Pandemic (The Extinction Files Book 1)

by A. G. Riddle

  Peyton studied the X-ray of her father’s ankle, which showed no fractures.

  “It’s just a sprain,” she said to him.

  “I’m telling you, I’m perfectly fine.”

  “Just try to stay off of it and it’ll heal up in a few weeks.”

  “The world doesn’t have a few weeks.” He made to stand up, but she blocked his path and put her hands on her hips. He exhaled and sank back down.

  Despite his continued protests, she used some of the supplies in the medical closet to make a proper splint.

  When she was done, they walked down the corridor toward Charlotte’s office. Desmond’s voice drifted out into the hall. He was describing what they’d found in Kazakhstan at Aralsk-7.

  Peyton pushed the door open.

  The woman sitting behind the desk looked to be in her early fifties, with a slightly lined face and trim physique.

  Peyton did a double take. She turned quickly, trying to hide her shock. “Sorry, I forgot something. Be right back.”

  She grabbed her father’s arm, guided him back down the hall to the medical exam room, and shut the door.

  “Peyton, I really am fine—”

  “I know her.”

  “What?”

  “That woman. I recognize her. I can’t believe it.”

  Chapter 98

  When Peyton and her father returned to Charlotte’s office, Desmond was laying the folder on her desk.

  “These are the shipping manifests we found in Kazakhstan.”

  Charlotte scanned the pages. “They look accurate.”

  “There was no sender name, just the shipping company.”

  Charlotte was still reading through the pages. “They were paid for by the Zeno Foundation.”

  The name caught Peyton’s interest. According to Avery’s story, Zeno was the Greek philosopher who had founded the Citium over two thousand years ago.

  “What do you know about the foundation?” Desmond asked.

  “Not much. They’re very generous. They had a website where I could request supplies, food, water, even money.”

  “Who was your contact there?”

  “Tanner Goodwyn.”

  The name meant nothing to Peyton.

  “Did they ever ask you to do anything—to conduct trials on experimental vaccines or medicines?”

  Charlotte looked disturbed by the idea. “No. And I would have refused, no matter how badly we needed the help.”

  The four of them questioned Charlotte at length, exploring a number of possible ways she might be tied to the outbreak, but found no common thread. As best they could tell, the Citium seemed to genuinely want to support her work.

  “It’s possible that I sent the supplies,” Desmond said. “Though I don’t know why I would have done it in secret.”

  “A good point,” William said. “Charlotte, I wonder if you’d excuse us for a moment.”

  “Of course. I’ll just wait outside.”

  When she closed the door behind her, William said, “We’re getting nowhere here. And we’re running out of time.”

  “There’s still the location near here,” Desmond said. “My childhood home. The second backup from the Labyrinth Reality app.”

  “I think it’s our next move.” William nodded to Avery. “The two of you should check it out. We’ll continue questioning Charlotte.”

  Ten minutes later, Peyton, William, and Charlotte stood on the loading dock watching the Land Rover drive down the dusty dirt road that led out of the camp.

  “Charlotte, could we trouble you with a few more questions?” William asked.

  “Of course.” She held her arm out, motioning them back into her office.

  William closed the door after they entered. “Perhaps learning more about you might help us understand how you’re connected.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Oh. All right then.”

  “Desmond told us you were a relief worker in the early eighties.”

  “I was. Well, I was at university then, but I volunteered as much as I could.”

  “And after uni?”

  “Med school.”

  “Specialty?”

  “Family medicine. I got a masters in Public Health. That was really my passion.”

  “Where did you work?”

  “After school? The WHO.” Some of the cheeriness faded from her, as if it was something she didn’t want to talk about.

  “And you lost someone close to you there.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Yes. In 1991.”

  That was the year Peyton had seen her. She had been thirteen years old then, standing at a gravesite in San Francisco. The cemetery was on a hill outside of town. Skyscrapers and the bay stretched out in the distance. A thick cloud of fog hung over the water and snaked into the city, its white tendrils flowing in and out of the red steel supports of the Golden Gate Bridge and the glittering silver buildings.

  When the service ended, a woman in her early thirties had walked over, a sad smile on her lips. She spoke to Peyton’s mother, then her sister Madison, and finally to Peyton.

  Her accent was Australian, her voice kind.

  “Your brother meant a great deal to me, Peyton. He told me you wanted to be a physician.”

  “Not anymore.”

  The woman took a small metal item from her coat pocket and held it out to Peyton.

  “He was very proud of you. I believe he would have wanted you to have this.”

  She placed the small silver pin in Peyton’s hand. The teenager examined it.

  “I thought it burned.”

  “I had it cleaned and refinished.” The woman smiled. “I wanted you to have it in the same condition it was in when your brother carried it. All things can be repaired, Peyton. Some simply require more time than others. Don’t let tragedy take your dreams away.”

