Immunity: Apocalypse Weird

by E. E. Giorgi

  “Ugh,” Anu protested. “Give me some breathing space!” Tied behind her back, her hands and arms were squeezed against the backseat, quickly going numb from lack of blood flow.

  The General boarded the aircraft and chuckled. He sat next to Joyce, took his time buckling his seat belt, then draped his knees with his wide hands and sneered.

  “You’ll get plenty of breathing space once we reach our destination, Dr. Sharma,” he said.

  “Where are you taking us?”

  The General turned to Joyce and smirked. “Secret destination. So secret, only Joyce, here, knows. Luckily, she’s a smart woman and decided to cooperate.”

  Joyce opened her eyes—they were blue and icy and full of spite—and mouthed a swear word.

  In response, the General fished out his cell phone, thumbed the screen and read aloud, “Nineteen hours, fifteen minutes, and twelve seconds.” He grinned and dropped the phone back into his pocket.

  Stein hopped on the seat next to the pilot, while Harry squeezed next to David, the three of them facing Joyce and the General on the opposite row. She felt David next to her, smelled his sweat, his fear, his steady presence, and basked in it. His arm rubbed against hers, scooching closer, until she felt his fingertips reaching out to hers behind their backs. She grabbed them, as uncomfortable as it was, and held tight onto them.

  “Ready to take off in five,” the pilot barked through his mouthpiece. The rotor blades started moving, the engine whining faster and faster. Anu closed her eyes and let the rhythmic wobbling of the aircraft lifting into the air lull her thoughts.

  It’s going to be fine.

  Everything’s going to be fine.

  Once airborne, the Koala chopper did a one-eighty spin and lunged forward, the mesa they’d landed on sprawling to their left. The usual landscape of canyons and boulders careened below, ancient and untouched for generations.

  Anu fixed her eyes on the General and confronted him. “How did you know my mom?”

  The General smiled, dark lips on perfectly shaven cheeks. “I believe I was the last person to talk to her alive.”

  The statement enraged her. She felt her neck and cheeks flush with anger as she spat, “Did you kill her?”

  The General raised his brows, molding his face into a genuinely surprised look. “Why would you even think that? Of course not. As we all know, your mother killed herself.”

  “You obviously didn’t help if you were the last one to talk to her alive,” David snapped. Harry sunk his elbow in his stomach. David grunted and bent over, swallowing pain.

  “You bastards can’t have a civilized conversation!” Anu yelled.

  The General chuckled heartily at that. “Oh, come on, Harry,” he teased. “Be civilized, will you?”

  Harry tittered, his big shoulders making the whole row of seats rattle. “Yes, General.”

  “My mother made a break-through discovery,” Anu yelled, over the rattle and drumming of the rotor blades.

  The General narrowed his eyes. “Almost. She was almost there. But I can tell that you’ve inherited her brains, Dr. Sharma. Plus the determination.” He rubbed his hands together, slowly and methodically, and the image of an ugly fly sitting on shit flashed in Anu’s head. If only I could just swat him.

  Her eyes fell on Joyce again, her body curled up in pain. This man is evil. Did he do this to my mother, too? Did he drive her insane to the point that she killed herself?

  I am Nag. Look, and be afraid.

  Why did that forgotten story keep resurfacing her thoughts?

  “You never said how you met my mother.”

  His supercilious glare came down a notch. “I have a keen interest in clever science, Dr. Sharma. Viruses especially.” He flashed her a broad smile, teeth yellowed by coffee and bad hygiene. “In fact, I would like to offer you a job, Doctor.”

  “Over my dead body.” The reply came out of her mouth before she could even formulate it in her head.

  The smile evaporated from the general’s face. “Don’t joke about stuff like this. Little you know, it might just turn true.”

  “I don’t care. I’d rather be killed then work for you.”

  By her side, David stiffened. “What would a brilliant mind like yours need from a humble scientist, General?” he asked, sarcasm dripping from every word.

