The mist around me evaporated, and the light above flashed green. All clear. Any particles of Makanza that were potentially on my suit or in the room had disintegrated.
The door to the watch room opened as Sergeant Rose entered. He hustled to help me out of my suit. “Dr. Sadowsky also called while you were in the entertainment rooms. He wants to see you before he leaves and said it was important.”
Those words made me pause. Compound 26’s Director was a very level-headed man not prone to dramatics. If he said it was important, that could only mean one thing.
It was related to the Summit.
2 – WASHINGTON D.C.
I hurried to Dr. Sadowsky’s office as soon as I left the Inner Sanctum. The Director’s office was on the top floor, level four. I took the rail system. Otherwise, it would have been a fifteen minute walk.
I murmured hello to Dr. Sadowsky’s secretary, Emma Lehmann. She typed at her desk, outside of his office. Emma and I had a good working relationship now, but it hadn’t started that way.
After Dr. Roberts had fired me from the Compound last year for breaking policy, I’d called Dr. Sadowsky hourly in hopes of talking to him. Of course, the Director never answered his incoming calls, Emma did.
Needless to say, Emma had not been impressed with my persistent phone calls. However, we got along just fine now.
“Is he in?” I asked Emma.
“Yes, he’s expecting you. Go ahead.”
I knocked before entering but didn’t wait for a response. Plush carpet softened my steps when I entered the large room.
The Director’s office was huge, easily five hundred square feet. I was greeted with the scent of eucalyptus. Emma had a thing for the dried plant. She’d placed it everywhere throughout upper management. Compared to the stale air in most of the Compound, it smelled fresh and light.
Dr. Sadowsky sat in a chair by the bookshelf. His image, as always, was striking. At over six feet with graying hair and sharp blue eyes, he embodied the rich, older gentleman look to a tee. He also dressed immaculately. I’d never seen him in anything but a perfectly fitting suit and expertly knotted tie. Before Makanza emerged, he had been a distinguished scientist who worked for a large medical company. When the Compounds were built, almost nine years ago, he quickly rose in the ranks. He’d been the Director of Compound 26 for the past seven years.
He stood when I entered, putting down whatever he was reading. “Meghan, I’m glad you made it.”
“I just got your message. You said you wanted to see me before you left for the day?”
“Yes, please have a seat.”
He waved toward the deep seated armchairs by the floor to ceiling windows that covered half of his office. On the top floor, we had to be at least eighty feet above ground.
The smooth windows faced south. Rolling fields extended as far as the eye could see. Since it was June, the South Dakota field was alive with color. Asters, clovers, geraniums, balsamroots, and ragworts were just a few of the wildflowers dominating the landscape. They rolled in waves as the wind whipped through them, a beautiful rainbow sea.
He settled in his chair. “Has Dr. Hutchinson been in touch with you about D.C.?”
“Not recently. She called a few days ago to talk about the Summit, but I haven’t heard from her since.”
Dr. Sadowsky crossed his legs. “You’ll be hearing from her shortly as you’ll be flying out Saturday. Since you essentially discovered how to stabilize the virus enough to create a vaccine, we’d like you attending all of the meetings, even when you’re not presenting. People associate your face with the vaccine. You represent hope. We believe that may help sway them.”
I balked but didn’t say anything. Just the thought of going to the Summit meeting next week, in which every state leader and the president herself would be there, was intimidating enough. But to also attend every meeting? With all of those people?
Already my heart rate increased. I balled my hands into fists. They were ice. My usual anxiety-provoked response was nothing new. It was something I’d lived with most of my life.
“How many, ah…” I cleared my throat. “How many times will I speak?”
“Just once. We’d like you to talk about those infected with Makanza that survived. You work so closely with them and know them so well. We need you to assure our representatives that they’re people just like you and me but with extra abilities. The public still doesn’t know enough to not be afraid. We’re hoping you can change that.”
I took a deep breath. Public speaking. An evil necessity. It wasn’t the first time I’d done it in the past few months, but I’d never spoken at a government meeting as crucial as the Summit. Somehow, I would have to get through it.
Davin’s face flashed through my mind. His midnight hair, deep-set striking blue eyes, bronze skin, and chiseled features. My heart rate slowed. I’ll do it for him.
“Can you be ready to go Saturday morning? Dr. Hutchinson is landing in Sioux Falls around ten if the weather cooperates, and the MRI only wants to run one flight so everyone’s traveling together.”
“I’ll be ready.”
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d flown in the Makanza Research Institute’s plane, but those trips had been rare. Oil production was almost non-existent and only two refineries in the country made jet fuel.
Another scent of eucalyptus wafted toward me as I nervously pushed my long brown hair behind my shoulder. “What should I prepare for the meeting?”
“The usual speech you give, about how the Kazzies have been imprisoned since contracting Makanza. How they’ve done their duty by helping us formulate a vaccine. How it’s only fair that we now set them free.”
For someone who still didn’t want his employees exposed to Makanza despite our vaccinations, he made an impassioned argument. It was the trait I admired most about him. He still had compassion. It was something a lot of the researchers in the MRI had lost, or buried away, as inhumane treatments were done on the Kazzies under Dr. Roberts’ rule.
