Viral Airwaves

by Claudie Arseneault

  Maybe the disc was.

  He picked it up, sprinted upstairs, rushed past Andeal and Joshua and stopped in front of his old radio player. He slammed the disc into the reader and turned it on. Static replaced the heavy silence. His two friends appeared in the doorway just as the first words pierced through.

  It was a man, but not his father. The voice was smooth and delicate. Educated.

  “I dare to believe our time has come,” he said. “None of the speakers have the slightest idea of how to stop this Plague, the poor confused idiots. All they could conclude is that they dealt with a supervirus! A five-year old would’ve deduced as much. I have not heard an ounce of optimism about slowing the Plague, let alone curing it. Have you, Omar?”

  “No. No optimism.”

  The second voice was deep and brutal. Henry shivered at the light tone they used. They must be discussing the Threstle Plague, yet they treated it as they would a fundraising cocktail.

  “And don’t you think it’d be cruel to let these hopeless folks wallow and worry? How many have died already from my masterwork?”

  “Thousands. The Plague is out of Ferrys. It swept over Mikken to the north and is going east, into Regaria.”

  “Excellent. The crisis grows and our good citizens despair. It is high time to give them heroes, and restore our name to its former glory.”

  The sound of running water cut the conversation. Henry heard shallow breathing over it. Was that his father? He closed his eyes and tried to picture him, hiding, shaky hands holding a recorder. He doubted the two men knew they had an audience.

  “We need a third party, however. They need a hero whose job it is to save lives. Yours is to crush them, and I create artificial versions of life. But I have found just the man, a certain Jacob Kurtmann. He’s a doctor on the front line against the Plague. His wife perished from it and now he treats patients without care for his own safety. I asked our newspapers and radio to pick up his story, to frame him as a kind, grieving husband. Imagine what it’d be if we gave him the cure.”

  “They’ll love him.”

  “Exactly. I’ll contact Doctor Kurtmann with news of a possible antivirus against the Threstle Plague. Offer all men under your command to help spread the cure and suggest he requests the entirety of Ferrys’ army. Together we can give our young surgeon all he needs to save his country—and others—from a terrible devastation. He’ll be a hero. And with a little push from the media, we’ll have a brand new president within a few years. We might even be able to unite everyone under his benevolent guidance!”

  The soft-spoken man laughed and his footsteps became louder, then turned into static. Henry’s eyes snapped open. When he slammed the stop button on his radio, the buzzing in his skull replaced the heavy silence. The Threstle Plague had reaped thousands of lives across the continent. It had taken his mom. He’d grieved and told himself there was nothing to do, that sickness was a force of nature that struck without distinctions. But this wasn’t nature. This was a man’s work. Galen Clarin’s work.

  His father had known.

  Bile rushed up Henry’s throat and he stumbled back, to plop onto his large sofa. Grief hadn’t driven Lenz Schmitt out of his home. Vengeance had. Jacob Kurtmann had been elected president shortly after his miraculous work to spread the antivirus against the Threstle Plague. Three countries had united under his banner. And the Clarin twins, acclaimed for their role in these events, were never far from the president. A perfect ploy. A sick one.

  If a man had to leave his teenage son behind to put the story out, could he be blamed?

  Henry dug his fingers into the cushy sofa. His gaze went to the back door and he traced its frame, forcing his breathing to slow down before he risked a glance at Joshua and Andeal. The engineer stared at the radio, open-mouthed, wordless. His gambler friend played with his precious deck of cards, ripping the corners and tapping his foot on the ground. Henry doubted Joshua noticed either action. He swallowed hard.

  “I’ll fly.” No reaction from Andeal. “Your weird balloon. I’ll fly it.”

  Andeal’s horrified expression morphed into surprise as Henry’s words sunk in. Then Henry himself realised what he’d just said. Panic rose from the bottom of his stomach and stuck at the back of his throat. Had he just promised to pilot an illegal hot air balloon? Launch into the sky like he actually knew how to fly? Did he propose to openly defy the Union?

