“I’d like to hear how your first day went. Do you have any questions about how things work here?”
The hard gleam in his eyes told me he was really asking if I had the stomach for how things worked here. Perhaps this was his way of addressing what I witnessed.
I swallowed with some difficulty. “No. Amy’s done a good job of explaining everything.”
The gleam stayed in his gaze. An aching ten seconds passed before he looked away. Finally, as if satisfied by what he saw, he nodded. “Excellent. In that case, I’d like to further discuss the research you did in grad school that earned you one of your Ph.D.’s.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. My Ph.D. thesis had been on RNA viruses and genomic sequencing. I had no problems talking about that.
“Of course.”
IT WAS ALMOST six when I stepped into the parking lot. I’d never felt so relieved to be outside.
Since it was the beginning of September, the temperature was mild. I took a deep breath of warm air. Someone must have mowed the Compound’s expansive lawn. The scent of freshly cut grass wafted in the breeze. The air that settled around me was like a cloak of normalcy. It was a much needed tranquilizer after the day I’d just had.
My steps sounded on the pavement as I walked to my car. It took roughly thirty minutes to get through security before I hopped onto the frontage road to I-90.
I opened my window. A breeze trailed in. The sweet smell of fresh air helped clear my head. I never minded the stale, processed air that circulated through labs, but perhaps that was because I could always leave. A few steps from my bench lay the freedom of the outdoors, but the Kazzies didn’t have that.
They’d be locked up, potentially forever.
My shoulders slumped.
I thought of Davin again, being gassed to unconsciousness and how nobody had batted an eye. For the past six years, I’d wondered what it was like inside the Compounds, for the people who’d contracted Makanza and survived, but whatever my imagination had come up with, that was not it.
I was about halfway home when my cell phone rang. The image on the screen got a groan out of me. It was my mother. Reluctantly, I answered. “Hello?”
“Meghan, where are you?” Her voice dripped with annoyance.
My mother often reminded me of a cross between The Secretary of Defense and Martha Stewart. She could sound incredibly diabolical while also sounding like she’d just pulled a pan of freshly baked cookies from the oven.
It was a voice that always made me sit up straighter.
“Driving.”
“I hope you’re almost here. Your father and I have been waiting for over twenty minutes.”
I slapped my hand to my forehead. I’d completely forgotten they’d wanted to take me out for dinner. The big celebratory night after my first day. “Right, just heading there now. Luigi’s, isn’t it?”
She mumbled an affirmation then paused. “You should have called, darling.”
“I know. Sorry. Be there in ten.”
THE HOSTESS GUIDED me to my parents. Bill and Janine Forester sat quietly at their table. A bowl of bread slices sat in the middle of the booth. My dad was in the midst of buttering a thick slice when I sat.
He wore jeans and a dress shirt covered by a V-neck sweater. His dark brown hair, the hair Jeremy and I had inherited, was parted on the side. My mother, on the other hand, had blond hair, hazel eyes, and a tall, willowy figure.
If my parents were pets, my dad would be the Labrador dog eagerly greeting any visitor that came to the door, whereas my mother would be the purebred Persian cat sitting atop a tall bookshelf while gazing down at everyone with lofty indifference.
“Hi.” I kept my gaze averted and slid into the booth.
“Well hi there, kiddo!” My dad grinned.
“Meghan, nice of you to finally join us.” My mother picked up her water and sipped it.
The hostess handed me a menu. “As you can see, we have real French bread this week.” She pointed at the bread bowl. “For the menu, we have items two, three, eight, ten, eleven, thirteen, and nineteen. You can refer to the list here.” She pointed to a hand-written sheet of numbers clipped to the top. “Your server will be with you shortly.”
I glanced down, more to avoid my parents’ prying eyes than to actually study the menu. Menu selections were never guaranteed at any restaurant, so I never got too excited about what was available. Restaurants were lowest on the food totem pole, so to speak. The MRI came first, the South Dakota Food Distribution Centers second, and restaurants third. In other words, you could never count on your favorite things being available.
