by RJ Crayton
Elaan opened the book and started to read.
Chapter 25 - Elaan
The handbook had been informative, just as the all-too-perfect receptionist had insisted. The goal of the facility was to preserve the ideals and people of the United States of America. Peace, justice, and the American way through a simple rebuilding program that kept immunes safe, sound, and secluded.
The book was very much innocuous in some ways. The ideals were reasonable. They hoped the immunes would find love among each other, so that they could preserve their immune genes. They wanted to preserve American cultures and knowledge. Immunes in this compound, due to their age, would take courses and learn a wide range of subjects so they could carry this knowledge forward as they rebuilt the nation.
The immune centers, and the handbook alluded to others but didn’t give specific locations, were billed as places for rebirth. But also there was a research component. Immunes would submit to lab work to help scientists working on the cure. New and “unorthodox” methods might be used to ensure the survival of the population.
Within the compound, male and female immunes would remain in separate dorm housing, while scientists and researchers had a separate coed housing facility. Several labs, instructional buildings, and some military housing units all existed on the campus. It had a perimeter fence, and there was no exit or reentry without the subjects first proven free of contagion.
The handbook didn’t mention the tracking device implanted beneath her skin. The handbook did note, to avoid contagion via virus particles living on objects, most personal items would have to be discarded. That likely meant Elaan wouldn’t get her stuff back. Not that it was great shakes, but she liked the idea of wearing her own clothing, rather than the stuff provided by these people. She also wondered what would become of her coins and Josh’s cash. They’d packed up their stuff when they’d left the lake house. She’d gotten her bag back in the Illinois SPU but hadn’t seen it since. Even though her father hadn’t thought escape would be easy, she’d feel better about things if she had her own bag with all its escape stuff, like the gold and silver coins. Right now, even if she could escape, she had nothing.
The pledge at the end of the handbook was somewhat innocuous, but also very insidious.
I ____________________ pledge to live a respectful, kind, God-fearing life while here at the Charlottesville Immune Center. I promise to follow the rules and guiding principles described in the handbook.
______________________
(Signature)
______________________
(Date)
You didn’t promise allegiance to Thoreaux or America or anyone, but the fact that you had to sign it felt strange. Though, she supposed it wasn’t that different from signing that you’d received the mobile phone rules for your school. They also had to sign that they’d received the student handbook there, too. Perhaps she was reading too much into it because she knew Thoreaux’s end game.
Elaan was sitting cross-legged on the bed, perusing the handbook, when she heard the click on the door’s lock and saw it open. In walked a tall girl with bone straight black hair that fell to the middle of her back. She turned and saw Elaan, her eyes narrowing slightly in surprise, her lips offering a distrustful grimace that seemed to mar features that might otherwise be called delicate.
Being that she was the intruder, Elaan introduced herself and explained that she was new, a transfer from an Illinois facility, and they were to be roommates. Ki shrugged and offered only her first name to Elaan. Not much help, as Ms. Pace had already explained that.
Ki went over to her bed and lay down. Her long legs stretched the length of the mattress. The girl seemed strong, muscular, not your typical wallflower. And definitely not the petite, thin, stereotype of Asian women. Though, Elaan hated stereotypes, so she certainly wouldn’t hold someone else to them.
Ki didn’t seem keen on speaking. Elaan debated whether to let her have quiet or to try to be friendly. Opting on the latter, she said, “So, do you like it here?”
Ki stared up at the ceiling. “It’s safe,” she said, without much emotion.
Hmm. Safe. That’s something she’d been searching for ever since this outbreak started. Perhaps that’s what everyone had been searching for. Only, she’d come to the conclusion that no place was safe. She didn’t want to crap in Ki’s oatmeal, as the expression went, but she was curious about Ki’s previous experience.
“Was it really unsafe where you came from?”
Ki turned her head slowly to look at Elaan but didn’t sit up. Ki raised an eyebrow. “What was it like where you came from?”
Ki was certainly not a person who offered up information quickly. There was really only one thing Elaan could do. Tell her. “It was bad on the outside. But then, I ended up in a scientist protection unit — one of the SPUs because my father is a researcher. My mother is dead. The disease killed her. My brother… I’m not sure what happened to him. I try to keep hope that he’s alright, but I never really know. I think it’s bad out there. I think a lot of people have died. I believe a lot of people have lost hope.”
Ki didn’t speak, her dark eyes staring straight at Elaan, making some critical analysis. Finally, she looked up at the ceiling. “My family all died. Mom, Dad, three brothers. Their beloved sons. Their family line and namesakes. All gone. But not me. I remained. I persisted. I was old enough to live a normal life, to be out on my own. It just wasn’t like anything I’d ever experienced. Everyone looked at you distrustfully. Everyone kept away from everyone else. Help wasn’t freely given, because people were scared. I got lucky and heard the announcement seeking immunes. I went into the center where they tested you. And there were some people there who seemed to just hope. To just hope they weren’t going to get sick, to hope they would be taken away to this place that was supposed to be a panacea. But it was clear they didn’t really believe it. Not in their hearts. But part of me knew. I’d seen them all die. I’d done my best to keep them alive and it hadn’t worked. And I hadn’t gotten sick. So, I knew. And when they said I was in, I thought this place would be perfect.” She sat up on her bed. “It’s not perfect. No place is, really. But it is safe.”
