The Tiger Flu

by Larissa Lai

  “What will you do?”

  “Join the Cosmopolitan Earth Council, in all likelihood. I don’t want to. The UMK element there is strong, and ugly. And Grandma would not approve, not in any way. But we have cousins there who can protect us and might assist us in retaliation. Alternately, we could try to build an alliance with the Coast Salish Timeplace, who are less politically compromised, but they are not well armed. Otherwise, we flee farther inland, but HöST is raiding all the villages regardless of who lives there. What will you do?”

  “I have to go to Saltwater City. To fulfill a promise to Peristrophe.”

  “How is your beloved starfish?”

  I don’t answer, but he looks in my eyes and knows.

  “We’ve both lost too much, Groom Kirilow. Go in peace, but go now. I don’t have any more to offer you than that.”

  The squirrel is still gnawing at the tent. I swat it away. It better not have made a hole. I go inside and wake Calyx Kaki. We pack up quickly. As we head up the crumbling asphalt road, everywhere among the dark branches of the forest I see the little firefly lights of the exiled people of Pente. I hear them whispering, voices full of worry.

  My brain races with the possibilities. Is HöST attempting to take the Fourth Plague Ring? And the third? Our Mother who art artful, I wish I’d paid better attention to Mother Glorybind’s history and geography lessons. I thought biology was all there was. But I do know that the Cosmopolitan Earth Council controls the Second Plague Ring, and that they are a nuclear power. They captured nuclear warheads from the time before in the first wave of the tiger flu, when autochthones were the only ones immune. They took in many people from the surrounding plague rings too. Maybe even some Grist sisters. Billy’s grandmother Maria did not approve of their nuclear stewardship. “But,” she said, “it keeps them safe from the predations of HöST, and they protect us too, so I don’t judge absolutely. I just guide my children in other directions.”

  The United Middle Kingdom destabilized their currency, forced renminbi on them, and via sympathizers within overtook their government. “Last I heard,” said Mother Glory, “there were progressive elements inside, mostly grandchildren of the founding Secwepemc, trying to squeeze UMK influence out, but without much luck.”

  Still, from their base in the second ring, the Cosmopolitan Earth Council deters batterkites from crossing into the third and fourth rings. Or, at least, they did until now. They have the power to stop the occupation of the First Plague Ring if they wanted, but trade is lucrative, and active hostilities are low. Or—were low. Has HöST defeated them? Or made a deal? I ache for my mother double, who would know the answers to all these questions.

  19

  THE SLEEPING SPARROW

  KORA KO // SALTWATER FLATS

  NODE: GRAIN IN BEARD

  DAY: 10

  IT’S MIDNIGHT. THE SMOG IS THICK AND THE GIRLS SEEM TO SLEEP particularly soundly. Kora slips out of bed and into her blue dress. She takes her battered raincoat from its hook in the hall and goes quietly as she can out the creaking front doors. Surely now, she can get through the gates of the old building and see Charlotte, Kai Wai, and K2 again. The dark is so thick, she can hardly see the broken sidewalk in front of her, but she knows it so well that it doesn’t matter. She isn’t two blocks from the school when someone takes her arm.

  “Kora, is that you?”

  She recognizes the voice, the aggressive grip. “Stash?”

  “I knew you’d remember me!” He puts his arm around her.

  She squirms away. “What are you doing out on the street so late?”

  “I could well ask you the same question, missy.”

  “Don’t call me missy. Who do you think you are?”

  “Why are you always so mean to me, Kora? All I ever did was like you.” He reaches for her again.

  She steps back. “That’s not true.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Well, I don’t like the way you like me.”

  “Kora, come on. It’s my last night on earth.” He takes her hand.

  She tries to pull away but his grip is strong. “What the heck are you talking about?”

  “Your brother. He’s found a way for us to live after all. He’s found a cure for the flu.”

  “There’s no cure for the flu, Stash. That’s why everybody is dying.”

  “Your brother has met a man who’s figured it out. It’s still in the test stages, so it’s risky. But it’s also free.” He opens his eyes puppy-dog wide. “Come have a glass of tiger wine with me.”

  “I don’t drink that stuff.” She yanks hard and gets free.

