by Ellis, Tara
Turning the laptop back around, Peta pulled up one of the many tabs she had open. It was a file titled “Fossil Island”. The secret file she’d shared with Henry. In it, Peta had found the last critical piece linking everything together. Somehow, Mads suspected it was there without ever having seen it.
Stepping around the desk, she held the screen up so Devon could see it. As his eyes widened, she jumped at the opening. “Henry found a novel thermophile archaeon coming from the MOHO.”
Devon’s surprise quickly changed to anger. “Why would he keep this discovery from everyone?” he demanded. “The implications…”
“That there was some sort of biodiversity in the MOHO,” Peta finished for him. “I don’t need to tell you why. This was Nobel Prize territory, Devon. On top of that, I think it also became part of what drove his concerns over the potential eruption, and he was attempting to validate his findings before coming forward with all of it.”
“I’m not even going to pretend like I understand what that is,” Hernandez said, moving up next to Devon. “And I honestly don’t care, except I’d like to know what the hell that has to do with some greater mission. Why would a prehistoric amoeba or whatever it is, be important? I mean, considering we’re facing the end of the world and all.”
Peta grabbed the papers and shook them in the air next to the computer. “Because Mads somehow got her hands on water samples from a couple of geysers that reacted at the same time as the MOHO. One of them was from Yellowstone. Guess what she found?”
“I’ll take a shot and speculate it’s something you can’t see without a microscope, that crawled out from under the mantle of the Earth?” Hernandez said, looking confused.
“Yeah, the same thermophile,” she confirmed. “Except there was also something else in one of those samples, and she would have never spotted it without that ridiculous electron microscope she’s got in her basement.”
Devon’s eyes continued to widen so that he looked absolutely terrified. “Please don’t tell me there’s petri dishes growing The Kuru under our feet.”
“No petri dishes,” Peta said. Turning to Hernandez, she tried to explain the importance of the find to him. “The thermophile archaea are the most ancient form of DNA sequencers known, which is incredibly significant when found together with this novel prion. On their own, thermophiles are similar to bacteria but are usually harmless to humans. However, there’s a potential that when introduced to this primitive prion…”
Devon staggered back a step. “You think it’s acting as a vector.”
“I’m not a virologist,” Peta reminded them. “But there’s enough in here to suggest that’s a possibility, and Mads was scared enough by it to jump ship.”
Hernandez was rubbing at his temple. “By vector, you mean that these ancient things are helping each other spread so fast?”
Peta was impressed. “Exactly.”
“What makes you think some brain at the CDC didn’t already figure this out?” Hernandez pressed, clearly failing to see how it had all evolved.
“Because they don’t even know about the thermophile, or that there was one present in the MOHO,” Devon answered, coming to the accurate conclusions. “And unless they did, or at least suspected it, they wouldn’t have been looking anywhere else for it, meaning they wouldn’t have realized the prion came from there too, and that they were interacting with each other. Once introduced to a human host, it mutated again and all that was left was the new DNA sequence, without any trace of the thermophile that originally helped create it in the first place. Someone may have gotten one or two of the pieces to this insane puzzle, but ‘ol Mads was the only one to put it all together.”
“She did more than that,” Peta said, her anxiety building. “I think she located the source.”
Hernandez looked back and forth between Peta and Devon, scowling. “And the significance of that is?”
“With the source, and the ability to study both elements as they’re interacting, it would give us the best chance of figuring out a way to counter it.” Peta waited a moment for the men to digest the information before continuing. “We’re literally sitting on the best chance the human race has of escaping extinction.”
Devon rubbed his hands together, looking properly awed. Any hint of animosity toward Peta and her desire to pursue her new goal was gone. “To hell with hunkering down. Where are we going?”
Peta didn’t even try to dissuade them from helping her. Instead, she smiled, thankful she wasn’t alone. “To a remote place buried deep in the Amazon.” Pulling a paper from the bottom of the stack, she held up a hand-drawn map. “To a hot spring called the Libi Nati.”
Chapter 13
TYLER
Lassen National Forest, Northern California
Madeline Schaefer’s House
Tyler pulled the clean shirt over his head and breathed in the fresh laundry smell. A washer and dryer were located in the garage, so they’d decided to take advantage of the opportunity to clean up while they waited. Most of them hadn’t changed since leaving the base four days prior, and it was a time full of a lot of dirt and nervous sweat.
Though it felt good to be in fresh clothes, Tyler was more grateful that Hernandez had bathed. The guy was rank and had smelled like the inside of his gym bag. It was decided an unnecessary risk to use the shower in the guest bathroom, so they’d resorted to looping the hose over a low tree limb out front. It was cold, but since it was noon by the time they’d done it, the sun was high overhead and hot enough to make it somewhat enjoyable.
“Uh-ha!” Hernandez shouted from where he was bent over a freezer in a corner of the garage. Standing, he allowed the lid to slam shut, and then turned to face Tyler and his dad where they stood dressing. “Did anyone order steak?”
