Death and The Divide

by Lara Nance

  Dr. Manson stroked his short beard, which had somewhat retreated into his double chin. “There’s enough to cause concern, I agree. We also don’t know if more attacks haven’t thus far been reported.”

  Annaria quietly made her way to her desk and connected her pad to the university’s wireless system. Had they learned of the shrimpers, or did they refer to an incident involving humans she hadn’t yet discovered? She peered through the tangle of equipment that separated her from the group. Dr. Manson continued to stroke his beard and stare at the floor, a frown wrinkling his features.

  “No one knows what’s happening,” gray two said. “There may be no more attacks.”

  Dr. Borman snorted.

  Gray one held up his hands. “Just stay current with the reports, that’s all we’re suggesting. It could be anything at this point - a virus, a bacteria, a parasite or just an anomaly.”

  Dr. Patel from ID nodded. “We’ll certainly look into it. That’s for sure.”

  Annaria’s pad’s topic alarm went off, and everyone turned to stare in her direction. She felt like a mouse in the kitchen at night when a light is suddenly turned on. Her gaze fell to the flashing words on her screen, and her breath whooshed out of her lungs.

  “Miss Moralez, turn that damn thing off,” Manson barked.

  She rose on shaky legs and gulped air. “S,s,sir, you’ll want to see this.”

  When she reached his side, he took the pad. His nearly black skin actually turned gray.

  “What is it?” Borman asked, her thin lips quivering.

  He raised his gaze. Stark fear showed in the depths of his eyes. “Another seagull massacre…on the coast of South Carolina.”

  Dr. Lee slapped a hand over her gaping mouth, Dr. Borman cursed, and Dr. Patel put a steadying hand on the top of Manson’s desk.

  Gray number one reached for the pad. “Whatever it is, it’s now in the Atlantic. I must admit, that means containment in the South is unlikely.”

  “No shit,” Borman snapped. “That’s what we’ve been telling you. If it’s in the ocean, it’s everywhere.”

  Gray one and two nodded to each other and headed for the door. Two said, “We’ll be in touch.”

  Manson went to his computer.

  “What are you doing?” Patel asked.

  “I’m sending a request to the Triumvirate. We need a North-South Coalition to investigate this ASAP.”

  The two biologists exchanged worried glances, and Lee asked, “Do you think that can actually happen?”

  “It has to happen.”

  Annaria left the group deep in discussion regarding potential causes and returned to her desk. It seemed unlikely the North and South would put aside their bitter differences quickly enough to head off this disaster. Still, until the North took possession of some infected tissue samples, they could do nothing but speculate.

  She checked her comm. No messages. She drummed her fingers on the plas-glass surface of her desk. Carol had not called. Given the emergency of this matter, she decided to take a chance and contact her. That connection might help in starting a dialogue if Carol had enough clout. In any event, she also worried about her friend and why she hadn’t returned her call as she’d promised.

  “Just do it,” she muttered to herself and donned her earpiece, concern overcoming caution. The connection clicked several times, and when Annaria almost gave up, it started ringing. She breathed fast and tried to slow down. When a male voice answered, she jumped.

  “Hello?” he asked.

  “Uh, yes, hello. I’m trying to reach Carol Gates,” she managed.

  “Carol Gates no longer works here. Who is this?” he demanded in an angry tone.

  She quickly disconnected and pushed from her desk, breathing hard. Her mind raced with the implications of what had just happened. Carol’s call two days ago must have been discovered. But where had she gone? Had they fired her for contacting someone from the North, or worse, would they put her in jail for that?

  “Miss Moralez!”

  She jerked and pressed a hand to her chest where her heart thudded. “Yes, sir?”

  Manson strode toward the door with the group trailing behind his hulking figure. “I’m going to the capital complex.”

  “Should I start analysis on the, uh, worm?” She didn’t even know what to call the mystery specimen from India.

  “Forget the worm. Keep looking for more stories related to these deaths.”

