by A. G. Riddle
Methodically, they moved down the street. Families weren’t taken together; they picked members seemingly at random. A father in his forties; a mother with gray-streaked dark hair who was slightly older than the man; a teenage girl; twin boys who were no older than twelve.
Elliott tried to see some pattern in it, but couldn’t. Had the genome sequencing revealed something? Were these people potential carriers of antibodies that might fight the virus? He wanted to be hopeful about what was happening, but he was far too rational to believe it.
Sam and Adam were still in the basement. They had been rounded up along with Ryan after Elliott and Rose had been taken. Only Sam and Adam had come back. Adam had developed a fever yesterday. He was infected, and Elliott feared that soon Sam would be too. They were all doing their best to maintain a quarantine in the home, but he doubted it would be enough to protect her.
The virus ebbed and flowed. For a few hours, Elliott would feel fine, or at least well enough to function, then it would hit him, overwhelming him and forcing him to lie down and rest until the fever and coughing passed. At the moment he felt pretty good—except for his nervousness.
He checked his cell phone. He had completed every one of the daily surveys on the Rook Quantum Sciences operating system. He’d had to: the phone beeped and buzzed incessantly until he filled them out. But there had been no survey today. What did it mean? And where were they taking everyone?
At the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, Elim Kibet sat in his office, listening to an official from the Ministry of Health. The man was sick. Elim thought he would probably die within five days. He coughed violently, and Elim stood, came around the desk, and offered him a bottle of ORS.
The man waved him off. “It’s wasted on me.” He stared with bloodshot eyes tinted yellow from the jaundice. “Will you do it, Elim?”
Elim leaned against the desk. “I will try. But it’s their choice.”
“That’s all we ask.”
“Will you stay?”
The sick man shook his head. “I must travel on.”
“And die by the road?”
“If I must. I am dead either way. I will not lie here and wait for it.”
Elim didn’t blame him. He had felt the same way; it was why he had gotten up from his hospital bed in Mandera.
He showed the man out, watched him climb into his four-wheel drive and turn back onto Habaswein-Dadaab Road.
Elim made his way into the Ifo II camp, which held all the surviving refugees. Three fires burned, the flames smaller than they had been. This morning, the camp-wide count had revealed 14,289 survivors. When the outbreak began, 287,423 people had lived in the camps; he had found the earlier counts in the camps’ records. The loss of life was staggering. And he was about to ask these people to see a lot more of it.
He asked one of the armed men to gather the camp’s residents—at least, everyone able to rise from their beds—then he set about trying to find a bullhorn. It took almost an hour to get everyone assembled, but when they were ready, Elim climbed to the top of a box truck and stared out at the crowd that stretched across the rocky desert landscape.
“My name is Elim Kibet. I am a doctor, and a Kenyan citizen. I was born in this country and educated here. I’ve worked here all my life.
“Like many of you, I grew up in a small village. My parents were poor, and many nights we didn’t have enough to eat. Thanks to this nation’s generosity, I got an education. I served the people in my community as best I could. Fate led me here, to help you.
“I know many of you are not natives of Kenya. You are refugees from neighboring countries. This nation took you in when you were in need, fed you, kept you safe, and put a roof over your head. Now the people of our nation need your help. We are the ones who are starving and dying. We are in need, and you can help.
“Our government is not perfect. I have taken issue with much of what they have done in recent years. But its people—the people who payed the taxes that sent me to school, who fed and housed you and your family—those people are now depending on us. The government in Nairobi has collapsed. People are dying, not just from the virus, but from starvation and secondary infections.
“Right now, Kenya’s survivors are scattered. That makes them vulnerable to armies large and small. War and famine may be the next enemies we face. To defeat them, we must come together.
“Tomorrow morning, at dawn, I will leave for Nairobi. I will stop at every village and town along the way, gathering survivors. In Nairobi, we will save as many lives as we can. I believe it is the best hope of survival for all of us. I ask you to join me. If you remain here, I will do my best to send help back, but I can’t promise you anything. Together, I believe we have our best chance at survival. And we will save lives.
“Meet me here, at dawn. I urge you. And I thank you.”
Elim watched the crowd break. Many loitered to ask questions of the people who were effectively running the camp. There were no answers, no real plan other than to set out at dawn. He wondered how many would join him.
He instructed the men to travel to Garissa, the nearest city, and bring back trucks. They would stop there first. Garissa had had roughly 140,000 residents before the outbreak—roughly half the population of the refugee camps—but Elim hoped they would find many survivors there.
He returned to the aid agencies building, found Dhamiria, and took her by the hand. “I understand if you want to stay.”
“You know me better than that, Elim. Wherever you go, I’ll go too.”
