by Bobby Adair
Chapter 18
If they die, who cares?
After nearly a week running his plasmapheresis clinic, settling into the monotony, Paul was still taken aback by Marazzi’s answer to Paul’s question: What happens if there’s a medical emergency?
If they die, who cares?
Worse still, the anticoagulant in the cocktail of drugs Paul was required to inject into the volunteers interacted badly with other drugs with the result that some prisoners didn’t stop bleeding.
“What happens?” Paul asked. “What do I do?”
“You try to stop it. You call for help if you want, but usually they bleed out.” That was Sergeant Marazzi’s apathetic answer.
Silo K3 was full of prisoners, lifers mostly. Marazzi said they’d volunteered for the program to help their fellow man and pay back society for their egregious sins. They’d offered up their veins for premature human tests on Ebola cures. All of the volunteers had suffered through a bout with an attenuated strain of Ebola and had won. They had the golden antibodies in their blood. And like Paul, they’d all been nationalized.
And Paul was the mechanism through which that nationalization came to its effect. He harvested their plasma by running their blood through the plasmapheresis machine that filtered out the plasma before pumping the red blood cells back in.
In theory, it was easy. Find a vein. Poke a hole. Watch the crimson blood flow out of their bodies through a clear plastic tube. Listen to the machine whir while it performed its function. Then watch the denuded blood cells flow back through the tube and into another hole.
Nothing to it as long as nothing goes wrong. The machine does all the work. Paul only had to sit around for a half hour or more and keep himself entertained while the machine finished. If the machine finished. Several times they didn’t. One just stopped. One made a grinding noise. Another smoked. A man named Vince had to come by the lab and do a repair each time something went wrong. He had the demeanor of a man who spent too much time smoking marijuana and didn’t instill any confidence in Paul that he had anything but the most rudimentary understanding of how the machines worked.
Paul saw sheet-draped bodies wheeled down the corridors on gurneys, at least a few every day, red splotches on white linen where too much blood ended up in the wrong place.
Nevertheless, Marazzi insisted the process was safe. Safe enough. Nothing to worry about.
Paul’s clinic—that’s what they called it now that he was in charge—had been one of several control rooms in the silo complex. It was a poorly lit, dirty box seemingly hewn from ancient concrete and old rust. The floor was covered with government-style linoleum—mostly. Huge holes and paths were worn through the dull patterns, exposing blackened concrete beneath. Whether the black in the concrete was a half-century of settled dirt or mold growing in a moist home, Paul tried not to think too much about it.
The complex consisted of six Titan missile tubes, each bored a hundred feet or more into the earth, forty feet in diameter, and topped with concrete and steel doors three feet thick. Steel blast doors at the bottom of each tube connected them to the complex’s curving tunnel system that led to the dorms, storage rooms, machinery, living quarters, shops, and control rooms—a room for everything a few dozen men required while securing the site, maintaining the missiles, and launching.
Paul had set the precedent during his first day of tenure that his clinic door would remain open. One of the complex’s lower-level guards had stopped by and told him to close it. Paul resisted and argued that no specific order from the Colonel required the door remain shut. Paul didn’t know that for a fact, but he was hoping that the guard didn’t know either or the Colonel hadn’t had time to issue orders to that degree of detail.
The guard groused. The door remained open. Within a day, every door in the silo complex except for those on the missile tubes and the detainee’s cages was left open. It wasn’t a solution to the isolation Paul felt in his long hours underground, but it helped.
Conversation was another salve at least when the volunteers, the guards, or Paul could bring themselves to talk about anything but the repressive circumstances, their loved ones who’d died, or the general state of decay in a world falling apart. The rusty silo that surrounded them and the sporadic parade of bagged bodies bound for the pyres by the east fence put a damper on any hope, any smile. Only the blackest of humor survived.
The working hours were arduous. Paul was responsible for seeing to it that each of the ninety-eight volunteers in silo K3 was processed twice weekly. Paul had three machines and three beds in his clinic. Each volunteer took forty-five to ninety minutes to process by the time Paul accompanied the guards into the silo—with list in hand—to drop off the three he’d just completed and collect another trio. Then he had to hook each of them up, filter out a full bag of plasma, unhook them, bandage them, fill their plastic water bottles—they each had one—and give them a couple pieces of bread. Paul had been told cookies were available at first, but those ran out. Every luxury, no matter how minor, was in short supply.
Paul spent twelve to fourteen hours a day ferrying prisoners with the help of the guards and watching as machines slowly sucked liquid from veins and then pumped platelets back in.
As had become his habit, every night after Paul had crossed the day’s last name from his list and the last volunteer was locked away, he climbed the tall, rusty ladder out of the warren to spend his last hour breathing cold, late-autumn air while staring at the twinkling stars in the long smudge of the Milky Way spread across the night sky. In the dark, the fence around the complex was nearly invisible. Lights from the windows of the barracks were dim enough not to diminish his night vision. Even the light pollution from Denver was severely reduced. Maybe a third, maybe half of everyone once living there had died. Those who hadn’t were forced into energy rationing. Blazing porch lights and street lamps were luxuries for which the energy supply was too short to provide.