  The door slid shut with a whoosh as the last of the group passed through.

  Annaria plopped into her chair, her thoughts scattered in a thousand directions. She flipped through news sites but found no more details about the incidents. She stood and paced the lab, poking at equipment she’d already cleaned yesterday, and adjusting calibration on the scanner’s density modules. Not that they needed it. She kept the lab in perfect running order. Dr. Manson would tolerate nothing less.

  He constantly reminded her that he was a direct descendant of Sir Patrick Manson, the British parasitologist who founded tropical medicine with the discovery that a parasite could live in a mosquito and cause illness in humans. A man from such distinguished lineage, not to mention his own brilliant career, could have any research assistant he wanted. So she should feel privileged to work with him and keep everything ship shape.

  Occasionally he let his mask of greatness slip and showed he actually appreciated her. She grinned. Maybe he even liked her a little. Of course, he’d never admit it.

  A beep announcing important news sounded on her computer vid-screen, closely followed by a louder alarm that indicated a local emergency. These were becoming too common recently. The screen went active, and an announcer from the university appeared.

  A rumble of dread echoed inside her. She returned to her desk for a better view, half expecting a report of a pigeon massacre in the Town Center. But it was worse.

  Much worse.

  A lone suicide bomber had detonated a device in the shopping area of the Town Plaza. Hundreds had been killed or injured.

  The scene behind the announcer showed med-evacs hovering over the area in droves, and capital security forces in gas masks surged into the area, moving survivors from the epicenter of the violence. In their all-black uniforms, they looked like army ants swarming the walkways and bridges of the normally picturesque Town Center area. Normally green with artfully placed trees and shrubs, accented with streams of clear blue water, the place now resembled a black and gray war zone with billowing smoke and structures scorched by the explosives. People streamed from the circle of surrounding shops and cafes, screaming and waving their hands. Splotches of red marred every surface.

  Annaria gripped the edge of the desk in horror as the announcer recounted the known details of the attack. The Triumvirate and members of the ruling panel remained safe. The blast field had activated around the capital buildings, and the city of Omaha had been sealed and declared a disaster zone. No one could leave or enter the city. They advised citizens to stay in their current location until they cleared the lockdown.

  Dear God, Dr. Manson might have been caught in the violence on his way to the capital. She pressed his link on the comm.

  “I’m fine, Miss Moralez,” his deep voice came through at once. “We were in the capital complex before the bomb went off. I’ll have to stay until they lower the blast field, so let me know if you hear more about the incidents in the South.”

  “I will. So far there’s been nothing new in that quarter,” she replied, shaking in relief. “Do they know who set off the bomb?”

  “Nothing official.” He lowered his voice. “I’m hearing comments suggesting a radical conservative group from the South bombed us in protest of the triumvirate member’s position. The member who was attacked yesterday. Apparently they want us to know they don’t like the idea of normalizing relations.”

  “What a bunch of assholes,” she exclaimed. “How did they get in the country?”

  “It’s all speculation at this point,” he s
aid. “Despite this tragic event, I have to convince the Triumvirate that the threat of mass deaths from another source is even greater. We can’t wait to take action despite the message of this idiot bomber and whatever backward group supports him.”

  She bit her bottom lip. She had difficulty looking past the carnage in her own town, but he was right. “Okay, I’ll call you if I hear anything. Let me know when they allow you to leave.”

  The link ended, and she sat staring at the screen as more scenes of destruction scrolled past: blackened holes in buildings, hazy smoke swirling through running figures, and bodies carried on stretchers. She froze, dread rippling in her veins. Dear God, she’d forgotten that Lola said she might go there after her interview. A sick nausea flooded her gut.

  “Call Lola,” she yelled into her wrist comm.

  The voice mail immediately came on, “Hey, it’s Lola, you bitches. Leave me a message.”

  “No, please, no,” she whispered, shutting down the link, then said in a shaky voice, “Call Mom.”

