The doctor exhaled and continued. “As I mentioned, the disease is changing. It’s adapting to its environment in an unprecedented way. So we have what we’re calling G1-TBE, that’s generation one, which is what I believe is the original culprit. It’s what we know first existed in homeless camps in Los Angeles and in San Francisco. Somebody contracted the illness, spread it to one of the camps, and then someone traveled along the coast to the other.”
“A homeless person traveled?”
“It may have been,” said Negro. “Or it may have been an air worker, a volunteer. We don’t know. What we do know is that G1-TBE has a relatively quick onset of symptoms and can take several days to fully manifest. G2 is more aggressive. The symptoms take longer to reveal themselves. That’s critical because it allows for hosts, people that is, to move about within a population, thinking they are healthy. It allows the hidden illness to spread more quickly.”
“What about clean zones, then?” asked the anchor. “Are they useless?”
“In some cases, yes. That’s why the quarantines are so critical. They allow not only for separation of the sick from the healthy, but also for testing of those we believe are healthy. We can find out, before symptoms present, if someone is positive.”
The anchor sighed through her mask. The thin blue fabric puffed at her mouth.
“There is also G3,” he said. “This is the worst of them. It contains a third bacterial component. It creates a triple threat. Those who may not be affected by or fall ill to generations one and two are more likely to succumb to generation three.”
“You’re saying that anyone who’s healthy now may become sick?” asked the anchor. “That we’re not out of the woods yet?”
“Far from it. We are still in the early stages of TBE. It is a disease on a global scale. We don’t foresee any civilized region going untouched by this. Just because you are healthy today doesn’t mean TBE won’t kill you tomorrow. Even those who’ve contracted it and survived are not safe from another attack. In fact, their compromised immunity makes them more likely to contract G3.”
The anchor’s eyes went wide. The color drained from the upper half of her face. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and cleared her throat. Her eyebrows, which had arced upward with worry, angled downward with concern or anger. “What exactly are you saying?”
Dub stood from his seat, ignoring the jolt of pain in his hip, and pointed at the screen. The frustration in his own voice surprised him. “What do you think he means? He means we’re all going to die. There is no fixing this. Are you that thick?”
Gem suppressed a cough and grabbed his wrist. She squeezed. “It’s okay, Dub. Just sit down and watch.”
Dub looked back at her. There were tears streaming down her cheeks. Barker’s too. They understood the same thing he did. None of them were in the clear. None of them could know definitively they weren’t still sick, a time bomb inside them counting down on a molecular level. She held a rumpled paper towel in one hand. It was balled into a fist.
Dub swallowed against the ache building in his throat. He blinked back the sting of welling tears and sat, turning back to the interview on the screen.
“…so blunt,” Negro was saying. “It’s not my nature to state things so plainly. But that is where we are. It’s best everyone understand that we don’t have solutions yet. We have answers that lead to more questions.”
“There is no vaccine?” said the anchor. “No prevention and no cure?”
“No.”
“What do we do?”
Negro attempted a weak smile again. He nodded an understanding of the question that everyone, everywhere was likely asking. “We are working with private labs, university laboratories across the globe, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, foreign governments, you name it, to formulate a definitive response to this epidemic. Understand we have untold teams of people working around the clock, attempting to formulate prophylactics and curative measures. It’s important that—”
The screen went black.
Gem stood there holding the remote at the screen. Her thumb was on the power button. She was staring blankly at the empty display. “I can’t take any more. I feel manic. I’m good one second and at the end of my rope the next. People are dead. More are dying. My parents are halfway around the world. I can’t pretend to be okay anymore. I can’t joke about it.”
“It’s okay,” Barker said, attempting to use her own vaguely reassuring psychology on her. “We’ll be okay.”
She shook her head. “No, we won’t, Barker. Didn’t you hear the man? Everybody is going to die from this.”
Barker frowned against the hyperbole. “Not everybody,” he said. “Not—”
“Nearly everybody. It doesn’t matter that we’re here in my house. Even if we’re safe for now. We’ve got a couple of weeks’ worth of nonperishable food. Then what? We go out? We get infected then?”
“Let’s take one day at a time,” said Barker.
Suddenly, the dude with the concussion was the reasonable one, the one trying to maintain the relative but shaky calm. Barker’s weary eyes darted between Gem and Dub.
Gem raised her hand to Barker’s face and ran a thumb along his cheek. She inhaled deeply and sighed. Her body shuddered. “I’m so sorry,” she said. She turned to Dub. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” asked Dub. “What are you sorry about?”
“Everybody’s allowed to lose it,” said Barker. “Five seconds ago it was Dub. Now it’s your turn.”
She shook her head and stood. She spun around, coughing, and opened her hand. She uncrumpled the paper towel and held it up in front of her.
It was blood soaked.
Barker started toward her. She held up her hand and stopped him. The tears flowed from her eyes. Her nose was running. It was a combination of snot tinged with blood. She wiped it away with the paper towel and steeled herself.
“I started coughing again when we were hiking,” she said. “I thought it was from the elevation and the exercise. Then I tasted the blood in my mouth.”
