End Game (Calm Act Book 1)

by Ginger Booth

  The streaming video cut off and automatically loaded a revised story. Authorities closed all public transportation this afternoon in Greater New York due to a credible terrorist threat involving –

  I don’t know where they were going with that version. It cut off too quickly.

  Next up, a very cheerful young woman, no backup video. Authorities have closed all public transportation in New York City. This is part of a dry run of the border closings planned on January first. Disaster preparedness drills will also be running throughout the metro area. Citizens are encouraged to stay home, and enjoy a day off. She smiled winningly. End of report.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Mangal pointed at the screen with thumb and forefinger, one of his less American gestures. “That doesn’t accomplish anything.”

  “It explains hazmat suits, I guess,” I said. “Keeps people calm. Maybe.” I checked. “They broadcast that last version.”

  “It doesn’t warn people what to do in response to an active disease threat,” Mangal argued.

  “You’re preaching to the choir again,” I sighed.

  I called Alex and Zack back, and asked Alex to come home and stay home for the rest of the day. Zack I just told the official news report.

  He snorted. “And you believe that?”

  “No.”

  “That was a short answer,” he observed.

  “Yes.”

  “Alex?”

  “Coming home. Now.”

  “…I see. Well, maybe I’ll drop by.”

  I must have sighed too hard when we hung up.

  “Problem?” inquired Mangal.

  “I’m not very good at lying. And Zack is really good at reading me.”

  “Get better at it,” Mangal advised. “Quickly.”

  In the end, I told Zack outdoors about my phone conversation with Adam at the Greenwich border, with a stress on the Ebola part. “But maybe I’m just overreacting,” smile.

  And I took a snapshot of the CDC confirmed cases map, added a more emphatic ‘Ebola’ label and circled the date and time. I compressed it, renamed the file ChristmasParty.png as though it were uncompressed, and sent it to Jean-Claude Alarie’s Canadian email address, with a burbling note about how adorable my kids were at the caroling party last week. I’d mentioned to Jean-Claude that I didn’t have children. I sent it to my friends in Asia as well, more securely by prearranged encodings.

  “Give me a copy of that picture,” Mangal asked.

  Drat. I hadn’t thought he was paying attention. We’d supposedly gotten back to work. I dropped the picture to him without it passing outside my local network. I know he encoded it far more thoroughly than I had, but I don’t know who he sent it to.

  Adam finally made it home six hours after I talked to him in Greenwich.

  Chapter 10

  Interesting fact: Alex’s survey of homes in our end of Totoket turned up about 50% of homes abandoned. Many of the missing were middle-aged or elderly home-owners. In most cases, neighbors didn’t know where they’d gone.

  “I want to marry your view, Adam.” I sighed happily, gazing out at Long Island Sound from the main floor of his house.

  The house was raised on pylons, as were most of the neighboring beach houses. Hurricane Irene, back in 2011, caved in many of them. They were rebuilt on stilts to let future storms wash through underneath. At the moment, our cars were parked down below. The parking spaces were swept clean, but it looked like sand had washed into the back lawn again recently. Or perhaps he’d just given up on clearing it. Adam’s immediate neighbors were gone, maybe for the winter, maybe forever, storm shutters secured across their extravagant Sound views.

  “Telescope.” Adam pointed to a corner. He was making tea in the open kitchen. The whole main floor was one room, seemingly half walled in glass. “I spotted some otters out on the reef this morning. Take a look.”

  “Really?” I eagerly peered into the telescope, a classy-looking brass affair with brass tripod, already trained on the reef. “Seals,” I breathed, in rapture. Gulls wheeled in and out of the telescope view as well. They dive-bombed the seals on a low scrap of dark seaweedy rock that peeked out of the calm grey water.

  “Oh, the seals are always there,” Adam assured me. “I can stare at that view for hours. There are binoculars too, on the bookcase, if you want them. The telescope is pretty high-powered. It’s a little hard to find things with it.”