Chapter 26 - Elaan
Dinner had been in the cafeteria, a building about a block from the dormitory. The handbook had said dinner was coed, and while it technically was, the reality wasn’t what she expected. There didn’t seem to be an intermingling of the guys and girls. A man who Elaan had never seen before was directing the guys to the tables on the opposite side of the room. It was weird.
She looked over to the other side for signs of Josh, but she didn’t see him. Not among the throng of twenty or so guys that had already sat.
She meandered to a table and sat with Ki and a few of the other girls. There was a communal prayer, led by Ms. Pace, before the meal started. Then people chattered like girls in any other school cafeteria. They seemed nice enough. Unfortunately, Elaan found herself the one on the hot seat, with the girls asking all about her life. She tried to appear friendly but respond with fairly general answers. She scanned the room as everyone settled in, and it seemed there were about eighty girls there and on the opposite side, another eighty boys. That was a decent number of immunes. Though, not if this was all the immunes from all over the country. The handbook had said there were more facilities for immunes. But how many more? And how many for young people. A hundred and sixty youngsters out of a country that had a population in the hundreds of millions seemed scant.
Ki waved a hand in front of her. “Earth to Elaan,” she said.
Elaan smiled. “Sorry, just got lost in thought for a second.” With that, she rejoined the conversation. At strategic points, she asked questions about the other girls. But the truth was, she didn’t really care about the answers. She didn’t want to get to know these people. She wanted out, and getting to know anyone meant it would just make her feel bad when she finally escaped. And she was getting out of here.
A bell ra
ng, and everyone else knew to look to the front of the cafeteria. Elaan followed their gaze, and a woman and a man were standing there. They were different from Ms. Pace and the other man who’d been there to usher them in. The man spoke. “Alright, ladies and gentleman. You may head back to your dormitories, all except for Elaan Woodson. Please come see me.”
All eyes at the table turned to her. Elaan shrugged. “I have no idea.”
She leaned into Ki. “Who is that guy?”
“Captain Stedman,” she said. “He’s the evening director for the men’s dormitory.” Then Ki stood and filed out of the cafeteria with the other students. Elaan watched the bulk of the crowd withdraw and then took her tray to the trash bin.
She looked over to the man, who was standing there, waiting. She approached him and said, “You needed me?”
He smiled, nodded, and held out his arm like an old-fashioned gentleman. “I’m Captain Stedman, and I’ve been ordered to escort you to the research lab.”
Elaan hesitated, having no desire to link arms with him. She kept her hands at her side. “I’ll just follow you,” she said. He took the hint, lowered his arm and turned to leave the building.
Elaan followed him outside and through the now darkened campus. In her mind, she took note of landmarks, so she could find her way back, if it came to that. It was a short walk, and pretty soon she was ushered into a building that required a key card to get in. There was a long corridor on the first floor, and they passed doors with little tiny windows. Through the windows, she could see people in white lab coats. They continued down the hall, took a stairwell up two flights, and popped out in another corridor. They walked halfway down and stopped in front of an office door with a window. Only a shade was drawn so you couldn’t see in. The captain opened the door for Elaan, and inside was a small office, with a couple of filing cabinets along the side wall. Sitting behind a desk, looking smug as ever, was Kingston Wells.
Captain Stedman said, “This who you wanted, Dr. Wells?”
Wells nodded, and the captain began walking away. Elaan was tempted to call him back and beg him not to leave her. She couldn’t think of anything good that could come of a private meeting between her and Wells. His glare made her want to cower. He seemed to have nothing but venom for her. The words she’d heard her mother tell Alex, “Wells hates her,” floated through her mind.
“Close the door,” Kingston said. She wasn’t sure she wanted to comply. Was it better if people could hear her scream? Though, what was Wells going to do to her? Even if he hated her, he loved Josh, and she didn’t think he’d do anything to her that would upset Josh.
She closed the door and he sat there, drumming his fingers on the desk. He glanced at the door behind her but didn’t speak. He just stared, his fingers moving absentmindedly.
Elaan was tired of waiting. “What do you want with me?”
He stood and walked around from his desk, glaring. “Absolutely nothing,” he said as he headed over to a hook on the wall and grabbed a white lab coat. Then he brushed past her, nearly bumping her, and out of the office. As he closed the office door, she noticed the hook on the wall move. Wait, it wasn’t a wall. The hook had been on a closet door, and it was opening. She startled and took a step back. Josh emerged and she breathed out, relieved, and ran straight into his outstretched arms.
“We don’t have long,” he whispered in her ear.
She pulled him tight. She didn’t care if they didn’t have long. She was just glad he was here. “Where have you been? What happened to you?”
He released her and motioned for her to sit in the chair, while he sat on the edge of the desk. “I talked to my father a bit when I got here. This place is devoted to people who are college age. Thoreaux is hoping to mold and shape them and start them having families. It’s weird.”
