The Chaos Function

by Jack Skillingstead

  “Bri, they’re parked across the street, just like before. We have to get out.”

  Brian pushed past her into the living room.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  He stood beside the window, sneaking a look between the blinds. “I don’t see anybody.”

  “The van. I told you—they grabbed me and put me in the white van.”

  He looked at her. “You didn’t say the van belonged to a florist.”

  “What?” She joined him at the window. The words SEATTLE’S BLOOMING flowed in pink script across the side of the van.

  “Liv?”

  Olivia shook her head. “I didn’t notice that, just saw the van and panicked.” Olivia bit her lip hard. “I have to get a grip.”

  “You’ve been through a lot. Look, we’re not being smart. We should have called the police as soon as you got here.”

  “It’s a waste of time.”

  Brian frowned. “Why?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it, Bri. There’s no proof I was kidnapped.”

  “Why would you make it up, for God’s sake?”

  “I wouldn’t. But the police don’t know that. I’m a grown woman who disappeared from my boyfriend’s apartment for a couple of days. That’s not long enough to be considered a legitimate missing person, according to the law. Also, what do I tell the police? ‘Excuse me, Officer. Could you help me out? See, I was kidnapped by a cult that believes they can change reality.’ You really think I should tell them that?”

  “Yes!”

  “Even you don’t believe me.”

  “I don’t disbelieve you.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes. “So do I tell them part of the story, leave a bunch out? Or tell it like Jacob and the rest of them were all crazy and I didn’t know what they were talking about?”

  “Something like that last part, yeah.”

  “My story wouldn’t cohere, and the police would know that. They would know I wasn’t telling them everything, and the more I do tell them, the more ridiculous the whole thing sounds.”

  “Let it sound ridiculous. What happened is the truth, right? Just say it without saying you believe in the ideas of the cult or whatever it is.”

  “But I do believe some of it. So I tell the truth, in which case I’m crazy. Or I tell a lie, in which case I’m a liar.”

  “You’re saying we don’t do anything?”

  Olivia’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. All I can say is I have to get out of this apartment. The Society knows about this place. It makes sense they’ll look for me here. I was stupid to—”

  “Uh, you’re not going anywhere without me. And stop saying that you’re stupid.”

  “Brian. I know you want to be my big strong protector and everything, but come on. I can take care of myself, and I won’t be responsible for putting you in danger. Also, I didn’t say I was stupid; I said I did something that was stupid. What are you grinning at?”

  “I just know you really well.”

  Olivia was annoyed and tried not to show it. “I suppose you know me better than I know myself?”

  “No. But I do know you. Mostly because you told me stuff that you don’t tell other people. That’s what you said.”

  “Yeah. I hate it when I do that. So what is it I’m missing here?”

  “You want to go. Just like you were ready to fly back to Syria before the variola outbreak made that impossible.”

  She tried to look blank, but she knew what he meant and she didn’t want to admit it. “I don’t want to leave. You know I don’t.” She sounded unconvincing, even to herself.

  “You do. It’s part of your makeup that you want to be . . . loose. Or that’s not even it, not exactly. It’s not something you want. It’s something you don’t want. You don’t want to be connected.”

  “I have a request. Could you not psychoanalyze me?”

  “Sorry.” Brian touched her shoulder. “Look. If you want to go away by yourself, hide out in a cave or whatever, you can do it. I’m not kidnapping you. I’m just saying, don’t use my vulnerability as the excuse, okay? I’m a grown-up, too. I don’t need you to leave me for my own good. That’s ridiculous, and kind of insulting when you think about it.”

  I’m a grown-up. Isn’t that what he’d said after she got him shot in Aleppo?

  Olivia rubbed her forehead. “See? This is why relationships suck.”

  “They only suck if you don’t want to be in a relationship.”

  “Look, I’ll make a deal. We stop talking about the relationship, and I’ll tell the police my story. Does that make you happy?”

  “Marginally.”

