by A. G. Riddle
He checked out five books, which he read during the next tour.
A few days after they returned home again, a man wearing a clip-on tie and a short-sleeved button-up shirt drove out to the house, a wake of dust rising behind his Cutlass sedan.
“Mr. Hughes,” he called from the porch.
Desmond watched as his uncle walked out, half-drunk, and argued with the man.
The visitor put up much more fight than Desmond had expected. Finally, he shook his head, walked down the steps, and turned one last time.
“If that boy of yours isn’t in school next month, you won’t be seeing me again. Social services will come next. Then the sheriff. Good day, Mr. Hughes.”
Desmond found first grade quite a bit less interesting than the rigs. He could already read, thanks to Agnes, and his math was far ahead, thanks to the grocery store owner who had prevented him from starving to death.
He also found it impossible to connect with the other kids. To him, they seemed like just that: kids, babies almost. They enjoyed playtime. Talked about childish things. He felt out of place, like he was several grades behind where he should be. The teacher noticed, tried to give him more advanced work, but she had her hands full. So Desmond was largely left alone. He sat in the corner and read while the class rotated stations around him.
The principal agreed to advance him to the second grade, but he felt disengaged there too.
Summer came, and he again joined his uncle on the rigs. The work got harder with every tour.
That became the routine of his life: the rigs each summer, school during the year, his uncle home only half the time.
He didn’t know if it was because of his parents’ death or Agnes’s passing or because of the way his uncle had raised him, but he found it nearly impossible to get close to anyone. There was a wall inside of him. And the few times he brought friends over to his house, his uncle embarrassed him by berating him in front of them, so Desmond quickly learned not to invite anyone over. His uncle never gave him permission to stay over at anyone else’s house, either. Desmond was not stupid enough to disobey him.
When Desmond brought home the sign-up form for Little League, his uncle burned it. It was a waste of time and his money, he said.
Orville also refused to give consent to allow Desmond to join any of the clubs at school, Boy Scouts, or any extracurricular activities of any kind.
Desmond felt completely isolated. He had no connection with anyone or anything. He was happiest when he was reading, but by the time he was eight, he had read about everything that interested him at the local library.
The girl behind the desk noticed him wandering the stacks aimlessly. Her name was Julie, she was in her early twenties, and she seemed to have a new hairstyle each time Desmond saw her. It was in a bun on top of her head that day.
“If we don’t have it, we can get it,” she said.
“From where?”
“Another library.”
She pulled the keyboard away from the computer. “We can request any book in the Pioneer Library System and they’ll transfer it to us. What are you looking for?”
Desmond didn’t know what he was looking for. He had no idea what was out there. “I’m… not sure.”
“Well, what sort of books do you like to read?” Julie asked.
The last book Desmond had really enjoyed was a novel by Carl Sagan titled Contact. At the end, he had read that Sagan had a program on PBS. Desmond had wanted to watch it, but he knew Orville wouldn’t allow it; he was far more interested in John Wayne than alien life and mankind’s place in the universe. Desmond, however, was fascinated by the prospect of life beyond Earth and other worlds. He thought anywhere had to be better than here. At the moment, books were his only escape.
“I can also search by author.”
“Carl Sagan,” he said instantly.
A whole new world opened up to Desmond after that. He read science books, history books, biographies. He was fascinated with how the world got to be how it was—and with the people who made it that way. To some degree, he was trying to learn why the world was so cruel and unfair.
A year later, Julie began bringing him books that weren’t in the library system. She was a student at the University of Oklahoma, and their library was much more extensive. Desmond protected the tomes like treasures.
His life at home continued in the usual way. In the summers, he joined Orville on the rigs. He learned that his uncle had been taking contracts closer to Slaughterville for the past few years—safer jobs at sites close enough that he could get back home quickly if Desmond were hurt or got in any trouble. Before Desmond had come to live with him, Orville had worked on rigs farther away, some offshore. The pay was better there. Conditions were often worse—and more dangerous.
With each passing year, Desmond was given more responsibility, put more in harm’s way. He broke his right arm outside Abilene when he was eleven, his leg near Galveston the following year. In May of ’95, at a rig outside Nacogdoches, a roughneck who was high on cocaine dropped a swivel on Desmond’s foot, crushing it. Orville beat the man to within an inch of his life. They never saw him again, on any job anywhere.
When Desmond got out of the hospital, his uncle welcomed him home with a pint of cheap whiskey. It was the only thing he had for the pain, and Desmond drank it down. It was disgusting at first, but no worse than the throbbing in his foot. It got easier to drink after a while.
To his surprise, his uncle didn’t desert him. He brought food to his room and took him to his follow-up appointments. Their relationship changed even more after that.
