“Dr. Darnell to the communications room. Dr. Darnell to the communications room.”
He detached the radio and pushed the talk button. “On my way.” To Pax, he said, “I guess it’s time.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“I insist.”
The station was a series of mobile home-sized structures, some positioned right next to each other, some set a little farther apart and connected to the others via fully enclosed and insulated passageways. The communications room was located in one such solo building at the south end of the base near a hill. The rise did double duty, playing home to the radio antennas near the summit, and providing shelter from the winds for the satellite dishes at its base—something it failed to do during the storm.
Two people, both station personnel, were in the room when Darnell and Pax arrived.
“So, are we up?” Darnell asked.
Frances Bourgeois, the head communications officer, glanced over from a desk covered with computer equipment and monitors. “Syncing with the satellite now. Give me a moment.” She typed something on her keyboard before studying one of the monitors and then nodding. “There we go. Connection’s strong. We’re up and running.”
Darnell made a point of looking at Pax as he said, “Excellent.” He walked over to Frances’s desk and picked up the headset sitting there. “We should check in first. Call the university.”
Frances typed again. When she finished, Darnell stood at near attention as he focused on the call. After several seconds, he looked confused.
“All I’m getting is ringing,” he said. “Are you sure you dialed that correctly?”
Frances checked the number. “I did, but I can try again.”
“Do it.”
His bewilderment only deepened the second time.
“It is New Year’s Eve,” James Faber, the other person present, said.
Darnell considered this for a second. “Of course.” Looking back at Frances, he said, “Put me through to the RCMP in Ottawa.”
This time as he listened, he looked stunned.
“What is it?” Frances asked.
Darnell licked his lips nervously as he shot a quick glance at Pax. “Put it on speaker,” he said.
A second later, a voice streamed out of the speakers next to the monitor. “—home, and until services are restored, avoid all contact.” The voice was female, her message clearly recorded. “Good luck, and may God be with you.”
“What the hell is she talking about?” Faber asked.
Darnell held up a hand, silencing him.
There was a moment of dead air before the woman began speaking again. “You have reached the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Due to the Sage Flu crisis, there is no one able to take your call. If you are ill, remain where you are. Do not attempt to go to the hospital or any other medical facility. All facilities are currently closed to any new patients. You would do best to remain in bed, drink as much fluid as possible, and…”—she paused—“…pray. If you are unaffected at this time, stay in your home, and until services are restored, avoid all contact. Good luck, and may God be with you.”
Pax closed his eyes, his chin falling to his chest. Captain Ash had failed. They had all failed. The very thing the Resistance had been formed to prevent had happened.
The woman’s voice filled the room again. “You have reached the Royal—”
“That’s enough,” Darnell said.
Frances touched her keyboard and plunged the room into silence.
“You have Internet access now?” Pax asked her.
“We should.”
As she started to type, Pax, Darnell, and Faber crowded around behind her. The first few websites she tried kicked back the message:
WEBSITE SERVER NOT RESPONDING
CNN.com, however, was working. Just below the standard banner at the top was a large, sunlit picture of Times Square. Pax figured it had been taken near midday. The buildings were decked out in holiday fare, and the electronic billboards displayed mainly Christmas ads and messages. Which made the fact that the streets and sidewalks were empty all the more eerie.
Across the picture in red, semi-transparent capital letters was the word PANDEMIC.
“Holy shit,” Faber said.
Frances leaned toward the screen. “This hasn’t been updated in over a week.” She looked back at her boss. “How is that possible?”
“Check the CBC or PCN or Fox or MSNBC. All of them, if you have to.”
She did, but the few that were still up displayed similar messages to CNN’s.
For the first time since they’d been listening to the RCMP message, Darnell looked at Pax. “You were telling the truth.”
“I was.”
Silence.
“They’re all dead? Everyone?”
“Not everyone,” Pax said.
“But most?” Frances asked.
“If not yet, soon.”
The room grew quiet.
Darnell finally broke the silence. “What happens now?”
Before Pax could answer, Faber, barely able to control his emotions, said, “What happens now? Now we’re all going to die is what happens! Either we stay here and freeze to death, or go home and die from the flu.” He looked at Pax. “Right?”
“That’s one option,” Pax said. “But there is another.”
“What?” Faber asked. “Kill ourselves?”
“I mentioned it when I first told you what was going on.”
All three looked at him, dumbfounded for a moment. Frances was the first to snap out of it. “Vaccine,” she said. “You told us you had vaccine.”
“Yes.”
“Enough for everyone here?” she asked.
“More than enough.”
Darnell grew wary. “I’m sure you want something for it.”
“What does it matter what he wants?” Faber said. “There are more of us than them. We can just take it!”
“Unless you’re all trained in combat like my men, I’d advise against trying that,” Pax said.
“You surrendered your weapons the first day you were here,” Faber said.
“Not all of them,” Pax told him. “But we don’t need to get to that point. You see, we don’t want anything for the vaccine. We would like your help getting out of here, but you’ll get inoculated either way.”