  I picked up the binoculars and checked the horizon, toward Long Island. But it was too misty to see anything, including Coast Guard vessels. That seemed fair enough. If they were out there, they’d be close to Long Island, 18 miles away. We were near the widest part of the Sound. I scanned the beach, but no one was out there. For once, we had a December day that felt like December ought to, clammy with temperatures hovering just above freezing. My ears froze going for a beach walk on a day like that. There was hardly a footprint in the sand below the high tide line. I’d walked this beach often, though it was supposedly private property. It was about half tide now, the water receding. I watched the wildlife a bit more, gulls here, a cormorant diving for fish there, the seals at ease. I set aside the binoculars, breathing deep the salt air and beauty.

  “Sunday afternoon tea is served, my lady,” Adam invited, from the dining table. He bowed in his steampunk finery.

  His brown suit featured wide lapels on a frock coat whose pleats swished enchantingly in the back. A watch bob dangled between pockets on a lavender floral brocade vest. A high white collar framed his jawline, with a stock of the same fabric as the vest. I wore the same ensemble I’d worn the day we met, complete with striped rose sateen skirts, lace gaiters, pleated brown jacket, and silly little plumed hat.

  “Well, welcome to my home. I’m sorry it’s taken so long,” said Adam. He admired my outfit as he sat back and sipped his tea. “Busy time.” He smiled apologetically.

  “I’m just glad to finally be here.” We’d barely seen each other since Montreal, just a couple short visits at my house. “And finally share our steampunk.”

  “Oh, and finally have our filet mignon later,” he promised. “I must admit, I liked the corset better. But your outfit today brings back happy memories.”

  “Mm, of a time gone by, what, a month and a half ago?” We laughed. It was the Sunday before Christmas, and we’d met near Halloween. “Let’s not,” I said suddenly. “We’re here and now, and it’s lovely. That’s all.”

  “You never fail, do you,” he murmured, with a slow smile. “Alright. I was going to compare Christmas plans and ask whether you’d managed to reach your parents yet. But you’re right. That’s boring, and depressing.”

  “Yeah. No. Let’s not. Your tea is delicious, sir. And the cookies.” They were delicious, thin crisp cookies that tasted of caramel. The tea tasted British somehow. I knew my herb teas, not the imported real ones. We sipped, and crunched, and admired each other.

  “I’m sorry. I blighted the conversation,” I said eventually.

  Adam smiled. “Don’t think of the word ‘wolf,’” he agreed. “I appreciated the sentiment deeply, though.”

  “So, you’ll be seeing your family for Christmas in Greenwich?” I inquired brightly.

  “Yes. One last time.”

  My smile hurt, but I insisted on keeping it up. “Last time?”

  “They enter their ark the day after Christmas.” He flashed me an attempt at a smile. “I don’t expect I’ll see them again.”

  “I guess I assumed you’d all be in the same ark.”

  “No. No, mine is… Well. Not open to the public, anyway. The rest of the family bought into a nice ark up in the northwest corner of the state. That’s where I was last weekend. My father wanted me to look the place over, check for any obvious issues I felt ought to be addressed. I wasn’t allowed to see much, though, aside from the public areas and the hydroponics. No visitors allowed in the power plant and water supplies and such, even as a professional courtesy. My stepmother crie
d a lot, about me not being with them.”

  “I’m sorry, Adam. That sounds thoroughly miserable. So was it? A sound, well-designed ark?”

  He shrugged. “It’s about standard.”

  “Is yours? Standard?”

  “No, as a matter of fact. It’s not. Want to come see?” He managed a real smile again at my surprise. “I’d like you to see it.”

  “Yes! I’d love to. Thank you!”

  “I would like you to see it. My life has revolved around it for a few years now. I guess I’d like to show it off. But… Heard anything more about the UNC ark?”

  “They still say they’ll resume interviews after New Year’s.” I took a sip of tea. “We’re pretty sure I won’t be in that ark, aren’t we?”

  “No,” he agreed. “But if you wanted to believe that you would be… Some people need to believe that things will get better soon. A magic pill, who knows.”

  “I think I need to believe I’m living today. Really living, as though there is no tomorrow.”

  “There might not be.”

