Viral Nation

by Grimes, Shaunta

  He turned out the light and used his flashlight to pick his way around them to a door to Clover’s left.

  As soon as he was gone, Phire and Marta and Geena all turned their flashlights on.

  “What did he mean, ‘Welcome home’?” Geena asked.

  “We’re all tired.” West lay back on his cushion and moaned softly. “Let’s just try to get some sleep.”

  Emmy squeezed between the twins. One by one the lights went out. Clover was asleep within minutes.

  “Christopher went up the stairs, just to see. They really don’t go anywhere. Who builds stairs that don’t go anywhere?” Jude asked the next morning. Clover sat with him, cross-legged on his cushion, the computer open in front of them.

  “That whole side of the house slides open, too,” Waverly said as he came out of the other room. He’d changed into a red and white striped shirt and worn blue jeans that went to his ankles this time. He was barefooted. “Remind me to show you that sometime.”

  “What? Why?” Phire sounded more fascinated than scared, which Clover considered a good thing. He could be a little unpredictable. “Why would the side of a house open?”

  “So they could take a long shot, of course. Don’t you know where you are?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t recognize the old homestead? Now that’s a true shame. Well, come with me, then.”

  Waverly slid his feet into the same sandals he’d worn the night before, which he’d left near the front door, and waited while they all scrambled to get their own shoes on. The sun was up, but the day was still cool. Clover inhaled deeply, and the sharp scent of pine made her nostrils flare.

  Waverly’s ranch was a whole little town. Brightly colored buildings lined both sides of a dirt path. Wooden sidewalks ran along the front of them. A pair of fake horses stood near a church down the road.

  “I want to see them!” Emmy struggled against Phire, who had a firm grip on her hand. “Let go!”

  “Not now,” Phire said.

  Clover peered at a grassy area next to what looked like a church. “Is that a cemetery? What is this place?”

  “It’s the Ponderosa Ranch. Don’t you just expect Hoss to come out of the saloon any minute now?”

  “What?” She turned and looked at the little buildings.

  “No, I guess you wouldn’t know. You’re too young. Maybe getting rid of television was a good thing, but now some things are just lost forever, aren’t they?” Waverly shook his head. “They used to film a television show here. Or part of it, anyway. A western called Bonanza. This place is a piece of American history. Now it’s mine. Well, ours. Okay, it’s ours.”

  “Ours?” West came up next to Clover, and Mango pressed his head into her brother’s hand.

  “Sure. I’ve spent two years getting it ready for you to show up.”

  “You’ve been here alone for two years?” Bridget asked.

  “I’ve been here alone for most of fourteen years. I only found out you all were coming two years ago.”

  No wonder the man was a little off his rocker. Clover didn’t like to be around too many people, but that was too much solitude, even for her.

  “Come on, let me show you around.”

  Waverly walked ahead, toward the tiny town.

  “They meant this to be Virginia City, you know.” He looked back at them. “Of course, it isn’t. The real Virginia City is a ghost town now.” Waverly stopped at a building marked Taxidermy. “Here we are.”

  “Here we are where?” Clover asked.

  “Why, your house, of course.” The old man opened the door and swept his arm toward the inside of the building. “Enter the Donovan abode.”

  The whole bottom floor was a single room with a wood floor covered by a worn rug. A squat black wood-burning stove sat in one back corner with a staircase near it. The room was furnished with two overstuffed chairs, a small couch, and a table with four chairs. Smaller tables sat on either side of the couch, with a lamp on each one. Waverly went to one and clicked it on and then off again.

  “Electricity via generator. Be frugal with it or you won’t have it for long. Two bedrooms upstairs. Now that you’re all here, we can work on getting plumbing into these buildings, but for now, there’s a bathroom with a shower in it near the restaurant. That’s the only kitchen, too.”

  West sat on the little couch and bounced a little, like maybe he was testing to make sure it was real. “This is unbelievable.”

  “What about us?” Geena asked.

  “You and your sister are in the ice cream shop. Phire and Emmy in the justice of the peace, and I paired up Christopher and Jude in the gift store. I hope you boys don’t mind.”

  “Can I see my room?” Emmy asked. When Phire elbowed her, she added, “Please?”

  “’Course you can.”

  Everyone left but Clover, West, and Bridget.

  “He didn’t make a place for me,” Bridget said. “I guess that means I’m going home.”

  “Of course you’re going home.” West pulled her into the seat next to him. “We all are. Until then, you’ll stay here with us.”

  Clover ignored them both and snapped the lamp on again. “How do you think he’s running electricity in here?”

  West reached over and turned the lamp back off. “I don’t know. But we don’t need lamps in broad daylight, regardless. Let’s check out the upstairs.”

  The first bedroom was clearly Clover’s. The walls were painted yellow, fluffy white curtains fluttered over the open windows, and one whole wall was covered in shelves lined with hundreds of books.

  “Oh,” Clover said, staring at the books. “This is—West, look, he got me Gone with the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird. And look at all these books about beekeeping!”