Tyler smiled at the butcher-wrapped objects in his hands. They’d grabbed whatever was on the top the night before, which happened to be chicken breast, and cooked it up on the propane-fed barbeque on the back porch. His mouth watered at the thought of steak, though Tyler was surprised he even had an appetite.
“The carrots in the garden are big enough to pull,” Bill said, also smiling. “And I’m pretty sure there’s an onion or two we can add to it.”
“What about the corn?” Tyler asked, his stomach actually grumbling.
Bill shook his head. “It’s pretty early for corn.” Wiping at his forehead, he turned to look out the open bay door of the garage. “Though it’s hot enough here for them to maybe ripen earlier than what I’m used to.” Sitting down on a stack of potting soil, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Too bad this garage doesn’t have air conditioning. I’d almost be willing to risk it for a few minutes inside without the mask on. I can’t breathe in those things. It’s even worse than the heat.”
Tyler scrutinized his dad for a minute, and noticed he’d already created new sweat stains on his clean shirt. They’d grown accustomed to the humidity and temperature on Mauritius Island over the past year, which was different from the one-hundred-degree-plus dry heat of the mountains.
Hernandez happily stomped across the garage and dropped several of the steaks onto Bill’s lap. He laughed when the older man gasped and then scrambled to prevent the food from falling onto the floor. “That oughta help keep you cool.”
Tyler wanted to feel as relaxed as Hernandez appeared to be, but the looming twenty-four-hour deadline for any symptoms to show up overshadowed everything else. He was totally paranoid and convinced every random ache, sniffle, or sneeze was a sure sign he was going to die, even if it was wasn’t one of the symptoms they’d been told to watch for.
Still studying Hernandez, Tyler gestured at him. “What’s your first name?” he asked, finally addressing something that had been bothering him for days. He knew it was totally normal for those in the military to go by only their last names, but considering everything they’d already been through, Tyler thought he should know what he considered to be the man’s real name.
He
rnandez took a couple of the steaks back from his dad before looking at Tyler with a crooked grin. “Feel free to call me Ensign, Sir, or Hernandez. Now, are you going to make yourself useful and help your father get some veggies?”
Shrugging, but accepting defeat for the time being, Tyler headed out into the bright sunshine. The sky wasn’t any hazier than the day before, which was a huge relief. He found himself getting anxious at the first sign of any building clouds, and figured it was because of having outrun not one, but two eruptions. He would never look at a dark cloud again without having an overwhelming urge to run away.
As his dad followed him outside, Tyler stopped and waited for Hernandez to join them. He had some more questions for the guy before he left them to go start the barbeque to cook their feast of a lunch. While he was excited to be taking off to South America in search of what Devon called a possible cure for The Kuru, he had no idea how they were actually going to get there.
When Hernandez saw Tyler was blocking his way to the back steps, he scowled and raised his eyebrows at him. “Yes?”
Tyler shifted from foot to foot, embarrassed with how intimidated he still got by the soldier’s moodiness. “If things are as bad as Peta says, how are we going to get all the way to this Surimese place?”
“Suriname,” Bill corrected, squinting and trying to shade his eyes with his hands. He scoffed at Hernandez when he rolled his eyes at Tyler. “It’s a very reasonable question. I think we should all sit down and make a more solid plan before we leave tonight.”
“Yeah, ‘cause it’s not like we have our passports,” Tyler pointed out.
“Martial law,” Hernandez said, shoving the steaks from his right hand under the crook of his left arm so he could stick out a finger. “Chaos and infrastructure failure,” he added, holding out a second finger. “Assess, evaluate, and adjust.” Finger number three popped out. “It won’t just be the border crossings we have to worry about, and we’ll have to constantly alter our plans as we go. Plus, I have several military contacts along the way I’m hoping we can tap into, if they’re still alive by the time we get that far. Which is why I think it’s important to leave early tonight. Every hour we sit here, things deteriorate further, making our goal that much harder to attain. Screw the twenty-four-hours. If Peta hasn’t gotten through to anyone by the time we’re done eating, I vote we move out on the double.”
“Is this an official vote?” Devon asked, walking out onto the porch above them. Hopping quickly down the stairs as Peta stepped out behind him, he moved off to the side before pulling his mask off. Gulping in a breath of fresh air, he shook his head and then gestured up at Peta. “‘Because I think we should all be involved, if it is.”
Jamming her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, Peta grimaced at them. “I’m totally on board with leaving before dark,” she said, surprising Tyler.
He thought for sure she’d want to stay until the morning and leave at dawn, or something. Peta was a planner, and the change in behavior only added to Tyler’s nervousness. She obviously didn’t have any good news.
Peta looked at Hernandez. “But we should still wait for at least a few more hours. Anyone who’s symptomatic needs to stay behind. I don’t know why you’re having a problem with understanding that,” she said with obvious frustration. “You just said it yourself; every hour it worsens. Though I’m sure that’s an accurate account of society in general and the infrastructure, it applies even more so to The Kuru. If I’ve got it, and we leave now with me unknowingly exposing all of you, we’ll be dead before ever reaching Suriname.”
“No offense to anyone else,” Hernandez countered, still holding the wrapped steaks. “But it’s not going to do any good for the rest of us to get there. You’re the one who can do something with the information and whatever is at this Libi Nati. Certainly not me.”
