#
The next day, a woman came to see Rachel bearing a simple but tasteful black dress. It reminded Rachel of that last terrible dinner at the Citadel, when Chadwick had executed dozens of his purported supporters as the place unraveled. Hell, maybe she would get lucky a second time. The woman was a sweet wisp of a thing, fair-skinned, her face fresh and young. But crow’s feet around her eyes belied a much older woman, probably older than Rachel was. A large birthmark colored the top of her forehead near her hairline.
“My name is Jody.”
“Rachel.”
“I know. Everyone is talking about you.”
“What are they saying?”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“That your grandfather designed the vaccine?”
“It would appear so.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. So what’s the dress for?” Rachel asked, desperate to change the subject.
“For you to wear tonight.”
“What’s tonight?”
“The Lottery.”
“What’s that?”
“The population here is strictly controlled. Once a year, six women under the age of forty are given permission to have a baby.”
This must’ve been the important event Gruber had mentioned.
Jody’s eyes cut to the ground.
“This is my last chance,” she said with an odd smile and a strange inflection in her voice; she held up her hands with fingers crossed.
“Oh,” Rachel said, not really knowing what to say.
There was a wistfulness about this woman, a yearning, a sense that this Lottery meant far more to Jody than she was letting on. It was peculiar, but Rachel couldn’t quite put her finger on why that was. On some level, the Lottery made a certain kind of business sense. Gruber had to make sure their resources could support their population.
“I’ll be back to get you this evening.”
#
When Rachel stepped inside the auditorium a few minutes before the appointed hour, Jody by her side, a hush fell over the crowd. Hundreds of people craned their necks to get a look at her, this prodigal daughter returned. Rachel could only imagine what people had been saying about her, how much of it had been truth peppered with a rumor, or perhaps it had been the other way around.
They were in the chalet’s main ballroom, which had been retrofitted with enough stadium seating to fit Olympus’ entire population. The sight of this many people in one place was dizzying; she hadn’t seen such a large crowd since the plague. Not even the Market had been so crowded. A profound sense of loneliness washed over her; all these years, they’d been so alone.
“This way,” said Jody, extending her arm down the aisle.
In an aisle seat in the front row, there was a placard with her name on it. She removed the card and sat down next to an older woman; she felt the flush heat of embarrassment creep up her chest as hundreds of sets of eyes bore in on her. Rachel glanced quickly at the woman next to her. She wore a pantsuit and was frightfully thin. She wore no makeup. The woman made no move to engage her; Rachel sat quietly with her hands folded in her lap.
The buzz in the crowd died down quickly. Eventually, people got restless as they waited for things to get started. She glanced around the utilitarian space they were in. Nothing adorned the walls. Function over form all the way.
A few minutes later, Gruber emerged from the wings, striding purposefully across the stage to the podium. Under his arm was a leather portfolio, which he opened before him. He tapped the microphone once, a burst of static, and he began to speak.
“Good evening. Welcome to the Annual Lottery.”
He opened the portfolio. The old leather creaked in the silence that had come down on the room like an anvil. A thousand people and not a soul breathed. She glanced around the room and caught a glimpse of Jody. The woman was on the edge of her seat, her eyes wide, her face frozen in a blank stare. Her hands, clenched in prayer, tapped metronomically against her lips.
“Before we start,” Gruber was saying, “there’s someone I’d like you all to meet. As you all know, it was James Rogers’ and Jack Fisher’s brilliant vaccine that allowed us to survive the epidemic all those years ago. I only wish we’d been able to make more before it was too late. That said, I know Jack would be thrilled that we soldier on, thanks in large part to him, that because of the vaccine flowing through the veins of every one of us, the human race will live on.”
“To Jack!” someone called out.
Laughter, followed by a crash of applause that swept across the room like a wave. Then everyone was on their feet, cheering, whistling, hooting and hollering. As Rachel looked around the room at these men and women, young and old, white and black, Asian and Indian and so many other ethnicities, a thought took root and began to grow. Some wept, others crossed themselves, still others hugged one another.
“To Jack, indeed,” said Gruber. “And today, I have a very special gift for all of you.”
Gruber caught Rachel’s eye and motioned for her to stand up. She rose to her feet sheepishly. Hundreds of pairs of eyes locked on her like heat-seeking missiles. She raised her right hand to acknowledge their warm welcome.
“This is Rachel Fisher,” he said. “Rachel is Jack’s granddaughter.”
A murmur through the crowd.
“She’s been out there for a dozen years, clawing and scratching to stay alive,” he went on. “It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Medusa virus was no match for Jack Fisher’s granddaughter.”
He laughed at his own joke; she noticed he didn’t mention whether she had also been vaccinated.
“I hope you will welcome Rachel to our little community. I hope Rachel will accept our offer to stay with us.”
Someone began to clap, and quickly it spread, the applause rippling out to all corners of the audience. Within seconds, the crowd was on its feet again, the ovation deafening. The woman to her left embraced her in a hug, unseen hands patting her on the shoulder, caressing her cheek. It was as surreal a moment as she had ever experienced.
