SIck

by Brett Battles

  39

  “Can you hear me?” Tamara said into her phone. She was sitting in the front seat of the van, with the door closed so that no competing reporter might overhear the conversation, trying to figure out who she was talking to.

  “Yes, I can hear you,” the female voice replied.

  Tamara glanced into the back of the van where Bobby was sitting at the editing console. “Is it okay?” she mouthed.

  He gave her the thumbs up, nodding. Often phone conversations needed to be recorded, so they had a device that hooked Tamara’s phone into the van’s equipment, only this time the setup was a little stranger than other times, as the voice of the person on the other end was coming via another phone being held up to a CB radio.

  “Can you please give me your name?” Tamara asked.

  “It’s Martina Gable.”

  Tamara gave it a beat so that Bobby would have a place to cut out the first part of the audio, then said, “Martina, can you tell us where you are, please?”

  “Yes. We’re in Cryer’s Corner, California.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Well, I’m here with the Burroughs High School softball team. We were headed home from a tournament when we got stuck here.”

  “Because of the quarantine?”

  “Yes.”

  “And there are others there, too?”

  “Yeah, there’s the people who live here, and a few others who showed up in cars and got stuck, too. And Ben, of course. Ben Bowerman. He’s the one who figured out the CB.”

  “And that’s how you’re talking to us?”

  “Yeah. All the phones and the Internet stopped working. And there hasn’t been any cell service here since we arrived.”

  Now that Tamara had gotten the basics out of the way, she started in on the more important questions. “It’s our understanding that Cryer’s Corner is in the quarantine zone. How did you get there?”

  “Well,” Martina said. “It wasn’t in the zone when we arrived. Until this morning, the roadblock was west of us.”

  Interesting. “And then they moved it east?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any idea why?”

  Martina didn’t respond right away.

  “Are you still there?” Tamara asked.

  “Yes, I’m here. We think they moved it because of Paul.”

  “Who is Paul?”

  “Paul Unger. He’s the one who took the video your channel’s been playing.”

  Tamara smiled. This was exactly what she wanted. “And you’re the one who uploaded it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long after this did the Internet go out at Cryer’s Corner?”

  “Maybe an hour or two.”

  “So, after it started playing on television.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d like to talk to Paul about the video. Is that possible?”

  A pause. “He was…injured just as he got here. He’s in the café across the street.”

  “How bad is he hurt?”

  “Messed up his knee and hit his head when the guys in the helicopters took a shot at him.”

  Tamara froze for half a second, stunned. “Can you repeat that?”

  Martina did.

  “Can you tell me exactly what happened?”

  “Sure. I saw most of it from the roof of the gas station.”

  The girl then proceeded to tell Tamara about Paul’s escape. After that she relayed the story Paul had told her about his brother and his girlfriend, and their murders in the desert canyon. Through it all, Tamara and Bobby kept sharing shocked looks.

  “There’s…there’s something else, too,” Martina said as she finished Paul’s story.

  “Yes?”

  “Coach Delger thinks Paul might be sick. You know, with the Sage Flu. We’ve split into two groups. One that was exposed to Paul and one that wasn’t. No one else has shown signs of anything, though, so maybe he just has a cold.”

  Tamara had already been feeling a strong connection to the girl, but now she felt her stomach sinking. “Which group are you in, Martina?” she asked, afraid she knew the answer.

  “I…I was exposed. That’s how I found out about the video. Bu please don’t put that part in your story. I don’t want my mom to know yet.”

  “Sure. We’ll keep that part out,” Tamara said, meaning it. “Can we talk again in the morning?”

  “We’ll have to come back to the truck where the radio is. What time?”

  “Eight?”

  “Zee?” Martina asked. “Is eight okay for you?”

  “As long as I’m still sitting here, which looks pretty likely,” the trucker who’d connected them said.

  “Great,” Tamara replied. “We’ll talk to you then.”

  As soon as she hung up, she turned to Bobby. “Oh, my God.”

  “Oh, my God is right,” he said.

  “I’ll bet you that the helicopters that shot at this Paul guy are the same ones we saw. The same ones who killed his brother and his girlfriend.”

  Bobby didn’t reply, but the look on his face said he was thinking the same thing.

  There was a knock on the passenger window beside her. Joe was standing right outside. He’d been on lookout to make sure nobody got near the van while she was on the phone. She motioned for him to climb into the back.

  “So?” he asked, once he’d joined them.

  “You’re not going to believe it,” she said.

  “Tell me.”

  While Bobby worked on cutting the important parts of the interview into their already prepared piece, Tamara filled Joe in.

  “I think we should go up with it on my next spot,” she said once she was done.

  She could see the hesitation in Joe’s eyes.

  “Come on. It’s great stuff,” she told him.

  “It is,” he said. “I would just feel a bit more comfortable if we sent it to the network first, so they know what we have.”