“It’s nice to see you, Meg,” my dad said.
I glanced up and managed a smile. “You too, Dad.”
“What a nice suit,” my mother remarked. She sipped her water while eyeing the charcoal gray two-piece. “Although, it looks a bit big in the shoulders.”
My initial happiness over her comment vanished. I looked left and right. “Yeah, I guess it is, a little.”
“It’s a nice color, though.”
“Thanks, it was either this or–”
“Waiter!” she interrupted, calling to a passing server. “We’re ready to order now.”
I bit back my words and stared at the menu again. Lasagna would do.
“How was your first day?” my dad asked after the waiter left.
I thought about what I’d seen. Garrett. The Sisters. Dorothy. What happened to Davin. My breath stopped. “Fine.” I forced a smile and with a shaky hand brought my water to my lips. “It was good.”
“So what’d you do? Are you already working in the lab?” he probed.
“Um…”
My mother shook her head. “You know she can’t talk about the Compound, Bill. Of all people, you should know that.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Of course, sorry.”
She continued to look at him disapprovingly.
My dad’s degree in structural engineering had helped land him a job eight years ago at Cantaleve Steel, the company that built all of the Compounds. He still traveled regularly, helping to maintain the large structures that were essential for our survival. It was the only way one could travel. Since Makanza hit, the states had been sealed off from one another. Checkpoints blocked all border interstates and highways, another way the MRRA was trying to ready us in case another Wave broke out since it would, theoretically, contain the virus to the state the outbreak had occurred.
Of course, people still snuck across state lines. Sometimes you’d hear news stories about the government breaking up smuggling rings or people getting caught selling things between states on the black market. Obtaining a legal permit to leave any state was not an easy feat to achieve.
I often envied the freedom my dad had. Our vagabond childhood had stopped with the virus, not that I liked uprooting and moving every year, but it had been nice to see new things. When Makanza hit, my dad’s company had him stationed in South Dakota, so that was where we stayed. In the past ten years, I hadn’t left the state. My dad, however, had just gone to Florida to work at Compound 48. I’d always wanted to visit Florida. When I was a kid, I’d dreamed of Disney World. Of course, that theme park closed long ago.
I sighed.
I wished I could talk to my dad right now about the Compound. Even though we’d never really had a conversation past the weather or what we were doing for the weekend, it would have been nice to talk to someone. What I had seen today was awful, but we were both sworn to secrecy, whether we liked it or not.
The table remained silent. After I finished eating a bread slice, I sipped my water, wishing I’d ordered a cola. When the silence continued until our salads arrived, I finally said something to break the ice. “So, anything new with you guys?” I picked up my fork.
My mother cocked her head as she cut her tomato wedges into perfectly sliced bites. “Not really. I’m still helping out at South Dakota Orphans, and your dad’s going to Cleveland to
morrow. Which Compound are you going to, Bill? Is it 54 or 55?”
“54.”
“Isn’t South Dakota Orphans that new charity?” I dipped my lettuce in the vinegary Italian dressing and took a bite. “Made to help children who’ve lost their parents to Makanza?”
She nodded. “Yes, the state currently has one hundred and ninety-eight kids in foster care. It’s especially hard to find adoptive homes when even their most distant relations have died.”
“That’s great that you’re helping them. I’m sure those kids need all the help they can get.”
My mother studied me as if I’d said something peculiar and took a bite of her salad.
I looked down and stuffed a big tomato in my mouth. I didn’t know why I tried. Whenever I attempted to open up to her, it was like I suddenly spoke Japanese.
When our dinners arrived, I breathed an inward sigh of relief. The meal was officially halfway over. We ate in silence, and my mother, as usual, became more occupied in checking things on her phone than actually talking. My dad and I looked at anything but each other.
