Viral Nation

by Grimes, Shaunta

  The idea of talking to someone outside her own time line was upsetting, anyway. It was too strange to wrap her head around, so she didn’t even consider it.

  “Don’t you wish you were a Time Mariner, so you could travel in the Veronica?” Clover asked.

  Usher didn’t give any outward sign that he’d heard her question. She was going to ask again, but they came to a stop at the huge metal gate in the wall that she’d seen from Bennett’s window.

  “We’re leaving the city?” she asked. Mango had laid down in the space between the van’s front seats, but something in her voice caught his attention and he sat up. Probably the panic. “I’ve never been outside the city.”

  “Clover, you know the portal is in Lake Tahoe. And you know that Lake Tahoe is outside the city walls.”

  Of course, she knew all that. Knowing didn’t help much. Clover jumped when she heard a crunch and saw that she’d cracked her cookie. A narrow slip of paper showed through the shell. She shoved the whole thing into her pocket. “What’s it like? Out there, I mean.”

  “The road to the lake has been cleared. You won’t see anything too out of the ordinary. Some empty neighborhoods, then a lot of trees.”

  Usher drove through the open gate, flicking his hand twice, once at each of two guards.

  He was right. The outside was a lot like the inside, except even without people it was so crowded. There were houses, all squished up next to each other, on both sides of the street for the first few miles. Cars parked everywhere. But everything fell away as they drove farther from the city.

  When the road changed from a wide, flat highway to a winding mountain road, Clover saw the trees. Nothing like the parks in Reno. These pine trees looked a thousand feet high and were probably that many years old. She turned in her seat and tried to see to their tops.

  That was when things went off the rails. Clover’s stomach flopped over as the landscape flew past. She groaned and squeezed her eyes closed.

  “Look out the front window,” Usher said. “You’re just carsick.”

  Clover cracked her eyelids and then covered them with her hands. She burped and moaned. “I’m really sick.”

  “It’s the mountain road. No horizon.” Usher reached into another pocket in his uniform and pulled out something that he put in her palm. “Suck on this, it’ll help.”

  He’d given her a peppermint candy. His jumpsuit was as good as the Bazaar. She unwrapped the candy and put it in her mouth, against her cheek. It did settle her stomach. The novelty of the sugar distracted her for a few minutes anyway. It did not let her watch out the car windows, though.

  “There’s medicine,” Usher said. “Make sure you ask your trainer for some, or you’ll never make it through the trip.”

  When Clover peeked again, the lake had opened on her side of the road. It was massive and brilliantly blue. Watching it gave her something stable to look at, and her stomach didn’t protest too much. Clover’s breath caught as she watched small waves crash against the rock cliffs.

  She’d spent time at the Truckee River, of course. It ran just a half mile from her house. But this was something different.

  Usher drove the van down a long, winding road to the water’s edge. More vans were already parked in the small lot. Clover barely noticed them and even forgot to worry about her stomach. She was too busy gaping at the gigantic structure at the end of the long dock.

  “That’s the Veronica,” Clover said. It was magnificent. Usher started toward the dock. Clover and Mango followed. “It’s a submarine. Named after Ned Waverly’s dead wife.”

  “That’s right. A steam-powered submarine. Electronics don’t travel through the portal.”

  Clover walked ahead of Usher. “Where is everyone?”

  “Inside. They’re waiting on you.”

  The Veronica ran on hydrogen peroxide, which produced heat to power a steam engine. The hull was narrow and sleek, made of dark, polished wood, the most beautiful thing Clover had ever seen.

  She’d studied it, of course. She knew it was fashioned after a World War I model, and there had been fear initially that none of the survivors had the skills to build it.

  And she got to see the Veronica in person. To actually ride in it. West wasn’t going to believe this. She barely believed it herself.

  She and Mango walked across a gangplank to the entrance at the top of the ship. At first Clover was worried about getting her dog down into it, but there was a small lift to her left. It was open, with just a rail rather than walls and no ceiling at all.

  Mango went into the lift without a problem, and there was just enough room for the two of them to ride it down together. She closed the gate behind her and turned to look around for some kind of control panel.

  “Na—No electricity on the Veronica.”

  Clover looked up and over her right shoulder at a man in a black jumpsuit, staring down at them. His right arm jumped in what almost seemed like a greeting, but not quite. “Are you my trainer?”

  He shook his head, first normally, and then with several hard, quick jerks to the right. “No, no, no, no—” He exhaled forcefully through his nose. “No. I’m not.”

  Clover blinked up at him for a minute, then asked. “How do I work this thing?”

  He pointed toward the ropes in front of her. “It’s like a dumb—idiot!—waiter. Pull the rope on the right to go down. Idiot! Idiot!”

  Clover bunched her hands into fists at her sides, the leather lead cutting into her palm. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “Idiot! Moron! I know that.”

  “Well, then why did you…”

  The man stepped back, out of her line of vision. He called back, “Have a good mission.”

  A hot flush rose up her cheeks. She reached for the ropes and pulled. It was surprisingly easy to lower herself and Mango into the hold. When she got to the bottom, she looked back up. The man who’d called her an idiot peered down at her. “That one’s yours.”