  “I think we should just go for it,” Tamara argued. “I don’t want them messing this up.”

  “You know that’s not the way we’re supposed to do things. Network has the right to see all this first.”

  “Oh, I see. You’re Mr. Corporate-Rule-Follower now?”

  “No,” he said, his face hardening. “But I am a man with a family who would like to keep his job. We do this on our own, there’s a very good chance we get fired. You’ll have no problem finding something else. Me, it won’t be so easy.”

  She looked out the window, annoyed, but knowing Joe was right.

  “Fine,” she said. “But if the network tries to change any of this, our version gets posted to the Internet.”

  • • •

  Mr. Shell had been right to keep his eye on the reporter. Perhaps taking her brother had been a mistake, but it had revealed that she was a problem.

  If people would just let things go, they had a much better chance of living.

  He had watched the report the woman and her editor had just sent to their bosses in New York, and knew it was time to do something about it. But given the slapdown he’d gotten over the death of the girl’s brother, he decided to cover his ass first.

  The Director of Preparation called five minutes after Shell sent him an email with a link to the video.

  “Tamara Costello appears to be very good at her job,” the DOP said as soon as Shell answered.

  “Unfortunately for her, sir.”

  “Yes.”

  Shell hesitated a moment. “I assume you’d like her removed.”

  “Mr. Shell, I believe part of your job is making those decisions yourself. I don’t have time for you to run every little aspect of your operation by me first.”

  Shell gritted his teeth, but pushed his frustration down and said, “I’m just bringing this particular case up in light of what happened concerning the subject’s brother.”

  “Well, he was a mistake. You should have seen that from the beginning.”

  “Yes, sir. You’re rig
ht, of course.”

  “I’m sure you’ll make the right decision this time, Mr. Shell.”

  The line went dead.

  • • •

  The Director of Survival was sitting across the table from the DOP. They had both been eating their dinner when the email from Shell came in. Together they had watched the video, then the DOS listened as his counterpart talked to Shell.

  “So he was looking for guidance, then?” the DOS asked once the other director had hung up.

  “Yes, he was.”

  “Disappointing.”

  “It is, but given recent history, not necessarily surprising.”

  The DOS cut his asparagus into three parts. “Better to know now.”

  “Very true.”

  “Is his replacement ready?”

  “Of course.”

  With nothing more to say on the subject, they both began eating again.

  40

  “On purpose?” Ash asked.

  Chloe was still watching him. “I know it’s hard to believe, but yes.”

  “I’m not really sure I know what you mean by that.”

  “What I mean is that this group of people we’re up against, the group you’ve unintentionally become entangled with, is working toward bringing about the end of civilization as we know it.”

  He tried hard not to laugh as he shook his head. “You’re starting to make the idea of a fake moon landing sound reasonable.”

  “I warned you,” she said.

  “You did.” He should have known better than to ask questions. Whatever delusions these people were operating under were their business, and obviously had little to do with his kids. But as he watched the road his curiosity got the best of him. “Just exactly how are they supposed to be bringing about the end of mankind?”

  “I didn’t say the end of mankind. I said the end of civilization as we know it.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  She was silent for a moment, then said, “How many people are on Earth right now, at this minute?”

  With a smirk, he said, “Well, I’m not sure I have the exact number.”

  She frowned at him. “Roughly.”

  “I don’t know. Four or five billion?”

  “Over seven.”

  “Okay, seven.”

  “When do you think we reached one billion?”

  “I have no idea. Why is it—”

  “The early eighteen hundreds. Just a little over two hundred years ago. That means it took over a hundred thousand years for us to reach that number. Do you know how long it took to reach two billion? Just over one hundred and twenty years. Three billion, thirty-three years. Four, fifteen. You see the pattern?”

  “So are you saying we’re growing so much it’s going to bring about the end of civilization?”

  “These people, the ones that Dr. Karp works for, they believe exactly that. They believe the end of civilization is impossible to avoid. But they also believe that if they can control how things end, they can create a new beginning without sacrificing the resources the planet still has.”

  “Okay, so how are they planning to do that?”

  “You ready? This is the good part, relatively speaking. They’re going to eliminate over 99% of the current population.”

  Ash snorted a laugh. “Right. Sure. They’re going to kill off 99% of the planet.”

  “More than ninety-nine. We don’t know the exact target number, but we think they want to end up with around ten million people. They start again, only without losing any of the knowledge the human race has already obtained.”

  Ash shook his head. This was ridiculous. Chloe, Matt, Rachel, and the others had been more than helpful, but they were clearly operating on the fringe of reality. Check that, beyond the fringe.

  “What do you think was going on at that base where you and your family lived? You said Matt told you, right? It was a test, Ash. They’re trying to find the best method to get rid of everyone else. And when they do finally unleash whatever it is they come up with, you better believe that those they’ve chosen to remain behind will have been immunized against the disease by a vaccine developed from someone who had true immunity.” She paused. “Someone like you and your children.”