To pass time, I studied the pattern on the wallpaper behind their heads, and by the time I finished my lasagna, I’d figured out a mathematical equation to determine the pattern of shapes and lines on the paper. My dad had also kept busy. He’d probably readjusted his watch two dozen times and smoothed his hair just as often.
Finally finished, we stood to leave. My dad patted me awkwardly on the shoulder and smiled brightly. “It was great to see you. We’ll have to do this again soon.”
“Yeah, of course,” I replied, even though I knew the next time we’d do this again would probably be around Christmas. Most years I got out of Thanksgiving.
“Good luck with work,” my mother added, a polite smile on her face as she tucked her phone into her bag. Before I could reply, she looked at her watch. “We’d better go, Bill. We only have an hour before curfew.”
I nodded. “Right, of course, drive safely.”
“We will, you too!” For a minute, my dad looked like he wanted to say more, but then he smiled awkwardly and followed my mother.
It would take them forty-five minutes to reach Vermillion. Curfew was currently 9 p.m. It would become earlier as winter grew closer. At times, it drove me crazy that curfew was still in place. It had been added, like the state border closings, after Makanza hit as a way to control public movement.
Now, with six years passing without another outbreak, it seemed obsolete. However, it was one stipulation the MRRA refused to lift. Their argument being that tracking movement across state lines was harder at night. Therefore, nobody was allowed out of their homes during dark hours.
I headed out after my parents and waved a final goodbye. When they backed out and drove away, I let out a sigh of relief.
AS SOON AS I entered my apartment, I closed the door, leaned against it, and sank to the floor. I hadn’t known what to expect on my first day, but utter exhaustion wasn’t it. It was awful what I’d seen today. Totally and completely awful. I pictured Garrett and his desperate drawings, the Sisters’ forlorn looks, Dorothy’s catatonic state, and once again Davin. My stomach lurched.
“How’d the first day go?”
My head snapped up, and I almost shrieked.
Jeremy sat at the kitchen table.
“When did you get here?”
“A little while ago.”
I sighed. All thoughts of Davin left my mind. “Thanks for warning me.”
He shrugged and crossed his feet at his ankles before uncrossing them and then re-crossing them.
The movement made me smile. Somewhere in Jer’s fourteenth year, he’d hit his big growth spurt. It was like a bean stock sprouted in him one morning and up and up he went. He still didn’t seem used to his height or long limbs. I shook my head. What had happened to my little brother? For years, I’d been the older, wiser, and taller sister, but now, he towered over my five-six.
I stood and walked into my sparsely furnished living room. The only furniture I owned was a couch, chair, coffee table, and standing lamp. A small TV hung on the wall. I flipped it on.
America News Network, or ANN, still ran coverage on the First Wave memorial, as I was sure they had all day. This year’s memorial tribute was a big deal. Six years ago, when the Second Wave struck, a prominent scientist had predicted no one would be alive to see this day.
The Second Wave.
I hated thinking about that day. Up until six years ago, life had returned to some semblance of normalcy. Different, of course, from how life was before Makanza, but normal enough. At that time, no traces of Makanza had been reported in the U.S. in over two years.
We thought we were safe. We thought the worst was over.
I paused briefly, remembering the Second Wave. How quickly it hit. No warning, no signs of contamination anywhere, and then wham! The Second Wave proved just how vulnerable we still were. Somehow, against all odds, the virus cropped up again. It spread like wildfire despite state border closings. It was that outbreak which made the MRI’s work so important. Finding a vaccine was critical. Sooner or later, another Wave could hit. Who knew how many would survive that one.
I shook my head. I hated thinking about the Second Wave. Hated it. Turning the TV off, I plopped on the couch.
“It’s good to see you.” Jer stood just at the edge of the room, leaning against the wall, watching me. I knew he was trying to judge my mood.
I nodded, slowly getting pulled from my stupor. Just his presence did that. “It’s good to see you too.”
“So? How’d the first day go?”