Gruber beamed from the podium, looking down at his co-conspirator’s progeny.
The celebration began dying down and everyone returned to their seats.
“Thanks, everyone,” he said. “Moving on, I know you’re anxious to hear what else we have on the agenda. So I will cut right to the chase. The winners of this year’s Lottery are as follows.”
He then read off six names.
“Shannon Freeman.
“Amy Munn.
“Elizabeth Parker.
“Hala Abouassi.
“Jennifer Newsom.
“Michele Stehle.”
A gasp or giggle or burst of subdued applause followed the announcement of each name. Rachel stole another glance at Jody, whose chin had dropped to her chest. Tears fell silently onto her blouse, darkening the fabric where they landed. She was fumbling with her hands.
Gruber closed his portfolio and looked out over the crowd.
“This concludes the Lottery,” he said. He exited stage left, back into the wings.
Just like that, it was over. The crowd burst into chatter; the room was awash in tears, laughter and even a little argument.
An escort took Rachel back to her room, where she tried to process what had happened.
Why did she care?
So what if sad little Jody didn’t get to have kids? She had helped make this happen.
Reap what you sow, bitch.
36
As evening descended on Olympus, Jody delivered Rachel’s dinner. The woman’s face hung in the same sad rictus that Rachel had seen in the auditorium. Redness rimmed her puffy eyes; it was clear she had been crying. Jody set the tray of food down on Rachel’s bed, paused, pressed a finger and a thumb to either side of her forehead. Despite herself, Rachel’s heart went out to the woman.
Gruber’s endgame remained a mystery to her. It was as if he didn’t know what to do wit
h her now. He could kill her, but there seemed to be little value in exchange for that. He didn’t know about Will; that was another bit of intel he wouldn’t be able to use against her. The vaccine flowed through her veins; her having a son wouldn’t exactly be earth-shattering news, especially here, where he wasn’t unique, where he was one of many.
“Are you OK?” Rachel asked. The words were out of her mouth before she realized it.
“I’m fine.”
“You sure.”
Jody ignored her, drifted toward the door, stopped.
“That was my last chance.”
“I’m sorry.”
She stood at the doorway, scratching at the jamb with a single fingernail.
“Why is forty the cut-off age?” Rachel asked.
“One of their rules.”
“What happens if you break the rule?”
“The pregnancy is terminated. It’s a capital offense.”
Rachel’s heart hardened to stone.
“You made the bed,” Rachel said. “Now you can lie in it.”
Jody lifted her downcast chin, glanced back over her shoulder.
“What do you mean?”
“You were part of this.”
“Part of what?”
“The way things are.”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Pretty nonchalant about being a mass murderer.”
“What are you talking about?”
Now she had turned around to face Rachel.
“Don’t try to rationalize,” Rachel said, even as a sliver of doubt crept inside her and began burrowing.
“Rationalize what?”
The conversation was becoming more and more tangled, like recalcitrant headphone cords.
“I mean, I guess I was lucky,” Jody said.
Rachel didn’t say anything, hoping the woman would let the discussion unspool without her interference. Jody’s chin had dropped back to her chest.
“Never thought it would turn out like this.”
She lifted her chin up.
“You ever think about it anymore?” Jody asked. “The outbreak, I mean?”
“I try not to.”
“We’d been here two weeks when it started,” Jody said. “We were here for a corporate retreat. I worked for NorthStar, that was one of Penumbra’s subsidiaries. Pretty sweet, huh? A month in this place? Then we started seeing the news reports about the outbreak.”
She paused and smiled an embarrassed smile.
“I was always a bit of a germophobe. I think I was paying attention before anyone else.”
Like the virus that had brought her here to this place, the doubt began replicating wildly inside Rachel. Jody was telling the story of a random survivor, not of an apocalyptic conspirator. Either she was an exceptional liar or…
She didn’t know. She didn’t know. She didn’t know.
“I remember being so excited to get sent on this trip,” she said. “I’d never been away from my kids that long,” she said, her voice cracking, “but it was such a big honor, I couldn’t turn it down.”
“I worked in the Seattle office,” she said. “Then they grounded the airplanes. Then Mr. Gruber wouldn’t let us leave. Said it was too dangerous. By then, I didn’t have any place to go. Then they told us about the vaccine.”
“What did they say?”
“They told us it was an airborne strain of Ebola. Said PenLabs had been working on a vaccine for Ebola, but they weren’t sure if it would work.
“It was terrifying,” she said, her eyes closing. “All of us lined up to get the vaccine. The slightest sniffle or cough and people would flip out.”
She was rambling now.
“I remember the last time I talked to my kids. They were all sick by then. It was on FaceTime, you remember FaceTime?”
Rachel nodded, a lump in her throat.
“I was hysterical. There was no way to get to them. Can you imagine that? Having to watch your kids die on an iPad?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Did you have kids?”
“I was in college then,” Rachel said, carefully wording her response so as not to lie to her. For some reason, she did not want to lie to this woman.