  “Yet a little hoarding is only prudent. There might be a tomorrow. Did you have any other downers you needed to get out of the way?”

  He laughed. “No. You?”

  “Nah.”

  “Good. Did you bring a bathing suit?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Good.” He smiled crookedly. “I thought we might catch the sunset from the hot tub.”

  I examined the deck out the windows. It was a nice deck, complete with specially canted plexiglass railings so as not to obstruct the expensive view. It blocked the wind without catching it like a sail. Nice teak furniture. Empty planters, it being December. No hot tub.

  Adam pointed up. “Three season porch off the master bedroom.”

  “This is the fourth of three seasons,” I pointed out.

  “The water’s nice and hot,” he promised.

  “We might have to imagine the sunset.” Though the cloud cover did seem to be breaking, and the breeze freshening.

  “I have every confidence in your imagination,” said Adam. “Shall we?”

  Getting undressed from our steampunk finery led to one thing and another. By the time we made it from Adam’s bedroom out to the hot-tub, the cloud cover had broken. The last gasp of orange sun peeked between two remnant strands of grey and hot pink cloud, tipping the twilight view with soft golden highlights.

  I couldn’t help padding out to the hot-tub with arms hugging my chest for the cold, and bent over for modesty. The Sound side of the porch was all window, and I didn’t have a bathing suit. Adam stood tall and laughed at me. There was no one outside those windows to see us but seagulls. He easily flipped off the hot-tub cover, unleashing a cloud of steam, and powered up the water jets to set the cauldron roiling.

  I slipped into the broiling hot-tub down to my ears, and listened to the water burble and frolic. I only came up when I started getting overheated and dizzy. Adam leaned back, head on the edge of the tub, and watched the last drop of sun, scarlet now, vanish into a band of haze at the horizon. I scooted up to him, and he flung a lazy arm over my shoulders.

  “Relaxed?” he inquired.

  “Molten,” I agreed. “You?”

  “Absolutely. Don’t let me fall asleep.”

  “First star,” I pointed out. The bright white flare shone out of red-violet sky in the southwest.

  “Venus,” he disagreed.

  “Close enough. Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, get this wish I wish tonight.”

  Adam frowned slightly in concentration, then gave it up. “What do you wish for, Dee?”

  “Earth to be alright. Healthy and vibrant and full of life.”

  He pulled me closer and rested his head on mine. “Good wish,” he whispered.

  We didn’t turn any lights on. The sky darkened and the Milky Way appeared. It was like being suspended in the stars. Without a moon, there was only the barest flicker of reflection on the water below. I hadn’t been to the beach at night since the streetlights were banned. It used to be that the horizon never lost a sickly glow. A Milky Way that vivid was only visible far from the city lights. But the cold winter air held little moisture or haze, and no man-made light pollution intruded. The stars were gorgeous, and I felt like I could reach out and touch them, as I used to feel only in the Rockies or mid-desert.

  “If I had this tub and this view, I think I’d be here every night for hours,” I said.

  “You think that, when you buy it. But then you hardly use it,” Adam replied. “This is what I intended when I bought the place. But this is the first time I’ve used the hot tub that really matched that vision.”

  “I think you’ve had women in this hot tub before, Adam Lacey.”

  “I have,” he allowed. “But not the right ones. Too… I don’t know. Brittle. Not real.”

  “You’re talking to someone who showed up in costume.”

  He laughed. “I hate to break this to you, Dee Baker,” he whispered in my ear. “But your costume doesn’t hide you very well. You shine right through.”

  “Now, that’s another one of those unmanageable extravagant compliments. It’s like an arms race. And I was so relaxed.” I sighed a put-upon sigh. “Let’s see. I really love your bath tub, Adam. And the décor. First rate sparkly bits out there. The company’s not too shabby, either.”

  He laughed and dunked me.

