The end had come when he had tried to kiss her passionately and to take the relationship, whatever it was, to the next level. When she had pulled away, he had called her an Ice Queen. That had hurt, in college, they had called her that too.
He had never contacted her again and when she thought of it, she did not even miss him much. The dinners had been nice, and the dialog had been intelligent and interesting, but as with the others, there had never been a spark.
Her hands moved over the keyboard, and the search results scrolled on the screen. Lana Zahtjev began to read, her lips moving silently as she read about the latest IVF treatments available.
Dr. Anthony Vogt, although he would never know it, had given her a gift. A name to the longing within her. It would take a full year for her to schedule it, but Dr. Lana Zahtjev stepped into the Happy Mothers Fertility Clinic on the day that Calypso left the solar system. Nine and one-half months later, she welcomed her daughter Eve into the world.
Our Father
“God not only plays dice, He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.” – Stephen Hawking
Date: 01.27.2104
Calypso Colony Ship
Daniel’s ears ached from the constant wail of the alarms. His head swam. A cut ran across the top of his head, leaking blood. He had felt an unnerving softness in a section of his skull the one time he had reached up a hand to explore the damage. His forehead was a mass of red and drying blood. If he could have seen his own reflection, he would have discovered that his handsome face looked like something out of a horror movie.
The alarms continued to wail, their red lights flashing, and Daniel’s stomach twisted with nausea. He tried in vain to remember what to do when a person goes into shock.
“Stop the blood loss, that’s one.”
He looked at the handle of the knife protruding from his shoulder, should he pull it out?
“Yeah, maybe not. Think Daniel, think. There has to be a way to stop this countdown.”
He tried the Comm link on his suit. If he could connect with NARA he would be able to talk to the crewmembers outside who were working on getting in. Perhaps they would know what to do.
“NARA, crewmember oh-four-eight, connect me to Captain Aaronson please.”
No response.
“NARA, crewmember oh-four-eight, connect me to Environmental.”
Still no response.
“NARA?”
The Comm link remained silent. Whatever this madman had done, he had managed to block the link between NARA, the rest of the ship, and him. Medry was on his own.
At his feet, the moaning had turned to a hysterical giggle and recital of scripture. The screen on the console continued to scroll, the minutes counting down.
OVERRIDE PASSWORD FAILURE
PERSONNEL RECOGNITION FAILURE
SYSTEM FAILURE - CODE RED
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 13:49 MINUTES
“Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name...” The man at Daniel’s feet said.
Daniel kicked him, hard.
“Shut up you crazy sonofabitch and tell me how to stop this countdown before every one of them dies!”
The man giggled, his mouth a mass of blood and broken teeth. Daniel’s right hand ached from the beating he had given the lunatic.
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.” He giggled again, “And in the stars, where all of God’s love is possible.”
He might have continued, but Daniel kicked him in the head and he fell silent and lay unmoving on the floor of the Cryo Deck.
The view screen now read...
OVERRIDE PASSWORD FAILURE
PERSONNEL RECOGNITION FAILURE
SYSTEM FAILURE - CODE RED
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 13:13 MINUTES
The whine of the saw or drill was beginning to have an effect on the door behind him. He thought he could see a white-hot glow in the upper left corner. He looked back at the screen.
OVERRIDE PASSWORD FAILURE
PERSONNEL RECOGNITION FAILURE
SYSTEM FAILURE - CODE RED
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 12:55 MINUTES
No, he couldn’t wait for them. He had to do something. He wiped the blood out of his eyes and looked around the room. Two hundred fifty pods, with at least two hundred of them filled with a human being vital to their mission. He couldn’t get to all of them in time, and how could he choose which ones to save? His eyes stared at them, arrayed in rows, the occupants peaceful in their suspended animation, unaware of the terrible danger they were all in.
He had screwed up so damned bad, leaving Luke and Janine and Toby behind. Everyone he had loved. He had run from them, into the blackness of space and an uncertain future, so sure that they would be fine without him.