  Two beds sat on either side of the window. Each was made with a comforter covered in white lace. A huge dog bed took up a lot of the space between them. “See,” West said. “He did mean for you to stay at least for a little while, Bridget.”

  Clover did her best not to let her instant dislike of the idea of sharing her room show. “Let’s look at your room. Maybe it has two beds, too.”

  Waverly obviously had some fairly traditional ideas about gender. The walls in West’s room were painted navy blue and the window was covered with red cotton curtains. West had just one bed. A double with a comforter covered with baseballs and bats.

  “Baseball?” Bridget asked.

  West tried to shrug it off. Clover would have bet that not many people knew about the baseball card collection in the top of West’s closet at their house. It used to be their father’s. She knew that he still took them out sometimes. Somehow, Waverly must have found out, too.

  Once everyone had seen their new rooms, they gathered in the living room of the little house Waverly had called the Donovan abode. West sat on the couch and watched them all get comfortable. They were, too. Far more than they had the first time they all sat together like this.

  “We need to get dosed soon,” Christopher said.

  Clover dug the leather pouch out of her pack. It was too early for her, but after the initial shock that she had them, and Jude taking time to explain how she did, everyone else got a dose in their upper arm. That raised up a round of gasps and moans as the thick needles went in and the fiery medicine flowed through their veins.

  Phire sat on the floor with Emmy softly crying in his lap when the dosing was done. “Why would the old guy give us houses? How do we know he won’t just let us catch the virus and die now that we’re out of doses?”

  “Not everyone is out to get you,” West said. Clover thought the real question was how they were going to get back to their lives, now that they’d all officially missed a dose.

  Phire let Emmy go when she wanted to sit up. “Maybe that’s how your life has gone. Not mine. Not any of ours, except maybe yours and your sister’s, and the rich—”

  “No, West’s right,” Jude said. “We need to stay calm. We weren’t dragged here; we ag
reed to come. Waverly is a weird dude, but he hasn’t done anything to make anyone uncomfortable, has he?”

  Clover looked around the room, and one by one everyone shook their head, even Emmy.

  “There’s only one of him and nine of us,” West said.

  Geena looked around the room. “The Freaks.”

  Marta pointed at Bridget. “Except her. She ain’t a freak.”

  Clover expected West to defend Bridget and was surprised when the girl sat up straighter and said, “Like hell I’m not. If you don’t think being the headmaster’s daughter makes me a freak, you’re crazy.”

  “Freaks,” West said. “All of us. Until we know more about Waverly and what’s going on here, we stay in pairs at least. Agreed? No one is alone, ever.”

  Everyone nodded again.

  There was a knock on the front door. Mango sat up at the sound and Clover scratched his ears as West went to let in Waverly, who carried a large silver tray in both hands. Nine syringes were lined up in a neat row on it. They were fitted with an attachment that would allow the suppressant to go into their ports.

  “I’ve brought your suppressant,” he said.

  “I can’t have mine until tonight,” Clover said. She lifted her chin toward the pile of empty syringes sitting on the table. “Everyone else is okay for today.”

  Waverly froze for a second, like a deer caught in the headlights, staring at the syringes on his tray. Then he shook himself and made a loud honking noise that made Emmy giggle. “Wrong. The time restraint was designed to make it easier for people to remember to be dosed, and to keep order and control at the bars.”

  “She’ll be overdosed if you give it to her now,” West said.

  That honk again, and this time the twins laughed out loud. “Wrong again. Any of you could have a dose every twelve hours without being overdosed.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You have to miss three doses before the withdrawal kicks in. I would be willing to place even odds that our own Miss Kingston here didn’t get sick until thirty-six hours after she missed her dosing time. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Bridget said, “Just about.”

  “Aha! See? You missed three doses, not just one. One twelve hours after your last shot, one at the next regular dosing time, and one twelve hours later. Thirty-six hours is when your body starts craving it.” Waverly placed the tray on the table.

  Clover stood up from where she sat on the arm of the couch. “You’re saying the suppressant is addictive?”

  “West and Bridget really just had the shakes?” Christopher said. “Like my dad did, from booze. He got sick, had to start drinking again. Killed himself with the stuff he made.”

  “Withdrawal. We’ll talk all about that, soon.” Waverly brought a chair around in front of him and bent over to pat the seat. “Let’s get you all on the same schedule, shall we?”

  Clover and West looked at each other, and then Clover sat in the chair.

  “Wait a minute,” Bridget said before Waverly could dose Clover. “It doesn’t look the same.”

  “It’s not. But it’ll work, trust me.”

  Clover leaned away from Waverly. “Why isn’t it the same?”

  “Look, it doesn’t matter to me if you take the dose. You won’t die if you’re never dosed again, although I’d be willing to bet you’ll wish you would.”

  At some point they were going to have to trust someone, and they’d already decided to trust Waverly. She settled back in her seat again.

  “What do you think?” he asked Clover.

  “Everyone is going to have to take it eventually.”

  “Very good.” He moved Clover’s hair away from her port. “These are a real travesty, you know. A real travesty.”