  Since they wouldn’t be returning to the apartment for a while, they each packed a bag, locked up, and drove Brian’s seven-year-old Ford hybrid to the Seattle Police Department’s Southwest Precinct station, which was across the street from a giant Home Depot. The station looked like a DMV building. Tan brick façade, flat roof, glass doors. They got out and Brian pointed his key fob over his shoulder, making the car alarm chirp.

  Across the street, pandemonium reigned in the Home Depot parking lot. Cars and trucks jammed every space. Men and women ran into the store. Others pushed carts loaded with purchases—power tools, sheets of plywood, home generators, all kinds of stuff. Horns honked. People argued loudly. Olivia had been in Louisiana to cover Hurricane Ike. That’s what this reminded her of, the mad, last-minute rush to prepare for the storm. Except here almost everyone was wearing a filter mask.

  Olivia shook her head. “Do they really think a particle mask is going to protect them from variola?”

  “They’re scared. It started right after you disappeared. Rumors are flying, and the government isn’t doing much to put them down.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  “That the contagion is weaponized, that it’s a bioattack.”

  “We already guessed that.”

  “Yeah,” Brian said, “but it gets worse. It’s all over the internet that the stockpiled vaccine doesn’t work against this weaponized strain.”

  “If that’s true, we’re screwed.”

  “Liv, I think it’s true.”

  Olivia looked at the chaos boiling through Home Depot’s parking lot. A couple of guys had started shoving each other. A pregnant woman in a baseball cap dragged a big box with a picture of a gasoline generator printed on the side. The shoving match seemed to be about the generator. The pregnant woman dragged it toward the open hatchback of a Honda. A Buick sped out of the lot, clipping somebody’s cart, scattering hand tools, boxes of batteries, and two bags of cement mix. The bags burst open, expelling dusty clouds, like silent explosions.

  “This is bad,” Olivia said. “We’re wasting our time with the police. I’ve been out of touch two days. I need news, I need information. Helen can fill us in about stuff not getting out to the general public.”

  “We’re already here,” Brian said. “Let’s go in.”

  “It’s pointless.”

  “Come on. What are you afraid of?”

  “I’m not afraid, at least not of talking to the police.”

  “You’re kind of acting like you are.”

  Maybe he was right, just a little bit. The police were unlikely to be as forgiving about the outlandish details as Brian had been, not that she was going to give them the most outlandish ones. And talking to the police could also be the first step in directly confronting her abductors—and Olivia was afraid of them, almost atavistically afraid.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she said.

  A uniformed officer took her report. He had a wide, florid face, what they could see of it around the filter mask. Olivia was unable to provide anyone’s last name or a motive for the kidnapping. Despite everything she’d been through, her near-perfect recall delivered a couple of license plate numbers, but she doubted there would be any criminal records attached to the owners of the plates. She left Syria out of the report. The officer keyed in the other details, such as they were. His e
yes kept flicking toward the door. Was he worried about Home Depot’s chaos invading the station, or did he just want to finish and leave? “I need your phone number and address,” he said.

  “I don’t have an address right now. I can give you his.” She pointed her thumb at Brian.

  “All right, what is it?”

  Brian recited his address.

  “We’re not going to be there, though,” Olivia said.

  The officer gave her an up-from-under look.

  “We’re traveling,” Olivia said.

  “Phone number?”

  “Mine?” Olivia said.

  The officer waited.

  Olivia rattled off her number. “But I don’t have the phone. I mean, they took it.”

  “The ranchers took your phone?”

  “The kidnappers. They just live on a ranch. I’m going to replace the phone, but it might not be today. Do you want his number?” She pointed at Brian again.

  “Why not,” the officer replied. When the report was finished, he told them someone would contact local law enforcement in Idaho and ask them to check out the ranch.

  “Thanks,” Brian said.

  Once they were outside again, Olivia said, “See?”

  Half a dozen SPD officers poured out of the station and circulated through the Home Depot parking lot, breaking up fights, writing citations, directing traffic, restoring order. At least they weren’t wearing full tactical gear. Not yet. The woman who had failed to load the generator into her Honda sat under the open hatchback, weeping into her hands.