  Eventually we wandered down to the kitchen, both dressed in his pajamas. Adam confessed he wasn’t much of a cook, except for breakfast. But he’d acquired superb ingredients. Glass of red wine at hand, I fixed us herbed new potatoes, caramelized onions and mushrooms, fresh local greenhouse spinach with onions and dill, and meltingly delicious medium rare filet mignons, crusted with Montreal steak seasoning. It was grass-fed all natural beef. I drenched it in drawn butter to compensate for its low fat content. Forget $100 a pound – this was nearly $500 in meat. For dessert, he’d bought a ready-made fresh apple pie and a pint of deluxe vanilla bean ice cream. No Montreal palate-clearing sorbet between courses, alas, but we didn’t really miss it.

  After that we killed the lights and the rest of the red wine, stared out at the stars some more, and cuddled on the living room couch until bedtime. We slept deep in the winter silence, lulled by the gently lapping waves.

  It was like a last gasp of the very finest, of a lifestyle that was already gone forever. I’m glad I got to use that home, that hot tub, that view with him, the right way.

  -o-

  Being cut off from the rest of the world certainly mattered. The New York and Canadian borders completed New England’s isolation. We had no further imports. The natural gas pipelines still worked – for now. But gasoline and fuel oil were not produced in New England, and the power grid was severed at the borders. Gasoline was rationed, almost entirely reserved for government services. I certainly didn’t rate any. At Christmas that year, we still had enough power and gas heat. There were usage caps, but we simply figured out how to stay beneath them.

  We certainly didn’t put up Christmas lights. The few people who did, got fined.

  And we still had Internet. From several different directions, in fact. Mangal noticed that our three adjacent houses had three different Internet providers using two different technologies. He laid some cables and switchboxes to extend the services to each house.

  Although they still went through the motions, there was no credible national or international news. State and local news tended to focus on new government regulations and supply issues, and feel-good stories of neighbors working together in harmony. Grapevine news tended more to local bully outfits trying to steal other people’s hoards. There were no trials for people caught doing this. Attempted looters were killed on sight.

  There were a lot of wild rumors about what was happening in New York and Boston and Providence. Most of the interior state borders in New England were postponed while the Boston-Providence area was cordoned of
f ahead of schedule. New England no longer included its southeast corner. I learned reliably that Cape Cod organized its own border, cutting itself off from the mainland. I wished them luck with it, but doubted they had the means to hold back millions of people determined to overrun them, if it came to that. And Cape Cod on its own was woefully lacking in resources.

  Work was kind of a joke, under the circumstances. The net outcome of hundreds of skilled man-hours thrown at the censors, was a few pretty static weather infographics on 20th century weather phenomena, and a single page national border map that was a flat-out lie. Mangal and I and our teams went back to doing little bits of national news broadcast support, mostly graphic overlays and charts of data that were half fiction.

  Shelley’s Mom vanished, like so many others. UNC closed down the headquarters in Stamford after the Christmas party in mid-December. I suggested Shelley move into New Haven, where there were plenty of college students and young people and a bit of residual night-life. But she was scared of the cities, even Connecticut’s small ones. I sent Alex off with her to find her an abandoned place in the neighborhood. She ended up moving in with him and his rabbits and guinea pigs.

  When I saw her crappy little furnished efficiency room in Stamford, I didn’t blame her for wanting to leave. Alex and I went down with her to help carry stuff back by train and foot. It didn’t really require three of us. Alex had better bedding and bath and kitchenware. There wasn’t much to carry except her clothes and a box of mementos she’d taken from her Mom’s. We respectfully left her alone with the place to say good-bye. It was her first home of her own, after all. Even if it smelled a bit rank and had discolored peeling paint and rust-stained plumbing. She didn’t cry long. Tough young woman.

  Of course, Mangal and I knew what was happening in New York and Boston, at least to some degree. Mangal looked grey with it, especially when the putrid smoke blew from the west from unimaginable pyres of burning bodies. After a while the confirmed Ebola case counts weren’t updated anymore. CDC personnel were withdrawn, at least the ones who were willing to leave. Health care, public services, first responders, all the social systems broke down in the city itself. Without any credible care, the virus proved unusually deadly. The CDC records stopped at 75% fatality, but it had been climbing for days. Past experience with the hemorrhagic fever topped out at 90% fatal to the afflicted.