“When?” asked Barker. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I didn’t think anything of it,” she said. “I really didn’t. Not until—”
Barker jabbed a finger at the television screen mounted on the wall behind his dying girlfriend. “The CDC guy just now?” Barker said, anger swelling in his voice. “That quack. You believe him? You’ve already been sick. You got better. You’re fine.”
“You’re in denial,” she said. “You heard him.”
Gem coughed again, her body convulsing. She tried to cover her mouth with the paper towel. Blood sprayed from the edges.
“Gem,” Barker said, lunging for her with a wide step.
She tried pushing him back, but he pulled her to him. They cried together. Dub’s own chest shuddered with the overwhelming sadness that had filled the room. Those few moments of contentment, of naïve bliss, were long gone. This house was as much a prison as their dorm room, as any secure facility they might find themselves dragged to against their will.
Gem was sick with G3. That meant all of them were sick with G3. It was only a matter of time now. Unless there was a miraculous cure pulled out of the air, chances were they’d be joining Keri, Michael, and countless others in the afterworld.
Dub sank deeper into the cool leather. It wasn’t as comfortable as it had been minutes earlier. His eyes drifted from his sobbing friends consoling one another to the dark brown ceiling above him. Somehow, he’d known this moment was coming, the moment when hope was lost. Deep within him, this realization was inevitable. There was something predetermined about it.
He’d always felt invincible as a kid. It didn’t matter what he did, where he went, or what risks he took, he knew deep down he would survive them.
Yet in recent months that had changed. He’d had recurring dreams of the end of his world. In some cases it was the end of the world, and in some it was merely a seismic shift in his own
life. A wave of heat washed over him, the briny taste of seawater filled his mouth, and the smell of death overwhelmed them both.
Dub closed his eyes, trying to define the moment his outlook had changed. When was it that he’d stopped believing he was immortal, in the figurative sense, and started understanding his life was short in the literal sense?
His mind drifted until he saw the face of a man sitting across from him in a psychology lab. The man was older, in his mid-thirties, and well-dressed. He’d called himself an angel investor.
He worked for a tech company, or owned a tech company, or invested in a tech company called something Dub couldn’t remember. It was right there on the tip of his tongue. Inner something. Or Inter something. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the paycheck from the experiment. What mattered was being a part of psych research. What mattered was that he’d convinced the angel investor to let his friends participate too.
Dub had told the man they were all out-of-state students, and tuition was ridiculous. There was no financial aid for out-of-state kids whose parents made decent money. They needed the easy cash.
The investor, the man running the research, had agreed and included them. He promised them the same stipend. All they had to do was undergo a brain scan under the influence of a light anesthesia. Then they’d periodically come by the lab and answer questions.
That was it. Easy money. Too easy. Too good to be true.
Since the study had begun, Dub had suffered from periodic headaches and recurring nightmares. Keri’s migraines had gotten worse. Michael’s nervous tics had intensified. Barker complained of serious déjà vu every time they stepped out of the dorm room.
None of it mattered now. All of it was pointless. It didn’t matter what he did now, or what he’d done, he was at the end of his world. Still, when he opened his eyes again to stare at the ceiling, a nagging sensation told Dub this wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last.
CHAPTER 14
DAY 17
Pacific Palisades, California
Gilda’s eyes fluttered open. They felt sticky from heavy sleep. She tried swallowing. It hurt and took her three tries before she could complete the task. Her vision was blurry. She could see light and shapes but couldn’t make out what exactly they were or where she was. A familiar voice gave her a hint. The voice was muffled, as if coming from behind a wall. She recognized it. It was Doc Konkoly.
“Gilda,” he said, “can you…hear me?”
Gilda tried to move and realized she was restrained. Her wrists and her ankles were strapped to something. She strained against them. She tried speaking but couldn’t. Little more than air hissed from between her teeth. Her jaw ached.
“Gilda,” said Konkoly, “relax. There’s no need to panic.”
That was when panic welled in her chest. Her limbs trembled. Her breathing sped up. It was shallow and painful. Her chest burned now. Her throat tightened. Her stomach seized. She wanted to scream. She needed to scream. She couldn’t. A thick lump swelled in her sore throat.
“Gilda,” Konkoly repeated in his familiar halting cadence, “you’re…in an isolation bay…in the infirmary. We have you restrained…for your own safety.”
Gilda squeezed her eyes closed, wishing away her reality. She told herself this was a dream. She was asleep. She was in her room. She was dreaming, as she had for months. This was another one in a long succession of nightmares that bordered on reality.
Sweat stung her eyes and her body shivered involuntarily. She was drenched in perspiration. Her lower back was stuck to the sheet underneath her body. Her hair was matted to her forehead and neck.
“Your fever is breaking,” said Konkoly. His voice was less muffled than hollow, she realized.
Where is he?
She opened her eyes again, understanding this might not be a dream, and tried focusing on her surroundings. Still blurry, but clearer than before, she made out the stone walls of the room. They matched that of her own room in the bunker. They matched every wall in the bunker, for that matter. Above her hung a single strand of LED lights. They shone directly into her eyes, and she turned away from them to find a metal intravenous pole holding a pair of plastic bags on twin hooks.
