdown on the lab.”

  They couldn’t ask Ace to do more than a preliminary glance at Greenland’s security since he was analyzing from a government computer. If caught, there could be serious and massive political ramifications, rather than the less drastic or wide-sweeping punishment of a single firm acting independently.

  “Did you bring the original document and specimen?” Reed inquired. “We should send that over to our labs.”

  Kayna nodded, and held up a piece of paper in a plastic freezer bag that had a hazard sign and the word “Biohazard.”

  Reed raised a brow.

  “My mom’s a nurse,” Kayna explained. “I got the mask and gloves from her car, but didn’t have any extras for Liam and Tilly. We rented the scuba gear from the high school.”

  “Stealing from that place was way fun. The school, I mean,” Tilly piped up. “Like a teenage fantasy, getting revenge on a place of daily torture. Not that I really hate it there. But you know, it’s like a thing to hate it. I’ve seen a lot of shows with kids pranking their school.” She blinked her bright green eyes. “I had to get Sally to tell Percy to keep William busy—he manages equipment rentals from the gym—while Holly snuck us through the theater door—she’s the stage hand for their current play—and—”

  “Got it,” Val cut in, staring at Tilly as if she were an alien. She grabbed the bag.

  Tilly’s expression and tone darkened. “But Gerald nearly blew the whole thing, and I told Holly to tell him that he’d better watch his arse when I get back.”

  When she’d snapped at Nor about his treatment of Rena, Tilly had adopted a faint Irish accent, a fraction of the strength of her brother’s. It crept into her threat here too—a hint of the rogue fire within.

  Abruptly, Tilly shut her eyes and pressed her purple hands together in a prayer position, dozens of bangles on her arms jangling and began counting aloud from ten with a slow inhale or exhale between each number. The shirt she wore was a touch too big for her and slipped off one shoulder.

  Reed crossed his arms when Val glanced at him in acknowledgement, lips curved into a reluctantly impressed frown.

  The bangles rattled again when Tilly, now composed, dropped loose arms to her sides and smiled genially at them all like nothing had happened. The jewelry seemed out of place without her usual patchwork floor-length skirts that looked like she’d wrapped a quilt around her hips. He should have offered her some of Mother’s clothes.

  Reed crooked his chin at her wrists. “You didn’t chuck those with your contaminated stuff?”

  Tilly’s new mask moved, suggesting her mouth had fallen open. “No way. These were given to me by my yoga instructor. And besides, they’re metal. They got washed in the shower.” She poked at the drying curls beginning to spring up from her scalp and frizz. “You need to install a hair dryer in that locker room, by the way.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “What?” Val spun on Reed. “I’ve been telling you that for weeks! You said it would be taken under consideration and weighed against other requests within the budget.”

  Reed laughed heartily. “And it will be. But now it has two votes. You should thank Tilly. The support will aid your case.” He nodded at the bag in her hands. “Kayna and Tilly, first things first: where is the specimen?”

  “Destroyed,” Tilly said with a vicious snarl. “As it should have been squashed from the beginning.” Her hands slapped together making Val jump. “Like, really. Who revives a dead bug? I’d get it if it was like something cuddly and soft.”

  “How did you destroy it?” Reed needed certainty.

  “My mom took it into work—sealed—and had the morgue burn it. They were really confused why she didn’t just put it in the biohazard containers. But I made her promise.”

  Reed pinched his nose. “So you went to Tilly’s house – where they’d been exposed, where someone had died, and then went back outside and passed things over?”

  Val let out a sigh that mirrored how Reed felt.

  “No,” Kayna scoffed. “I may not be as smart as Rena or Stew, but I’m not an idiot.”

  Tilly hissed at Stew’s name. Rena had clearly told her friends about their full adventure.

  “I had Tilly drop it on the porch, then used a pair of gloves and mask—and tongs—to pick it up and double-bagged it. I didn’t interact with Tilly and …and Liam until after I’d gotten rid of the specimen. Mom knew not to open it—I had to tell her what happened. I made her promise to stay out of it otherwise. I have two rugrats at home, remember? I knew that as soon as I interacted with Liam, I couldn’t go back home.”

  Vividly. The first time he’d seen her babysitting her baby brothers while her mom worked a long shift at the hospital, he and Nor had believed Kayna had been knocked up by her boyfriend and stuck with two toddlers to raise on top of trying to graduate high school.