  “So you’ll come back with us?” Andeal asked.

  Henry forced himself to nod. When Union airships shot him down, would he remember this as the moment he’d decided to throw his life away? Or, perhaps, as the one he’d stopped being a helpless bystander to his own life? He’d watched his mother die, had done nothing as funds ran out and the Annual Mount Kairn Race got canceled, had stood by as Vermen and Seraphin pointed a gun at each other. He never did anything about it because, really, what could a coward like him do about these things? But perhaps Joshua was right. It wasn’t about transforming into unbeatable heroes. It was about trying with what little you had going for you.

  And he, at the very least, could fly a hot air balloon.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Once Galen Clarin’s voice died out and the recording clicked, nothing but silence filled the private dining booth. As soon as they had returned from Henry’s house, Andeal had borrowed the recording from him, grabbed a bottle of wine, and forced Seraphin and Maniel to dine with him. His legs still hurt from the long trek but this couldn’t wait. They needed to hear it now. After all these years hunting for proof of Galen’s schemes, all the risks they’d taken to bring his conspiracy to light, they finally had the proof they’d been looking for.

  It had taken all of Andeal’s willpower to wait until they had finished eating. He poured one last glass of wine as Galen’s smooth voice summarized his plan to his twin brother. Neither of his companions said a word. They both understood the significance of what they were hearing. Maniel squeezed Andeal’s hand tight while Seraphin stared at the disc reader for several minutes after it was finished.

  “We have it on tape.”

  Seraphin’s hushed voice broke the tense silence. He sounded like he needed to convince himself.

  “We have it on tape,” Andeal repeated. “This is it.”

  Seraphin removed the disc from the reader and set it back in its protective case. His fingers wrapped around his glass of wine and he lifted it, but before he could bring it to his lips, a small chuckle shook his shoulder. A wide smile lit his face. Andeal couldn’t remember when he’d last seen such a relaxed expression on Seraphin. His old friend lifted the glass toward the center of the table.

  “Remind me never to doubt you again, Andeal.” His pale blue eyes shone behind the thin glasses. “You asked for one month, and here we are, with the most beautiful and concise proof of Galen’s guilt we could ever hope for.”

  They clinked their glasses together, raised them, and drank.

  “I told you.”

  Despite his bluster, Andeal had to admit he hadn’t been so sure of himself. He had needed something to placate Seraphin when he had told him he believed Lenz might have known something and passed it on to Henry. Sure, Lenz often spoke as though he was more involved than he let on but Andeal had nothing solid to base his guess on. He’d followed his guts and he had been right. Andeal turned to his old friend and met his gaze.

  “We can move to the next step now,” he said, “and I’ll serve as extra confirmation if you need me to.”

  Seraphin set the wine back on the table, his mirth replaced by a more serious expression. “Everything will help, but don’t…don’t think about it for tonight.”

  Easier said than done. Andeal couldn’t wait to be out from under Mount Kairn. He had done all he could to make the mountain’s network of caves into a home, but in the end the tunnels were just that: tunnels. It didn’t matter how many lights he lined upon the walls. This wasn’t where he’d wanted to live. Not after the labs. He longed for the sun coming through a window,
or a warm breeze as he sat on a balcony in summer. Just a normal house to live in with Maniel, and raise a family in. The time to leave couldn’t arrive fast enough.

  And yet, it couldn’t wait long enough either.

  As the conversation moved to where they would gather supplies for all the rebels and how they might split their small group to cover as much ground as possible, Andeal wondered what it’d be like outside. Memories from his short travels with Maniel after they had escaped the labs flooded back. He had been called a monster by strangers catching sight of him. They had been run out of smaller towns on multiple occasions and the two of them had been forced to scrape by with stolen money, what little they knew they could eat from the woods and the very rare generous stranger. Maniel would enter towns on her own to avoid bringing attention to their presence.