  The sneer that had been on his face disappeared.

  “No one ever believes it the first time,” she went on. “I didn’t. So I don’t expect you to, either. But you’ve heard it now. It’s there in your mind. In time, you’ll see that everything I’ve told you is true.”

  See that everything you’ve told me is crazy, more like it. But even as he thought that, there was a small kernel of doubt tapping at the back of his mind.

  He took the next exit, then switched places with her and tried to get some sleep. But each time he started to drift off he would see the same emergency vehicles that had been parked on his street the night Ellen died. Only they weren’t parked just on his street now.

  They were everywhere.

  41

  Night had descended over Fort Irwin, the sky filling with the arcing band of the Milky Way. But Tamara wasn’t looking at the sky as she paced impatiently near the lights Bobby had set up for her next report. Joe had disappeared fifteen minutes earlier. She had been under the impression he was taking a call from the network, but how long did it take for them to say, “Yes, play the video”?

  The three of them had already been waiting for over an hour for a response. An hour! It was enough to make her want to punch the side of the van over and over. Couldn’t the network see how important this was? Couldn’t they understand she needed to do this for her brother? The reporting was good, and the evidence was there. She just needed the damn go-ahead.

  Maybe she should have just ignored Joe, and had Bobby send it up live during her spot. Maybe they should still do that.

  Not maybe.

  With a renewed sense of determination, she headed around the van to tell Bobby to get the report ready, but before she reached the door, the sound of multiple helicopters cut out any ability to have a conversation.

  She moved to the end of the van. The area near the media area had seen a drastic increase in the amount of helicopters using it for a landing area. Every time they arrived, Tamara would check, hoping they’d be the two helicopters from earlier, the ones with the man who’d killed Gavin. But they hadn’t returned.

  Until now.

  “Bobby!” she yelled.

  Realizing he couldn’t hear her over the noise, she ran back and grabbed his arm, then pointed at the camera. As soon as he picked it up, she pulled him to the end of the van. When he saw the helicopters, he raised the camera and turned it on.

  Like earlier, several men climbed out of each helicopter, then gathered together. When they finished talking, they started heading as a group in the general direction of the media area.

  “What are they doing?” Bobby asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tamara replied. “But try to get a shot of each of their faces.”

  “It’s a little dark.” While the landing area was flooded with bright light, the media area had to make do with a few scattered floodlights on poles.

  “Do what you can.”

  As the men got closer, she could see the two in front scanning around, looking for something. Then one of them seemed to settle on the PCN van. He said something to the other man, then the whole group veered slightly to the left and headed straight for Tamara and Bobby.

  “What the hell?” Bobby said.

  The men were still a good hundred feet away when someone grabbed Tamara and Bobby’s arms from behind. They both turned quickly. It was Peter Chavez.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “What are you talking about?” Tamara asked.

  “I’m talking about saving your lives.”

  “Saving our lives?” She tried to pull her arm out of his grasp, but he didn’t let go.

  Moving his face close to hers, he said, “Those soldiers? They�
�re here to kill you. Just like they killed those two kids out in the desert. Like they killed your brother.”

  “What? How did you—”

  “Come on!”

  He pulled at her until she was running along with him. Bobby, who’d heard it all, fell in beside her. Chavez led them on an angle that kept the van between them and the approaching soldiers until they were able to duck around the back of a transmission truck belonging to a Los Angeles network affiliate.

  “How do you know that’s what they’re here to do?” Tamara asked, shaken.

  “They know about your report. They’ve killed it in New York, and they’ve already got Joe, but you’re still a loose end.”

  “Joe? But how—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, cutting her off. “We have to keep moving.”

  He pushed off the truck, and ran toward the building the media had used to sleep in. Tamara shared a quick look with Bobby, then they both took off after Chavez.

  “All the way through,” Chavez whispered once they were inside.

  The large room in front still had cots set up all over the place, so they had to weave around them to get to the door on the far wall. Passing through it, Tamara glanced back at the building’s entrance, sure that soldiers would rush through and pursue them. But, so far, they hadn’t shown up.

  Perhaps Chavez was wrong. How did he even know the soldiers were after them in the first place?

  “Are you sure—”

  “Come on, come on!” he yelled.

  They were in a corridor now that seemed to run the rest of the length of the building.

  “Peter, please,” she said, desperately trying to convince herself that everything was all right. “How do you know they’re really after us?”

  Peter kept looking toward the door that led back into the main room, obviously anxious to keep moving. “I have a friend at your network. Dean Gaboury. Do you know him?”

  “Dean? Yes, sure.” Dean was one of the suits in charge of afternoon news coverage.

  “He told me your story’s been killed, and that Joe’s already been detained. He said they were coming after you, too, and asked if I could hide you someplace safe, until they can get this worked out. Your network doesn’t like the idea of its reporters being arrested.”