Omega Plague: Collapse

by P. R. Principe

  They listened in silence. On and on the pattern repeated, and still no responding signal. DeLuca fidgeted, his leg twitching up and down. Bruno resisted the urge to swat it, and instead leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He had risked his life for nothing. He had—his eyes opened when he heard something else—a fainter, yet still quite audible responding signal, an echo of one they were transmitting.

  “Listen! They’re responding!”

  The screen on the radio changed, the words “establishing link” flashing repeatedly in time with the audible signal. The word “connected” then appeared in English, steady, unblinking, in all capital letters. The word lingered for a moment, and the screen went dark.

  DeLuca rose in his chair. “What happened? Did we lose the signal?”

  Bruno kept his eyes on the screen. He raised his right hand.

  The words “Cognome” and “Nome” flashed on the screen, followed by a blinking cursor.

  Bruno looked at DeLuca. “We’ve got a link!”

  Bruno’s hands hovered over the keyboard.

  “Well?” said DeLuca.

  “Whoever it is will know I’m alive.” Bruno typed in a fake name.

  The screen cleared for a moment, and the words “Codice Fiscale” appeared, again followed by the cursor.

  “What?” said DeLuca. “They want your tax ID number?”

  “It’s an attempt to verify identity,” said Bruno. “Maybe to make sure the one answering is in the military or law enforcement.”

  Bruno took his eyes off the screen just long enough to glance over his shoulder at DeLuca. “Anybody might know the name of a cop or someone in the military, or even have taken his ID card with the serial number. But what are the chances they would know his tax ID number?”

  Of course, Bruno realized, any number of painful, horrid methods existed that could force some poor bastard to reveal that string of numbers. Even an unwilling biometric scan could be obtained if someone were ruthless enough to remove a finger. Or an eyeball. Bruno guessed that this was the best way whoever was transmitting had to verify the identity of the person responding.

  He entered a made-up tax ID number, but the words “identità non autenticata” appeared on the screen, and the screen reset back to “Cognome” and “Nome.”

  “Shit,” said Bruno. “If we want to find out what this is, I’ll have to use my real information.”

  “Up to you, Bruno. But we’ve come this far. Don’t you want to know what this is?” said DeLuca.

  Bruno looked at the keyboard. Then he typed in his last name and his first name.

  “I want some answers,” said Bruno.

  At the next screen, Bruno entered his tax ID number.

  The screen went blank, and Bruno thought the connection might have been broken. Then the English word “Processing” flashed multiple times on the screen, followed by the words “identitá autenticata.”

  “We’re in!” said Bruno.

  The screen began to fill with words, and Bruno used the keyboard to scroll back up and read the information. DeLuca read over Bruno’s shoulder.

  From the way the information appeared, at a steady rate with no typos, Bruno surmised that there was no one on the other end.

  “This transmission is automated,” he said, more to himself than to DeLuca.

  “So, what does that mean? Is there anyone there, or is it just some computer in a bunker?”

  “Who knows, really. They must still have electricity from somewhere, and access to some sort of government database. So, I would imagine there is someone or, more likely, some group, maintaining everything. But for all we know, they’re all dead, and their transmitter connects to a solar-powered automated system.”

  “Ever the optimist, aren’t you?”

  Starved for so long from contact with anyone off the island, they gorged on the information all the same. Perhaps a half-hour into the transmission, DeLuca gasped.

  For a second, Bruno was puzzled, but then he saw what DeLuca has seen. “I risked my life for this? I don’t believe it!”

  “Believe it!” DeLuca made the sign of the cross. “They want blood—the blood of San Gennaro!”

  Chapter 18

  Bruno and DeLuca spent the entire afternoon and into the evening transcribing the information from the small screen onto paper. They decided it was too risky to connect the radio to Filippo’s computer to try and download the notes to a larger screen. If something went wrong, they could lose everything. Bruno’s hand ached from the hours of scrawling handwriting. Once they had transcribed everything, they sat at the kitchen table in Filippo’s home, poring over their notes, oblivious to the rain and wind smashing against the windows.

