by Hamrick, R M
But the blood sample from Lisa showed the virus had burgeoned in her body. It had not only been reintroduced into her system; it had come back with a vengeance. The viral load was so massive, the three people she bit turned almost immediately.
The virus’s return reminded Satomi of bacteria developing resistance to the drugs used to combat them. If this was simply acquired resistance, treating those who hadn’t been previously cured should also become more difficult, but it hadn’t. And besides the viral load, she saw no difference between first and second infections. She was missing something.
Something that Peter might know. But was it fair to spend precious time curing the person who had put the world in this predicament? Could he fix what he had broken? Peter might just make things worse.
Satomi wished Eli were here to help her decide, or at least keep her company. While he had helped keep her prisoner — standing large at the door of Peter’s mobile lab — he was a good man. Despite not having a foundation in science, he was curious and always gave her his undivided attention as she spoke. His warm smile would make his russet face glow, especially when he comprehended a concept Satomi was explaining. He had died protecting her from Jill. To save Peter, her father, felt like betraying Eli.
Eli wasn’t here… maybe that was her fault.
Satomi pushed the notebook to the back of the counter. She bent at the waist and let her forehead touch the cool vinyl counter. Her hair fell down at all sides and created a small space of darkness.
She wished to be gone like Eli.
CHAPTER SIX
STRATEGY
The morning had gotten late. Audra knew those allowed to be outside their rooms would be when they arrived. Audra grabbed a handful of the back of Kip’s shirt as Dwyn wrenched the gate open. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at the two’s prize.
Katie leaned over a water barrel marked ‘Laundry’. Apparently, sleep was escaping her as well. Marcos was fully awake, splitting wood in the far corner. Several others were eating breakfast or otherwise keeping busy in the daylight.
“Who is that?” asked Ryder. She rose from a table scattered with tools and broken contraptions.
“Someone from Uno. He followed us home.”
“Then let Uno take care of him,” Katie called over.
Kip purred at the sight and scent of Ryder approaching. Her eyes were wide and her voice was hushed. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“He can’t go back to Uno. I’ll explain later. But this is quarantine. And he needs quarantining.” Audra wasn’t sure what the big deal was.
“It’s just… these people don’t need reminders of what they’re struggling with.” She eyed the young man, pulling like a junkyard dog, t-shirt stretching. “This guy lived in Lysent towns? Let them deal with him. We’ve got our own to care for. This is bad for morale. You’re not here all the time. You don’t realize how delicate these people are.”
Audra really didn’t give a shit how delicate they were. They were turning their backs on a form they were destined to inhabit. If they had red expiration dates stuck onto their foreheads, they’d read ‘tomorrow’ and ‘past due’. They could easily be the next on a leash, foaming at the mouth.
Audra pushed Kip through the parking lot. If anyone had a problem with it, they’d have a physical fight on their hands.
“This is ridiculous. We don’t want him here,” said someone from the picnic table.
It took a moment for Audra to locate him since he didn’t have the courage to meet her eye. It didn’t matter. They all needed to hear it.
“What you don’t understand is he is you.”
Audra scooped up her bag. She wasn’t going to pitch a fit over where Kip would stay. He could stay with her. Kip tripped on the curb, slowing their departure. Audra hoped it wouldn’t dull the sting of her last words.
They were pretty good last words.
Once inside her room, she walked Kip over the low-pile carpet and released him into the bathroom. Closing the door, she pressed her forehead on it for a moment, listening to the teenager wander the small space. She wouldn’t abandon him.
She had done enough of that.
* * *
After blessed sleep in which Audra was sure she hadn’t stirred a bit since falling face first into the mattress, she woke to fumbling noises in the bathroom. The light bordering her curtains told her it was evening. Audra wondered which evening.
Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she checked her pack for anything needing to be replenished or replaced. She would need extra rope. And she’d need food, but that still wasn’t something she was willing to take from the motel.
After washing with a rag and bucket, Audra put on the spare clothes from her bag. Her jacket on top of that. She balled up clothes to take across the way to wash. Resisting the urge to say goodbye to Kip, she stepped outside. Her skin, being recently wet, prickled with the cold underneath her loose clothes.
Dusk was well on its way. The sky was pink with streaks of gray clouds. People were eating supper before the sun dipped and left them in the dark. Audra washed her clothes in the laundry basin and silently waited for the majority of the residents to retire to their rooms. She wanted to meet with the core group, and didn’t want the whole motel butting in.
After hanging up her articles of clothing to dry, and hopefully not freeze in the night’s air, she invited Dwyn, Gordon, Ryder, and Marcos to meet in her motel room.
Marcos and Gordon brought their own chairs of wood and worn padding in. They sat along the round table with Dwyn. On the bed nearby, Ryder sat with legs crossed and feet tucked under. Audra joined her. Despite their disagreements, they could still remain amiable.
Each had brought in an LED or lantern with homemade fuel (thanks to Ryder’s engineering skills) which created patches of light on the wallpapered walls and on the serious faces of the group.
“Should I let Kip out to join the meeting?” Audra teased. Everyone shook their heads ‘no,’ in case she planned to push the joke further.
