by Mike Chen
We’re in, where are you at?
Krista’s fingers flew over the phone’s virtual keyboard. Sunny might be in pediatrics. Avoid security. They will look for a badge ID and Rob is on the news from the riot. I’m going to find my uncle.
She sent the message, and the display flashed in response. In front of her the elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. She stepped inside, pushed the button for the ninth floor, and leaned back against the wall’s handrail.
The elevator began to rise.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Moira
Moira did her best not to gawk at the image on the TV. “Don’t look up,” she said under her breath after reading Krista’s text. But it was too late—Rob already caught sight of himself.
She should have asked Narc if his group scavenged any wigs from the campus theater department. But there were no disguises now, only masks so thin that Rob’s sharp inhale was audible. She couldn’t teach him about Code Polka Dot right then and there, could she?
Probably not. Instead, she laughed, a casual one—not quiet enough to seem odd, and not loud enough to draw attention from the military security walking the floors. Rob looked at her quizzically, then seemed to catch on and broke from the screen showing his face. She motioned him forward and began walking with a calm confidence, a stride that projected that she belonged there: not too pushy but not too passive either, the appropriate level of professional weariness.
It was something she’d worked on since arriving in San Francisco.
Rob followed, though whatever anxiety he felt about Sunny, about being in the hospital, about being associated with the mob outside was hindering his ability to blend in. “Casual,” she said under her breath, and he nodded, though by now the combination of fatigue and worry carved deep lines in his face. “Fourth floor.” Her fingernail tapped against the directory on the wall, the word PEDIATRICS in bright yellow.
“You think we should ask? I mean, we made it all the way here.” He adjusted the mask covering his face.
“We’re illegally in a guarded hospital. Your face is on every TV screen. Probably best to stay incognito.” Moira pointed down the hall. “Stairs. Best way to avoid people.”
“Stairs,” he muttered while the door closed behind him.
“What’s that?”
“Oh. Nothing. I’m just not in the shape I used to be. Not like you,” he said, starting the march up four flights. “I kinda expect you to just float up these things.”
“Well, we’ll have plenty of time to get you back into shape once we find Sunny.”
“You gonna teach me to jump off walls?” Rob said, his breaths giving way to huffing after the first flight.
“If you’d like. If I can do it, anyone can.”
“I don’t know about that. I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”
“You mean a celebrity?” She turned and offered a reassuring grin for the trudge up the next flight.
“Yeah. That’s it.” They moved side by side, the only noise coming from the pounding echoes of metal stairs. Near the fourth flight, though, Moira noticed that the second set of footsteps wasn’t there anymore. She turned and saw Rob at the landing, hand against the wall, breath heavy.
But the look of concern on his face didn’t seem like physical exertion. His eyes said something different.
The stairs echoed as she jogged down to him. “Need a breather?”
“Yeah.” He huffed air in and out. “But it’s more than that. Just questions about...everything. Where do we go if we can’t go home? That sort of thing.” His face scrunched, from lips to cheeks to brow. “Even if we find her, there’s still the Family Stability Board. They could take her right back. I’m sure running away to Seattle doesn’t help. I mean, can I file an appeal from here? Ask that border guard we bribed to make a statement?”
The Family Stability Board, Frank, all of their troubles in San Francisco. Even though they left it all behind about twenty-four hours ago, it felt like lifetimes. Maybe it was the physical distance. Or maybe it was because everything that happened in that span seemed to change each of their trajectories.
But it didn’t mean that those issues disappeared. For now, though, first things first.
“I understand. But we can’t worry about that unless we find her. So let’s do that, and then handle it.”
“There’s one more, though.” His tone dropped, the sense of urgency changing into something much more vital, personal. “I still don’t know what I’m going to say to her. What Elena would want me to say to her.”
Rob had hardly talked about Elena. He referenced her in the context of what Sunny did or didn’t know, but who she was as a person, a lot of that remained buried in his head. Moira couldn’t claim to speak for her, nor was that her place to. Yet this circumstance felt more universal than that. Not just with their little group, but for anyone who suffered from PASD—dealt with or not.
“The truth.” Moira turned to him, the statement landing without condemnation or judgment. It was a simple fact at this point. “Even if there’s another outbreak. Even if there’s another quarantine. That’s what we owe each other.”
No words passed between them, though standing next to Rob, she felt his body tense. He kept staring at the stairs, eyes down and focused somewhere else.
“When I told Sunny Elena was still alive,” he finally said, “I don’t think I did it for my daughter.” The only sound came from the ventilation ducts above the metal door.
During one of the early MoJo tours, she’d asked Chris about the pace of it all, how it whirled by so fast that her memories seemed to come in flashes, fragments. “Memories are meant to fade,” he’d said. “They’re built with an expiration date.”
She repeated the nugget of wisdom, and Rob finally broke his stance. He looked her square in the eye. “It’s okay to move on,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you let go.”
Somehow, despite where they were and what was happening, Rob smiled at her. And she understood why. In the harsh fluorescent light of the stairwell, his fingers locked in with hers.
