by Chuck Wendig
Strangest thing of all: The lights were on. The Strip still burned effulgent, a gaudy neon beacon lit like a bug zapper, summoning anyone who wanted to pretend the world was not dying one day at a time. As if both a summary refutation of what was going on, and a mad acceptance of it.
Some cities had gone dark in patchwork, others entirely blacked out, but Vegas, he imagined, was lit still thanks to the wonders of hydroelectric power: He knew a lot of the electricity here still came from natural gas, but the city center was powered thanks to the Hoover Dam. Renewable resources were growing here, given the dam, solar, and wind, and were fast outpacing what gas gave to the city. That was a cruel rejoinder to what Benji knew: that White Mask was born of climate change, and though civilization was making fast strides toward a renewable future, it was far, far too late.
That made him wonder, too, what would happen when—or if—humanity really was whittled down to splinters. How long would the cellphone network remain? That was already patchy. How about the satellites? The electricity? Surely satellites would keep whirling about in space, though some would fail and no one would ever fix them. The power grid required human maintenance—presently, Benji imagined some people still went to their jobs, and where manpower failed, automation would bridge the gap for a time. Nuclear power could run for a year or three all on its own, as those systems were auto-balanced. Natural gas and coal, less so. Hydroelectric, too, ran on its own pretty well—but one fault somewhere in any of those systems would cause a default. And possibly, a catastrophic one. Clogged intakes, or circuit boards misfiring, or corroded pipelines—possibly these would cause a simple load imbalance and the automatic fail-safes from a wayward grid would trigger, shutting them down. But it was just as likely that, without human intervention, there could be a natural gas explosion, or a crack in the dam, or worst of all a nuclear power meltdown.
(And suddenly Benji felt overwhelmed by the fear that even if the flock did survive White Mask, what was to come might be endlessly more horrific. What a heart-crushing tragedy it would be to survive the plague only to die from radiation poisoning. Or starvation. Or exposure…)
Benji chewed a thumbnail nearly down to the quick. He eased the car over down a small side street not far from the airport. He thought for a moment to ask Black Swan these questions, but right now the answers would do little to reassure him. It was necessary to compartmentalize. Benji had a job to do, and he would not do it effectively if his mind was on other things. Setting the satphone in the palm of his hand, he conjured the machine intelligence simply by saying its name:
“Black Swan?”
The screen dawned soft white, and black text appeared upon it—the words not scrolling, but rather, appearing in sharp pulses. Each word or phrase showing up just long enough to be read.
HELLO, BENJAMIN.
“I need your help.”
YOU SEEK ANTIFUNGAL DRUGS.
“And you knew that how?”
I AM ALWAYS LISTENING, BENJAMIN. HOW DO YOU THINK I KNOW TO ANSWER WHEN YOU SAY MY NAME?
Of course. It disturbed him to know that the machine was listening all the time, a mechanical voyeur—then again, that was the aching paranoia of modern life, was it not? Your phone, listening. Your TV, listening. People put devices in their houses that were always and forever listening.
Sometimes, even watching.
Though all that would be worthless, now.
“Yes, I am seeking antifungal drugs. I am in Las Vegas. Can you help to direct me?”
YOUR GREATEST CHANCE FOR SUCCESS IS, AS YOU NOTED, MEDICATION TO THWART VALLEY FEVER.
“And I can find that here, yes?”
I NO LONGER HAVE ACCESS TO THE INTERNET, BUT I HAVE ARCHIVES OF ALL PUBLIC AND MOST PRIVATE PHARMACEUTICAL DATA. CARGILL CATALYST RESEARCH HERE IN LAS VEGAS PRODUCES AN ORAL ANTIFUNGAL, STILL IN PRECLINICAL TRIAL. THE DRUG IS DESIGNATED CCR-1342. IT IS DESIGNED TO TREAT VALLEY FEVER BUT FUNCTIONS AS A BROAD-SPECTRUM ANTIFUNGAL.
That was perfect.
“You can give me directions?”