They knew her too well.
“Dwyn says there’s a list?” asked Marcos.
Without ceremony, Audra pulled out the Lysent directive. They all took turns reading it under their light of choice.
“It’s safe to say Lysent is trying to draw you out,” announced Ryder, her arms resting on her crossed legs. She glanced at Audra’s bag, which was not unpacked. “Are you going to be drawn out?”
“I don’t see how I can not go. They’re my tags. If I don’t help them, no one will.”
“A lot of these names are here at the motel,” Dwyn reminded softly. “You’re not responsible for everyone on this list. You’re on this list too, y’know. You need to stay safe.”
“The people here are safe. Everyone still thinks this place is overrun. It’s the people I left behind. I need to help them.”
Ryder shook her head in disagreement.
“I’ll go too then,” said Dwyn. Audra knew he would offer.
“No, I need you to go to Lysent.”
“Wait, what?” he asked, taken aback.
“We don’t know if the corporate cures are working. We don’t know what she plans to do with her half-zom army. We’re in the dark here.”
“And how am I supposed to shed light on any of that?”
Audra stopped pulling on a snagged string on her bed’s blanket, and mustered the courage. “Corette.”
“What! Corette doesn’t want to see me!” His face balled up in confusion or pain. “She refused to see me when I was cured. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
Corette and Dwyn were engaged when the outbreaks started. They survived together until Dwyn was bitten. Corette eventually found Lysent, married another, and was able to pay for Dwyn’s treatment.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” asked Audra.
The wrinkles atop the bridge of Dwyn’s nose remained as he tried to decipher her meaning. The others waited awkwardly. Audra was sure some of them had fig
ured it out as well. She hated having this conversation with Dwyn in a group setting, but she wasn’t sure if she’d have the guts to tell him otherwise.
“She married him so she could awaken you! She doesn’t hate you. She loves you.”
Audra’s love for Belinda had led Audra to signing her life to the only entity that claimed a successful awakening process. Audra was sure Corette had also signed her life away to save the person she loved. And she signed it with an ‘I do.’
Despite the overall shades of jealousy Audra felt for Corette’s successes where Audra had failed, Corette could have connections who would be able to give them critical information — attack plans, virus protocols, or more.
“You’re grasping at straws,” he said with more than a touch of bitterness.
“We need all the straws we can get,” said Audra.
And she knew they weren’t straws.
Vesna had protected many secrets in her life, but in one instance she hinted that Dwyn had a second connection to the rebel network. When he finally spilled his story months ago, Audra understood.
“I wouldn’t even know how to contact her.”
“Rosie can connect you. She’ll know. She handles all the awakening accounts.”
Rosie worked the front desk in Lysent’s main building. She was the first person you saw, and as Audra had heard from reports, was still the first person, despite having helped Audra. She had kept Belinda safe from being executed with Vesna by never submitting Audra’s release request. She then warned Audra about the impending attack on the laboratory.
Pain shadowed on Dwyn’s face. It was obvious he still loved Corette and didn’t appreciate the ripping open of an old wound in the name of reconnaissance.
But, they were in desperate need for any sort of advantage. Without it, they’d die. And if Greenly was lying about the efficacy of Lysent-sponsored treatment, lots of others would die too.
“OK. I will talk to her if she will see me,” he said as he gave in.
When Audra heard those words, a sharp pain glanced her heart. Images of Dwyn and another girl flashed in her mind. All of a sudden Audra wasn’t sure if she had won or not. But it did not matter. Only her people mattered. Not her. Not her vacillating feelings for the annoying man she refused to call Wilfred.
“I’m on the list,” said Gordon as if everyone else had missed it.
“Yes, I’m sorry about that,” Audra mumbled.
When Gordon had first started looking for his family, Audra had scanned his DNA with her biometric reader. It hadn’t told them much, just that someone at some time had inquired about him. Big whoop. However, it had also transmitted the information to Lysent Corporation as the reader was company property. Just another tentacle of the ever-reaching company.
“Don’t be. I’m worth food and fuel.”
“You’re worth credits,” she corrected. “Lysent controls the pricing of food and fuel. They could call inflation or whatever the hell they wanted and say you’re worth one night’s meal.”
“That’s one more night. Promise me. When I turn, you’ll surrender me to Lysent and give the bounty reward to my family.” Audra balked. “It’s the only way I can provide for my family now.”
Audra chewed on her lip. She knew she’d have done the same for Belinda.
Even if she was worth just one night’s meal.
Gordon couldn’t let Haleigh and Eliza go hungry or be cold, especially if he was mindlessly wandering a remote location as he had for years before.
“OK, I promise,” she declared, releasing her bottom lip. Although Audra knew if she could provide for his family another way, there’d be no need to surrender his body to the cold marbled building that was Lysent.
“Ryder, Marcos, keep them safe here. Forage, but don’t go far. I don’t want anyone getting snagged by a tagger.”
“I still don’t understand why Lysent wants us — me,” said Marcos.
“We live outside their system. Lysent thinks we’re a threat. And hopefully we are. Any word from Satomi?” asked Audra.