  “Ria? Is that you?” asked her mother, with an alarm blaring in the background.

  “Mom? Where are you?”

  “At your building. I came to meet Conner after school. Lola called and said she’d be late. What’s going on? I hear sirens.”

  “Mom.” She tried to make her voice calm. Maybe Lola hadn’t gone to the Plaza after all. “Did Lola say where she was going?”

  “Yes, she said her interview went well and she got the job so she was going shopping at the Plaza for new clothes.”

  A male voice in the background said, “Ma’am, please go inside. The city is in lockdown.”

  “What? What’s happening?”

  “Go inside, Ma’am.”

  “Mom,” she called, barely keeping her voice under control in her terror. “Stay at my building, and find Conner at the after school care center, then take him to my apartment. Call me when you get there.”

  She ended the contact and wrapped her arms around her chest, trying to stop her shaking. No, no! Not Lola! The woman who hated violence and conflict. Please, not her.

  The timer on her vid-screen said three-thirty. Maybe Lola had left before the attack took place. Yes. She had to believe that. She hadn’t even said a proper goodbye to her sister this morning, too intent on the problem with the animal deaths. Sick guilt consumed her. Damn these stupid radicals! Did they think killing innocent people served any purpose? She gripped her hands into fists, wishing she could have one of them to beat the pulp out of right now.

  Damn it, she couldn’t stay here. She needed to go home. Frustration burned hot, making it impossible to relax.

  “Comm power off,” she called to her desk unit, then went through the sliding door. She ran down the hall and to the moving sidewalk. When she reached the portal to the monorail station, a crowd of anxious like-minded individuals waited, pacing and talking into comm-units.

  She found a tan-uniformed University security guard beside the closed portal doorway. She recognized a familiar face who worked around campus most days. “Julio, any idea when they’ll open the portal?”

  He nodded to her but didn’t flash his normal friendly grin. “Miss Moralez, your guess is as good as mine. Sorry. We have to wait for the lockdown release code.”

  Crap. That could be late tonight.

  “Listen, Julio, my sister was at the Plaza today. She hasn’t gone home. I need to find out what happened to her, plus her son is at my place.” Tears welled in her eyes at the idea of Lola as a victim in that nightmare.

  “Oh, man, I’m sorry. Nobody can get through. The mono is not even running right now.” He frowned and ran his fingers through his short brown hair. “There’s a vid-site you can go to if you think someone you know was there. The link is shown on the news stations. You should try that.”

  She took a deep breath, trying not to let her tears spill over, and nodded. “Thanks, I will.”

  She ran to her office. “Turn on, computer.”

  By the time she reached her desk, the clear panel lit. It was still on the station she’d viewed when she left. The vid-site information Julio mentioned now scrolled across the bottom. She pressed the link. It took a while to load, no doubt thanks to thousands of other people trying to go there.

  An urge to scream expanded her chest as she waited. Finally, the site came up. It provided sparse information, little more than what had appeared on the news announcement. The list of those injured or killed was incomplete as they hadn’t yet rescued all victims from the rubble. She let out the breath she’d held when Lola’s name didn’t appear on the list.

  She switched to the news. The bomber had died in the explosion, but enough of him remained that the capital security identified him and tracked his movements through DataSource. In less than an hour in Omaha and twenty-four hours in the rest of the country, anyone he’d come in contact with would be apprehended.

  “What are these people thinking?” she muttered. “They must know our technology won’t allow them to escape.”

  The next hour went excruciatingly slow. Her mother called twice. Still no sign of Lola at the apartment. Her mother’s voice sounded strained, and Annaria suspected she guessed Lola might be dead. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words out loud and ask her. She paced the lab until her feet ached. No word from Manson, either.

  An alarm brought her back to her desk. A report said the city boundaries would stay closed for the night, but the lockdown within the city had lifted. People could return home. At this point, it appeared the man had acted alone.

  “Finally,” she yelled and ran out the door.