But they hadn’t been. He didn’t even know if his son was still alive. The plague knew no boundaries, gave no quarter, and spared no family. They were lost in the waves of the dead and dying, lost to him forever through time and space. He couldn’t help them. In truth, he had abandoned them.
Daniel felt a sudden surge of understanding for why the man at his feet had done what he had. The sense of loss, of overwhelming futility and horror at the thought of every loved one gone and dead had haunted each of them for over two years now. There had been times when Daniel had wished he was back there, that he too could be counted among the dead. It seemed fitting. Existing without them, knowing he was helpless to ever return, or change the past, had filled him with a blackness that did not fade or shrink with time.
He headed for the nearest row and began with the first pod. He typed the code each member of Calypso had been taught as part of their safety training into the tiny keypad on the individual Cryo pod.
Words appeared on the pod’s view screen as vapors swirled and the frost lining the inside began to clear.
MANUAL OVERRIDE INITIATED
BEGIN EMERGENCY REVIVAL SEQUENCE ON AXLER, JASON
03:58 MINUTES UNTIL REVIVAL
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 12:12 MINUTES
Each Cryo pod listed the occupant’s name. Daniel didn’t know everyone – he had trained with many of them, but there had been so little time, so many hoops to jump through. He stared at Jason. It looked familiar, but he didn’t know him well. The frost vanished and Daniel could see a slight frown on the man’s sleeping face.
Daniel began working down the line. The individual pod sequences had to be initiated, cycle through and complete before the system purge. It took four minutes for an emergency revival sequence. This meant he had to get to every occupied pod, type in the sequence and be done with all of them before the purge countdown hit the four-minute mark.
His sluggish brain tried to figure out the numbers. How long did it take him to input the codes? He wasn’t sure, maybe five, maybe ten seconds? His brain, running low on blood, struggled for what seemed like forever to try to average how much time it would take to initiate the revival sequence on all of the pods.
At the fourth one, his fingers slipped and the screen flashed.
MANUAL OVERRIDE ATTEMPT NOT VALID
EMERGENCY REVIVAL SEQUENCE NOT INITIATED
RE-ENTER PASSWORD
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 11:14 MINUTES
“Can’t do both, Medry.”
Daniel’s voice was a hoarse croak, barely penetrating the wail of the alarms.
“Focus on entering the code. Keep going.”
He re-entered the password, his fingers numb and clumsy, and he was rewarded with the standard message.
MANUAL OVERRIDE INITIATED
BEGIN EMERGENCY REVIVAL SEQUENCE ON JENKINS, MIKA
03:58 MINUTES UNTIL REVIVAL
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 11:07 MINUTES
Was this Zach Jenkins sister? Daniel thought it had to be. Zach had mentioned her recently, wished she was awake to help him track down a mystery he had been working on. Zach was from a large family of siblings adopted
from across the globe. Mika’s skin was coal black, her dreadlocks glistened with frost.
Daniel willed his feet and hands to move faster. He ignored the dizziness he felt. Now was not the time. He moved on down the line. Sam needed him, they all needed him. When he moved too suddenly, his vision would narrow, darkening around the edges like an antique photograph, tunneling his thoughts. Even breathing felt difficult, as if the air had turned to sludge in his lungs.
MANUAL OVERRIDE INITIATED
BEGIN EMERGENCY REVIVAL SEQUENCE
03:58 MINUTES UNTIL REVIVAL ON FARNSWORTH, DAVID
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 10:56 MINUTES
Farnsworth, he was the alternate First Officer, Martin Phoenix’s contemporary. He remembered David had served the first half of the journey. He had been awake when the news of Earth broke, on duty for only a few more weeks afterwards. Daniel frowned, trying to concentrate, wasn’t he related to the Captain somehow?