I ALSO HAVE NAVIGATIONAL ARCHIVES, AS YOU KNOW, AND A CONNECTION TO A NETWORK OF SATELLITES.
And with that, a map appeared on the phone screen showing a thumbtack tag in the northwest of Las Vegas, off Summerlin Parkway, only a few miles from the Summerlin Hospital.
Benji turned the headlights on, and drove away.
He did not see the pickup truck that followed him, lights off.
* * *
—
HE KEPT OFF the Strip. It seemed wise—even from a mile away, with his windows down, he could hear cheering, yelling, the occasional crackle of what might’ve been firecrackers, and what might’ve been gunfire. The latter wouldn’t be surprising: Nevada was already an open carry state, in that they never forbade it, and anything unforbidden remained legal here. If you were eighteen years old, you could buy a gun. And if you could buy a gun, you could carry it around. Still, norms kept that on the down-low, for the most part: Back when the world was unbroken, you didn’t see men walking around casinos or on the street loaded for war. That had changed, now. It seemed half of everyone had a gun out in the open, and the other half probably had them concealed. They were drunk. Probably high on who-knew-what.
Inevitable that one day soon, someone would open fire. And lots of people would die. Benji did not plan to be here when that happened.
So he drove up dark side streets. Not an ideal way to travel, but better that than wind through the sure-to-be-choking crowds on the Strip.
His little mini van rattled onward, past black-eyed wedding chapels, motels, tattoo parlors, cash-for-gold joints, check-cashing places, all the signature institutions of this particular city.
Then the highway north, until Summerlin Parkway.
Up here, it was dead quiet. Streetlights were still on. Cars parked in parking spaces. Nothing on fire. The houses and townhomes were nicer; they weren’t mansions, but they were upscale, luxe, and packed in among offices of steel and glass. Some doors and windows were still unboarded, though they were often shut behind steel bars or mesh.
Benji wound around off the parkway into a back neighborhood. It was a mix of offices and houses and other small businesses.
Ahead, he saw his destination. A stone sign marker read CCR: CARGILL CATALYST RESEARCH (the sign was not unlike a gravestone, he noted, which was curious branding for a pharmaceutical company). It was a small two-story building bumping up against other offices in a small office park.
As he eased up, he saw a light on in the farthest east window.
And then, as he pulled to the curb, that light went off suddenly.
Tucking Black Swan into his pocket, he looked to the Mini-14 sitting on the passenger seat across the bundle of maps he had (including one of Ouray he’d torn out of an atlas he found in Barstow). He didn’t want to take the rifle. At no point did he want to use it. He needed medication, but he was no looter; he wouldn’t take it by force. Perhaps couldn’t take it by force, as he wasn’t sure he was made of the proper salt and steel for such terror.
Though inwardly he wondered if that was a failing. Shouldn’t he be willing to do what it took to help the flock? And Sadie, and Arav, and the other shepherds? A failure to be decisive could get them all killed.
Someone was in that office building.
Whoever they were could be armed.
Still, he had to try to do this the right way. The human way.
He took the rifle and put it in the backseat underneath a blanket. But he loaded it first, took the safety off. Just in case.
Benji exited the van and walked to the office building, keeping his head on a swivel as he did—looking left, right, and back again, waiting for someone to emerge out of nowhere. A ridiculous idea, given that it was fairly well lit here, and it wasn’t like Vegas was a green town with lots of trees or hiding spots.
Ev
en still, out of the van he felt on edge.
His short journey to the front of the building was thankfully uneventful. The door itself was glass, but shuttered with an accordion gate, steel and gleaming. Even breaking the glass wouldn’t earn him entry.
The windows, similarly, were gated shut.
He found a buzzer and thumbed the button. It didn’t seem to do anything. And yet the office had power, did it not? Didn’t he see a light? Didn’t look like the glow from a flashlight, either, but from something brighter: a lamp, or even a low-powered overhead light.
Guess we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. (And he decided it would be best to get used to the old ways, given what was to come.)