  “Come on, Kora, don’t be such a bitch. It’s my last night.”

  She sighs. “I owe you nothing.”

  “As a dear friend of your dear brother,” he says, “I ask you this as a last favour.”

  Against her better judgment, she follows him.

  He takes her to a tiny bar called the Sleeping Sparrow in a side street she doesn’t usually dare cross through.

  “Just one drink,” she says. “Because, first of all, I’m underage. And secondly, I need to get home to see Charlotte and Kai Wai.”

  She orders a drink called Psyche’s Labour, because she’s had it before and likes its bitter kick combined with the taste of sour cherries. She’s never seen so many men in one place before—young and old, tall and short, all with the gaunt faces and skin lesions that are the trademarks of the tiger flu.

  Stash orders a shot of tiger whisky with a beer chaser. “Come on,” he says, “I want to show you something.”

  Kora says, “If you try anything funny, I’ll crush your balls to a bloody pulp. They teach us all kinds of handy stuff at the Cordova School.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Stash says. “Do you have to be so hostile? I just want to show you something without showing it to the whole world.”

  At the back of the bar are booths with high walls. “Can we just sit up front?”

  “I’m not going to do anything,” he says. “Look, you sit on that side.” He points to a seat from which she can still see the door. Sits down opposite her and pulls a small flat disk out of his pocket.

  “What’s that?”

  “Two-way open scale,” he says. “Look!” He flicks it on and a column of light springs up in the middle of the table. “To talk to guys who have already gone over.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “It’s a real thing. My friend Oscar did it last week.” He fiddles with the disk and the light changes colour. “Hey Oscar, are you there?”

  A faint figure appears in the light, gaunt and blue. “Hey man, how’s it going?” says the other boy. “You’re going to love it up here. We’re strong the way we were before. There are cars like in the old days. And steak and beer, and girls, man, thousands of hot chiquititas like you would not believe. When do you get here?”

  “You have to be polite, brother,” Stash says. “’Cause I’m with a girl right now.”

  “A Saltwater Flats girl? Who cares, man, seriously. Twenty-four hours from now, you are not gonna give a flying fuck, do you hear me?”

  “Don’t say that,” says Stash.

  “I’m totally serious, brother. You’ll forget about her, and you’ll forget about that shithole of a city before the week is out.” Oscar stands up, drops his pants and shakes his floppy wang at Stash, hangs his tongue out at the same time.

  “Gross, Stash,” Kora says. “Shut it off.”

  “Oscar, put that away!” says Stash to the ghostly blue boy.

  Oscar keeps shaking his dick and wagging his drooling tongue. Kora gets up to go.

  Stash turns it off. “I’m sorry Oscar is such a pig. We aren’t all, you know.”

  “Oh no?”

  “Life is possible there in a way it’s not here. I thought I’d ask you—I mean—”

  “Ask me what?”

  “Girls can go too.”

  “You’re right off your holy rocker.”

  “I thought mayb
e you weren’t having such a great time at the Cordova School. Those girls are ballbusters, man. I mean really, and they don’t smell so good.”

  “Is that so?” says a voice from the next booth. Modesta.

  “I showered yesterday,” says another. Soraya.

  Modesta comes around the booth to where Kora is sitting. “What are you doing with this dirtbag?”

  “Truly, Kora,” Soraya says, “by Our Mother’s blessed breath. You could at least have decent taste.”

  To Stash, Modesta says, “Put your little toy away now. Don’t you know that they killed your friend and gave you some cheap algorithm. Talk about a big slice of gullible cake!”

  “The Conductor is real!” Stash protests. “Tons of guys are doing it.”

  Modesta and Soraya drag Kora out of the booth, and two blocks back to the Cordova Dancing School for Girls.

  20

  THE FAMOUS DOCTOR

  KIRILOW GROUNDSEL // PENTE-HIK-TON

  NODE: GRAIN IN BEARD

  DAY: 8

  WE WALK IN SILENCE, PAUSING ONLY TO TAKE SHELTER FROM THE morning rainstorm under a broad-leaved maple. Towards noon, when Chang lords directly over us, the path to Pente presents itself. We take it and begin our ascent to the village on high.