  The woman in the shabby office in Australia looked at Peyton now, twenty-five years later, with the same kindness in her eyes. And now, recognition.

  “You’re Andrew’s youngest sister, aren’t you?”

  Peyton nodded.

  “I still think about your brother a great deal—miss him a great deal.”

  “Me too,” Peyton said quietly.

  “Would you like to see him again?”

  Chapter 99

  Desmond walked slowly to the burned remains of the home where he’d spent the first five years of his life. Weeds had reclaimed some of the once-charred terrain. Only the masonry foundation and fireplace now stood, like a blackened tombstone.

  He felt his cell phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out. There was a message from the Labyrinth Reality app:

  Download Complete

  Download of what? Another memory?

  Without warning, Desmond’s vision blurred. His head swam. He staggered, lost his balance, and fell to a knee. What’s happening to me? He braced himself on the ground with one hand. He felt nauseous. He tried to focus, but the memory came like a blow to the head, hitting hard, overwhelming him.

  He stood in a bathroom, at a long vanity with two sinks. In the mirror, he saw a bank of three urinals, all empty. He seemed to be alone. He couldn’t place the location, but he felt like this wasn’t long ago—probably shortly before he woke up in Berlin.

  He stared into his own eyes in the mirror and spoke solemnly. “I hope you know what’s going on by now. This location is a backup. I wasn’t able to figure out where the Citium was manufacturing the cure, but I know they shipped it all around the world. There must be a storage site close by, maybe in Adelaide. Search for it. I’m also enclosing the rest of the memory that took place here. It may help you. But it could also hurt. It’s leverage, but it goes both ways.”

  The bathroom disappeared, and Desmond was back in Australia, on that day in 1983 when the bushfires killed his family. Except, this memory was from that morning, before the fire killed his mother. He didn’t understand what he was seeing. His arms felt weak.

  Then he felt Avery at his side.


  He closed his eyes, thought he would throw up.

  When he opened them again, he saw figures, clad in woodland camouflage, racing in from the tree line. A dozen of them. He reached back for his rifle, but it was gone. It lay on the ground twenty yards away. Who had thrown it over there?

  He pushed up, but a boot hit his chest.

  “Stay down, Des.” Avery towered over him. Her rifle was pointed in his face.

  “Avery—”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” She studied him. “You remember, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 100

  Peyton watched Charlotte rummage through the old filing cabinets in the storage room.

  “It’s here somewhere… along with some other things of his I’ve kept.”

  Peyton’s father cut his eyes at her, silently saying, Where’s this going?

  Charlotte pulled an old VHS tape from the bottom drawer.

  In a room with a small, cathode ray tube TV, she popped the tape in a VCR and pressed play.

  “This was taken the day Andrew died.” Charlotte studied the picture, which was coming into focus. “He’s in Uganda, on his way to Kapchorwa, his last stop.”

  Peyton saw her brother riding in the back of an SUV, which bounced on a dirt road with a trail of dust rising behind it. It was so incredibly good to see his face again. His hair was dark, like Peyton’s, but his features were less Asian than hers; he looked more British, like her father and her mother’s father.

  “Kapchorwa’s a small town in East Uganda,” Charlotte said, “roughly twenty-four miles from the border with Kenya. Only a few thousand people lived in the town then, but many more from the surrounding villages visited each month for the open-air market and hospital.

  “This was 1991,” she continued. “We were just realizing how bad HIV/AIDS was then. The virus had gone undetected for decades. It was spreading quickly in the late eighties and early nineties. Millions around the world were infected, most with no idea. They lived for years, often decades, without symptoms, spreading it unknowingly to their spouses and others. The virus was deadly for 99% of those who contracted it. The only available treatment merely slowed the virus’s spread within the body.

  “It was very brave what Andrew was doing. Visiting these towns and villages, standing in a room, telling the people assembled that their neighbors were dying of a deadly disease—and that they might also be infected. But we had to do it. It was the only hope of stopping the pandemic.”

  “You were part of the effort too?” Peyton asked.

  Charlotte nodded. “I was in Kampala. Waiting for him to return.”

  The video switched to a scene inside a ramshackle building. Ugandans sat on worn wooden benches, painted white walls peeling behind them. Two ceiling fans buzzed overhead, and the audience fanned themselves as they waited. It reminded Peyton of a rural church in America’s Deep South, Alabama or Mississippi perhaps. The analogy was apt; the assembled were disciples of a sort. These were community leaders—doctors, nurses, police officers, teachers, family planning association workers, resistance committee members, and village elders—gathered to hear a message that could determine whether the people who depended on them lived or died…

  The Ugandan Ministry of Health had told the crowd only that they were to receive a critical announcement regarding public health and safety. Like other places Andrew had visited, the residents of Kapchorwa district had turned out en masse; over a hundred people filled the room. Those arriving late, after the benches had filled, stood at the back. Andrew waited at the front, where the collapsible lectern he carried around the country had been set up. It was his pulpit. To the credit of those assembled, not many had stared at him when they came in. Their eyes had lingered only a second or two on the tall white man, and many had averted their eyes when they saw his prosthetic left arm.