“Oh.”
“Anyway, Michael – Michael is my husband now – Michael and I wanted to have a baby. I wanted to have a family. To be a mother again. You know? And now that’s all over.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK. Well, it’s not OK. It’s how it is. Amazing what you get used to, you know. I mean, I get up every day and get on with my life. That’s something, right? I have a safe place to live. I want for nothing. Everyone pitches in.”
Rachel took Jody into her arms and held her tightly. Something inside the woman disintegrated, and out flowed the tears, an explosion of a dozen years of anxiety and worry and grief that had been building up. She’d reached her breaking point was all. Rachel held her until the crying subsided to subdued weeping and sniffles, the last remnants of a terrible emotional hurricane sweeping through.
Jody broke the embrace first. Her eyes were shiny and wet, but her face looked calm.
“I don’t know what came over me,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Jody left.
#
Fallout from the Lottery spread swiftly across the chalet. By the time Jody left Rachel’s room, the place had fallen dead silent. People had retreated to their rooms to celebrate or mourn, depending on the news they’d received.
After waiting several hours, Rachel jimmied the lock open and exited her room, which was at the end of a long corridor on an upper floor of this wing. The plush red carpet swallowed up her footsteps as she made her way down the brightly lit hallway. The silence was eerie in the brightness of the corridor.
The stifled cries of despair greeted her as she passed by one doorway. Pity. She felt pity for these people, here with their warm beds and hot meals. She couldn’t even fault them for staying here because where would they go? How would they survive out there by themselves, let alone with a baby? No, Leon Gruber had them by the pubes. He had trapped them here to execute his vision, punishing them with life. There was no doubt in her mind that Jody would much rather have died with her children back in Seattle than live here.
But pity did not solve her very pressing problem.
She was running out of time to find the vaccine.
Using her left arm as a canvas, she sketched out a very rough map of the chalet with a pen from her room. The upper floor appeared to be exclusively residential. At the far end of the corridor were the stairs. She entered the stairwell and slipped down to the third floor. It was cooler down here, almost chilly. Quiet but for the hum of electricity. More closed doors. Panic began tickling her insides like a rat loose inside a wall. The place was too big. Did she think she was going to stumble across a bag marked FREE VACCINES?
Her breathing was becoming a bit ragged; she stopped and set her hand against the wall. Calm yourself, girl. Calm yourself. This was a Hail Mary pass anyway. She had nothing to lose. If she failed, Will would be lost to her forever. But maybe that was for the best. She wouldn’t be able to take care of him or keep him safe.
Perhaps there was a medical clinic somewhere, a separate building deeper on the grounds of the compound. On the move again, back into the stairwell, down to the main level, outside. It was snowing lightly and she was cold. She edged her way along the building’s façade, the dusting of snow crunching under her shoes.
At the corner, she turned right and continued up a slight incline. She felt small here, alone. This was what her father had done for her. Alone. Afraid. Cold. Her father, dead now, her father who had died with his daughter hating him. She was sorry for what she had said at his funeral. That should have been between them. Instead, she had embarrassed his memory in front of so many to whom he had meant so much.
All those years and she hadn’t said a word to him. She had chosen to be afraid, to take th
e easy way out. And now it was too late. The only thing she could do now was finish this. Find the answers he never could. Save his grandson, save all of them. She could do that for him. After all, it was only because of him there even was a Will.
Will.
The easy way out. She had done the same with Will, hiding him from the way the world was. Look where that had gotten them. A young man woefully unprepared for the world in which he lived. Unprepared because she had been too afraid to do what needed to be done. All these years, she’d lived her life in fear.
She shut off her If-Then machine. That thing could wreak untold devastation if you let it. The past was past and could not be unwritten. The future was still open, at least for the next little while.
A deep breath, and she was on the move again, around to the back of the chalet. The pathway cut up into the hillside toward another building, also bearing that Bavarian motif, but far smaller than the main chalet. She followed the path, caution fully tossed into the wind swirling around the mountain tonight. At the entrance, she paused, glancing around, feeling like a teenager sneaking out for a night of revelry.
As she opened the door, a bright light filled her field of vision, the pop and hiss of sulfur filling the air. It rendered her temporarily blind as wide-open pupils absorbed the blast of white light. She held up a hand and sought darkness, anything that would help her regain her bearings.
“Awful late for a stroll, isn’t it, Rachel?”
Despite the cold icing her skin, Leon Gruber’s metallic voice chilled her soul at a depth she couldn’t have previously imagined. With that one statement, her whole world went up in a mushroom cloud around her. Her vision was still impaired, but she could just make out some activity around her, shapes and blurs. Then a crack, a sharp shooting pain to the head, and the world went dark around her.
#
Concrete.
Sleep.
She dreamed.
She’d been having the same dream for years.
She dreamed about Will playing in an elementary school recorder concert, standing in the front row, making sweet and terrible music. They sat in the school gymnasium, in metal folding chairs that ruined spines, crowded together like sheep, watching their children make terrible music through smartphone screens, making videos they would never watch.
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