  “The needle is too big to inject into our skin every day,” West said as Waverly pushed the syringe into Clover’s port.

  “The drug wasn’t intended to be used this way, you know. It just wasn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?” Phire asked. “The suppressant was a miracle. You’re the one who gave it to us.”

  Waverly crossed his legs and his arms, the spent syringe dangling from his long fingers. He looked more somber than West had seen him so far. “Xanverimax was a miracle. A cure and an inoculation all in one.”

  “Xanverimax.” West let the odd word roll around his mouth.

  “That’s right. You probably received it as a baby. I can see that it saved you.”

  West ran a hand over his scarred cheeks. “What are you saying, Dr. Waverly?”

  “I’m saying that Xanverimax only needs one dosing. Once is enough for anyone. Forever.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jude said.

  “It started honestly enough. We weren’t sure how it worked. There was no time for the kind of testing drugs used to be subjected to before we started administering Xanverimax, which, by the way, is the biggest time loop of them all. We really did suspect it was a suppressant at first.”

  “I told you he was cracked,” Geena whispered.

  “My wife was dead, and my work became an obsession. I’m an anthropologist, you know. Not a virologist or chemist or even a medical doctor. I studied prehistoric things, like Lake Tahoe.”

  They listened as he told them about going through the portal, finding it after fifteen years of looking. He nearly drowned, because his scuba gear stopped working. “I thought my car was stolen, when it wasn’t where I parked it. I had to walk ten miles toward Carson City before someone stopped to pick me up. It didn’t take long to realize that I wasn’t in my own time. The place was ravaged, but the people weren’t ill.”

  “What did you do?” Bridget asked.

  “I met a woman who told me about the suppressant. She must have thought I was out of my mind, not already knowing about it. She took me to a clinic. They were still injecting it the old-fashioned way, of course. I stole a syringe and brought a sample of Xanverimax back with me, contacted a chemist named Jon Stead, and the rest, as they say, is history. I spent years trying to figure out how to manipulate the portal, so that I could go back to my Veronica. It was no use. The portal is like a doorway. On one side is today and on the other is exactly two years from today.”

  “But Jon Stead was the one who discovered the suppressant in the future,” Clover said. “That’s what I was taught in primary school. Jon Stead was already working on the suppressant when you brought him the sample of his own work.”

  “I had to find someone who knew what to do with what I’d brought back with me. And fast. People were dying all around me. You have to understand.” Waverly’s voice took on a defensive tone. “We expected someone to come forward and say that they’d been working on the same formula, but they never did.”

  “You stole the suppressant?” Clover looked a little off-balance to West. Like she couldn’t find her place. She kept shifting her position.

  “Oh that, sweet girl, that was all ours, I’m sorry to say.”

  “You aren’t making any sense,” Clover said.

  “The world was in chaos. None of you are old enough to really remember. Most of you weren’t even born yet. There were so many dead. Almost everyone, just gone. So many that the continuation of the species was called into question. Can you imagine that?” Waverly shook his head and looked as off balance as Clover did. “Did you know that there were only two hundred people left in Kansas, and two-thirds of them were younger than twelve. We had to bring people in, just to fill Wichita enough to keep it viable.”

  “We know the world was busted,” Christopher said. “It still ain’t so great for some of us.”

  Waverly started nodding and then didn’t stop for a good minute. Like he was stuck. Long enough for Emmy to start fidgeting and Marta and Geena to make some noise about how they knew he was crazy, and now look at him. West leaned forward on the couch and watched him a little more closely.

  “At first we really did think Xanverimax was a suppressant that had to be given daily. And as
soon as we had the dosing organized, everything slid into place so quickly. It was like the country was starved for some way out of the chaos and dove at it when it showed itself. After we knew better, we thought—Jon convinced me—that we could help by giving people something to hold on to. That was the suppressant. Only we needed something to make the dosing itself less distressing, so we developed the port.”

  “The shots really aren’t necessary?” West asked.

  “Don’t you see? It worked so well. The suppressant kept people from turning into animals in the aftermath. It happens like that. Tragedy brings out the worst in people. And we managed to help keep order. Peace. They gave us the Nobel Prize, you know. The last one. I’m still not sure how that happened, because the system for honors like that had disintegrated. No nominees or votes or anything. No reward, either. We got called to the White House, and after traveling for four days by train, the president gave it to us. He was the thirteenth in line for the office, you know. The secretary of housing and urban development. There were some who thought maybe that was a blessing in disguise.”

  Jude rubbed at the back of his neck, just under his port. “So, what is the suppressant, then?”

  “It’s a clone designed to look like and feel like Xanverimax. Only newborn babies get the real stuff, at birth, to protect against a new outbreak.”

  “Why did Bridget and I get sick, then?” West asked.

  “I’ve already told you. You’re addicted to the clone. All of you are. Everyone in the country is. Your body needs the clone and rebels after thirty-six hours without it.”

  “The shakes,” Christopher said.

  “That’s right.”

  “You addicted the whole country?” Clover asked. “Why would you do that?”