  People on the mono stayed unusually quiet, glued to their comm-units. Some openly cried, hunched over in their seats, having lost someone in the explosion. Ria kept a numb openness to hope. A plume of dark smoke marked the site of the disaster in the distance, and she turned away, unable to think her sister might be buried under rubble there.

  She ran to her building and leaned against the lift wall as it rose. Her pulse throbbed in her neck veins and her head seemed to float above her body. Please let Lola be there when she opened the door. Please.

  The doors of the lift slid apart, and she hurried to her apartment. The door was cracked open, so she pushed it. Sobs told her the worst. Two gray uniformed officials wearing black armbands stood on either side of her mother, murmuring condolences and patting her back.

  “Mom?” She stopped inside the portal. Conner bolted from behind her mother and crashed into her, wrapping his arms around her thighs. The sound of his soft crying broke her heart.

  “Lola’s dead, Ria. She’s dead. My baby is dead.” Her mother staggered toward her and landed in her arms with the boy sandwiched between them.

  “We’re very sorry for your loss,” one of the grays said, her expression sorrowful. In her late sixties with dark gray hair and a soft, soothing demeanor, she had surely been chosen specifically to give people bad news. What a shitty job.

  Gray two came forward. “We’ll have more news tomorrow once she has been extracted. We were able to remote scan her wrist-comm for her I.D. She’s under several feet of building material.”

  “I understand,” Annaria managed between cold stiff lips. God, don’t let me collapse. “Thank you for letting us know.”

  The grays bowed their heads and silently glided from the room like ghosts of doom.

  “What’s going on? Where’s Lola?” Minlo’s lanky form pushed past the departing officials, his dark eyes wide. His complexion paled more than usual, a true feat for someone who rarely left the glow of his computer screen. His usually slick black hair was ruffled and clumped.

  She untangled the two bodies from around her and took Conner’s hand, then gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. “Mom, why don’t you go in my room and call Dad.”

  “Ria?” Minlo came closer, eyes going wild. “Ria?”

  “Min, she’s…dead. She was at the Plaza when the bomb went off.” It wrenched her gut to say it out loud.<
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  Conner pulled from her grip and ran to the couch. He threw himself face down on it, beating a pillow with his small fists and wailing.

  “Nooo!” The howl from Min came out high and piercing, like a smoke alarm. It didn’t even sound human. He doubled his thin frame over until his head met his bent knees and balled his hands into fists. “No. No. No.”

  She circled one arm around her belly and placed her hand over her mouth to hold in the sobs.

  Min’s arms flailed as he half rose. “Damn it. Not Lola. Those fucking bastards.”

  She took a couple steps toward him. “I’m sorry.”

  He straightened, fury in his gaze like hot embers. “I want to kill them. I’ll find a way. If it’s the last thing I do. I, I, I loved her.” He broke into another wailing sob.

  “Min…” She made it close enough to touch his arm, but he shook off her hand and ran from the apartment, face crumpled and wet from tears.

  Her shoulders slumped, and she made her way to the couch to sit beside her nephew. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Conner. You shouldn’t have to deal with something like this at your age.”

  He curled into her lap and rested his head on her chest. His crying eased, but moisture from his tears soaked through her tunic. He sniffed a few times and swiped a hand under his nose. “Why would they want to kill her?”

  “It wasn’t her, sweetie. She just happened to be in the wrong place when a whacko decided to explode a bomb.” She stroked his hair. His skin felt hot.

  “That woman said it might be someone from the South.”

  “That’s what I heard, but it hasn’t been confirmed. It could have been some other group trying to make a point through violence.”

  “I thought you said people from the South weren’t mean?”

  She blew out a breath. How did she explain this to an eight year old? “It’s not everyone. There are crazy people everywhere. The person who did this was not in his right mind.”

  “He was sick?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Then we have to forgive him?”

  Finally her tears came in a flood, and she hugged Conner to her, rocking and crying. God, this kid was too good. Better than her. The best.