He knocked on the door.
A simple knock. No shave and a haircut. Nothing playful, but also not too urgent.
Nothing.
He knocked again.
Still nothing.
He started to ponder his next move. Benji needed inside this building—but how? The rooftop was flat, and maybe up there was a way in. Could he go in through a vent? Was that even a thing? Movies made that a thing, what with John McClane wriggling his way through ductwork, but he half suspected that was just cinematic liberty, and that no vent was really human-sized. If that wasn’t an option, what? Break a window, try to find something to lever open the gating? Or maybe—
A bright light popped on, flashing in his eyes from within the building. All he saw was garish white, with black blobs in his vision as his eyes adjusted—or rather, failed to adjust. He held up both hands to shield his gaze, wondering if in a second or two he’d feel a couple of bullets tap him in the chest, cutting his quest woefully short.
Flinching, he heard the speaker next to the door crackle to life with a warbling tone. The tone faded and a woman’s voice came over the comm:
“Who are you?”
“I’m—my name is Benjamin Ray, I’m with the—”
“Press the button, dummy. I can’t hear you.”
The button. Right. He again thumbed the button—this time, a green light came on, indicating that she must’ve given the system power—and spoke into it: “My name is Doctor Benji Ray, I’m with the CDC’s EIS division out of Atlanta, I was hoping to be let in.”
“No. Go away.”
The light left his eyes, leaving spots whirling in his vision.
The comm went dark again.
He pressed the button, but no light came on. He knocked again, more urgently. Whump whump whump whump. He didn’t want to raise his voice and attract undue attention, but what choice did he have? “Please,” he yelled at the door. “I need your help. This is serious.”
Again the light flashed his eyes, stunning him anew.
Crackle from the comm, then: “Why?”
Almost forgetting to press the button, he spoke again: “Because you have an experimental antifungal medication. For valley fever? It was in preclinical trial.”
Crackle-hiss.
“You mean 1342.”
“Yes! Yes. Exactly what I mean.”
“I need credentials.”
“I don’t—” Wait, I do have credentials. He’d never really shed himself of those; they were in his wallet. He dug it out and flipped it up, not unlike a badge of sorts: It showed off his CDC EIS identification card.
The light went off.
He heard the unlocking of the door, and that sound drew an exhale of relief from his lungs. As his eyes adjusted, he saw a woman with wide hips and small arms there, her black hair in a frizzy tangle around her. She used a set of keys to unlock the accordion gate, and it rolled back with a rattle.
“Come on, come on,” she said, hurriedly waving him through. She literally grabbed him by the elbow and yanked him inside before slamming the gate shut again and locking it. “You’re lucky you’re alive.”
“I’d say we’re all lucky to be alive at this juncture.”
“No,” she said, irritated. “I don’t mean that, I mean, around here.”
She clicked on a flashlight, and the beam revealed the expected office lobby ahead of her: marble floors, a wall-sized fountain along the far lobby that had been powered down, some tall tropical plants, and a receptionist desk that sat in front of a wall staggered with wooden planks, tiles of glass, and tiles of brushed nickel. A jungle-modern vibe. Classy, if overdone.
“What do you mean, ‘around here’?” he asked.
“I mean, you’re black, I’m brown. Our kind isn’t…welcome.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Vegas isn’t on lockdown like some places, Doctor, but they’re here. Those ARM chingados, with their big assault rifles and all that scary ink. Swastikas and whatever. Creel’s people. They see someone like you or me, they might make us disappear. Come on, this way. We can talk in the other room, I’ll get you some food, some water.”
As they passed the receptionist desk, he saw the beam of light pass over some photos in frames.
In one, he saw the woman standing in front of him.
Guess he didn’t need to ask what she did here. She sat in that desk.
They headed to a closed door, and she passed an RFID badge over a reader—the door popped with a magnetic click, and she let the badge zip back to her hip on its retractable cable. As he followed down a hallway, shoesteps loud on the marble, he said, “I’m sorry, you have me at a loss, I’m Doctor Ray and you are…”
“Rosalie Stevens.”