Moira tugged his hand. “Come on. We’ll find her. We’ll tell her together.”
“No,” he said, turning to her. “I have to tell her by myself. No offense.”
Moira felt the warmth of his cheek, the scruff of his morning shadow brush by before she pressed her lips against his. “None taken.”
Excerpt from Walking in the Dark: An Oral History
of the Fourth Path:
“I watched them from a cliff, one woman leading a wake of humanity. It was unlike anything you’d ever seen. Wastelanders, people in business suits, children, a whole range of people. It gave me faith in humanity for a moment. I saw all these people looking to one person, and that one person looking ahead, and they were moving together. Something symbolic about it, you know?
“But then they kept walking, quietly. It took about thirty minutes for the last person to leave my view. Didn’t stop to eat. Didn’t stop to drink. Just kept going. And that was fucking disturbing.
“I don’t know if they just kept walking to, like, Arizona, or if they walked into the ocean. Maybe they got beamed up by aliens. Or maybe they’re just living happy, off the grid, in like caves or something.
“But they probably all died of dehydration somewhere in the desert. Because they followed one person rather than talking to everyone else there.”
Chapter Fifty
Moira
The pediatric wing of St. Vincent General Hospital had the opposite vibe of the ground floor. Whereas protesters created a din that mixed with the lobby chatter, pediatrics resembled a mausoleum. Nobody loitered. No keyboards clicked. No phones chimed. The only footsteps came directly from Rob and Moira. Even the lights were at half power.
“Looks like everyone left in a hurry.” Moira angled around to peer inside the nea
rest room; bed sheets crumpled on the floor while a corner night-light gave a hint to the bright colors painted on the wall. A few steps down the hall showed a similar picture. Four straight rooms all looked and felt pretty much the same.
“Power’s off on the systems.” Rob tapped on the front desk keyboard. “Phone’s not getting anything either.”
“I’m going to look around.”
“I’ll check around here for notes or anything about Sunny.”
Sections looked dormant, but not in a ransacked kind of way. Books and toys sat neatly on shelves, though office papers looked hurried and scattered. Moira turned the corner and began her search along the left wing of the floor. This felt familiar; they’d broken into sterile environments like this years ago, places that were abandoned and too much trouble for the casual looter, but ideal for resourceful groups seeking supplies and a spot to rest for a night or two.
Those times didn’t have the din of protesters and fear bleeding in from outside.
The first room, a playroom with a large window, stopped her in her tracks. It wasn’t the Lego castle on the desk, despite the impressive intricacy of it, or the life-size Pooh Bear in the corner.
It was a backpack perched on the edge of an end table, one oddly out of step with the room’s sterility thanks to a bus schedule sticking out the top pocket.
“Rob!” The call echoed across the cubicles and equipment at the center of the floor.
“What is it?” he asked, jogging in. She pointed at her find. “She’s been here.” Rob grabbed the left strap of the backpack, then sat on the child-sized stool next to it. “This is hers.” The main pouch sat half-open, and he pulled the zipper down the side. “Bus schedule. Sweatshirt. Her bunny. Look at this,” he said, unfolding a printed sheet. “A map. A map of downtown Seattle. She even marked the line from the bus station to here. I blame her teacher. She just had a big lesson on maps.”
“Well.” Moira clicked the room’s light switch to no effect. “You think she’ll come back for it?”
“Why would they abandon Pediatrics?” Rob said, leaning against the front counter.
“The protesters.” Moira grabbed a memo off the reception counter and held it up. “It says they wanted to move young patients upstairs so they wouldn’t hear too much of it. Sounds like it happened when the anarchists joined the mob. Just says ‘secured location upstairs.’” Moira’s mind went into overdrive, immediately conjuring what that might mean, how many floors were in the building, which one might be chosen.
Suddenly the door to the stairwell flew open so hard it clanged on the end of its hinges. Moira grabbed Rob’s hand and pulled him down below cubicle walls.
“Hospital security,” a voice boomed. “Show yourself.”
She tried to visualize the ward for possible escape routes. From where they were, they could crawl forward into the playroom across the hall. Then they could wait it out while the guard—no, guards, as she heard two sets of voices, one male and one female—passed, then they could crawl back to the cubicle farm. Depending on the search path of the guards, they could either sprint for the stairs or dash out the main hallway. She stayed in a crouch, trying to remain steady to not create any weight shifts that might cause tiles or flooring to creak, though she angled her head to see the pediatrics funhouse mirror on the wall.
From there, she could see the two guards. Distorted in shapes that would have been amusing to anyone under ten years old, but enough visibility to identify them.
There were three people, actually. One guard dressed in a blue uniform with patches. One woman in hospital scrubs.
And a man in military fatigues, complete with machine gun.
Moira leaned over to Rob and whispered as softly as possible. “When I count to three, follow me. Move as quietly as you—”
She stopped when Rob shook his head no.
In the mirror, the guards began to move, the military man breaking off from the other pair.