  “Look at all of this—storage points for materiel—weapons, vehicles, fuel—it amazes me that our noble government did this kind of detailed preplanning,” said Bruno.

  “Just because they say something’s there doesn’t make it so, but still . . . sounds like the old ‘Operation Gladio.’”

  “What’s that?”

  DeLuca smiled. “How old were you when the Wall fell?”

  “In 1989? I was six years old.”

  “That explains it! After the Berlin Wall fell, the Prime Minister at the time admitted that the CIA had set up networks to organize guerrilla groups all over Western Europe, in case the Soviets ever invaded. That way, there’d be an armed resistance already in place.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It was quite the story at the time—secret weapons caches all over Italy and other countries, too. Intelligence agencies with supposed ties to right-wing terrorism—like a bad Cold War spy novel, except a lot of it was true.”

  “Well,” said Bruno, “the government probably never totally eliminated that program. Organizations like that are too useful to die.”

  “Yes, they keep going—until everyone in them is dead,” DeLuca said, with sadness.

  Bruno nodded, his thoughts turning to the death of Europe. Thoughts of loss and death had been a constant companion since the Shakes hit. Not a day went by that he didn’t think of Carla. But he had become quite adept at forcing those thoughts aside. If he hadn’t, he doubted he would have survived this long. When he spoke, his voice sounded more animated.

  “Still, it explains why these caches exist at all and why whatever is left of the government knows about them. Hopefully, if their locations stayed secret, looters never found them.”

  “Yes, it does explain why they know,” said DeLuca, “and it gives us a fighting chance.”

  “A fighting chance? At what?” Bruno asked.

  “Getting the blood of San Gennaro. That’s what they want us to do.”

  Bruno laughed as he stood up. “No. We’re going to get the weapons and everything else that we can transport back to the island.”

  “But they told us they need the phial with his blood,” said DeLuca.

  “So what? I don’t care what insane plots the leftover zombies from the Ministry of Defense are cooking up. Omega fried their brains. We can use those weapons and whatever else is there for the defense of Capri, or maybe to relocate somewhere else—I’m not sure yet.”

  “But the blood—”

  “Is a fake, like—like the Shroud of Turin. Don’t you know the Church was full of liars, just like the government?”

  DeLuca wagged his index finger. “You’re wrong. The Church never, ever, ever said what happened with San Gennaro’s blood was a true miracle. The Church was neutral on the whole thing, just like they were on the Shroud of Turin. It was left up to the faithful to decide what to believe.” DeLuca pointed at Bruno. “Now who’s lying, eh?

  “Fine! Then whoever sent this message must be deluding themselves—that’s the only explanation.” Bruno sat back down and folded his arms across his chest.

  DeLuca leaned towards Bruno. “Bruno, think about what the message said: they need San Gennaro’s blood because he lived before the rise of industrialized society, because it’s been sealed f
rom environmental contamination for centuries, at least. I’m not a medical doctor, but I am a pharmacist. There is a ring of truth to what they’re saying. I remember an article I read that talked about how chemicals, maybe other things, could cause heritable epigenetic changes that—”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There were studies that said man-made chemicals, toxins, could cause permanent genetic changes that could be passed down from one generation to the next. And that these changes were factors in certain diseases.

  “We’ve all been exposed to multiple chemicals and drugs that didn’t exist in pre-industrial times—like—like . . .” DeLuca paused in thought then snapped his fingers. “Like DDT! Everyone alive on the Earth during the twenty-first century had trace amounts of chemicals like DDT in their system, even though that chemical was banned for decades before HAV hit. Sometimes even more than a trace, depending on the chemical.”

  “Yeah, and they tried to bring back DDT to kill the mosquitoes and stop Omega from spreading. Helluva lot of good that did.”