  “It’s the other way around, actually,” the general crooned, his voice ringing in her ears like the hiss of a snake. “Dr. Sharma needs me. She just doesn’t know it yet.” He turned to look at Joyce. She said nothing, her icy blue eyes slicing through him. “Our friend Joyce here is giving me the key to all the money and power I need to make anything happen.” He grinned. “I asked nicely and made an offer she couldn’t refuse.” He leaned forward and whispered in Joyce’s ear, “A little under nineteen hours, now.”

  Harry chuckled.

  Joyce looked too beaten up to even reply. Her split cheek was purple, her black eye puffy and bloody.

  Anu cringed at the sight. She couldn’t even imagine how badly she’d been tortured. All the strength the woman had left was pure will. It was clear he was blackmailing her, his power bestowed by who knows what despicable threat.

  “Whatever you did to her, you’ll pay the price, you filthy snake.”

  The general unbuckled, leaped out of his seat, and slapped Anu in the face so hard her lip split. David tried to sway his legs and kick him but Harry sunk the butt of the rifle in his shin, making him double over with pain.

  “Listen to me, Dr. Fucking Sharma,” the general hissed, returning to his seat and buckling up again. “People die when they talk to me like that, do you understand?”

  Anu winced with pain and said nothing, a tear of blood trickling down her chin.

  The general pressed on. “The first to go will be Joyce’s daughter, currently sitting on ten pounds of TNT.”

  David groaned. “You can threaten us and beat us to death. You won’t win.”

  Anu closed her eyes, expecting the blow to catch David in full face this time. Instead, the general stared at him for a long minute, then returned his gaze to Anu. “The second one to go will be your friend here, who’s pissing his pants while pretending to be heroic.” The general leaned forward and squinted, his sibilant voice screeching in her ears like discordant chords. “Too bad you can’t remember your mother, Dr. Sharma. She would tell you the high price paid by those who disrespect me.” He licked his lower lip with the tip of his tongue and shook his head. “You will work for me. You will because you have no choice. And because you fear me, as you should.”

  I don’t fear you, Anu thought. I despise you.

  She closed her eyes and the voice she heard earlier started singing again in her head, a feminine voice, from a long time ago—was it her mother? Yet she couldn’t possibly remember her mother’s voice…

  Who is Nag? I am Nag. Look, and be afraid!

  Be afraid… No wonder Joyce was terrified, the evil snake had her daughter. Did the general torture her own mother the way he tortured and brutalized Joyce? The woman who gave her life and whom she’d never met? Not a memory, not a smile, not a word from her. Only a necklace that had once belonged to her and a wedding picture with a note scribbled at the back.

  HERV-W, 3-5 muts seg 2 H>N>, the note said.

  No. Not H>N>. Those scribbles must’ve been 7’s. Her mother had left her a clue on H7N7! The discovery she had made and that cost her life, if only she could understand what it meant …

  “What do you dream of, Dr. Sharma?” the General asked, turning back to Anu.

  “I want to finish what my mother started and eradicate H7N7.”

  The General nodded, pleased with her answer. “You’re so naïve, Doctor. Your mother started H7N7.”

  “You just said she failed.”

  He tilted his head, stuck out his wet tongue out and carefully brushed it along the lipless edges of his mouth. A snake. This man is a snake. “She failed to make me part of it,” he said at last, his voice low, the hint o
f a grudge peeking through his words. “Too bad. She paid the price.” He looked out the window, rocking slightly with the wobbling of the helicopter engine. “Let me share some great news with you, Dr. Sharma. A vaccine against H7N7 is in the making, just about ready to be released.” He weighed in her reaction, then stretched his lips into an evil smile. “Of course, it’ll make everything even better. Eradicating this parasitic species will be a piece of cake once the vaccine is out.”

  Anu swallowed, the metallic taste of her own blood flooding her palate. “You want to kill people… with a vaccine?”

  “I have no choice, I’m afraid. People were given a chance, a long time ago. Alas, they failed. Time to start over, like I told Joyce. The first nuke was the beginning, the first sign. Didn’t do as much damage as I’d hoped, so now I need more.”

  “You!” David spat through his teeth. “The nuke was from you!”