Daniel’s thoughts kept sliding sideways, disappearing into inky memories of his family. He moved slowly, deliberately, and felt Luke and Janine’s presence, close enough that he imagined he could smell the floral notes of Janine’s favorite shampoo, the one he had bought for her, kept buying for her because he loved how it smelled. It was as if Luke was standing next to him, his hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
“Keep going brother, don’t stop.”
Daniel wanted to tell Luke he was sorry, kept trying to form the words as he stood in front of the next Cryo pod, trying to remember what it was he wanted to say, something he needed to do, both of them seemed the same, tangled memory mixed with hallucination, and Luke’s hand on him.
“You gotta keep going, brother. You have to save them.”
Daniel nodded to Luke, reaching out to key in the code.
MANUAL OVERRIDE INITIATED
BEGIN EMERGENCY REVIVAL SEQUENCE ON TANNER, KIT
03:58 MINUTES UNTIL REVIVAL
SYSTEM RESET ON ALL CRYO PODS IN 10:52 MINUTES
Daniel stared as the frost cleared and he could see Kit’s, her lips slightly parted. He thought of Deeks, dead in the back room, and her, waking up now. At least he had managed to save her. He kept going, moving slow.
Patient Zero
“There is nothing so patient, in this world or any other, as a virus searching for a host.” – Mira Grant, Countdown
Date: 02.04.2099
Earth – Kansas City, Missouri
“What the hell? Oh man, Jace! Hey, Jace! I got a freak out here.” Edith barely noticed the flustered pimple-faced teen that stared at her from the drive-thru window of Pop’s Burgers.
He was soon joined by his manager, Jace Wyatt, who had just turned twenty-two the week before. Jace’s eyes widened as he stared at the customer sitting outside the drive thru window. Edith was completely naked. Despite this, her forehead showed rivulets of sweat, which flowed easily from her face, and on down her chest, disappearing between a set of sagging, slightly wrinkled breasts.
It was an overcast day. In the sky above, the clouds looked like thick rolls of gray carpet. It was also unseasonably warm, at least 50 degrees, instead of the relentless chill of winter. Tomorrow another storm front would move in and they were all being told to prepare for a large snowfall, but for now, especially for this time of year, it was quite temperate, at least for Kansas City.
Edith felt hot, burning hot, and she was so hungry. It was all she could think of. The refrigerator had been cleaned out, she had literally sat on the cool tile floor of the kitchen that she and Tom had laid by hand some ten years before and drained every container of mustard, ketchup, and salad dressing. Some quiet part of her objected to this. There was this sense of wrongness, but it simply could not compete with the raging hunger she felt inside. It robbed her of thought, of anything more than the compulsive need to eat more in order to end the hunger.
“Uh...look lady, you have to uh,” the young man’s eyes trailed down the front of her, and he turned beet red, “you need to uh...”
“I need the food.” She could barely speak, the heat was overwhelming, and her stomach was clenching and twisting. “Just, just give me the food.” She had already paid for it, running the pay chip implanted in her wrist over the sensor. Behind the manager popped up another face, curious, wide-eyed, then another, and another, as word spread and more of the staff jammed into the small room. The bags appeared on the counter just inside the drive-thru window.
The manager handed her the bags full of combo meals, which Edith placed close by, her right hand shifting the car into park. She ripped into the paper wrappers, quickly stuffing a hamburger into her mouth, barely chewing and then gulping the bite down before taking another gargantuan bite. She repeated this, over and over.
Jace stared, as did the others crowding behind him in the drive-thru lane. Behind the woman, a long line of cars snaked around the corner, the Comm was buzzing with folks ready to order, and several impatient customers began to honk or lean out their open windows and yell.
Edith ignored the honks of the cars behind her, still ripping through bags and wrappers, consuming the burgers and fries with a manic intensity. Pieces of wrapper slid down her throat along with the food. She seemed frenzied and her entire body glistened with sweat, beads of it rolling down her face, despite the cool temperatures.
“Ma’am, you can’t park here. Ma’am?” The young man looked nervous. “Ma’am? You’re blocking the way for the other customers.”