“Pleasure to meet you.”
“Uh-huh. C’mon, here’s the break room, we can talk.”
She turned left into a fairly standard break room. She flipped on a light switch and bathed the room in flickering fluorescence. It wasn’t much to look at—the flashy splendor of the lobby was nowhere to be found here. Beige carpet, beige walls, white counter and cabinets. Fridge, microwave, toaster oven, coffeepot. The standards.
As she turned toward him, he saw that she was sick.
Her nose was red, as if chafed from too many Kleenex. And a white crust had formed at the corners of her eyes. She wasn’t too far gone, but surely by now it had affected her cognition?
“Yeah, I’m sick,” she said. “Got a problem with that? You’re not wearing a mask, so I assume you’re either brave, dumb, or sick yourself.”
“I’m sick, too.”
“White Mask. It’s a bitch.” She sniffed and shrugged. “I got a couple bottles of water you can take. Or I can brew a pot of coffee if you want one.”
That last bit hit him in the back of his mouth. His jaw literally tightened up at the thought of having coffee. Amazing how such a common thing felt suddenly, strangely exotic. And then a soul-crushing thought hit him: Coffee was done for. They didn’t grow it here. Couldn’t, because the microclimates weren’t right. And if the world continued to wither, nobody would be able to bring the beans here. Or even grow them. Because nobody would be around to grow or transport them.
A mad thought arose inside him: Somehow the disappearance of coffee feels worse than the disappearance of all humankind.
“I’ll take the coffee,” he said eagerly. Too eagerly, maybe.
“I could use some, too. I prefer to sleep during the day anyway,” she said. “Though it gets fucking hot. I don’t run the AC.”
“You…sleep here?”
“Yeah,” she said, grabbing a packet of pre-ground coffee and a bottle of water. “I got an inflatable mattress in one of the offices. It’s a life.”
“You don’t have a house here?”
“I do.”
But then she said nothing else, and he knew to leave it.
She opened a cabinet, and he heard her rustling around in there—the crinkle of plastic wrap and grocery packaging. As the coffee began to percolate, she tossed him a few snack bags underhand. Fritos, Doritos, a bag of cheap gas-station beef jerky. “That’
s what I’m good to spare,” she said.
“I appreciate it.”
He tore open a bag of Fritos and began to eat. She popped a can of mixed nuts and tapped a small cairn of them into her hand, which she catapulted into her mouth. As she crunched, she said: “So what’s the deal with 1342? What do you want with it?”
Benji almost couldn’t answer. A year ago he wouldn’t have been caught dead eating a bag of Fritos, but now they were like a taste of Heaven. Salty and oily, with a southwestern zest. He wanted to marry these Fritos. He wanted to pour them in a tub and roll around in it. She cleared her throat, which shook him from his snack-food reverie.
“I think CCR-1342 may be a treatment for White Mask.”
Rosalie went dreadfully still. “The CDC thinks this?”
He hesitated. “No. Just me.”
“The CDC doesn’t agree with your assessment, then.”
“The CDC, regrettably, has no opinion on it. I cannot even speak to the current state of the agency.” He knew there were disaster preparedness plans in place. The CDC of all the agencies was well aware of the preciousness and precariousness of human life; they had shelters and bunkers for themselves and other vital government officials. At the same time, White Mask was a slow-moving disease. He could not speak to whether or not Cassie or Martin or any of the others were alive, but there was a not-unreasonable chance they were infected.
“So this isn’t about saving the world?” she asked.
“Not presently.” He neglected to mention that, in a way, it was: To protect the shepherds and the flock was obliquely to protect the remnant of civilization going forward. “The reality is, White Mask has been with us for months and is only now emerging into an end stage. Which means that we, as a species, are potentially also in an end stage. I don’t think anyone could, at this point, ramp up production on 1342 quickly enough to save the world, as you put it. Infrastructure is failing. Distribution would be difficult. And manufacture nearly impossible.”