A chill raced down my spine at the thought of my old boss.
I tucked my icy hands under my thighs. “Do you have the schedule yet?”
“No, but Dr. Hutchinson does. She can give you the details.”
We spoke for a few more minutes before I said goodbye. It was almost five o’clock. Normally, I didn’t leave until seven in the evening or later, but what I’d originally planned to do this weekend would no longer be possible if I flew to D.C. on Saturday.
I returned to my wing in the Compound to grab my things, and then I sailed through security and out the door. It would take almost an hour to drive there from the Compound, and curfew was approaching.
THE CEMETERY WHERE my brother lay buried was in Vermillion. That was where we’d been living when he died on June 8, almost seven years ago. At the time of his death, he was only sixteen.
Today was June 6. The anniversary of my brother’s death was in two days, the day I’d be flying to Washington D.C.
Curfew didn’t begin until nine at night in the summer, so I had a few minutes to cut a bouquet of wildflowers from the vast fields surrounding the Compound. For over ten years, curfew had remained in place. It had been a regulation for so long, that it almost felt normal, like the state border closings.
After Makanza hit, as a way to control public movement, the MRRA had shut state borders and imposed curfew. Their argument was that tracking movement across state lines was harder at night. Therefore, nobody was allowed out of their homes during dark hours. It was another way they were trying to control human movement should a Third Wave ensue.
My hands ripped flowers from the ground as I tried to keep myself occupied with thoughts. There was so much that I needed to get done before I flew out Saturday. Not to mention, my speech was coming up, and I needed to practice it more. But once I was driving toward Vermillion, it was harder and harder to keep myself distracted.
The inevitable tears came when I pulled into the cemetery’s parking lo
t. Every year, it became a tiny bit easier, but it still created an aching void in my chest. The pain at times was still overwhelming.
I put my car into park. The electric motor died, leaving me in nothing but silence. Acres of tombstones stared back at me as the descending sun blazed on the horizon.
One of those tombstones belonged to my brother.
A tear rolled down my cheek. My brother had meant more to me than anybody in my life. He’d been with me for as long as I could remember. He was my childhood playmate, the one I went to when I needed a shoulder to cry on, the one who always brought a smile to my face. For many years, he’d been my best friend.
My only friend.
Throughout our childhood, it was him and me. We moved around a lot as kids, so usually, it was only the two of us. We often didn’t stay anywhere long enough to make other friends. Our entire lives we’d been inseparable. It had always been like that, even when we were teenagers. Naturally, I thought we’d walk side by side through the journey of life.
Only… we hadn’t.
My heart had shattered on the day of his death. During the weeks following, I’d fallen into a bottomless chasm of despair. I’d managed to claw my way out, my fingertips bloody and shredded from the ordeal, using a singular purpose to reach the top: to obtain a job with the MRI and to find a vaccine.
To stop Makanza.
My heart still hurt when I thought of my brother. I doubted that would ever fully stop, but with Davin’s unyielding support and never-ending understanding, I was better than I’d been a year ago. I no longer pretended that my brother was alive.
Before Davin, I would pretend Jeremy was at my apartment when I really needed to talk to him. I’d make up conversations between us, as if he were actually alive and there, living and breathing.
The day I admitted that to Davin, I’d expected him to look at me like I was crazy. After all, what kind of sane person conversed with her dead sibling? But when I finally got the courage to meet Davin’s sapphire gaze, I’d been amazed at what I’d seen.
Mirrored understanding.
He’d also lost his youngest sibling in the Second Wave. He had been as close to her as I was to Jer. Meeting someone who experienced the exact same loss, and knew just how deep my grief went, helped me heal. I wasn’t there yet, but each day it became a little easier.
Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the wildflowers off the passenger seat and stepped out of my car. I clutched the flowers to my chest, their fragrant scent tickling my nose as I walked across the emerald graveyard.
The evening wind whipped my long, coffee colored locks around my face. Stone markings jutted up from the grass. The oldest part of the cemetery had graves from over two hundred years ago. The newest part, the section built solely for the victims of Makanza, stretched for acres.
No actual bodies were buried in the new section. Federal law deemed anybody who died from Makanza be cremated as a way to prevent the spread of infection. However, people still wanted a grave to visit. Therefore, victims of Makanza had headstones even though only their ashes lay buried underground.
Jeremy’s grave was toward the center, close to a single maple tree. I’d sometimes sit against the tree, staring at the headstone that was the only remainder of my brother’s existence.
When I reached his grave, I knelt beside it and pushed the excess grass clippings away from the headstone. I stared at the inscription.
Jeremy William Forester
Beloved son and brother
Taken from us too soon, but never forgotten
Another tear streaked down my cheek. My vision grew blurry. I blinked and wiped my eyes before setting the flowers against his headstone. “I miss you,” I whispered, staring at the headstone. “Every day, I miss you.”