  An older village lies buried beneath Pente, reduced progressively to rubble in the Six Great Quakes of the time before. The village that stands there now is a renewal of the old one, built atop a high terp, surrounded on all sides by a flood plain. When Mother Glory and I passed through last year, it was a small but wealthy community of friendly, hospitable people. Today, I fear we are rushing to meet our doom.

  We crush succulents and desert flowers already drowning in mud as we climb. Because of its gentle grade, the hill does not look so high, but this muddy march feels like it will never end. The mid-afternoon sun shines bright in the rain-washed sky when we get to the top. Chang meanders lazily past the sun, oblivious to our grief.

  I see the birds first, waddling heavy over the burnt-out village. Their bodies are large and brown, their heads blood red and naked. They feast voraciously, plunge those red bloody heads into carrion—the bodies of the villagers who neither escaped nor got carried off. In the high post-rain heat, the flesh rots and reeks.

  “Close your eyes, Calyx. Don’t look,” I say, ridiculously. She has to look, to pick a path through the carnage.

  I survey the vast field of bodies and burnt homes. Something hits me in the head. It knocks me over and my mouth fills with fur. Nails gore my chest. “Get off me, ghost mother!” I struggle. It rolls me over and pulls off my pack. Although the sun is bright, I still cannot see my attacker, only my pack, running along the ground as though of its own volition.

  Behind me, Calyx Kaki is fighting another one. “Damn catcoat!”

  I rush to help her, though it means losing Peristrophe’s beautiful and necessary tent. I can’t see the thing; I can only see where it tears. I reach out to grab. It’s sleek and soft. Swipe. Sharp across my face. Blood gushes hot down my chin, but I don’t care. I pull a needle from my tunic and make a best guess about where to poke it. I hit my mark. The beast shrieks and falls off Calyx Kaki’s back. On the ground, a large cat writhes, the size of a small human. I pop a needle between its eyes, and the head folds back like a hood. Inside the skin lies a slender, dark-haired girl, eyes wide and staring. She’s missing a tooth and wearing way too many long dangly earrings. She’s young, maybe seventeen or eighteen. But her eyes are old. I feel pity, and I refuse it. I grab the girl by the throat. “Who are you and why do you attack us? Where’s my backpack?”

  “Please,” she rasps, just as that vile Salty did when I had it by the throat.

  I sit on her stomach. “Stop wriggling. If I let go your throat, will you keep still and state your purpose?”

  Her face is turning blue, but she mouths a dry Yes.

  I let go of her throat.

  “Myra, ruuuuunnnn!!” she shrieks. “I’m caught!”

  Furious, I grab her throat and squeeze with all my might. Her brown eyes bulge out of her head. Please please please. Words formed but not spoken.

  “You’re a liar and a thief. You die.”

  Calyx is beside me. “Groom Kirilow, she could help us. Your mother double would not want you to kill.”

  “Don’t you dare invoke my mother double!” I squeeze tighter. The girl faints, and I realize what I’m doing. I let go.

  Thanks be to our bounteous Mother that I have a bit of mushroom-fibre rope in my tunic pocket. I bind her arms and legs. I pick her up and sling her over my back, weird furry skin and all. Although the girl is still out, the skin shudders. Creepy. “Let’s get off the hill.”

  Calyx follows. “What are you going to do with that Cordova girl?”

  “You know what this is?”

  “Me and the other initiates ran into a pack of them around Ching Ming Festival. Getting ice at Mólkwcen Mountain, just like us. They’re scavengers from Saltwater City. Really stinky, but clever. She could help us if she decides to be nice.”

  “We’ll make her help. And get my tent back. We’re going to need it to survive out here.”

  I start to carry the fur-covered girl down the far side of the terp back under cover of eucalyptus and madrona. The warm, furry skin continues to vibrate unpleasantly. Calyx follows close, and the late-afternoon rains begin to fall. The rain wakes the girl.

  “Put me down, you animal!”

  She’s heavy. I’m only too happy to oblige. I drop her in mud.

  “Horrible Gristie,” she spits.

  Calyx and I help her up. I adjust her bindings so she can walk in small steps, hands still firmly tied behind her back. I make a leash so she can’t get away. “Where’s your friend? And my tent?”

