"You can communicate with others in the medical establishment around the planet?" asked Mary.
The doctor, whom they all called Mr. Buck, nodded reassuringly. "Most of us were inserted into human positions some time ago," he said. "Either in government, the military, or the medical establishment. Why do you ask?"
Mary looked at Mr. Buck, noting again that none of these hybrids seemed to have any field whatsoever. She could not read them. "I have information regarding Greensleeves," she said. "It will need to be passed along to your colleagues."
Mr. Buck nodded his understanding. "What is your information?"
Mary sighed and closed her eyes, to aid in recall. "I think your preliminary assessment is correct. Greensleeves is not spreading as quickly as it is because it is highly transmissible." She opened her eyes and looked at Mr. Buck. "It's spreading because the genetic material for this virus was designed and produced and inserted into the genome of the global human population years ago, using genetically modified food products. It was then activated globally a couple of weeks ago, probably by some sort of energetic burst, like a precisely modulated EMP. Its virulence and expression is further modulated by the past and current consumption of certain genetically modified high fructose corn syrups and other corn derivatives. Those who have eaten a great deal of this over the years, and those who consume it still, die more quickly than those who have not. It's this, I think, that helps account for why Keeley is still alive. That plus the power of your combined intentions, for which I thank you." Mary stopped and sighed. It was difficult for her, to speak of Greensleeves, and Keeley, in such stark and clinical terms, but she sensed that overt emotionality on her part would only confuse these people.
Mr. Buck nodded, then closed his eyes, cocking his head slightly as he did so. The three nurses did the same. After a few moments, all four of them opened their eyes. "Your assessment aligns with other bits of data we possess, and strikes us as sound. We shall now contact our colleagues in the human medical world. Do you have insights or instructions regarding the possible treatment of this disease?"
Mary thought back to her hurried conversation with the President. She shook her head. "Not yet, Mr. Buck," she said. "But I'll keep working on that. Perhaps this information will help."
Mr. Buck stood and bowed slightly. The three nurses stood, and all four of them filed out of the room. Mary leaned back in her chair and allowed her feelings to rise within her.
16.17
Gabrielle, Stan, and Danny sat in the hospital's visitor's lounge. Cole and Linda and the kids were asleep. Mary was conferring with the doctors. The rest had gone on a rescue mission back to the coast. These three were left, to drink coffee, and wait, and slowly come to know each other. Outside, the rain had stopped, the wind had softened, and the massive swirl of clouds was moving quickly to the west.
One thing these three had in common was a feeling of surprise. Stan was surprised to learn that his President had returned from the dead, and that her husband had strange, alien powers. Gabrielle was surprised to find herself amongst these powerful people, to be trusted with the vial, and to be asked by the President to participate in her meetings. Danny was surprised by the unshakable feeling he had, that somebody was watching over him, that he'd been rescued for a purpose, that he was cherished and wanted. It was a strange feeling, for someone who had been regularly beaten as a boy.
Danny was keeping a particularly close eye on Linda Travis and her odd husband. The thing was, he found he liked this President. She'd taken the time to greet him on the wok, even having just been rescued herself. He'd watched her deal with the hybrid, Alice, whom he'd remembered as a small child, from when he worked down in The Rock. He noted how she treated Cole's new friends and companions, and this Gabrielle girl, with grace and respect. He'd watched her keep going when it was obvious that she was cold and wet and exhausted and grief stricken at the loss of her boy, and that she felt deathly ill. He'd noted her obvious love and respect for his sister. She was not a bad one, this President, and Danny began to understand just why it was that his sister had switched teams.