She nodded. “I know. I saw the handbook.”
He smirked. “Yeah. Well, anyway, my dad took me to the guy’s dormitory and got me checked in. Apparently, he’s arranged so I can work part time in the lab, sort of to prepare me for future jobs. I think everyone is supposed to be prepared to do some type of work. Sort of like communism. A job for each person.”
Elaan stared at that. It seemed odd for the world of capitalists to embrace communists’ principles. That seemed very far from the American Way. She wanted to ask Josh more about why he thought this was happening, but he opened his mouth and began speaking again.
“I had dinner in quarters with my father, and then I begged him to help me see you. He wasn’t happy, but he did it.”
OK, that explained why Josh wasn’t at dinner. “I didn’t see Amadu at dinner, though,” she said. “Do you know what happened to him?”
Josh shook his head. “I haven’t seen him, but I’ll ask my dad what he knows.”
Elaan nodded and bit her lip. This place wasn’t growing on her. “How do we get out of here? Does your dad have any idea on how to escape?”
Josh laughed. “Are you serious? Have you even met my dad? He has no interest in getting out of here. He’s large and in charge, with people finally recognizing his glorious work. My return with proof that he hadn’t lied about my immunity cemented the position he’d weaseled himself into here. Your coming back with me, even though he didn’t entirely secure it, is seen as a good reflection on him. He’s told me I need to stay in line and do whatever I’m asked.”
She shook her head. “Josh, we can’t stay here. I don’t want to be locked in a commune. And I don’t want to be mated with a stranger.”
“You won’t,” he said, interrupting her.
She stopped to look at him. Being mated with a stranger was just one of a long list of things she didn’t want, but the way he’d said, “you won’t,” with certainty as if it was a done deal, made her think he knew something she didn’t. “What do you mean?”
“The geneticists are looking for biogenetic diversity in couples. Well, your dad told me he put in a few false variables for me. You and I, we’re the pair. They don’t tell the people for a couple of weeks, but he told me tonight, at dinner.”
“You had dinner with my dad, too?”
Josh shook his head. “Not quite. He stopped by to inform me while I was eating with my dad. I don’t think my dad was the happiest, but he’s not going to go in and alter the data. He doesn’t want to draw suspicion.”
“Isn’t it suspicious now?”
Josh shrugged. “Who knows? There’s a lot going on here that I don’t know about.”
“Like what?”
He shook his head, offered a crooked smile. “The stuff I don’t know about. That’s why I said it’s stuff I don’t know.” Elaan scowled, so he offered up some useful information. “They’re doing something in the cloning lab, but I don’t know what. Your father doesn’t know, but I think my dad does. He just won’t tell me.”
That sounded ominous. “That’s why we should get out of here.”
He nodded. “Agreed, but we need more time to figure out how. And we need to get rid of the biological samples they’re storing to use with the cloning. Or at least the stuff they say they’re storing.”
“You don’t think they’re storing it.”
“Falls into the ‘I don’t know what they’re doing’ category. But there’s a lower level here where all the cloning” — he paused and raised his hands for air quotes — “‘research’ goes on. My father has access, but he said your dad doesn’t.”
She sighed. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want people cloning her. Though, it sounded like people weren’t actively experimented on. “No one disappears, do they? Everyone seems like they feel safe here.”
Josh nodded. “Seems like it. They’re not killing us and harvesting our organs for cure juice or anything like that.”
She shivered at that. What a creepy thought. Josh pulled her to him, leaned in and kissed her, wrapping his arms around her. “It’s going to be OK. We just need to sit tight for a few days, get the lay of the land and then figure out how
to get out of here.”
Sit tight and wait. That wasn’t Elaan’s strong suit. Just then, the door opened. Elaan turned and saw Kingston. He pointed to Josh. “Wait here,” he said, then he squared on Elaan. “I’m taking you back to the dorm.”
Chapter 27 - Lijah
It had been three days since he’d seen his mother, and Lijah was extremely worried. She’d called him on the intra-unit phone system and coughed and hacked and told him she was sick. But when he’d offered to come see her, she just said she didn’t want to get him sick and she’d see him once she got better. Given that the virus had killed millions, she reminded him that people did not look well upon people who spread sickness.
She had a little bit of a point, but if that were the case, why was Alex still seeing her? And why didn’t she go to the infirmary. They’d keep her from spreading contagion, especially to Alex, who seemed necessary to the running of this facility.
Lijah had spent the day assisting in the lab. Nothing high level. Just grunt work, verifying test data. When he finished, he went back to his apartment, and when he went inside, he found his mother sitting on his sofa.
“Mom,” he breathed out. “I’m so glad to see you.”
He walked over to her and she stood, looking somewhat normal. He hugged her.
“See,” she said. “I’m just fine.”
He scrutinized her. She did look fine. “I just got worried when Alex wouldn’t let me see you.”
“Nobody wants sickness spreading,” she said, then she coughed into her cupped hands. “Sorry.”