  “Good work. Smart thinking,” Val praised. She was a strong leader, a virtuous manager. Reed almost offered her “good work” praise.

  “So that sample is no longer of our concern. But we do have one more concern.” Reed grabbed a chair from an empty control station. They’d lost a lot of employees they were slow to replace. He spun it around and straddled it, arms resting across the top of the back.

  “You mean besides the guy hosting the virus in our walls?” Val lifted a foot and pushed the seat of the chair, sending Reed rolling a few inches away.

  Reed liked that she said ‘our.’ “Yes, besides that.” He fixed Kayna in his stare. She met his gaze coolly with her brown ones—slightly darker than the tint of her skin, more the color of her corkscrew hair. “Were you followed?”

  “Why the feck would we be followed?” Tilly butt in.

  Kayna gave it due contemplation. “I don’t think so.” He found truth in her unwavering eye contact. Kayna squinted as she thought. “I didn’t see many cars behind us for most of the journey, and when we hit the border, we were alone on the road.” She shook her head, spirals bouncing. One got stuck in the top of her mask. “We didn’t tell anyone in town what was going on besides my mom; didn’t want journalists or anything or anyone to get too close and contract whatever disease Liam has. Tilly called me, of course, but no one else.”

  Reed squinted. “What about Sally and …Holly and Gerinald and whosis?”

  Tilly tsked. “Gerald.”

  “Whatever.”

  Kayna lifted her gloved hands. “We didn’t tell them why we needed the scuba suits. They thought we were running some kind of prank.”

  “Like I said!” Tilly clapped her hands. “Kids love a good school prank.” Her sentence made it sound like she wasn’t one of those ‘kids.’ “And we didn’t correct them. I kinda liked pretending too.”

  “But you interacted with them. And you’ve been in a house with people who are exposed to it.”

  “Kayna did.” Tilly played with her bangles. “She made me stay home. I’ve been stuck there for days,” she complained. So, she pretended it was a prank but she wasn’t even a part of that prank? Oh-kay.

  “Nurse mom,” Kayna reminded everyone. “I know how to contain a sickness. My mom was insufferable when I got mono at summer camp one year. Didn’t see my friends or Liam for weeks.”

  Reed grinned. “All right then. That answers my questions.”

  “But not mine.” Val dropped a hand on Reed’s shoulder, crossing one foot over the other and leaning her weight on him.

  He nearly rolled away again and quickly adjusted his position to plant the soles of his sneakers flat on the tile
floor.

  “How did you get across the border with someone so sick you had to wear masks? We don’t know how contagious this is, if it transfers between live hosts through fluids or if it’s airborne…”

  “I don’t have it.” Tilly twirled as if spinning proved that she wasn’t hiding any symptoms behind her back or something. “And I’ve been home with mum and Liam. Kayna made me wash my hands after feeding Liam, and she made me wait.” She pouted. “For a week. Alone with Liam and…”

  And a dead mum. Reed winced, internally seeing Tio’s corpse sprawled on the bed in the Juarez farmhouse, then the mental scene shifted to him dumping dry dirt over the man’s blood-crusted face. He’d kept that view from Val.

  Kayna took over. “Incubation time. I needed to be sure she didn’t contract the disease. She might be an asymptomatic carrier, so we’ve been careful, but I think it can’t be carried by external touch or breath. The masks are precautionary. As long as we didn’t share saliva or something with Liam, we’ve been okay. So, we removed the masks temporarily at the border. And since we had your address—”

  Reed dropped his forehead onto his forearms. “Nor. I owe him a lecture for giving out our address.”

  Tilly poked Reed in the head, and he lifted it to scowl at her. “We won’t tell anyone, dummy. We know what this place is and does. Now.” Her anger flashed across her face that he and Nor had lied to them all when they’d been undercover in that Podunk town.

  Kayna finished her thought. “Well, because I had your address, I just told the border patrol that we were visiting our friend. There was no problem. We just piled stuff on Liam and told them he was sleeping off a hangover.” Kayna grinned. “They didn’t care about the underage drinking admission.”

  “People,” Smith interrupted, back at his post after removing Tilly’s curious fingers from his fancy tools. “They’re there.”

  Chapter Seven

  Reed checked his watch again. “You said thirteen twenty. It’s thirteen sixteen.”