  He pointed to a door to her left, and then his whole body jerked that way and she cringed back, sure he’d fall in on her. After he was gone, she opened the door into a room that was larger than she expected and lit with some kind of recessed lighting that gave a warm, even tone with no flicker of fluorescent or too-bright glare.

  A woman in a brown jumpsuit similar to Clover’s, only better-fitting, sat in a chair against a curved wall. It had a rounded back and a small step under it that the woman had her feet on. Best of all, each chair along the wall was at least three feet from the next. Clover had been afraid that the ship would be crowded, but apparently the Messengers had their own cabin, and it was very well designed.

  “You must be my new trainee,” the woman said. She had light virus scars over her cheeks, as though the cure came just too late to save her from them. “I’m Leanne Wood. Bennett radioed ahead to expect you. We don’t have long, at least not on this end, but I wanted to meet you and make sure you were prepared for the trip.”

  “I’m Clover,” she said, looking around. The room was made entirely of highly polished dark wood. She pulled a folding seat down from the wall and sat in it. It was padded, the cushion covered in a soft fabric that didn’t itch or have a weird texture. Mango sat at her feet, pressing against her shins. “Bennett told me to expect you, too.”

  The Veronica rolled forward and then back, making Clover nearly come out of her seat.

  “Don’t worry,” Leanne said. “It’s weird the first time, but you get used to it. Buckle up.”

  Clover looked over her right shoulder, where the strap in the car had been, but didn’t see one. Leanne stood and pulled a harness over Clover’s head and clipped it into the buckle between her legs. The straps were snug, but soft, and they didn’t dig into her skin or put pressure anywhere on her body.

  “Have you been doing this a long time?” she asked Leanne.

  “Almost ten years.”

  “Why aren’t you a Mariner then?” Leanne’s eyebrows shot into her blunt-cut chestn
ut-colored bangs and Clover winced. “I’m sorry.”

  Leanne bent and rolled up the leg of her jumpsuit. She had a metal prosthetic where her right leg should have been. Clover wanted to get on her knees and look at it more closely but stopped herself.

  “I can run, jump, do just about anything any of the Static Mariners do. But rules are rules. Mariners can’t have a physical disability.”

  Rules were rules, of course. But sometimes they weren’t fair. “It must make you angry.”

  Leanne didn’t respond to that, and Clover didn’t push it. She’d be angry if she were Leanne. She was already angry enough that having autism kept her out of the Academy, and that ended with her on the Mariner track and riding the Veronica.

  “What did you mean, we don’t have much time?” Clover asked. “Aren’t you going with me?”

  The submarine jerked awake. The floor vibrated under Clover’s feet and up through her body, leaving her with the unpleasant feeling that she couldn’t get away from the sensation. Before she could react, a loud clanking forced her to press her hands to her ears.

  “Shoot.” Leanne raised her voice above the noise just as it settled into something less horrible. She reached over Clover’s head for a pair of headphones with a microphone extending from the left side and handed them to her. “Those will help. Also, put your feet on the riser. This part will be over soon. I promise.”

  Clover lifted her feet, and as soon as they were off the ground the vibration settled to just a slight hum. The earphones blocked out what sounded like a swarm of bees trying to get into her head. It blocked out everything else, too.

  Leanne put on a second pair of headphones, then pushed a button on the left side and Clover heard her voice through her own. “They can’t take off while I’m still on board. You’re going to do just fine, and I’ll see you on the other side.”

  “Wait, what?” Clover said, but knew immediately that her voice wasn’t being transmitted. She pushed the button over her own left ear and spoke again. “What do you mean on the other side?”

  “I don’t travel,” she said. “You get to meet the thirty-five-year-old me. Lucky girl.”

  “Wait!” Leanne did, but Clover couldn’t think of anything to say, except, “What happened to your leg?”

  “The virus took too much of it.” There was a sensation of shifting under Clover then, and Leanne headed for the door. “You’ll be fine, I promise. Do you have a cookie?”

  Clover pulled it out of her pocket and held it up for Leanne to see.

  “Perfect. Don’t forget to read the fortune out loud. Even if it feels silly.”

  “But why…”

  “See you soon.” Leanne left, and despite Clover’s barely contained anxiety, the trip through Waverly’s time portal was anticlimactic. The Veronica dove first, just long enough for Clover to think about the millions of gallons of water surrounding her, pressing against the polished wood walls. And then it came back up. Clover felt the movement like a pressure in her head.

  She waited until the ship had finished its ascent and she felt it dock, then lifted the headphones off one ear. When there was no hum, she took them off, then set one foot on the floor. No vibration either. She unbuckled herself and stood up, hung up her headphones, and left the Messenger cabin.

  When she pulled herself and Mango back up in the dumbwaiter lift, Leanne was on the dock. Except that her thick, straight hair was cut to chin-length and she’d grown out her bangs, she didn’t look much different two years older.

  “Hey! Told you it wouldn’t be so bad. Two minutes for you, two years for me. Ain’t that a kick?”

  Clover bit at her bottom lip, thinking about what Usher said about talking to people from the future.