  DeLuca shook his head. “That’s not the point. Think about it—the transmission said the Americans believe that a sealed, preindustrial blood sample is what they need to help find a cure, maybe that’s why. Maybe we’ve all been exposed to some modern chemical, some toxin—or who knows what—that rendered us susceptible to the disease.”

  “But why here? Why don’t they look in the United States for a sample?”

  “The blood of San Gennaro has been sealed from outside contamination for centuries,” said DeLuca. “Maybe the Americans could find a pre-industrial blood sample from somewhere on their side of the Atlantic. But even so, how would they find one that’s been hermetically sealed from the environment for that long? Who in America would have thought to preserve blood like that over the centuries?”

  The notion that a relic from the patron saint of Naples rested at the heart of the message struck Bruno as so utterly ridiculous that he cackled. “This whole thing sounds like a crock of shit. But I’m still listening.”

  “The miracle is real, Bruno, I’ve seen it myself. You grew up not far from Naples, right? Didn’t you ever go during the feast of San Gennaro?”

  Bruno’s mind wandered to that day, so long ago now, when he and Cristian laughed and joked about the blood. The memory felt like something that had happened when he was a child. “I saw it on TV once. So what? Anything like that could be faked. I saw a lot of fake vids. You probably never saw that fake with the French president’s ex-wife.” Bruno laughed. “You could have sworn it was her!”

  “I’m not talking about some sick Internet video! I’m talking about a miracle! The blood transforms from a solid to a liquid when the priest turns the ampoule in his hand. That’s the miracle.”

  DeLuca continued, now in a reverie. “They used to say that if the blood didn’t liquefy, Naples would be in for a bad year—earthquakes, Vesuvius erupting, that sort of thing. I wonder . . . you know, I think there might be another saint whose blood—”

  “Well, the blood didn’t liquefy this past year—have you seen Naples lately? Did they ever mention ‘plague that wipes out humanity’? Was that on the Church’s list?”

  “We all have trace amounts of radioactive material in us from all the nuclear tests since the 1940s. That, and the meltdowns from Chernobyl and Japan, and not to mention the Koeberg meltdown after that attack.” DeLuca shook his head. “Anyway, I don’t know—maybe the radiation, even the small doses, affected us somehow—maybe rendering us more vulnerable to this infection, damaging our DNA. Who knows?”

  “You said ‘we all.’”

  “So what?”

  Bruno stared at DeLuca. “There is no ‘we all’ anymore. They’re all dead! Do you understand? Everyone’s fucking dead!”

  “The Americans are still there!” DeLuca pounded his open hand on the table. “The message said the Americans are patching together a network of surviving governments—and that they’ve made progress in researching the disease. There are more survivors out there.”

  “The Americans? They couldn’t even keep their own country intact after Omega spread to—”

  “What’s the matter? You thought you were the only one with enough balls to live through this? Does it piss you off that other people survived, too? You feel like a pussy now, is that it?”

  “I don’t want to listen to your bullshit.” Bruno sounded weary.

  “Well, you’d better listen, if you want to keep your ass intact. Get it through your head—we can’t stay here forever. That bunch of animals knows we’re here.”

  DeLuca leaned back in his chair. “You killed two of them in Naples. You killed them on their own turf. And you don’t think they’ll come after us? Especially if it is him? You’re not just someone he’d like to get revenge on. You’re a threat now, don’t you get that? You’re dumb, even for a Carabiniere!”

  Bruno leaned back in his chair hard enough to make it squeal. “I’d like to see you do anything to stop them,” Bruno said. “I’ll give you credit, old man. After the way I found you, it takes balls for you to call me a pussy!” Then Bruno laughed, but it was a real laugh, not one of derision.

  “So, what are we going to do?” DeLuca spoke with caution, not wanting to reignite an argument.

  Bruno exhaled loudly. “Well, whatever we do, we’d better find one of those weapons caches. I think we should try Sorrento first. It’s closer, and the cache there is more likely to be intact than one in Naples, don’t you think?”

  “Agreed. Naples got pretty bad; I could see the flames from here.”