In Hannah’s room, he inspected the young physician. She was stable, but the virus was advancing. Elim had been treating a secondary bacterial infection, which he was quite worried about. The gunshot wound that had gone untreated for too long was likely to blame. She needed IV antibiotics, but Elim had none to give her. She was asleep now, and he was glad; the rest was good for her.
“Will we take her with us?” Dhamiria asked.
“Yes. It’s her only chance.”
Elim barely slept that night. It seemed like there were a million things to do. He wrote endless notes to the nurses who would assume his duties when he departed (there were still thousands of people too sick to travel). He inventoried the supplies on hand, dividing up what would go and what would stay.
From the window in his small office, he watched the crowd gather at the trucks. They lined up, carrying sacks and backpacks and pushing carts with their belongings. Smoke from the fires rose into the sky, forming black clouds that hung over the camp and the mood of everyone within.
Dhamiria pushed the door open and walked to Elim’s side. “They’ve loaded her up.”
He nodded and rose. “Are you sure?”
She kissed him and squeezed his hand. “Let’s go.”
Outside, Elim surveyed the crowd. It was amazing: over half the people who had gathered yesterday were here. Elim guessed there were four thousand people standing ready to join him.
To the nearest driver, he said, “We’re going to need more trucks.”
Chapter 87
In the conference room at the CDC’s Emergency Operations Center, Millen and the other shift supervisors listened as Phil Stevens stood before the large flat screen and briefed them.
“Two hours ago, the United States government, as well as governments around the world, were contacted by an organization that calls themselves ‘the Citium.’ The heads of watch were briefed an hour ago. We requested, and were granted, permission to play this message the White House received.”
Stevens sat and worked the touchpad on his laptop. A recording began playing over the conference room’s speakers.
“The Citium is a group of scientists and intellectuals dedicated to improving human existence through science. We have watched in horror as the X1-Mandera pandemic has decimated the world. We can stand by no longer. We have developed a cure for the virus—an antiviral that we have tested and used to cure thousands in our trials. We offer that cure to you and your citizens.
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br /> “In return, we ask only that steps are taken to ensure a similar global catastrophe never occurs again, and that other threats to humanity are removed. We seek a world with no militaries, no borders, no discrimination, and where every human is treated with decency and fairness. We are committed to this world; in fact, we demand it.
“In return for doses of X1-Mandera antivirals, we require that you take the following actions. Your congress or parliament will pass a law that places all government agencies and functions under the direction of an international oversight board called the Looking Glass Commission. The law will also place the power grid and internet under the commission’s control. You will use the Rook Quantum Sciences application to allow your population to vote directly on the law, referendum, or constitutional amendment—whatever your system of government requires. It will be your job to persuade your population to approve and ratify the law.
“If you enact the Looking Glass laws, our first task will be to distribute the cure.
“Some governments may reject our help. Others will join us in creating the world humanity deserves. If you or your population deny our help, millions will die needlessly. We don’t want that. We hope you join us. We look forward to working with you to create a better world for all of us.”
The recording ended, and Stevens stood. “This group, the Citium, doesn’t explicitly take credit for releasing the virus, but we all know antivirals take longer than a week to develop—and even longer to mass-produce.”
Millen spoke: “How did the White House respond?”
“They asked for a sample of the cure. That request was denied.”
“They assume we might try to reverse engineer it.”
“Correct,” Stevens said. “The White House then insisted they wouldn’t agree to the terms without a demonstration of the cure’s effectiveness. I’m told that demonstration is to occur within the hour.”
That shocked Millen. “So they’re going to agree to the terms? Hand over the government, military, internet, power grid—everything to these terrorists?”
“No. We’re going to fight. The White House is hoping to glean clues about the cure and possibly where it’s being stored. The demonstration is an intelligence-gathering opportunity.”
Another shift supervisor spoke—a slim black woman with graying hair who had worked in the EOC since before Millen joined EIS. “What are other governments doing?”
“The UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, and Russia have all committed to fight the Citium to the very end. France and Greece have made no comment. We believe both nations have already surrendered.”
The conference room fell silent. Millen felt that the entire situation had changed now. War? On top of the pandemic? It was unthinkable. He wondered what would be left of the human race when this was over. And what kind of world they would inherit.
Stevens took a deep breath. “The US is reaching out to China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Roughly half the world’s population lives in those six countries. If India or China join the Citium, or even if a few smaller nations join, the die will be cast. They’ll have overwhelming numbers in a war.”
“We have superior weaponry,” a supervisor said.
“And very soon,” Stevens said, “we’ll have almost no one trained to use it.”
Millen knew where this was going. The other supervisors seemed to sense it too. They waited for Stevens to continue.
“As such, the White House has ordered the CDC and all agencies under the BioShield command to begin preparing for the possibility of a conventional war here on American soil.”
“Preparing how?” Millen asked.
“As we speak, BioShield forces are collecting individuals believed to have a high probability of surviving. Going forward, resources will be allocated only to these individuals.”