She ignored him and continued to wolf down enough food to feed ten. A glance in the rearview mirror showed her a face she barely recognized. It was flushed, sweat trickled down her face, and considering it was February, that was plenty odd.
The manager, Jace, turned to one of the workers clustered behind him. “Call 9-1-1, tell ‘em we’ve got an emergency here. This lady is sick.”
“I’ll say she’s sick,” Andy snickered, “She’s naked as a jaybird! What a freak!”
Jace shook his head, “Nah, man, she’s sick, not crazy. She’s sweating, and all that food she’s eating, there’s something wrong.”
He took a step back, wiping his hand on his clothes nervously, looking scared. “She’s sick,” He repeated and pushed his way through the crowd of workers. He would call it in himself.
Outside in her car, Edith continued to eat. It couldn’t even be called eating really, she simply stuffed, swallowed, and stuffed some more. Occasionally she choked. The pieces were big, but she was so very hungry. She could barely see, barely register the growing crowd inside, and now outside, of the restaurant. No matter what she ate, or how much, her stomach seemed unaffected by the addition of food. It twisted, churned, and screamed in hunger.
Edith was desperate for the cravings to end. She shoved more food in, a bacon slice dragging along one edge, tracing a trail down through her until it came to rest, not quite at her stomach, bulging painfully above it. The small quiet voice of reason, one that entreated her to stop, that was warning her that something was terribly wrong...it was overwhelmed by the need, this hunger, which pushed beyond her natural boundaries into this dark abyss. The cool air from the open window, the honks from the vehicles behind her, and the curious stares of the growing crowd of onlookers...none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was the need to end the gnawing emptiness, this terrible hunger that filled every fiber of her being and had grown in intensity each day for the past month. There was no room in her mind to question what was happening. The hunger pushed out everything else.
“Ma’am?” The handsome features of a paramedic appeared at her passenger side door. “My name is Mac Dolan ma’am, and I’m going to sit with you a minute.” he said as he calmly opened the car door. His eyes were brown, with green flecks and they searched hers, his index finger moving from left to right, assessing her. He slid into her passenger seat, pushing the empty food bags and boxes out of the way so that he could take her pulse.
“Can you tell me your name, ma’am?” His hand was cool against her skin.<
br />
She could barely manage to speak, “Edith. Edith Hainey.”
It sounded garbled coming out, her mouth was still full of food.
“Edith. Great.” He smiled at her, a mouth full of bright white teeth, and stared at his wristwatch for a moment.
“Edith, do you know where you are? Do you know what day it is?”
The pain was coming in waves now, each larger than the last, and she was so tired. She had just finished everything in the bags, when suddenly everything changed. Edith groaned.
“Edith? Hey Edith?” Mac’s penlight swept her eyes and he was close enough that Edith could smell his cologne.
There was a shifting within, and an intense lance of pain, a sense of something vital splitting open, and then, slowly, the tension left her. She stared into Mac’s eyes. They reminded her of Larry, her high school sweetheart, such beautiful eyes.
Larry had been her first love, and they had made so many promises to each other. After graduation she had gone away to college and he had stayed, going to work for his dad’s real estate business. Slowly the emails and phone calls had dwindled, until silence replaced the “I love you’s” and plans for what they would do when she was home on summer break.
Her best friend Carla had said he was seeing another girl. The next year, Edith’s second summer break back home had been harder than she thought possible. Larry was married, and the tiny girl who toddled in the front yard of his small house in Weston had had his eyes.
The pain was there and she felt it, but in a very detached way. The analytical part of her brain, what was left of it, realized what was happening. This is what it felt like, this was death. She had held her mother’s hand near the end, felt the moment pass through her, and felt her mother’s life drain from her body through her hands, and slip away.
Edith’s eyes closed. As her head dropped, she heard Mac’s voice calling to her from far away, asking her to stay with him, and in a dissociated way, felt her body being moved.
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