“We should turn ourselves in,” Rob whispered. “Krista’s close to her uncle. We should show ourselves and talk. We’re not terrorists.”
“That’s a bad idea. We can’t trust them.”
“Then trust me. It’s time to stop running.” Rob’s eyes pleaded with her, and though it fought against every survival instinct she’d built up around herself ever since Madison Square Garden—maybe even since that first press conference—she found herself giving in. Not to Rob’s logic, but to his sense of being.
She nodded. And he returned it.
“We’re unarmed,” he said, gradually standing up with hands up. “We’re not protesters. We’re looking for my daughter.”
She followed suit, listening as the footsteps came around on the floor tile. She tracked them, aware of their locations as they closed in, aware of Rob trying to explain what was happening, aware of everything around them. Except something flipped in her, turning her impulses into something just as alert but lacking the sheer panic that often drove survival mode. The calm in Rob’s voice was received with a steady but firm response, and though Moira was tense, vigilant, it didn’t surge with the hyper instincts of Code Polka Dot.
This was different.
Chapter Fifty-One
Krista
The last time Krista felt nerves like this, her life was about to restart. And not at a hospital but just outside a prison.
Mick had moved back and forth, mewing while tilting the balance of the carrier. Krista tightened her grip on the top handle when a voice called out, “Next.”
She walked up to a small desk set up in the front lobby of New York quarantine NY2, where sat a woman with a clipboard and a laptop tied into a solar-powered generator. “Hi,” Krista said, setting down her discharge papers. Laptop keys clicked and clacked, and Krista’s attention turned to the bus awaiting passengers, ready to take them to the converted hotel set for temporary dorm usage before available property went into public distribution.
The man who’d just finished at the desk stopped halfway to the bus, his rolling luggage catching on a small pebble and hopping before holding static at his side. He looked back, as if the quarantine was a giant as tall as the Statue of Liberty, and the luggage wheels started to rattle. Krista realized that it stemmed from his trembling hand, and despite his broad shoulders and towering height, tears began to stream down his dark brown cheeks, so much so that he collapsed to his knees, knocking over his single bag. His hands covered his face.
Krista glanced at the desk, where the woman kept tapping away, unfazed by the disturbance. “Okay, Krista Deal. Single traveler.”
“With a cat,” Krista said, nodding down at the carrier in her hand. Mick mewed an affirmative.
The woman acted like she hadn’t said a word. “You’ll be in the Manhattan temporary dorms, building C-three. They’ll assign you a specific room when you get there. Here’s your information packet on asset redistribution, claiming old property, and other logistical questions.” She rattled off the facts like a flight attendant going over the exit doors rather than providing steps to the world’s complete reboot. Halfway across the courtyard, the man still sobbed.
“Should we help him?”
“I see this every fourth or fifth person. Give him a few minutes, he’ll calm down. Any questions?”
Krista shook her head, then adjusted Mick again and grabbed her own bag. The man managed to get up and after dusting himself off, his eyes met hers. She offered a nod and a half smile, the same weary kind of assurance that she’d given her bunkmate while talking her through all the feelings that came alongside getting married in the middle of a quarantine following a pandemic. He returned her nod and began marching to the bus.
The bus driver, who’d been sitting on the steps with a book, looked Krista’s way. “You’re our last one for the day,” he called out.
The heel of her shoe ground against the pavement as she turne
d, doing the same look as the man earlier. She stared at the building, the massive walls and barred windows that seemed to be a time capsule for everyone’s pain, as if crossing the threshold of the fence line granted permission to exhale.
But while everyone saw the past, Krista stared at the future—a future free from the bloodlines that tied her to a life and family she’d never asked for.
That afternoon, Krista had spun and marched onto the bus. She’d sat as the engine roared to life, Mick’s cat carrier settled across her lap, and didn’t look back when they pulled away.
Only forward. Never back.
And definitely never paused.
She wanted to believe in that now. Except to move forward, she had to step back.
It was unavoidable this time around.
In his photo, Uncle Dean looked the same as Krista remembered. Same smug tilt of the head, same beady stare, same awkward smile. Things hadn’t changed much since her earliest memories of him or since the last time they spoke, a month or two before the quarantine. “Asshole,” she said, the tone as low as the volume. Just like when she was a kid, she’d waited for him to show up and save the day. This time, she was outside the door to his makeshift office, staring at the name tag and photo ID taped on the wall.
Ten minutes passed. It didn’t matter, because just like then, he didn’t come through—he probably was too busy with other work.
Some things never changed. Consistency was something she prided herself on, probably because every single blood relative had failed at it.
Found my uncle, she typed in a text to Rob, sit tight and stay away from security for now.
She fired off another curse under her breath when something bumped into her shoulder.
“Oh,” Uncle Dean said, clearing his throat. “I’m sorry, nurse.” And just like that, Uncle Dean moved past her and walked toward his office door.
Krista glanced behind her, then all around, then checked down the hallway, and while she heard voices somewhere, no one was within view. Maybe they were just all the angry voices in her head. He disappeared into his office, and soon she heard the clicking of a keyboard.