The bags were half full of clear liquids. Both had lines running from the bags and into her right arm. The line was hidden by surgical tape at the entry point into her vein. She was lying at an angle, her head and chest elevated above her hips and legs.
Then she noticed the faintest hint of a hum, and Konkoly spoke again. It was then she spotted the speaker mounted on the wall. Next to it was the circular black lens of a digital video camera. She glared at it, fighting the urge to pounce at the device and rip it from the stone wall.
“You’re sick, Gilda,” he said. “You’ve contracted TBE. Claudia found you unconscious in the greenhouse. You hit your head on one of the hydroponic tables. You…lost blood.”
TBE? How could she have TBE? She was healthy. She had been fine when she moved underground two weeks ago. The incubation period wasn’t that long, was it?
She had questions to ask. She needed answers. The look on her face must have conveyed something to Konkoly. He seemed to know what was going on in her head.
“I know this is disorienting,” he said. “I know you’re confused. Victor is here to give you an update on…the situation.”
The speaker clicked and Victor’s deep, resonant voice replaced Konkoly’s. He began by apologizing for having her quarantined and restrained.
“You’re quarantined for our protection,” he explained. “We cannot risk you infecting the entire population down here. We have you restrained, as Doc mentioned, for your protection. If you were free to get up and move around, you’d only hurt yourself. You’re weak. You’re sick. Frankly, we want your final hours to be as comfortable as possible.”
Final hours?
Bile crept up her throat, burning and inducing the urge to retch. She suppressed it.
Victor apologized again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That didn’t come across the way I intended. But you do have TBE, and it’s what is now being called Gen3. The incubation period is as long as sixteen or seventeen days, which means you were probably infected when you arrived.”
Gilda’s mind raced. None of this seemed possible, let alone probable. She willed herself to wake up. She had to wake up.
“There’s a likelihood you’ve infected others,” said Victor, “because two people have already died. Another eight are showing advanced symptoms of the illness; five others are beginning to present. They are also quarantined. Actually, nearly everyone is quarantined.”
If there were others quarantined, where were they? Why was she the only one in an infirmary bay? Why couldn’t she be in her own room, away from prying eyes? And how would they know she was the one who infected everybody? Might someone else have been patient zero? Doc Konkoly, again appearing to read her mind, returned to the microphone. His voice echoed off the stone walls of the enclosed space.
“The others are in their rooms,” he said. “You’re in the infirmary because of your fall. We didn’t realize you were…infected…until after you were here. Rather than move you, we kept you here.”
A tightness built in her chest and she coughed. Blood sprayed from her mouth and splattered on her chest. Her eyes widened with fear and she blurted out something that sounded like a banshee’s wail. The sound of her own voice, or whatever it was, sent a shudder along her spine. Her body shook with fear. She tensed against the restraints.
“Claudia…is dead,” said Doc. “You coughed into her face when you arrived in the infirmary. It was twelve hours…and she was gone.”
Gilda was certain this was a nightmare now. It had to be. Nobody could die within twelve hours from TBE. Nobody. How long had she been unconscious in the infirmary? How long had she been restrained?
“Ritz is gone too,” said Doc. “He was the first to treat you. He…died within an hour of Claudia.”
Victor re
turned to the mic. “You’ve been here for close to forty-eight hours. Quite frankly, we thought you’d have passed by now. It’s encouraging to see you fight so hard. You’re an incredible woman, Gilda.”
None of this made any sense. The timeline, the dead people, her survival. She was more convinced than ever it was a dream, that she was asleep and struggling to awaken from the mental prison.
Gilda’s head began to throb. Her temples pulsed with pain. Her vision blurred from the sheen of tears that wouldn’t stop flooding her eyes. She swallowed hard and focused. She needed to speak.
“There’s a mic near your bed,” said Victor. “We can hear you.”
She swallowed again. “Why,” she managed before forcing the air from her lungs. Her voice was barely more than a scratchy whisper. “Why are you alive?”
The words hung in the air without an answer for what seemed forever, a very long moment. Was her sense of time warped? Didn’t dreams do that? Mess with the temporal reality of things?
“We don’t know,” said Victor, “but we suspect it’s a matter of time before we fall ill.”
“You handled all of the food, Gilda,” Doc Konkoly said. “We’ve all eaten the food. If you were sick from the outset, or even if you contacted it from someone else in the early days of our seclusion, we’re…all exposed.”
“All of the surviving members are secluded from one another,” said Victor. “I’m in the hub by myself.”
“I’m in the primary lab,” said Doc, “but everyone else is in their rooms.”
“Hal is delivering food and water once a day,” said Victor. “He’s the only one moving around the OASIS at this point. And he’s not offering provisions to those who are already symptomatic.”
“We expect to last a few more days,” said Doc, “perhaps a week. It’s…not looking good. Not with the new data, which suggests that nobody is immune. This is probably the end of the civilized world as we know it, Gilda.”
“Our experiment here failed,” said Victor. “We were as prepared as any group of people could be. No expense was spared to provide comfort, power, food, and water. We were self-sustaining. None of it mattered.”
The Alt Apocalypse (Book 4): Affliction Page 22