Only the pyre by the east fence blazed brightly enough to hide the stars from Paul’s sight.
“Not a very big fire over there tonight.”
Startled, Paul turned toward the voice. He hadn’t heard anyone else come out of the silo.
“You’re that new guy on silo K3, right?”
Paul nodded.
Larry stepped up and extended a hand to shake.
Paul looked at the hand but made no move to take it.
Larry grinned, pulled his hand back, wiped it on his pants, and then tucked it in his pocket. “Can’t get used to the rules, you know.”
Paul perfunctorily smiled and looked back at the stars, hoping the guy would get the message.
“I’m Larry Dean. I pick up the blood from the clinics downstairs.”
Paul knew who Larry was, though the two hadn’t spoken before. Usually, Larry came into the clinic and picked up boxes of plasma when Paul was out with the guards dropping off and picking up volunteers from the silo. Everyone had a job to do.
“You’re Paul, right? I heard one of the guards call you that.”
Paul confirmed but didn’t offer up his last name.
Larry stepped closer to Paul and took up a spot looking at the stars. “Pretty.”
“Yep.”
“I never looked at ‘em much before.”
Softening and starting to feel the comfort of a normal, casual conversation, Paul said, “It was easy to get caught up with everything. We turned the night into day with electricity and lost sight of the sky in the trade.”
Larry chuckled. “You must be pretty smart.”
Paul looked at Larry. “How’s that?”
“I don’t even think things like that.”
“I’ve been out here a lot since they gave me the job in the clinic. I’ve had lots of time to think.”
“Time don’t matter. I had lots of time too. I don’t think that kinds of stuff.” Larry chuckled again. “All I think about is when I’m gonna get laid again. Government outlawed everything, seems like.”
>
“Sex is against the law?”
“Not exactly, but it might as well be.” Larry nodded vigorously. “You can’t touch a stranger. You can’t come within six feet. Makes it kinda hard.”
Paul nodded. Of course, Larry was right. He hadn’t thought in those terms at all.
After a pause, Larry asked, “You got people on the outside?”
Paul nodded. Mentioning the two he’d lost was too painful, and Paul put a lot of effort into thinking about anything but Heidi and Austin. Paul chose to evade by redirection. “You?”
Larry put on a long, sad face.
Paul had seen the same face on nearly everyone when mention of families was made. Everybody had lost loved ones.
“My sister and her husband both.”
“Sorry.” Paul had said sorry so many times it had lost its meaning.
“Six kids.”
Paul shook his head, and he looked at the ground. “That’s tragic.”
“Oh no.” Larry perked up. “Them kids, they’re all alive.”
“All of them?” With hope in his eyes, Paul looked at Larry. “Really?”
Larry nodded with a sad smile and looked away. He had something to hide.
“What?” Paul asked.
Larry shook his head and turned away again.
“What?” Paul was curious. “Did something bad happen?” Paul could relate to that. He looked at his own feet. “We’ve all done things that we might not be proud of, Larry. Times are different now. Don’t beat yourself up about it.” Paul wanted to kick himself. He needed to accept that advice more than he needed to give it, but he couldn’t picture a future where he ever stopped kicking himself.
“After my sister died, I took a job here because I wanted to help.” Larry shuffled around and looked toward the pyre starting to burn down. “I knew it was dangerous. People coming out here to work don’t last more than a month. At least back at the beginning. That’s what they said.”
Paul acknowledged with a nod.
“I didn’t care.” Larry looked back at Paul, guilt on his face. “I didn’t want to raise them kids. That scared me to death, more than working here I suppose.”
“It’s not easy,” Paul confirmed.
“They’re with my mom now. The two older ones help. They do most of it I guess. My mom has a hard time getting around.”
Paul didn’t ask what was wrong with the mother. Larry looked to be in his forties and Paul guessed the mother was in her sixties or seventies. At that age, all bad habits come home to roost in the form of health problems. “I guess they’re staying quarantined in the house? Following all the rules?”
Larry nodded.
“Good. I’m glad to hear the rules are working for somebody.”
“It’s more than the rules.”
“How’s that?”
Larry swung an arm in a gesture that encompassed the whole fenced complex. “You know what we do here, right?”
Paul nodded. “We provide plasma with Ebola antibodies from people who have recovered to people who are sick.” It was hard to say the next part without any sarcasm. “We save lives.”
“That’s what I thought when I came to work here.”
That caught Paul’s attention. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t think everybody who needs it gets the plasma.”
Of course not. Paul didn’t say that. He couldn’t. “There’s not enough for everybody, not yet. Eventually, there will be. There has to be. It’s math. The more people there are who’re cured, the more plasma can be harvested, and the more people will get what they need to help them beat the virus. Then Ebola will be in the past, and they’ll let us all out of here to put our lives back together as best we can.”