Millen couldn’t believe it. “And what about everyone else?”
Stevens stood staring at the shift supervisors. “This is the reality we face. If we can’t field an army, the United States will soon cease to exist. If we accept the cure, the United States will effectively be conquered by the Citium.”
Millen thought about his mother and father in Cleveland. He knew they were inside the cordon there. Neither was in a critical job role.
“What about our families?”
“They’re on the list. Everyone’s immediate family members—spouses and children, parents, siblings, and siblings’ spouses and children—are on the list.”
So they had thought of that too.
“What I just told you was very hard for me to hear an hour ago. I know it’s just as hard for you to hear now—and it will be even harder for you to explain it to the operators working under you. If you don’t think you can do that or carry out the orders that are about to be given to you, I need to know before you leave this room.”
A supervisor next to Millen asked what would happen to their families if they refused.
“If you leave the BioShield command structure, their status will revert to whatever it would have been.”
The supervisors sat in shock.
“I hope our intelligence agencies find where the Citium has stored the cure,” Stevens said. “In the meantime, we all have our orders. Survival sometimes requires us to do things we don’t want to do.”
When the meeting broke, Millen assembled his team of operators and began their pre-shift meeting. He didn’t like what he was about to say, but he also didn’t see any other alternative. He had to remain with BioShield—for his parents’ sake, and for Halima and Tian.
“Okay, I hope everyone got some rest. I’ve got a very important update. There’s been a change in strategic alignment. I can’t tell you the specifics, only that we’re facing a new threat. As of right now, BioShield is shifting its focus to saving high-probability survivors and preparing for an armed conflict.”
Chapter 88
The wind tossed the Red Cross plane like a ship in a hurricane. William lined up with one of the four runways, then changed his vector and approached another. In the passenger compartment, Avery, Desmond, and Peyton buckled up and leaned forward, bracing against the headrests. Peyton was in the aisle seat, the safest place, with Desmond beside her, buffering her body from the plane’s side. Avery was just across the aisle from them.
Peyton felt Desmond’s hand touch her leg. He held it face up in her lap, waiting. She placed her hand in his. He squeezed. It seemed to drain the tension out of her. Touching him in that moment was like an electrical connection long dead and now activated. With it came a flood of emotions and memories.
Peyton stared forward. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Avery watching them, staring daggers into Peyton’s side.
The plane shook as the wheels hit the runway. On the whole it was a better landing than Avery’s in Shetland.
Ten minutes later, the plane was stopped at the end of the runway, and William stood in the passenger compartment.
“Desmond and I will sweep the tower.”
Avery rose, ready to protest, but he cut her off with a raised hand.
“We’ll need a pilot to leave if we’re unsuccessful.”
Peyton noted his syntax. He didn’t say “killed.” She thought that was for her benefit. She also saw wisdom in his plan: he didn’t trust Avery either. Isolating her on the plane had that advantage. And it gave William a chance to speak with Desmond alone.
The two men suited up, descended the staircase, and disappeared into the night. Peyton stood by the door, watching as they slipped out of view. For several minutes, an awkward silence settled between her and Avery.
Finally, Avery spoke. “Did you know him?”
“What?”
“Before.”
Peyton ignored her.
“You’re the reason, aren’t you?”
“What?”
Avery stepped closer to her, stopped two feet from Peyton’s face. “You’re the reason he joined the Citium. Why he wanted to build the Look
ing Glass.”
Peyton wanted to swallow, but she resisted. She made her voice flat. “I couldn’t say.”
“Did you hurt him?”
“I’m not much for girl talk, Avery.”
“We don’t have to talk.”
Boots pounded the ground outside, then up the ramp. Desmond appeared in the doorway to the passenger compartment, took in the scene, and paused for a moment.
“If you two aren’t going to kill each other, we could use some help.”
In preparation for the possibility of a hasty departure, they refueled and positioned the plane for takeoff. Desmond reported that the tower was empty, but that it looked to have been used recently.
William launched a drone he had brought with them. The device was small and nearly silent. They all crowded around a tablet in the passenger compartment, watching the images captured by the drone’s night vision camera.
The town was deserted. The buildings were stone, two- and three-story, run-down mostly. They reminded Peyton of pictures of Germany after World War II. They almost looked bombed-out. Weeds and nature had retaken much of the landscape, and stone walls lay tumbled on the ground, the victims of time and gravity and perhaps the wind that whipped this strange island.
The drone flew on, toward the labs. A series of stone and brick buildings were arranged in a large horseshoe, forming a courtyard. A chain link fence with barbed wire surrounded the complex; a metal gate with a curved sign hanging above it spelled out words in Russian that Peyton couldn’t read. The motif was that of an American prison from the sixties—Shawshank, perhaps.