“Bullshit,” Faber said.
“Not bullshit. The vaccine is not for sale. It’s for anyone who needs it.”
“How do we even know it will work?” Darnell asked.
“You won’t. Not until you’re exposed, at least.”
“I don’t know if anyone here will want to take that chance.”
“That’s your choice,” Pax said. “But I will say this. Without the vaccine you will catch the flu at some point.”
“I want it,” Frances said quickly.
After a brief hesitation, Faber said, “I’d like it, too.”
NEAR FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
1:44 PM EASTERN STANDARD TIME (EST)
“WHOA, NOW THIS is cool,” Bobby Lion said, his voice echoing down the hallway.
“Where are you?” Tamara Costello yelled.
“Down here.”
She followed his voice to a large, black door that had been propped open. She stepped inside and immediately stopped.
She and Bobby had both seen plenty of high-tech rooms stuffed with equipment back when they’d both worked for the Prime Cable News network—PCN—she as a field reporter and Bobby as her cameraman. But this room blew away anyplace they had seen before.
It was two stories high, and at least a hundred feet wide in both directions. Taking up over half the floor space were rows of equipment racks mounted with computers and God only knew what else. Several long counters broken up into dozens of individual workstations filled the rest of the room. Perhaps the most impressive thing, however, was the gigantic digital screen that took up most of the wall the stations were facing.
“I take it this is it,” s
he said.
Bobby grinned. “Oh, yeah. This has got to be it.”
“So, can you get it to work?”
“Hope so. Need to poke around a bit.”
“Don’t let me keep you.”
With a giddy smile, he all but skipped down the aisle leading past the workstations and disappeared into the equipment racks.
Tamara wished she could help him, but knew she’d only be in the way. She’d become more tech savvy over the last year, but the nitty-gritty of the electronics world fell outside her realm of expertise. She wouldn’t have a clue about what was what here.
The room they had found was an NSA monitoring facility. Tamara had known several of them were in the DC area; that had always been the rumor in the news world. She and Bobby had first thought they’d find one at the main NSA facilities at Fort Meade. That didn’t turn out to be the case. But the trip was not in vain, as they were able to dig up information that had led them to this building, a mere 1.2 miles away.
It still felt odd to be roaming around a place where they would have been shot for doing so less than two weeks earlier. Her reporter’s mind couldn’t help wondering about all the secrets they could uncover—not only at the NSA but the Defense Department, the State Department, hell, even the White House. Someday, perhaps, she’d do just that. If for no other reason than to satisfy her own curiosity.
But now they had other work to do.
So far, she knew her and Bobby’s contributions to the Resistance’s efforts had done little to help anything. They had spent months seeding videos on the Internet in an attempt to open people’s eyes about what was coming, but more times than not, Project Eden had pulled the videos down nearly as fast as she and Bobby got them up. Their last attempt, what Matt Hamilton had referred to as their Worse Case video, had gone up when it became clear the virus was being released. Its objective was to help people survive, and it had actually remained up and viewable for several days. Tamara wanted to think it had helped a lot of people, but she knew that was probably not the case.
By that time, she and Bobby had moved to the safety of a beach house in North Carolina, both thinking they may be there for some time. But then the message from a man calling himself UN Secretary General Gustavo Di Sarsina took over the airwaves. The recorded message hadn’t even been playing for an hour before Tamara’s and Bobby’s satellite phone rang, and Matt gave them the assignment that had brought them north to the DC area.
After about forty-five minutes, Bobby popped out from behind the racks and asked, “Any chance of finding something to eat? I’m starving.”
“Are you going to be able to get it to work?”
“Not sure yet. But…I think so.”
Tamara pushed up from the workstation she’d appropriated and said, “I’ll go see what I can find.”
In a break room on the second floor, she scored a couple of burritos from a freezer and zapped them in the microwave. Drinks were a couple sodas out of a machine, courtesy of some change she found in a guy named Fitzer’s desk.
“Come and get it,” she said as she reentered the hub. “I found some—” The words died in her mouth, all thoughts of food momentarily forgotten.
On the wall across the room, the giant monitor had come alive.
5
RIDGECREST, CALIFORNIA
1:21 PM PACIFIC STANDARD TIME (PST)
THE FIRST SIGN of discord occurred the same night the message from the UN had started playing over the radio. It began innocently enough. Martina Gable and the other eight survivors were gathered in the restaurant attached to the Carriage Inn—the hotel they’d decided to turn into their group home.
Everyone was excited, and though none of them—excluding, perhaps, Noreen—had truly thought they were the only ones left on the planet, hearing that others were alive was a huge relief. There were tears and laughter and smiles.
At some point, Valerie ducked into the kitchen and returned with two bottles of wine.
“I’m not sure we should be drinking this,” Riley said. She was the youngest, but none of the other girls or Craig were of legal drinking age, either.