  Olivia said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  They parked on a quiet residential street a mile from the precinct station. Brian reached for his phone. “I’m going to call some friends, find us a place to crash.”

  “Great.” Olivia pulled her duffel bag into the front seat and extracted her tablet from a side pocket. “I’m going to get in touch with Helen.”

  Brian got out and walked away with his phone.

  Olivia booted the tablet, which was wafer thin, flexible, and, until activated, transparent. This was her Samsung IsnGlas, much more expensive than the tablet she carried into the Disaster. She waved through a couple of projections and finger-flicked a blinking orange notification of waiting messages. The message from Helen Fischer was priority encrypted. Olivia flicked the alert symbol trembling above the IsnGlas. A fractal blur appeared and swiftly organized itself into Helen’s face.

  Olivia gasped.

  Lesions covered Helen’s face to the point of making her nearly unrecognizable. “I’ve been calling you, Livvie.” She spoke haltingly, her words thick. The vid was a close-up. When Helen opened her mouth to speak, her tongue, pebbled with smallpox lesions, moved clumsily. Olivia closed her eyes. Tears seeped from under her lids.

  Helen continued: “I have a new assignment for you. The assignment is to live. If you’ve already been infected, it’s too late. Nothing can save you. What you’re looking at right now, that’s your future.”

  Ashamed of her weakness, Olivia opened her eyes.

  “But if you’re not infected,” Helen said, “you still have a chance. A good chance. But first you have to know a couple of things. Whatever you hear from mainstream media, forget it. The epidemic is already a hundred times worse than anything officially acknowledged, and Big Info is complicit in confusing the issue, probably in the interest of forestalling mass panic, and good luck with that. Second, vaccine stockpiles are inadequate. But it doesn’t matter, because existing vaccines are useless against the outbreak. Livvie, this is a global, full-scale bioterror attack, possibly state sponsored.”

  Helen paused, her breathing labored. Her head drooped. After a minute, she lifted her face to the camera again.

  “There’s a man,” she said. “In America. About a thousand years ago we went to Oxford together. Najid Javadi, Iranian born but a naturalized US citizen. He liked me. The feeling was mutual.” Helen coughed, turned away from the camera, turned back. “Najid contacted me. He has the vaccine. The real thing. He broke all kinds of laws to tell me about it. The dear man wanted to save me. Isn’t that wonderful? Well, it’s too late for me. But maybe not for you, Livvie. I made him promise to give you my dose, but you’re going to have to hurry. Najid’s gone into hiding, cut himself off completely after the one message to me. He stole the vaccine from the lab where he worked. Apparently, your government has been aware of the existence of the weaponized version of variola for some time, though they had not expected to see it deployed like this. Najid’s vaccine is experimental and highly secret. If the authorities catch up with him, he’s buggered.” Helen recited the address of a house in suburban Chicago. “It’s not his house. It belongs to someone out of the country, a friend of Najid’s. Go there as fast as you can. Najid’s gone offline, totally. He’s afraid. You have one of those memories, Livvie, so remember everything I just told you. I have to go now. Things are pretty bad over here. You’re one of the good ones. Go now, right now. And stay alive.”

  The window collapsed and the IsnGlas tablet turned vitreous.

  Olivia immediately sent Helen a chat request. It blinked for a full minute, then disappeared unanswered. She set her tablet aside and stared out the windshield. Ornamental sycamores stood still in the August sun. Oscillating sprinklers cast lassos of bright water. Crows side-walked on power lines, as if mocking Brian, who paced up and down the sidewalk, speaking into his phone. The world presented its normal aspect, but Olivia knew it was on fire and that she had struck the match. Variola was loose in the world. The truth rushed at her. In some impossible way, she had chosen this.

  She had done this to Helen.

  Brian put his phone away and came back to the car. He dropped into the driver’s seat. “We are about to become house sitters in Puyallup, of all places.”  The smile departed his lips. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re going to Chicago, and we’re leaving right now.”