Larry grinned. “Your head is chock full of big thoughts, isn’t it?”
Paul looked back into the sky. He had to tell himself something.
“The system’s not fair.”
Of course it wasn’t. What system ever was? Paul shrugged. “They have a system?”
“They do.” Larry shook his finger at something imaginary off in the dark. “The rules are on the Internet but they don’t follow them. People get special treatment. Soldiers, doctors, nurses, and such.”
“Makes sense.” Paul put a question on his face. “Doesn’t that make sense to you?”
“Of course.” Larry was getting worked up. “But politicians? Really? And people with a lot of money. They get what they want. They buy favors and get themselves to the head of the line.”
“Really?” Paul didn’t want to believe it. Those were exactly the kind of rumors and conspiracy theories that shortages bred, especially when the stakes were life or death. But then again, when wasn’t that true?
“I seen it with my own two eyes.”
Chapter 19
Larry pointed at a metal building adjacent to the camp’s front gate. Paul had seen trucks backing up to the row of loading docks, emptying their cargo inside, and leaving with the doors closed. The area was kept separate from the rest of the compound by a new-looking chain-link wall topped with coils of barbed wire.
Larry said, “You seen me take the bags?”
Paul nodded.
“They give me a little gardening wagon that I haul around down in the silos, but it don’t do me no good. Elevators don’t work yet. I gotta haul each load in my backpack and take it inside the warehouse until it gets picked up for delivery. Some of it, anyway.” Larry turned and pointed at the rows of barracks. Most of it goes to the hospitals that way. They try to bring everyone who’s infected real bad out here. That way we can keep ‘em after we cure ‘em. Then we harvest that stuff in their blood.”
Of course, they weren’t keeping everybody in the camp. That was impossible. Paul didn’t contradict Larry, though he was interested in hearing what Larry had to say about where the plasma was going—if not to the Ebola victims in camp or to those assigned according to the rules listed online that Larry had told him about.
Larry turned back toward the loading docks. “Over here, there’s some guys come in four or five times a week before the truck comes to haul off the plasma for delivery to the other hospitals. They always show up at the same time as a couple of officers from the camp. They make me go outside so I don’t know what happens but when they let me back in, the guys are nowhere to be found, the officers are walking back to camp, and some of the inventory is gone.”
Jumping to the first question that came to mind, Paul asked, “Who are these guys?”
“Can’t say for sure. I just know they represent some rich folks.”
“How do you know that?”
Larry looked at the ground and shuffled his feet. “Can’t say.”
“Why?”
Larry shook his head.
Paul got exasperated and snapped. “What about the officers in camp? Which ones are they?”
Larry pursed his lips closed and shook his head again.
Paul huffed. “Whatever.” He looked at the dimly glowing sky over Denver.
“I used to work with a fellow back when I first started.” Larry scratched his chin and thought. “Mel was his name. He and me used to do this job together. He first told me about what was happening. He went to the Colonel, to tell him what was going on.”
Paul waited for the answer.
“He disappeared. When I asked the guards where he went, a couple of them said he got Ebola.” Larry pointed at the barracks. “Took him over there. A week later, they brought me his stuff.”
“Stuff?” Paul asked.
“Billfold. Watch. Stuff like that. They burned his body out by the fence the night before.”
Paul looked at Larry, not wanting to believe the story, not because he didn’t think people were capable of it, but because he didn’t want to believe that his sweat was benefiting a corrupt few. Paul started to pace, and the more he paced, the angrier he got because he grew more and more certain every word Larry was telling him was true. His anger boile
d into a shout. “This is bullshit.”
Of course, his anger helped him completely forget all the illegal things he’d done to skip to the head of the line to get a cure for himself.
“Dude, keep your voice down.”
Paul glanced around, not wanting to bring any unwanted attention.
“You gotta keep this to yourself.”
“Surely there’s something we can do.” Paul’s anger was still running.
Larry looked over his shoulder, rubbed his chin, and then looked over his shoulder again. “I did do something.”
Paul leaned in close. “What?”
Larry rubbed his hands together and cast another long gaze around again before lowering his voice to a whisper. “You gotta promise me if I tell you, you’ll never say a word about it to anybody.”
Nodding, Paul asked, “What did you do?”
“I got tired of being mad about it. I sneaked some of the plasma out for my mom and she gave it to my nieces and nephews.”
Paul stepped back, his mouth hanging open. “That’s why they survived this long.”
Larry sucked in his lips and nodded.
“All of them?”
“That’s right.”
Paul thought about it for another moment and said, “Good for you, Larry. You did the right thing. Hell, I’m proud of you.”
“Really?” Larry looked ashamed.
“I really am.” Paul stepped close to Larry and slapped him on the back. “Hopefully nobody from the government is watching.”
They shared a laugh.
Paul stepped back to his spot five feet away. “Frankly, Larry, I’ve done some pretty jacked-up stuff too. I wish at least a little bit of it had turned out as well.”