At thirteen, Desmond started high school. Thanks to his time on the rigs, he was big and broad-shouldered, with arms like a thoroughbred’s legs. He was still a loner at school. He didn’t fit in with any of the groups, and he had stopped trying years ago. He was stronger than the farm boys and varsity football players and smarter than the kids who lived in town, whose parents owned the shops and had gone to college. Thanks to the library system, he knew more about history than most of his teachers. And there was a lot of math on the rigs. It wasn’t calculus, but he picked that up quickly. He could attend half the year and pass all the tests. School became like visiting a prison camp on a foreign planet. People gossiped constantly. Football dominated everything. Everyone was always looking forward to the big game. Desmond only looked forward to his next book arriving—and his and Orville’s next job. The locations fascinated him. Louisiana and South Texas were colorful worlds all to themselves.
He cut school more and more. When the teachers began complaining, Orville visited the principal and explained that he needed his nephew’s help on the rigs and that the boy would pass all his tests. An agreement was made, and from then on, Desmond attended only enough to pass a few standard tests that would appease the school board if anyone came looking.
Desmond and Orville’s relationship wasn’t like father and son. They weren’t exactly friends. They were more like drifters in the old westerns Orville watched, bound together by some shared need, on a quest, in search of something or someone, though whom or what they were searching for was never clear. They went from town to town, each town like an episode in the show, a new bad guy to best or a mystery to solve. The mystery was always how long it would take to drill the oil well, whether they’d hit oil, and whether they’d survive the days after the tour, what Orville called “blowing off steam.”
For Orville, that usually entailed holing up in the nearest town for a week, drinking himself to sleep at the local bar, gambling, and running women. He fought a lot too. After a certain point, he would fight the first guy who said a cross word to him. Military veterans were the only ones he wouldn’t take a swing at, and their wives were the only ones he wouldn’t take home. He didn’t like other men doing it either; that was always cause for a fight—fights that inevitably drew Desmond in, no matter how hard he tried to stay out of them. Eventually, he fell in beside his uncle the moment they started. The fights ended faster that w
ay.
Desmond got pretty good at sizing a man up, knew who would be trouble, who would run, and when they should run. He developed a sort of sixth sense about whether he needed the beer bottle or the pool cue he was holding, or if his fists would do. He didn’t like fighting with a knife, but he learned to take them from others. They had a few run-ins with the law, but Orville always had a good story and a few hundred dollars for the bar owner to cover the damage. Desmond nearly always had a bruised rib, a smashed finger, a broken knuckle, a black eye, or a healing cut; pain became commonplace to him, and so did their weird life, living by Orville’s twisted code.
In the hotels, they drank and listened to songs by Robert Earl Keen, The Highwaymen, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Johnny Cash until dawn. They sobered up a few days before their next job, and didn’t take a drink while they were working. It was too dangerous. That was part of the code too.
Desmond finally understood why his uncle had hated him so much when he’d first arrived. This was the life that Desmond had kept the man from, and Orville was finally getting back to it. That made him happy, and Desmond got some relief at home. They even went hunting together every now and then.
The weeks he worked became almost therapeutic. When they were on the rigs, it was almost non-stop action, some of it dangerous. It was hard work, the kind that kept you from thinking too much. When he was working, he didn’t think about his family, or Charlotte, or Agnes, or anything else. When he was off work, the whiskey and beer made the thoughts go away. It was the only thing that worked—except for books. That became his life: the rigs, drinking, and reading.
His graduation in the spring of 1995 was a non-event for him. His life changed very little—except now he no longer had to take the tests. Other kids were going off to college or to Oklahoma City to get a job, or they started working full-time with their family. Desmond wanted desperately to escape, to start fresh somewhere. But he needed money to do that, so he began saving every penny he could. By January of 1996, the dented coffee can he kept in his mattress held $2,685. It was the sum total of every dollar to his name, and he was about to spend it on a device he hoped would change his life—and allow him to leave Oklahoma and the rigs behind for good.
Chapter 48
There were always two people outside Desmond’s cell: one working the laptop with the slide show, asking questions, another typing and filming him.
He had concluded that enlisting the help of one of the interrogators was his only chance of escape. The cell was well designed and constructed; brute force wouldn’t free him. His first step was developing a profile of the captor he would turn. He had set about searching for any weaknesses or strongly held beliefs he could exploit, but thus far, his attempts to extract such information had fallen on deaf ears. He sensed Conner’s hand in prohibiting the interrogators from speaking with him. None of them ever answered his personal questions. In fact, they became nervous when he addressed them personally—more nervous than they already were. And with each failed attempt, he felt his chances of escape slipping away.
He had taken note of several terms that had struck him as vaguely familiar:
“Do you remember the Zeno Society?” they had asked.
“No.”
“The Order of Citium?”
He lied again. He did know the term, but he didn’t know how or what it meant.
Meals were delivered periodically, and Desmond ate them with little concern. If his captors wanted to drug him, they could use the gas and then administer anything they wanted. And he needed to eat. He fell into a pattern: exercise, eat, answer questions, sleep, repeat. He lost all concept of time.
At some point, they began playing music, apparently hoping that would spur a memory. Desmond recognized the songs: “American Remains,” “Highwayman,” “Silver Stallion,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “The Road Goes On Forever,” “Angels Love Bad Men,” and, playing currently, “The Last Cowboy Song.” The songs were performed by a band called The Highwaymen, a quartet consisting of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. Desmond could see their faces on the cover of an old cassette tape, one that he had played many times. The songs reminded him of Orville, but he would never tell Conner that.