  The labs had turned him into a caged animal. Traveling through Ferrys made him feel like a wild beast, always roaming at the edge of civilization. He had grown restless and bitter, angry that they had escaped only to be pushed out from society. Only Maniel’s patient love kept him from striding into the National Radio Tower and demanding that Galen Clarin face him. She had convinced him to bide his time and be careful, had found these tunnels in the mountain. He would’ve gotten himself captured or killed a long time ago without her.

  Once they left Mount Kairn, he would have to face strangers again. He wasn’t alone, however. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that with Maniel at his side, he could get through anything.

  Maniel put her hand on his leg, under the table, and Andeal realised he’d stopped paying attention to the conversation. He shook his head a little, pushing the dark thoughts away. He had friends now. It would be better. Andeal smiled at Maniel. “I’m sorry. What did I miss?”

  “Seraphin thinks we’ll be ready in a month,” she said.

  “That’s great!” He forced cheerfulness into his tone, trying to assuage their obvious worry. Both Seraphin and Maniel were staring at him, their smiles a little bit stiff. His wife wasn’t buying it, but she said nothing. Andeal finished his wine. “The sooner, the better.”

  “I agree,” Maniel said. She leaned forward and what had been left of her smile vanished. “Something has been bothering me about this recording.”

  Andeal frowned at the shift in her mood and exchanged a glance with Seraphin. Had they missed something important? As the three of them had built the rebels’ network, Maniel had always been the one to point out key details and keep them from running into important problems. They waited for her to explain. She pinched her lips and a haunted look crept into her eyes.

  “Do you remember when Galen poisoned Lenz? How Lenz would repeat ‘he’s doing it again’ over and over but never explain what?” She grabbed the edge of the table, took a deep breath. “Andeal, what if Galen Clarin was testing another Threstle Plague on us? Lenz died and you were sick. I think the silver in your water saved you—it is antibiotic. And they gave me unknown meds which could have protected me altogether from it. But if that’s true…What if he could unleash a second pandemic whenever he wanted?”

  Andeal’s heart skipped several beats and his fingertips grew cold. Another Threstle Plague. Everything shutting down again, the stench of death in every street, moans and weeping drifting out of windows. Victims dying within days, feverish and demented. Andeal shuddered as memories of Lenz’ illness mixed with the years of the Threstle Plague. How many would die this time?

  “He wouldn’t…” He would. Andeal closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “He must never get the chance.”

  “He won’t.” Seraphin had straightened in his chair. All the determination and certainty in the world filled his tone. Pale hands swept the air in a grand gesture as the Regarian continued. “We are the White Renegade’s rebels, are we not? We have escaped authorities for years, pilfered gas containers from them, infiltrated General Omar Clarin’s close circles and stolen vital information, captured our most bitter pursuer, and acquired an explicit recording of Galen Clarin’s scheme. Five years ago there was only the three of us. We knew something had to be done, but we’d never have guessed how far we would get. This is it. We will go out there and spread the word.” Seraphin smiled at Andeal, and the red streaks in his eyes seemed brighter than usual. “The Clarin twins will never know what hit them.”

  * * *

  It took more than a week for Andeal to stride into Vermen’s cell, a pair of shackles slung over his shoulder. He was humming to himself, a satisfied smile upon his features, and threw an enthusiastic “good morning” at him. The contrast with their last meeting was so abrupt that for some time, Vermen could not form a coherent response.

  “You don’t act like someone I almost killed.”

  Their gazes met. Andeal’s unfaltering smile did not reach his eyes.

  “I prefer to act like someone you saved,” he answered after some time.

  “Why?”

  Andeal had never explained why he put so much effort into Vermen—why he visited all the time despite Vermen’s categorical refusal to participate in the conversations, cared enough to bring meals at regular hours, share the weather and latest news, relate half of his life in an endless monolog. Vermen had thought he’d caught a glimpse of the answer when Andeal had overpowered him, and now he wanted the whole answer. Andeal lifted himself onto the desk and sat, his legs dangling over the edge.