  She says nothing. Stares at me insolently. I raise my hand to smack, but Calyx pulls my arm back. “Please don’t, Groom Kirilow. Myra will catch up with us, and you will get your tent back.”

  How does she know the thief?

  We march through the deepening mud. A quarter of the way down the terp, a soft wind comes up, like the voices of young girls whispering secrets.

  “Don’t worry, Kiri only seems mean. She’s a doctor. She will help you. But only if you’re nice.”

  “She’ll hear us.” Barest of breath from the Cordova girl.

  Young girls do whisper secrets. The nerve!

  “She’s old, and old people are deaf. Don’t worry,” says Calyx. There are only a few years between us. She’s a dim-witted thing.

  More worrisome: Is she in cahoots with our attackers? I’ll kill them both. I don’t care. I’ve already lost everything that matters to me.

  “Why did you attack us?” Calyx whispers.

  “We didn’t know who you were. There’s unrest in the city and a demand for the things people put in backpacks. Madame will feast the ones who bring back the most and expel the ones who bring back the least. It’s the only home I have. I can’t lose my place there.”

  “You have to get Myra to give us our tent back. We need it to be safe at night, and also Groom Kiri’s dead lover made it for her. She will kill you.”

  “I’m tougher than I look …”

  “So is she. And she’s wounded, which means extra fierce.”

  The rain begins its full onslaught then. I stop and turn around.

  “Tell her,” I say, enunciating clearly as though to an idiot, “that we want our tent back right now.”

  Calyx’s face burns red as a turkey vulture’s.

  “I don’t have to take you with me,” I say. I push the Salty to the muddy ground, squat over her, and place my hands on her throat. “I can leave you and little Calyx right here for the birds. Would you like that?”

  “No,” she squeaks. “I’m sorry, Groom Kirilow.”

  For the third time, I close my hands slowly around the girl’s throat. She doesn’t try to scream. She purses her lips. A shrill whistle pierces the soggy air.

  “Stop that!”

&n
bsp; I choke her tight.

  “Groom Kirilow, please,” Calyx begs, so pathetic. “Her sister is coming back with the tent. They’ll help us.”

  I don’t let up. How can I trust them? The girl’s throat is hot in my hands. If I can’t make the Salty who invaded our village pay for the death of my beloved, this dirty Salty will do.

  The girl’s face turns blue. Better finish her before the other one gets here.

  “Kirilow—” Calyx tugs uselessly at my arm.

  Bop!

  For the second time today, my mouth fills with fur. The world goes black.

  I’M AWAKE AND PERISTROPHE IS WITH ME. I CAN SMELL HER ORANGE water and thyme perfume. Beeswax, wet earth, woodsmoke.

  “Dearest one, are your eyes healing?” I open my own. I’m inside the tent she sewed for me. There’s no Peristrophe, only the dim-wit Calyx Kaki, watching me with wide, terrified eyes. My arms and legs are bound.

  “I didn’t want to do it, but you can’t attack Tania again.”

  Rage floods my heart. “You ungrateful ninny.”

  “You—you don’t understand. They are friends of the initiates. We meet them at the Mólkwcen icefields four times a year.”

  “So now you’re gonna kill me? After I saved you from HöST?”

  “Of course not, Groom Kirilow. They are your friends too,” Calyx croaks. She can’t be afraid of me, bound like this.

  An unholy rage surges through me. “You brought that sick Salty to us. Through these weird fur-covered ones. I know it was you. And now you betray the Grist by selling your own flesh and blood to them. Our Mother curse you to the end of your days!”

  “I had nothing to do with that Salty. It found us, all by itself.”

  A tall, muscly one enters the tent then. Thick black hair, eyes rimmed with black stuff. She thinks it makes her look scary.

  “You bop me in the brain? Go ahead, kill me. I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Will you calm down, Groom Kirilow Groundsel? I’m Myra Mao.” She squats beside me and brushes my hair out of my eyes.

  “Don’t you touch me,” I spit. “I don’t know you.”

  She keeps stroking my hair. “Calm down. We are not going to hurt you. We’re your friends.”