I sank deeper into the couch and thought of Davin. “It was awful.”
He pushed away from the wall and sat beside me. “Really? What happened?”
I wished so badly that I could talk to him. “You know I can’t tell you.”
“Bad though, huh?”
I nodded.
He grinned. “Well, cheer up, you only worked six years to get into that place. No big deal if you quit.”
I couldn’t stop my smile. “You’re right. What are a mere six years?”
“In dog years, it’d only be one.”
I chuckled. “Jer, I think it’s the other way around.”
“Whatever, you know what I mean.”
I met his gaze, feeling all of my stress and worry dissipate. “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.”
Jeremy left a few minutes later. He knew I had work to do. A departing gift from my meeting with Dr. Roberts was a pile of research papers to read. Although Jer could have stayed and watched TV, we both agreed TV wasn’t what it used to be. It wasn’t like when we were kids, when every season held a new program. Now, TV was mostly boring, old reruns. New shows appeared, but compared to how it used to be, they were minimal.
It didn’t matter to me. The only shows I actually enjoyed were reruns from National Geographic. It depicted the world as it used to be, before Makanza, when people traveled around the globe, freely moving from country to country. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to see the pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall of China, or the Great Barrier Reef. Heck, even seeing the Statue of Liberty would be amazing. Our vagabond childhood hadn’t held any sightseeing or vacations. It mostly included small towns throughout the Midwest as my dad moved us from city to city.
Once Makanza hit, that all stopped. My dad had been jobless for a while, until Cantaleve Steel hired him. Consequently, the extent of my childhood sightseeing had been Mount Rushmore and The Mall of America.
I sighed. Now, it was every country for itself with trade and travel cut off. Airlines and container ships were a thing of the past. Thank goodness for the Midwest. Without the bread basket, the U.S. would probably be heading in the same direction as Canada. Starving.
6 – STRAIN 11
I held my breath when I entered the Compound the next morning. I didn’t know what I’d witness. Torture? Abuse? More drugged Kazzies?
Luckily, nothing like that happe
ned. In fact, the rest of the week passed by uneventfully. We didn’t go back into the Sanctum. I spent all of my time studying, listening, and reading. With each passing day, memories of Monday slipped away like a bad nightmare that vanished upon waking.
Throughout the week, if Amy wasn’t giving me tours of the various places we worked, we were in an office. My lab work was on hold until I learned everything the MRI knew about Makanza.
I soon memorized all forty-one strains. It was mind-boggling what some of the Changes were. The latest one I read about was Makanza strain 18. Infected with that strain, a Kazzie’s olfactory neurons multiplied. The amygdala, olfactory tubercle, hippocampus, and parahippocampal gyrus grew anywhere from 37% to 52%. In other words, their brains got a little bigger. However, their noses didn’t change, but there were increased sensory pathways to the enlarged areas in the brain that processed smell. They also had increased blood flow. The internal and external carotid arteries and sphenopalatine artery usually enlarged by 10%.
The painful part about that Change? The skull enlarged. I had yet to learn of any Change that wasn’t painful.
Amy’s head popped into my open office door. “How’s that reading going? Done yet?”
Research papers lay strewn across my desk. I hurried to organize them as she skipped in. They were all on Davin’s strain, 11, but I’d finished them an hour ago. After that, I’d randomly chosen a paper on strain 18. “Yes, I’m done. I finished them a while ago so was reading up on strain 18.”
“Ah, the bloodhounds.” Amy winked.
“Yeah, they could be, couldn’t they?”
Amy propped her hip on the desk corner. “Minnesota’s got one of them. He can smell his researchers and identify them even if they haven’t been in a room for over a week.”
“No kidding?”
“Crazy, huh?” She motioned for me to stand. “Come on, let’s go for a walk. I want to quiz you on Davin’s strain.” Since Davin was our Kazzie, most of our time involved studying his variation of the virus.
Compound 26: Book #1 in The Makanza Series Page 5