This was another thing these three had in common: they were all under, or were falling under, the spell of Linda Travis, a woman who possessed intelligence, wisdom, honesty, compassion, and vision in such full measures that she stood far above the crowd. Stan had been with her for years now, and would do anything for her. Gabrielle was clearly smitten, and felt honored to be included in the President's world. And Danny could feel the force of her personality, even as he tried to maintain his observer's objectivity. As they talked of their lives, and of their current situation, it became clear to them all that there was much more going on in the world than they'd known, which was funny, given that they'd all thought they'd known a great deal. They were not natural allies, after all. Gabrielle was a member of The Families. Danny worked for The Families as an analyst and security systems specialist. And Stan considered The Families to be his enemies. And yet chance, circumstance, and fate had thrown them all together, to sit in a hospital visitors' lounge with surprisingly good coffee, to share those parts of their stories they felt free to tell, to wonder together about lost boys and hybrid aliens and an alien flu bug, and to ponder what would come next. As the day brightened and the sun began to peek through the clouds, they found themselves content to just sit and relax for as long as they could.
All except the cat who, having at last had its fill of petting, slid down from Gabrielle's lap and headed out the door.
16.18
Nicky padded silently along the hospital corridor, glancing up at the nurse half-humans and doctor half-humans as he made his way past a long row of closed doors. While he'd experienced a moment of sadness when the big metal circle thing had come out of the sky to squash his man human, he found that, all in all, he liked these new humans more. The young woman human with the pouch on her back had long, slender fingers, and she knew just how to use them, which was no small matter. And the other woman human, the one Nicky had helped step into her second life, had spoken very kindly to him, and treated him with the respect he knew that all cats deserved. He hadn't seen that older woman human for a while now, but he knew her scent, and had seen which way she'd gone. Nicky thought he'd go pay her a visit.
One of the tall, strange, half-humans saw Nicky approach the doorway in which he was standing and nodded a greeting. Nicky stepped up to the man half-human and greeted him in response, rubbing the bottom of his chin against the half-human's leg. The man half-human knelt on one knee and put out his hand for Nicky to sniff. Nicky sniffed. The creature smelled odd, but it was not an unpleasant scent. Nicky noted the tiny differences in how the half-humans' skin looked, and the lack of those small hairs on their arms and legs and faces. He'd already figured out that their faces did not work the same as the humans' faces worked. But he decided that he could get used to them. This one, at least, had the sense not to just reach out and start patting his head, which so many humans, apparently born without brains, seemed to feel the need to do. That earned the half-humans points right there.
The man half-human made his mouth move up on the ends, similar to the way humans smiled. Nicky could tell that it was an intentional imitation, and did not take it personally. The man half-human stood. He quietly turned the humans' ridiculous door-opening device, then pushed the door inward a few inches. He looked down at Nicky and cocked his head, as if to encourage the cat to go through. Since Nicky, by scent alone, already knew that the older woman human he'd been looking for was inside, he did just that.
In the room, he found the older woman human, and that tall man human she often clung to, and two smaller women humans he had not yet seen before. The four of them were sitting together on one of those long chairs, and they seemed to be sleeping. There was a guardian globe that enclosed them, and another globe that surrounded a smaller man human who was sleeping on a bed. Nicky would never intentionally disturb a guardian globe, so he stepped in front of the four sleeping humans and s
at down, just outside the globe's edge. He waited. After a time he decided to clean his front paws, which had no doubt gotten filthy during the walk down the corridor. He'd been cleaning himself for some time, his eyes closed in ecstasy, when one of the smaller women humans shouted. Nicky jerked back in surprise.
"Mihos!" the smallest woman human said. Her face had a much better smile on it than that half-human had managed to make. This time, Nicky took it personally.
16.19
It was time to meet. Decisions had to be made. Linda, her skin tones now healthy and robust, her body warm and full of life, put out the call. They'd gather in the hospital's larger Conference Room A in ten minutes: She, Cole, Stan, Mary, Danny, Sten, Gabrielle, and Marionette.
Eddie and Doobie, having returned to Augusta to report on the situation, would head right back to the coast with a contingent of hybrids, to rescue whomever they might now that the storm had passed. Doobie was intent on finding Annabelle. He leaned forward and kissed Marionette shyly before entering the wok. Eddie would shoot some footage. The hybrids had procured some professional-grade ENG gear from the military base. He was ecstatic.