  The general didn’t even blink. “Just a little teaser. Could’ve been better if only it didn’t get so far from the coast. First attempts are always like that.”

  “How?” David asked. “How did you—”

  The General narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you underestimate powers you don’t understand. You name the capitalist running dogs of this country and you won’t believe how many are willing to help. Old friends of mine, from the days when I owned the Mekong river. And a couple new ones.” He grinned, his black eyes shining with pride.

  “The Mekong river,” David repeated. “I should’ve guessed.”

  Naga wiped the grin off his face. “Don’t you kid yourself. You’re not that smart.”

  David didn’t feel intimidated by the comment. “How else would you have made the money to make the ‘generous’ donation Joyce talked about when she introduced you over the phone? You’re a veteran from the Golden Triangle, that’s how you got rich—selling opium.”

  The General indulged in a subtle smile. “I bet you’re real good at computers.”

  “I’m a computer scientist,” David replied.

  “Of course. You’re one of those.” The General sneered. “You can ask anything to a computer these days, even how to make a nuke. You just need the right friends, which I have. Opium sells well in the military. Did you know that? I made lots of highly ranked allies that way. Once you’ve got that to back you up, nothing can stop you. Got the nuke from some friends up in Pyongyang, fit it inside a shipping container on some obscure Chinese ship nobody gave a shit for, headed for San Francisco. That easy. Except it detonated too soon. Hardly did any damage.”

  He sighed and turned to Joyce. “Thanks to Joyce, though, I’ll soon get my hands on a new, precious load of uranium and ship it back to my friends. So yeah. A few more bombs and then the vaccine and I figure we’ll be down to—what? Couple hundred thousand people left on the planet?”

  Harry sniggered. “Only the best ones.”

  The General sent him an icy look. “Yeah. Well. We’ll see about that.”

  “Reaching destination in fifteen minutes,” the pilot said. “Prepare for landing.”

  The General beamed, his eyes fixed on Anu. Joyce closed her eyes, her head bobbing lifelessly against the headrest. Anu turned to stare into David’s eyes. He pressed his lips together and shook his head.

  * * *

  The pilot cut the engine of the chopper, the settling cloud of sand and dust slowly uncovering the landscape around them. Gray pillars of rock loomed out of the land like disoriented soldiers. They were conical in shape, lined by horizontal layers of geological history.

  The General unbuckled and craned his head to look out the window.

  “This the place?”

  Joyce opened her eyes. She took a glimpse at the window and nodded.

  “Better be,” the General replied. “You know the consequences otherwise.” He waved an open hand in front of her face and added, “Boom.”

  “You just said the whole world is going boom anyway,” David snarled.

  The General flashed him a sneer. “Tedious details.”

  Stein poked his head from the front seat. “Shall we go, then?”

  “Yes. Not you, Frazer. I want you on stand by for a rapid takeoff.”

  “Yes, Sir,” the pilot replied.

  Harry, the bald and bulky guy with the rifle, pulled David and Anu out of their seats and dragged them out of the aircraft. David’s hands and arms screeched with pain as blood started flowing again through veins. By his side, Anu bent over, plagued by the same pain in her arms and hands. He tried to reach out to her but they were quickly drawn apart by Harry’s rifle.

  The General was armed too, the butt of a revolver bulging out of the conspicuous holster hanging from his waistband, and the tall loser named Stein was now holding the gun David had used on Jeff.

  All three of them armed. Damn it. He’d been driving himself mad looking for a possible diversion, even the faintest way out, and yet the more he squeezed his brains, the more he came back helplessly blank.

  Wait, David. Be patient and wait. Something will turn up.

  Joyce was the last one to disembark. Stein had to support her. Her right ankle was swollen and badly twisted, her whole body twitching with pain. Harry clasped the top of her hair and pulled her head backwards. “Where’s the place, bitch?”

  “Up the trail,” she whispered in a coarse voice. “By the rocks.”

  The General hooked his broad hands on his belt and looked around. The chopper had landed on an unmarked gravel lot surrounded by the contorted trunks of dead junipers. The trail snaked up toward the row of gray pillars they’d spotted from the chopper. Huddled together, the pillars of rock formed an arching wall that staggered against a cloudless blue sky.