  “We’re going to drive out and get the disc, come back, and you’ll carry it through. Easy peasy.” When Clover still didn’t say anything, Leanne said, “It’s okay to talk to me. Just no one else from this time line, okay? That’s important. Not even any of the Static Mariners.”

  “Officer Usher said you could give me something,” she said as she lowered herself on wobbly legs to the dock and felt for a second like her stomach was a step or two behind the rest of her body. “To keep me from getting carsick.”

  “Right, right. It’s in the van. I’ll give you some. We’ll get the disc and you’ll be home before you know it.”

  “This is so weird.” Clover looked at the group of uniformed Mariners waiting at the other end of the deck. Some in the black Time Mariner jumpsuits and others in navy blue Static Mariner uniforms. Only Leanne and Clover wore brown. “Why don’t the Mariners just have the disc waiting for us?”

  “It’s in a lockbox. Chain of custody is important when you’re dealing with future information. The fewer people who have access to the disc, the better.”

  They made their way to the van, which was similar to the one that Usher had driven her outside the city in an hour ago. Maybe the exact same van, only two years older. Clover shook her head. “This is so weird.”

  “Just be grateful that the whole Messenger program is designed to keep us from seeing anyone. Imagine running into yourself.”

  “That would be…” Clover couldn’t find the right word.

  “Yeah. It was hard enough to get used to my trainees seeing me age two years in a few minutes.”

  An hour later, Clover was in the first van again, in her own time with thirty-three-year-old Leanne and Bennett, who’d come to drive them back to the tower.

  “What did you think, Clover?” Bennett asked.

  “It’s pretty strange. But you already know that, right?”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  “You’ve never done it?”

  Bennett didn’t look away from the road. “I rely on people like you to fill me in on what’s happening over there.”

  “Well, you should try it,” she said. He didn’t say anything else about it, so she didn’t either.

  The three of them rode in silence up the elevator in the tower next to the Waverly-Stead building. Clover was getting used to the hanging-box part, at least. On the seventh floor, Bennett got off with her. Leanne stayed on. Her room was on ten.

  “My dad must live in this building,” Clover said as Bennett walked with her toward her room. He still stood too close to her. Not enough so that he was actually touching her, but just inside her personal zone. She fought down the same skin crawl she’d felt earlier.

  “No. Executioners have their own barracks.”

  He followed her into her room and closed the door behind him. For no reason that she could put her finger on, her throat closed up and she gripped Mango’s lead more tightly.

  “Leanne has the disc,” she said.

  “I know.” Bennett smiled at her. He sat on the edge of the mattress and patted a spot next to him. “We’re going to debrief now. It won’t take long.”

  “Okay.” She sat on the chair, which wasn’t nearly far enough away. She wanted to go home. Trust your instincts, West had told her. Bennett gave her the creeps. She glanced at the door and decided she had a pretty clear route out of the room if she needed it.

  “Who did you talk to on your trip, Clover?”

  “Leanne,” she said. “And a Time Mariner who helped me figure out the lift.”

  “Okay. What was the Mariner’s name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bennett frowned, his scarred face wrinkled, and he looked ten years older. “Always ask, Clover. Anytime someone talks to you on a trip, you take their name.”

  Something else that would have been good to know ahead of time. She didn’t say it. Or ask what the big deal was, since they obviously knew who was traveling at the same time as her. She just wanted him to leave. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t forget again.”

  “You have to be told something to forget it,” she said. And then apparently she did care, because she said, “He didn’t take my name, either.”

  Bennett wrote something in a
small notebook he took from his pocket. “Was Leanne with you the entire time you were on the other side of the portal?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was never outside your view?”

  Clover bit at her thumbnail. She didn’t want to get Leanne in trouble by accidentally saying the wrong thing. “What’s this about?”

  “Standard questions, that’s all.”

  “She was with me the whole time.”

  “Did you read your fortune?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have anything unusual to report?”

  Seriously? “I went to orientation at the Academy and ended up time-traveling in a submarine.”

  Bennett stood and stretched his back, which Clover was happy to see took him closer to the door and away from her. “Don’t worry, Clover. This will all be second nature before you know it. Someone will come with your suppressant soon, and a doctor will clear you to go home, after you’ve been quarantined for twenty-four hours.”

  “Home to my house?”

  “Yes. Home to your house. You travel only twice a week. As long as there is no threat of you not returning for your next mission, you can go home. There isn’t that threat, is there?”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t lying either. She wanted to go back into the Veronica and see Leanne again and go beyond the walls. And drive. “Is this my room, then? Like a permanent room?”

  “It’s yours. Feel free to bring some things to keep in it, if you like.”

  Bennett left and closed the door behind him. Clover heard a click. When she tried the knob, she found the door locked.

  Mango was at her side, pressing his bulky body against her legs. For the first time, she realized she was rocking from foot to foot, and she wondered if she’d done that in front of Bennett.

  She pulled the little slip of paper she’d saved from the fortune cookie from her pocket. You are on the verge of a life change.

  She slid the edge of the paper into the edge of the frame around the mirror above the dresser. Her face was pale, and she still looked silly in the far-too-big uniform.