Peta closed her eyes for a moment, and Tyler wondered what was running through her mind. He glanced over at his dad, who was normally pretty vocal about giving his input when it came to planning the next move. He was still trying to shield the sun from his face and was sweating profusely.
“If she has it, she’ll never get there,” Devon said, jumping into the conversation. “But the rest of us can still go and try to find someone along the way who can do something with the information. Worst case, I might be able to figure something out. I actually have a couple of degrees, Hernandez.”
“It doesn’t matter!” Peta threw her hands up into the air. “We’re going to be stumbling around in the dark no matter what we do. But I don’t see that we have any other options, if we want to try and do something to help.”
That silenced Hernandez, and Devon looked down at his feet. But Tyler still had more questions. “If Mads had all those contacts with the government, why can’t you use her email or links to get ahold of anyone? There’s gotta be people left at the CDC and stuff, right?”
Peta’s shoulders sagged and she lowered her hands, looking defeated. “I wish I knew why, Tyler. I stopped caring about who I was talking to hours ago. The uplink is getting really spotty. I’m guessing because of atmospheric interference with the satellites. And like I said before, connection issues aside, I think the greater problem at this point are power outages for the servers. I’ve tried every email and phone number I can think of or find. Most of the messages have bounced back, and no one has replied to the ones that may or may not have been received. Only one call went through to the point where it rang, but no one answered. Have you gone through everything in that trailer?” she asked, looking again at Hernandez. “It might be that the only thing working soon will be ham radios.”
“I thought the internet was okay when we got here yesterday,” Tyler pushed. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around the thought that they were completely cut off.
Nodding, Peta moved to the top step, and Tyler could see more clearly how distraught she was. “When we first got here, I was able to find a couple of sites via the satellite uplink that had articles released sometime yesterday afternoon. But when I started attempting to connect with other servers, I’m not getting anything anymore. Even the government websites are frozen, and haven’t been updated since last night.”
“I think you’re right about the atmospheric interference disrupting your uplink,” Bill said, his voice sounding rough. “The servers could be going down due to being overwhelmed by everyone trying to get online at once. But I think you nailed it with the infrastructure failure. Power failure is where it’s most vulnerable.”
While his dad wasn’t an IT guy, he’d always had a good understanding of how electronics and computer systems worked. Tyler was pretty sure he’d taken some programming classes in college. He frowned as he watched his dad take a couple of tentative steps toward the stairs and then sit down hard on the bottom board while grabbing onto the bannister for support.
“Either way,” Bill continued, still gripping the railing, “We’ll probably never know. The point is that it narrows our already limited options to only one. You have to leave. Soon.”
“Dad?” Tyler tried to move to his father’s side, but he stuck out an arm to hold him off. “No. Please, I think everyone should probably stay back.”
Devon was pulling at him, but Tyler shook him off as his field of vision narrowed. All he could focus on was his dad. At the spreading dampness on his shirt and the flush that was creeping up his face from his neck.
“Bill!” Peta shouted, when he failed to answer Tyler. “You need to tell us what’s wrong.”
Clearing his throat, Bill let go of the bannister and took his head between his hands. “I thought it was just the heat, but I seem to be getting a raging headache.” Peering through his fingers, he gazed pleadingly at Tyler. “I’m so sorry.”
Chapter 14
JASON
McIntosh Lake FEMA Camp
Near Rainier, Washington
The rate at which The Kuru was spreading through the FEMA camp was shocking, even though Jason had already
seen it happen in the hospital. Based on everything he knew about pathogens and containment, they should have been able to control it in the open-air camp with the strict protocols that were already in place. Instead, Jason found himself in a sea of sickbeds less than twenty hours after locating patient zero.
It ultimately took a tent-by-tent search through the camp the previous night, to find the gravely ill man. He had collapsed in his own small tent on the fringes of the civilian area. He’d been registered at the same entrance the sick soldier was stationed at earlier in the day. The private swore he’d worn the required protective gear the whole time. According to the log, the man’s temperature was 98.2, and he denied having any symptoms.
Almost immediately after the private arrived at the medical tent, one of the other soldiers from the same check-point and two civilians who entered the camp after patient zero, also became symptomatic. That was the first wave.
By the time the sun rose around nine hours later, over a dozen cots were in use, and a supply tent had been converted into a second medical station to help hold them. People started panicking. As the day worn on, FEMA personnel were pulled out of the civilian section and then restricted access to all of their services.
“They’re bolting,” Dr. Chapman announced as he pushed the canvas flaps aside and entered the main medical tent.
Jason squinted up at Chapman, who was silhouetted by the brilliance of the setting sun behind him. Could it possibly be the end of another day already? He didn’t think he’d eaten anything since he’d arrived the night before.
“Who’s running?” Jason asked, deciding that regardless of how hungry he was, he wouldn’t be able to handle eating any food.
“Men, women, kid’s…soldiers.” Chapman shrugged. “Anyone who wants a chance to live, which makes me wonder whether those of us still here are brave or foolish.”