“No,” said Ryder. “And we haven’t figured it out here either.”
Another reason Audra should leave. She couldn’t help them here, but she might be able to outside their fences.
“Things are going to get bad… real bad, before it gets better,” said Gordon.
And they might not get better. But moping in a candlelit seance circle wasn’t going to get them anywhere. They hugged and said their goodbyes in the small calm before the storm.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GOODBYE
Dwyn slept on the second floor with his curtain open, so he’d wake with the rising sun. He knew Audra would be getting an early start. She wouldn’t stay for goodbyes. He’d have to be outside and in her way to see her off.
His heart had beaten heavily in his chest at the mention of Corette’s name from Audra’s lips. Worlds colliding. Corette’s name stirred a firestorm of pain and confusion. When he was bitten and the virus coursed through his body, all he felt was pain. Then, he suddenly awakened to find he couldn’t return to anything he knew. Anything he loved. Corette refused to see him. While Audra ran as a means to escape, Dwyn started running and working for Vesna to fill his life with — something.
Then, he found Audra. A woman who didn’t put up with shit in a world full of shit. While his heart involuntarily fluttered in every moment they shared, more than a romantic relationship, he wanted Audra to feel comfortable around the people she defended so intensely. She built a community. Two communities. And refused to live in either one.
The picnic table felt like ice on his rear as he waited for Audra in the morning chill. Could she be right? Corette had married to cure him, not because she loved another?
It was presumptuous.
It was nice to think about.
Even if Audra wasn’t correct, she still had a point. Corette at least had felt obligated to make sure he didn’t rot in that sedan. If he could speak with her, maybe she’d be willing to share some information that would avert disaster. Or at least, let them know when and what was coming.
Audra looked surprised when she stepped out of Room 2, her pack already on her back.
“You didn’t think you’d be able to leave without saying goodbye, did you?”
“One could only hope…” she replied.
It was always difficult to know when she was joking.
Dwyn’s knees popped as he got up from the cold seat. While he hadn’t aged much during his infection, it still seemed to be catching up to him. He thrust out a bag of shelled pecans, dried fruit, and oatmeal bars with a straight arm to signal his determination that she have it.
“I’m not taking from the stores. They need it here. I can find food while I’m out there.”
“Please take it just in case you run into trouble. It’s not from the stores. I gathered it while you were sleeping yesterday,” he lied.
Fortunately, Audra took the bag without looking at its contents. She shoved it in a side pocket of her pack. Still not saying goodbye long enough to take her pack off. They both walked to the gate.
“And trouble? When have I ever gotten into trouble?” she asked and smiled.
“Only every time you run headstrong into it. So just don’t, this one time,” he grimaced.
“I’ll see how I’m feeling,” she said and shrugged with a smile. She was joking this time. Maybe.
Audra tucked her arms underneath his and snuggled her face into the layers of corduroy and flannel on his chest. He kissed her softly on the top of her head. If they could be like this forever, that would be OK. Better would be Audra stopping for just a moment to realize she didn’t need to go running off to save people who had never known her, just because Greenly had put them on a list.
He opened the gate for her and she was gone.
Dwyn trudged back to his room to begin packing for his trip. He hadn’t done it the night before, because the temptation to help Audra tag would have been too much. It would
have been like old times, running maneuvers in the woods and fields, branches and teeth snapping.
* * *
By the time Dwyn had prepped his bag and stepped out of his dim quarters, the place was bustling with people. Most of them were lined up to get their temperatures taken so they could line up again to get breakfast. The door next to him opened and Gordon emerged from his own poorly lit accommodations.
“Morning — where you going?” Dwyn asked, eying Gordon’s khaki-colored pack.
“With you,” he said with a smile.
“I appreciate it, Gordon. But they need you here.”
“Nah, they don’t. Ryder’s pretty good at drawing and testing blood now. Marcos is organizing the food-gathering trips.”
“I still think you can do more here,” suggested Dwyn. It wasn’t that he didn’t want the company… “I’m probably just headed for a dead end.”
“You and me both, brother.” He gave Dwyn a small punch on the shoulder. “I’m going to surrender to Lysent. Get that bounty.”
Had they all gone crazy?
“Audra promised she’d take you there if you turn.”
“And you believe that? She’s not going to take me. She’s never given up on anyone.”
That wasn’t true.
Dwyn hadn’t known Belinda. Audra wasn’t really open to talking about it — or anything really, for that matter — but he knew the two had been on their own for the longest time. The Audra he knew now had emerged from that relationship’s tangled roots.
Gordon opened his canteen, which steamed with citrus and bitter pine. He tipped the mouth of the container toward Dwyn. “Besides, it’s not if – it’s when. I have a fever.”
Dwyn felt his heart drop lower in his chest. It just wasn’t fair. Gordon’s health was deteriorating. Lysent’s stance was that Gordon deserved it for not having the financial means to go through ‘proper’ channels, that Dwyn was safe because he was well-connected. But neither of those things was in Dwyn’s or Gordon’s control.
What was in Gordon’s control was a decision to trade his body in for food and fuel for his family. And soon, he would lose that opportunity as well.