The news from Boothbay Harbor, now filtering in to the networks and bouncing back out to the public, was grim: The U.S. President, Linda Travis, was missing and presumed dead. Helicopter footage of Squirrel Island put the period on the end of that sentence. It was a barren rock. For now, with Linda safely hidden away in Augusta, none of them could say otherwise.
Linda, dressed now in the jeans and sweatshirt one of the nurses had retrieved from the Presidential Home, sat at the table opposite the door, scribbling a few notes while waiting for the others to arrive. The agenda was short, but it felt like it would take forever to get through. There was the question of the vial of cure, and whether to put a stop to this Greensleeves as soon as they could, and whether they should start with Keeley. There was the question of the secret cabal, The Families, William, and what they were up to, and how they should respond, if at all. There was the question of what to make public, and how, and when, and whether it would serve them for Linda to be "dead" for a while longer. There was the question of the Middle Children's presence on Earth. And there was the question of Iain.
A few tears spilled onto the page as Linda wrote. She wiped them away with her sleeve. How could she sit in a meeting when what she wanted to do was scream in fury or hide in her bed and sob? She didn't think she could do it. But she knew she would find a way. People were dying. Other people were getting away with murder. Something had to be done. She was the someone who had to do it. Iain was lost. On his way to try to help her. She would find a way.
The time spent on Mars with William haunted her, a surly mob of words and images and feelings imprisoned in her mind, crowding into her awareness, calling out for her attention, muttering and groaning and pacing back and forth. What he'd done, and how he'd done it, still made no sense to her. On the one hand, he'd infuriated her, and left her unable to trust a thing he'd said. On the other hand, he'd sown her mind with doubts, leaving her unable to trust herself. He'd effectively taken the entire matter of how to respond to this species-decimating virus completely out of the realm of rational problem solving, leaving her with naught but her heart, her guts, her instincts, to rely on. And right now, with Iain gone, because she'd been stolen away, because she hadn't been there to save him, because William had kept her captive for so long, because he'd outright lied to her about how safe the kids were, all Linda's heart and gut felt were hatred for the man.
Linda gulped down a sob and took a couple of deep breaths. William's words again popped to mind. Those were the circumstances. Now she had to make her choices. And somewhere out there was a strange little man with seemed to think he already knew what she would choose. That infuriated her, but maybe he did know. The aliens know us intimately, he'd said. It was that which made them qualified to triage us. And she'd somehow been created for this role, this choosing. Maybe they knew her better than she knew herself.
There was no way out of this. She knew that much. No way out of deciding. No way out of making a decision that would trouble her for the rest of her days. No way out of the human race having to go through a great deal of pain, one way or the other. No way out of paying the consequences for the choices they'd made so far. But wasn't there a way that would be better than the rest? A choice she could make that would minimize the suffering and loss and heartbreak? There had to be. It was just a matter of finding it, and then taking that path. That was why Linda had called this meeting: To gather her trusted friends, and a few new stakeholders, and see if, together, they could find or hash out or create a better wisdom than Linda could find on her own. That was her hope.
Linda sighed and put down her pen. A soft knock sounded at the door. The others were arriving. She did not have to do this alone.
16.20
The makeshift infectious disease ward they'd set up in Boothbay Harbor had been flattened and washed out to sea by the storm that the World Meteorological Organization had dubbed "Hurricane Alpha." The Thieving Seagull Cafe had fallen into the harbor, with only one corner of the deck rising at an awkward angle above the surface of the water. The docks and marina were gone, leaving timbers and boats and miles of rope and cable in a jangled, jumbled mess pushed up against the shore. Sten and Eddie's old diesel Mercedes had been lifted up and deposited far down Water Street, where it now lay upside down, its trunk end raised up on the granite steps of what used to be the public library. The back up video gear was nowhere to be found.