  “You could have let me die and fled. When you slashed me, I knew I might not survive the wound and I didn’t care. It would have been better than the labs. But you chose to stay. I’m glad you did.”

  “But why do you care? Your friends seemed pretty intent on killing me when they paid a visit.”

  “Don’t mock them.” Andeal brought his legs up and crossed them, his tone hardening. “You captured and executed good men and women. They were passionate, determined. They had plans for the future. We lived with them every day and they became a second family. You of all people know how it is to seek revenge for the death of a family member.”

  Vermen’s anger flared at the comparison. He clenched his fists and took a step forward, but pain shot through his muscles and forced him to calm down. The bruises from his recent beating still throbbed and kept him mostly inactive.

  “It’s not the same.”

  “No, you’re right.” If Andeal was the least bit intimidated, it didn’t show. “Your brother had a presidential sanction to commit atrocities. We don’t even have permission to live.”

  The captain’s muscles tightened. Another word and he’d spring on Andeal. His brother had not been a monster—these were lies built to sully his name and justify Seraphin’s actions. Vermen would hear none of it.

  “They were criminals. With a criminal record.”

  “You think that diminishes their loss? You took loved ones away.”

  Vermen struggled for an answer, a way to deny Andeal’s words. It had been his duty to dismantle Seraphin’s group, to capture the rebels and put them behind bars. He’d acted within the parameters of his mission, respecting General Clarin’s orders—until he quit to go after Seraphin on his own, at least. He would not apologise for those deaths. He did not regret his actions.

  “So why stop them? Why interrupt their well-deserved vengeance?”

  “Do I look like I care for this bloodshed? It doesn’t solve anything and it goes on and on!” He set the shackles on the desk and jumped down. “I don’t want it here, in my home. But you…you didn’t shoot Seraphin.”

  Andeal made it sound like a compliment. He’d lacked the courage to go through with his plan and avenge his brother, yet somehow that made him better than others. Vermen averted his eyes. His cheeks burnt from the rising shame.

  “And that’s why you’re helping? Because I broke your little cycle of angry revenge?”

  He described a circle with his index with a sneer. He shouldn’t have started this conversation. All of it was ridiculous.

  “Yes. And no.” Andeal crossed his arms and waited
for Vermen to look at him before he continued. “When I was locked up I wanted nothing more than a chance to get out, walk around, do something. Even if it meant more tests, more examinations, more pain and sickness. It reminded me I was alive. There was a world out there. Sometimes I’d even get lucky and glimpse the sky, and those fleeting moments kept me sane. I will never put another human being through the same.”

  “Who did it to you? The labs, the blue, the prison…” The question had hung at the back of his mind since his first day in the rebels’ headquarters. Not that he could’ve asked—it’d imply an interest in who these people were. Trying to deny he cared for Andeal now would be ridiculous, however.

  His friend allowed his gaze to rest on Vermen. He was choosing his words with care—not a habit in Andeal’s case.

  “This is dangerous information to give you.”

  “Rebel secret?” Vermen couldn’t keep the mockery out of his voice. As far as hiding precious information went, Holt’s group had done a very bad job so far.

  “State secret. I meant dangerous to you, not to us.” An amused smile flickered on his expression. “It wouldn’t do a lot of good to Galen Clarin’s reputation for it to be known he tested several highly dangerous bacterial strains and vaccines on people. He had a hard enough time erasing his contributions to the engineered bacteria that ate everyone’s oil supply.”

  Vermen blinked. Galen Clarin was the Union’s most famous and controversial genetic engineer. He’d designed a vaccine against the Threstle Plague when everyone thought the virus would exterminate them, then handed it over to President Kurtmann, a young doctor at the time. Those two, with the second Clarin twin—General Omar—pretty much led the country today. They were the Union’s spine.

  “How can you be sure of this?” His voice shook. Andeal could be bluffing, trying to shake his convictions.

  “Because he came to check on the progress of his pet project on a regular basis. He seemed particularly fascinated by the growing rash Lenz showed toward the end, and the nausea his foul-tasting water gave me.”