  Sixteen

  On their way out of Seattle, they hit a Safeway superstore. It was mobbed with filter-mask-wearing shoppers banging carts in aisles depleted of stock.

  “Holy shit,” Brian said.

  “Let’s split up. Grab a bunch of bottled water and some snacks. I’ll get stuff in the deli and meet you at the checkout.”

  In the deli, Olivia reached for the last submarine sandwich. A large hand connected to a hairy wrist grabbed the other end of the sub. He wore an XXXL Seahawks jersey and looked like he could have used one more X to make a comfortable fit. If he were hollow, Olivia could have climbed inside, with room left for a twin sister, if she had one.

  “Sorry,” Olivia and the offensive lineman said at the same time, and they both let go of the sub. It fell back into the case.

  “Go ahead,” Seahawks said.

  “No, it’s okay.”

  The lineman rubbed his chin. “This place is nuts. I mean, it’s always nuts on game day, but this is over the top.”

  Olivia said, “It’s probably because of the outbreak, not the game.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He looked around. “The main thing is, treat everybody respectfully, right?”

  Before Olivia could respond, a woman shoved between them, grabbed the sub, and dumped it in her basket. Olivia and Seahawks shrugged at each other and moved on.

  At the checkout line Brian held a couple of quart bottles of seltzer water and a bag of corn chips so crumpled that it looked like the Sea-hawks guy had been sitting on it.

  “That isn’t what I meant when I said grab a bunch of bottled water.”

  “All the regular water’s gone already.  This is all that’s left.”

  “We should grab a couple more.”

  “Liv? This is it. These two bottles. There isn’t any more.”

  “Shit. I didn’t do any better.” She held up a quart tub of German potato salad and a couple of egg salad sandwiches.

  Back in the car, Brian said, “The weird thing is, there’s nothing about variola in Washington State. Nothing o
n the news.”

  “It can show up anytime. People are stocking up for a long siege. Besides, you can’t trust the news. Come on, let’s go.”

  They picked up the 90 and sped east. If they rammed straight through, sharing the driving, they could cross seven states and arrive in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst—where Helen’s old Oxford classmate was hiding—in thirty hours or so. They stuck to that plan, avoiding population centers, stopping only for gas, drive-through-window coffee, and bathroom breaks. Except for big commercial haulers, the eastbound lanes of the interstate were ominously empty.

  “Traffic’s always light out here,” Brian said, to justify the weirdness—hey, nothing to worry about!—but it came off like he was making up a fact he wanted to believe. The sun was setting behind them. So was Idaho.

  “It’s August,” Olivia said. “Where are the families on vacation?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do. They’re holed up, scared spitless. And they should be.”

  “I gotta pee,” Brian said. “Going to hit this next rest stop.”

  “We should avoid people more than we already are. Everyone we talk to is a risk vector, especially the farther east we go.”

  “I still have to go to the bathroom.”

  “You can pee on the side of the road.”

  “Really?”

  “Naw,” Olivia said. “Do the rest stop. I’ve got to go, too.”

  “You could squat by the side of the road.”

  “It’s not the apocalypse yet, buddy.”

  A few tractor-trailer rigs were parked on the commercial vehicles’ side of the rest stop, but on the civilian side there was only a Subaru wagon that looked like it had detoured through perdition. Dust and dirt coated the car. A hubcap was missing. The Subaru looked tired, played out, like an old dog after a hard run. Olivia came out of the women’s room and stood waiting for Brian. It was muggy. Clouds of pepper-speck insects swarmed the light standards.

  There was someone sitting in the car.

  He—or maybe she—slumped over the wheel. Olivia looked back at the concrete restroom structure. Still no sign of Brian. After a moment, she approached the Subaru. The driver was probably sleeping, she thought. Olivia stopped about twenty yards from the car. She had a bad feeling. Steadying herself, she crossed the remaining distance, got close to the dirty window. The driver, a middle-aged male, was not sleeping. Scabs covered his face and bald spot. Ticks probed for blood among the scabs. She stumbled back, almost tripping over her own feet. She no longer had to go to the other side of the world to find the Disaster.