They saw no sign of Ken and Celia. No sign of Andrew and Macy. No sign of Simon and Keith. No sign of Gordon, who'd been injured on Squirrel Island. No sign of the reporter, Steve Waymax. Yet against all hope and probability, they found Annabelle. After seeing Cole and his crew off on their last doomed attempt to reach Squirrel Island, she'd hopped into Ken's beat up Caravan and driven north, back through Boothbay Harbor and up the hill to the Country Club, where she'd once been a member. There she hid from the storm in the club's old fallout shelter, which had been converted for food storage years before. It was the highest and most secure spot she could think of in the urgency of the storm, and though trees had been uprooted and buildings flattened right above her, she'd remained safe and warm and unharmed. It was Doobie who thought to check there, remembering the supply run they'd made months before at Annabelle's urging. When he asked the hybrids to take them there, they found the old woman sitting on an overturned pickle bucket, her face to the sun, munching a handful of potato chips. She looked up and waved, as if the arrival of an alien wok was the most normal thing in the world.
"I ain't no fool," Annabelle said when Doobie expressed his joy and surprise at finding her. "Gonna take more than a hurricane to take me out." She eyed the hybrids suspiciously but kept her mouth shut for the time being. The world had grown far too weird for her to be choosey about her saviors. She looked at Doobie and Eddie and held out her bag. "You guys want a chip?" she asked.
16.21
The easy items Linda dispensed with first. She told them of the agreement she'd made with Alice, and asked whether there was anything they needed to discuss or decide immediately in regard to the Middle Children. As Alice seemed content to accept Linda at her word, they agreed to table the matter while they dealt with more pressing issues. They quickly agreed that Linda's rescue should remain a secret, and to let news of her death provide a cover for them. Sten argued that the secret cabal would have no reason to come after, or defend against, somebody they presumed to be dead. Linda noted that they might easily determine otherwise by sending a spy in the Astral realm. Gabrielle reminded them that the Middle Children had promised to shield her from such things.
It was then that Linda shared her story, catching them all up on what had transpired since her abduction from the Presidential Home almost two weeks before. She described waking up in the "lobster tank" on Mars. She told them of her trips around Mars, to Phobos, and out to the Herschel Colony. She summarized,
as best she could, her long conversation with the Fisherman. And she told them of the choice he'd put to her, and the lies he had told her, and how the virus had already been released. Then she motioned to Gabrielle, who unzipped her backpack and pulled out a smaller purse, and from that a small brown glass vial, which she placed on the conference table before her.
"According to William," said Linda, "this vial contains an easily reproducible cure for Greensleeves." The gathered participants stared at the vial for a long moment without saying a word. "The question is," she continued at last, "what do we do with it?"
Stan was appalled at the notion that there was any question at all. Of course they should test it, analyze it, reproduce it, and distribute it as quickly as was possible. Anything less than that was beyond their wisdom, he said, his face stern. There was no question.
Cole, too, appeared taken aback. He looked at Marionette, the sole representative of the Church of the Stranger, then down at his hands, as if he hoped some answer could be found in his powers of light. When Linda asked him what he was thinking, he told them all what Annabelle had told him, sharing parts of his journey to the coast and his meetings with the Church of the Stranger, of the prophecies seemingly come true, and of the prediction, in The Book of the Stranger. Stumbling on the words, he looked to Marionette, who quoted from the book. "He comes to stop his greatest love from destroying the human race," she intoned, looking directly at Linda. Cole sighed deeply, shaking his head.
Linda jerked back as if slapped. Stan snorted his disgust. "What a load of horse shit,"' he said, his voice a deep, warning growl. Gabrielle nodded, as though a piece had fallen into place for her. Linda reached out and took Cole's hand and held it without looking at him, refusing to let this quote, and this entire situation, pull them apart. Cole squeezed her hand in return. It was Gabrielle who broke the silence.
Rumi's Field (None So Blind Book 2) Page 61