  Bruno remembered watching the city burn and his own brush with death that night. Thoughts of Naples in chaos and Il Serbo made his stomach tighten, but Bruno forced those feelings down.

  “Time to get started,” said Bruno.

  Chapter 19

  September 18

  Bruno, with DeLuca’s assistance, spent the next week planning and preparing for what would have been, not long ago, a simple day trip by ferry. Now, of course, Bruno treated it like the Allied invasion of Normandy, or Caesar’s invasion of Gaul, preparing and scouring parts of the island for any usable items. The day of their departure dawned cool, but with the promise of a fine summer day to come. The sun burned through the morning mist as they took supplies and made their way down to the main marina, where they again set out across the bay.

  To help their memory they quizzed each other, discussing the most important parts of the message, particularly the weapons cache access codes. They took no notes or any evidence of the message with them. “In case something happens, better not to have anything that gives anything away,” Bruno reasoned. “We’d better have rally points, too, in case we get separated in Sorrento.”

  “What about Naples?” asked DeLuca.

  Bruno looked at him, puzzled. “Rally points for Naples? Why?”

  DeLuca shrugged. “I know we’re not going there now, but just in case, better sort it out before . . .”

  “Okay, sure.” Bruno nodded in agreement. “Good idea. We can’t be too careful.”

  They were low on fuel, so they proceeded slowly, trying to conserve what they had.

  Bruno rummaged in his backpack and drew out a bulky handheld radio. He was careful not to pull on the “rubber duck” antenna. In the middle, a small LCD screen lay above an alphanumeric keypad. Though somewhat thicker than a mobile phone, it could still be slipped into a vest or jacket pocket. Bruno pushed a red button and the LCD screen flashed to life. He handed the radio to DeLuca.

  “So,” smiled Bruno, “you remember how to use it?”

  “I think so,” said DeLuca as he studied the radio. “I can’t believe the municipal police station still had these!”

  “I tore that place apart, hoping to find some radios like this. Guess if it hadn’t been for this little trip, I’d never have ransacked what was left of the local police station the way I did.”

  Bruno put his hand in his pack. “When it all went to
shit, everything went so fast, I suppose there wasn’t anyone left to take them. Not a single fucking weapon or ammo, though.” Bruno started to talk to himself. “Where the hell could they all be, I wonder.”

  “Too bad you didn’t find these before,” said DeLuca.

  “Why?”

  “Well, wouldn’t it have been convenient to have communications that—”

  Bruno laughed. “Until you showed up, who the hell was I going to talk to?”

  DeLuca laughed too. “Good point.”

  “Ah, found it,” said Bruno. Turning his radio on as well, he checked both radios, keying one down and hearing the other beep in acknowledgment of the transmission.

  “Charged up and ready to go, courtesy of our solar setup!” Bruno looked at the one in his hand. “They used to be part of a trunked radio network, same type as the Carabinieri used. With relays, a radio like this could get nationwide coverage. Now it’s just point-to-point, radio-to-radio. Still, it’s fairly powerful for a radio this size. If we’re lucky, you might get a usable signal even at thirty kilometers. Important if we get separated.”

  Bruno noticed that their boat rode low in the water, as each of them carried a backpack with food, water, and gear. Bruno sat in the bow of the motorboat, while DeLuca sat facing Bruno, with his right hand on the tiller. When DeLuca spoke, he sounded more upbeat than he had ever been. “They said once we get the blood, to take it to Assergi in Abruzzo. You ever heard of Assergi?”

  “No. Can I see the map again? Where is it?”

  DeLuca gestured to the backpack just in front of him. Bruno extracted a worn map. He unfolded it and it spilled out over his lap, almost touching DeLuca’s legs. Bruno studied it for some minutes and then, with a pencil, he drew a line starting in Naples and moving northeast, up a snaky path into the spine of the Italian peninsula, and circled a small dot. He folded it back so that the path he traced was on top. “That town’s in the mountains of Abruzzo, near the Gran Sasso. It’s just outside of L’Aquila.”