He knew one thing for certain: Conner had started the outbreak. And if he was capable of that, he was capable of anything. If Conner needed something, Desmond would deny him. He would resist—until the very end.
The ship’s server room was deep below decks, and the command center was adjacent. Four guards sat at a folding table playing cards just outside the main door. They rose as Conner approached, and opened the hatch for him.
Conner had never been in the server command center. It was impressive. Flat panel screens ran from the long desk to the ceiling. Charts and graphs he didn’t recognize updated in real time. A few showed temperature readings. Progress bars crept toward 100%. On one screen, a TV show played Battlestar Galactica. The high-tech command center certainly reminded him of a spaceship, although one flown by slobs. Crunched cans of Red Bull and Mountain Dew littered the floor. Empty wrappers from microwavable snacks curled up and stuck together like ticker tape after a parade. Piles of cracker crumbs ringed the keyboards.
Four faces turned in unison to stare at Conner: a skinny Asian woman with dark greasy hair hanging past her shoulders, two overweight white guys who could have been twins, and an Indian man, a little older and much skinnier.
The Indian man stood, a puzzled look on his face. “Sir?”
“I need a programmer.”
“Ah.” He hesitated, then pointed at a hatch at the back of the room. “They’re in there, sir.”
“You’re not programmers?”
“No, sir. Sys and network admins.”
Conner surveyed the pigsty again. This pack of slobs is keeping all our information organized?
He shook his head. “Right. Carry on.”
“Sir… You might want to knock.”
Conner wondered what that meant. But he took their advice, rapping loudly at the hatch three times. No response.
He glanced back at the Indian sys admin, who merely shrugged as if saying, I guess you’ve got to go in.
Conner opened the hatch and peered inside. The cramped space made the server monitoring room look like a biocontainment clean room. Papers, wrappers, cans, and porno magazines covered the floor. Three guys in their twenties sat hunched over their laptops, headphones on, typing furiously, lines of white text on black screens in front of them. Every few seconds one of them would curse and lean back or throw his hands up. It was like a weird human whack-a-mole exhibit.
“Hey!” Conner shouted.
Headphones came off. Annoyed faces turned to him.
The closest programmer, a kid with dark hair and an Eastern European accent, said, “What the hell, dude?”
“I need you to hack something for me.”
“Can’t. Working on CDC.”
“Forget the CDC. I’ll take care of it. This is a priority.”
Another programmer spoke. “Look, talk to the bridge, man. They call the shots. And shut the door.”
“Listen to me, man. I give the bridge their orders. I call the shots. Don’t make me prove it.”
All three paused, eyes wide. “Oh,” the Eastern European guy said. “Uh, okay. What are we hacking?”
“Someone’s brain.”
In the situation room outside the ship’s bridge, an analyst handed Conner a report; it was still warm from the printer.
“The infection has hit the tipping point.”
“Good,” Conner said, scanning the figures.
“There’s something else. Alpha Site reports that southern Somalia is crawling with drone flyovers. They’re concerned the US will find the farm soon.”
“Fine. Transfer Shaw and the other woman here tonight.”
“We’ve suggested that. They want more money.”
Conner rolled his eyes. “Fine. Pay ’em.”
; It didn’t matter. Money would be irrelevant in a matter of days.
Chapter 49
Peyton’s most recent escape attempt had been her best, but it had also resulted in her jailers being more cautious with her. The black-clad soldier now used a wooden stick to push the Styrofoam tray across the ground, past the bars, and into her cell. A car battery sat just out of reach; its cables ran to the closest metal bar, which buzzed with electricity.
She was starving. She wanted to resist eating, but she couldn’t hold out any longer. She crawled across the ground and began eating.
A few minutes later, Peyton slumped forward, out cold. The soldier disconnected the car battery, opened the cell, and hoisted the skinny woman up. She was a lot fiercer than she looked. They were glad to be getting rid of her.
Chapter 50
After the call with Elliott, Millen had presented his offer to the three villagers. Halima translated and talked mostly with the older woman, Dhamiria. They occasionally conversed with the six-year-old boy, Tian, as well.
Millen tried to imagine what the request was like for them. They had seen their family and friends die in a matter of days, and were left all alone. Now they were being asked to travel to a foreign land, where they’d be subjects in medical experiments—guinea pigs to find a cure. It must be terrifying, he thought.
Halima turned to Millen. “You are sure you’ll find a cure?”
“No. I’m not sure. But there’s a chance. I can’t promise you anything, but you three may be the key to saving a lot of people’s lives.”
“We will be free to come back here—you will return us when you are done?”
“You have my word.”
“We will come with you, Doctor.”
“Call me Millen.”
It was midday when Millen and the villagers arrived in Mandera. The Japanese SUV creaked on the red dusty road, and the four of them stared at the deserted town in silence. Mandera was a chilling shell of the place Millen had seen just days before.