  “I don’t see anything,” the General said.

  Joyce lips twitched into a half-sneer. “It’s hidden. You’d think we’d put a sign pointing the way?”

  The General slapped her hard in the face. “Don’t you think you’re smarter than me, bitch.”

  Joyce whimpered and staggered against Stein.

  Harry stood behind Anu and David, rifle pointed. “What do we do now?” he asked

  The General snapped, “We follow the trail. The bitch better be right or else she gets her daughter’s pretty head as a souvenir in the mail.” He motioned to Harry who poked his rifle in David’s back, prompting him to get going.

  They formed a line. David first, followed by Anu and the rifle. Stein held Joyce who was limping too badly to be able to walk on her own. Last came the General, rambling on about what he’d do once he had his hands on the country’s stash of uranium.

  “Who do you think makes the best nuclear warheads, Stein? The North Koreans or the Iraqis?”

  “I really don’t know, sir.”

  “Of course, you wouldn’t. What else do you know besides medicine?”

  Stein blushed to the top of his forehead. “Still pretty darn useful, I believe,” he griped.

  “We’ll go with the North Koreans,” the General said, ignoring him. “More reliable. I’ll tell them to make a special nuke just for the White House.”

  “And then what, General?” David confronted him.

  “Then my Lord and Master shall be made manifest unto all Nations. Together we’ll rule the world.”

  Lord and Master? The man’s delusional!

  “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re a bit too late. Between the nuke you’ve already tossed off into the Bay and the fucking H7N7, the world’s a wreck right now. You should’ve chosen better times for the party.”

  Harry shoved the butt of the rifle in David’s head. “Don’t you play smartass with us, nerd.” David tripped but managed not to fall.

  “Let him ramble, Harry,” the General said from the back of the line. “He has no idea how expendable his life is right now.”

  The heat was relentless. David licked his parched lips, his tongue sticky and sapped. The gravel crunched under their feet, the pillars loomed closer. They looked like ancient guardians of a solitary land,
nature-made pyramids that held secrets only Joyce knew about.

  Uranium. The General wants uranium to destroy the world.

  I hope Joyce knows what she’s doing.

  The nuclear explosion off the coast of California had been bad enough on its own, and it hadn’t even struck the actual cities. The world would not withstand a nuclear war.

  He thought of his dog Max, his friend Alex, his mom, all the loved ones that had come and gone through his thirty-two years of life, even past girlfriends, the good ones and the bad ones.

  Man, I’ve had a good life, he thought, nostalgically, the brutal lyrics of Reign in Blood humming in his head.

  Yet to end it like this, with these lunatics planning on ending the world in a nuclear havoc… That’s pretty pathetic, David.

  You’ve got to find a way out of this.

  They came to the wall of rock, with its folds and cracks and rugged textures.

  Stein got tired of holding Joyce and let her fall on her knees.

  “Where, now?” the General demanded. “This better not be a trick.”

  Joyce shook her head. “It’s not. There’s a call box. You can’t see it from here. These rocks form a ring. We need to go around them to get access inside.”

  Stein ran around the looming pillars, his long legs skipping over rocks and dry weeds. “It’s true,” he called, once on the other side. “There’s an opening.”

  Harry raised his rifle. “Go!” he snarled to Anu and David, and then pulled Joyce up by one arm and dragged her to where Stein was standing.

  The rocks—like cone-shaped columns that somebody had piled up one block at the time—were about twenty feet tall. Just like Joyce had said, they formed a ring that opened on the side where they were now standing, with an inner boulder rising in the middle.

  “It’s there,” Joyce said. “You have to look for a crack in the wall, insert your fingers and pull as if it were a flap. You’ll find the call box hidden behind it.”

  “Hidden cameras?” the General asked.

  Joyce bit her lip. “I honestly don’t know.”

  The General bristled. “You’re lying!”

  “How would I know?” Joyce yelled back. “And frankly, do you see any antenna or solar panel that would juice it up?”