“Why not?” Valerie asked. “You think the cops are going to bust us?”
Several of the girls laughed.
“No,” Riley said. “I mean…you know…” She frowned. “Never mind.”
“Here,” Amanda said, holding a bottle out to Riley. “It’ll make you feel better.”
“I don’t want any, thank you.”
“Come on. Just a little sip.”
“I said no.” Riley pushed out of her chair and stood up.
“Whoa,” Valerie said. “Don’t get all hurt. We friends here.”
Martina put a hand on Riley’s back. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to drink anything.”
Riley hesitated a moment before retaking her chair.
“Martina,” Amanda said, swinging the bottle in her direction.
Martina took it and raised it to her mouth. But instead of drinking, she merely let the liquid touch her lips, and then handed the bottle to Ruby.
It wasn’t long before the volume in the room increased to the point they almost had to shout to be heard.
At some point, Martha slurred, “So do we leave tomorrow for this survival place, or what?”
“Idiot. They haven’t broadcast the locations yet,” Amanda said.
“Right, right. But when they do, we’re going, right?”
She was looking at Martina, so Martina said, “When they do, we can figure it out then.”
“Or we could figure it out now,” Valerie said.
“Sure, if you want.”
“Yeah,” Valerie said. “I think we should take a vote now.”
“What’s there to vote on?” Craig asked. “Of course we’re going to go.” He looked at Martina. “Right?”
“Why you looking at her?” Valerie asked. “It’s not her decision.”
Martina donned a disarming smile. “I think we should save this for the morning, don’t you? We’re just having some fun tonight, that’s—”
“Screw you, Gable,” Valerie said. “I don’t care what you think. You are not the boss here.”
Smile still in place, Martina said, “Never said I was.”
“You don’t have to say it,” Amanda threw in. “You just act like it.”
It was amazing how old rivalries never died. Martina had been playing sports with or against Valerie and Amanda and most of the other girls since they were all kids. Some she got along with better than others. Valerie and Amanda had always proven more difficult. Martina had assumed their current situation had changed that. Apparently not.
To keep the peace, Martina excused herself to use the restroom, and had instead gone to bed. The next morning, there was no talk of the tension from the night before. Partly that was due to varying degrees of hangovers the others had, but mostly, Martina guessed, they just didn’t remember.
When the location of the nearest survival station was finally broadcast—the parking lot of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles starting on December 31st—the discussion of what to do had come up again. Fortunately, everyone was sober this time, but to avoid any problems, Martina let others lead the conversation.
When Martina had seen which way the vote was leaning, she had thrown in with everyone else, making the vote unanimous. They would caravan to Los Angeles the afternoon of New Year’s Eve.
Until the evening before they were to leave, Martina had still thought she’d probably go with them. As she lay in her bed that night, she turned on her phone, hoping it would have a signal now and she could try to reach Ben.
At first, the same NO SERVICE message was at the top where it always was. But as she was about to turn off her phone, a single bar appeared. She stared at it, hoping for more, but that was all it gave her. And then her phone vibrated, letting her know she had voice mail.
The message on the screen indicated there were actually seven, all from Ben. The last had been sent earlier tha
t day. She decided to listen to them in order received and brought up the earliest one.
But as it started to play, the reception bar was replaced by NO SERVICE, and a message appeared on her screen: VOICE MAIL UNAVAILABLE.
“No, please!” she said.
She waited, hoping the bar would come back, but it stayed on NO SERVICE. She turned off the phone and turned it on again, but that didn’t change anything. Though she desperately wanted to hear his messages, she felt elated.
If she and the other members of her softball team who’d contracted the Sage Flu the previous spring were now immune, she’d assumed Ben would be, too. He’d gone through it with them, after all. But she’d had now way of knowing for sure. Until now.
Ben was alive.
When the afternoon of New Year’s Eve came, Martina helped the others finish loading the cars, while leaving her own bag hidden behind the Carriage Inn’s reception counter. Once they were done, they gathered in the parking lot.
“We need to keep in sight of each other in case anyone has car trouble,” Valerie said. As had been happening more and more over the last several days, she was taking on the self-appointed role of leader. “Plus, we have no idea what kind of mess we might run into when we reach the city. Could be the roads are jammed up.”
“Wait,” Jilly said. “What would happen then? Would we have to walk?”
“Anything’s possible at this point, but what won’t help is whining about it, all right?”
She stared at Jilly, daring her to respond, but Jilly kept quiet.
“Good.” Valerie shifted her gaze to the others. “Everyone has water? Something to eat?”
Nods and yeses.
“Then no time to waste, I guess.”
As Valerie took a step toward her car, Martina said, “Hold on.”
Valerie stopped and looked back, her eyes narrowing as if expecting a challenge. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Martina said. “I’m just…I’m not going with you.”
“What?” both Noreen and Riley said.
The group instinctively moved toward Martina.
“What do you mean, you’re not going?” Noreen asked.
Eden Rising Page 4