I leaned to my side and curled my legs beneath me. Soft grass tickled my ankles. “You’d be so proud of everything we’ve done to stop the virus. I wish I could tell you about it. We finally developed a successful vaccine two months ago. Since we only discovered how to stabilize the virus seven months ago, it took every single Compound in the country working together to pull off that feat. And in the past two months, the entire country has been inoculated. Sooner or later, the whole world will have the vaccine. Life might go back to normal one day, Jer, just like it used to be. People will be able to get in their cars and drive until the sun goes down, borders forgotten. Children will be able to play at nighttime, curfews extinct. Someday, we may restart world trade.”
I rubbed my hand along the rough headstone, the rock like sandpaper. “I might even be able to visit a different country someday. It could all happen again, the rebirth of our world.”
I sat by his grave, murmuring all of the things I wanted to tell him, wishing I was speaking to him and not a rock.
When the sun finally bathed the sky in red, I knew I needed to go. It was a forty-five minute drive back to my apartment. Curfew was curfew. I stood and wiped the grass clippings from my pants. I was sure my face was a blotchy mess. My head ached from all the tears, and fatigue slowed my movements. Someday, this trip would be easier, but I doubted it would be anytime soon.
I pressed my fingers against my lips and touched them to his gravestone.
“Bye, Jer. I’ll see you next year.”
ON THE DRIVE back to Sioux Falls, I felt the scratchy feeling in my head that indicated Sara was trying to reach me. I opened the door to the telepathic connection we shared.
Hi, I said.
Hey. Davin wants to talk to you, but he hasn’t been able to reach you.
I grabbed my bag and fished around for my cell phone. I’d left it in the car when I’d visited Jer. When I found it, I pushed the power button. The screen lit up. Three missed calls. All from the Compound’s central line. In other words, Davin.
Right, I see that now. Tell him I didn’t have my phone on me, and I’ll call him when I get home.
Will do. She paused. I could tell she knew something was up with me. You okay?
Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just been a big night.
Hmm. I could tell she wanted to ask more. You sure you’re okay?
I’ll be fine.
Okay, talk to you later.
We both shut down the telepathic link. Sara and Sophie had Makanza strain 30. It was one of the rarer strains. It created telepathic links between twins or siblings, but if a person contracted strain 30 and all of their siblings were dead, they only had blue skin and didn’t share a telepathic link with anyone.
Sara, however, had an extra ability. She was the only person to have it in the United States, as far as I knew. She not only had telepathy with her twin, but she could also form telepathic links with anyone she chose, as long as they were open to it.
She and I made that connection last year, when I was doing everything I could to help her and the six others imprisoned within Compound 26. In the time since, she’d become like a sister to me.
The sky grew darker as Sioux Falls neared. It was quarter to nine when I pulled into the parking lot outside of my apartment building. My stomach grumbled. I hadn’t eaten dinner.
I hurried to park and ran upstairs. Once in my apartment, I called Davin’s private number as I opened the fridge.
He picked up on the second ring. “Hi, Meghan.”
The only people who usually called him were me or his mother. Hence, his readied greeting.
“Hey, Sara said you called?”
“Yeah, nothing important. I just wanted to say hi.”
My heart skipped. Despite being exhausted from visiting Jer, Davin still got my pulse racing. “Oh… hi.”
He chuckled. “What have you been up to tonight?”
I bit my lip and stopped rummaging through the cupboards. The fridge had been empty. “I went to see Jer.”
“Oh.” He was silent for a moment. “I thought you were going on Saturday?”
“I was but now I’m flying to D.C. Saturday morning. If I didn’t go tonight, I would have had to wait until I got back. Tomor
row’s going to be too busy.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Are you doing okay?”
“You mean have I had a nervous breakdown? No.”
“I know it’s been hard for you.”
I chuffed. “You mean since it’s been months since I’ve pretended Jer’s in my living room?”
“Yeah.” His tone stayed serious despite my flippant replies. “How’d it go?”
My facetious façade crumbled under his gentle probing. He knew me so well. I bit my lip harder, but tears still blurred my vision. “It was hard. I’m exhausted.”
“Yeah, I imagine you would be. Can I do anything?”
“No. Just talking about it helps.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I loved that I could hear the soft sound of his breathing.
“Did your parents go with you?”
My eyes snapped open. “No. I didn’t tell them I was going.”
“You don’t visit the cemetery together on the anniversary of his death?”
“No. We never have.” I could just picture that awkward encounter. My mother’s distant manner, my father’s anxious smiles. “It’s best that I go alone. Trust me.”
“When was the last time you talked to your mom?”
“Last month maybe. Or the month before that.”
“Hmm.” Davin tried to understand the dynamic I shared with my parents, but he couldn’t. He and his mother had the exact opposite relationship of me and my mother.
Where Sharon was kind, personable, and warm – my mother was standoffish, critical, and cold. I honestly couldn’t remember her ever hugging me, let alone sitting me down for a long, girl-to-girl chat. The second time I’d met Sharon, she’d done both.
“How is your mom by the way?” I shut the cupboard door and turned to the next.
“She’s good. I talked to her earlier. I guess she’s started a new hobby. Knitting or crocheting? I can never remember the difference between the two.”
Sharon was a homebody. It seemed like the perfect activity for her.
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