  The congregation grew quiet when the district administrator cleared his throat and stepped up to the mic. His name was Akia, and he spoke in heavily accented English.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, then paused to make eye contact with as many of the assembled as he could. “Thank you for being here today. What you’re about to hear may shock you. It may… change the way you see every person around you. It will likely frighten you. I, personally, am frightened. But I want you to know that the government of Uganda is committed to fighting this deadly epidemic. We will win, and you will be a part of this great victory, which will be remembered by your children and their children. With that, I welcome our guest, Andrew Shaw of the World Health Organization.”

  A few claps followed, but not many. Perhaps that was because so many held fans, or because they weren’t sure whether they should clap after such a frightening introduction.

  Andrew stepped forward and began the presentation he had given a dozen times before. He spoke with a British accent he had acquired growing up in London.

  “In the early eighties, the CDC, the principal disease detection agency in the United States, began tracking a very deadly, very strange disorder. It attacks the immune system. When people contract this disease, they become unable to survive common infections. This immune deficiency develops over time, but it is lethal; a person who could normally fight off a cold or diarrhea or malaria might die from it. We call this condition Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS. It’s the result of a virus called HIV.

  “We’ve developed a test for this virus. We’ve tested blood at hospitals in Uganda as well as samples from the general population. Based on these tests, the Ugandan Ministry of Health estimates that roughly 14% of the people in this country are infected with HIV. That equates to one in every seven people—or about fifteen of the people in this room.”

  The people looked around, shifting uncomfortably. Spaces were made between people in the pews. A few people held their breath. And questions erupted.

  “Is there a cure?”

  “A treatment?”

  “A vaccine?”

  Akia, the district administrator, held up his hands, and the room again fell silent.

  “There’s currently no vaccine or cure,” Andrew said, “but there is a treatment that prolongs the life of those infected. It’s called AZT, and it will soon be available in Uganda and throughout Africa. In addition, the smartest researchers in the world are working on other, similar drugs, vaccines, and even a cure as we speak. I hope they’ll be available soon as well.

  “But for now there’s only one certain cure for a disease with no treatment or vaccine: isolation. We must isolate the virus so that it can’t spread. If it has no place to replicate, the virus will die out. We have that power. The people in this room can stop the virus in this district. The solution is education and lifestyle changes. That’s what I’m offering you today, and that’s what we want you to teach to the people you serve.”

  Akia began passing out the information packets as Andrew continued.

  “First, you should know that this disease cannot be spread by sitting or standing next to someone.” The rows of worried attendees relaxed. “HIV is not an airborne infection. You also can’t get it from shaking hands or hugging or touching someone. It’s transmitted in four principal ways: birth, blood exchange, needle use, and unprotected sex. Blood and semen.

  “There’s nothing we can do about birth. A pregnant woman who is infected will pass the infection on to her newborn. But the other methods of transmission are all preventable.

  “To combat the spread of HIV via blood exchange, the WHO and the Ugandan Ministry of Health are implementing testing procedures at hospitals and clinics throughout the country to detect the virus.

  “That leaves needle use and unprotected sex. Sex is by far the most prevalent method of transmission, and the biggest concern.

  “Those who are more sexually active are at far greater risk of contracting HIV. We believe, for example, that 86% of the sex workers in the country are HIV positive.” Several of the men in the room grew still, their eyes wide. �
�About one in every three lorry drivers has the disease. IV drug users are also at high risk.

  “However, as I said, there is a solution. Uganda has developed a simple method for stopping the spread. We call it ABCD. A for Abstinence. B for Be faithful. C for use a Condom. And D for die. If you’re not married, choose abstinence. If you’re married, be faithful. If you can’t be faithful, use a condom. And if you don’t use a condom, you die.

  “There’s one other thing I want you to take away from this meeting: compassion. The people with this virus deserve love and understanding and care—not discrimination. They don’t mean you harm. They’re just like any of us. Please don’t stigmatize people with HIV. As I’ve said, many will be children who are simply born with the disease. We don’t choose how we were born.”

  That last line drew every eye to his missing left arm. In the first town where he had said it, he had realized why he had been selected for this assignment.

  The session lasted almost two hours. When it was over, the group filed out of the whitewashed room with their pamphlets in hand, and promises to contact Akia and others in the district office with any questions.

  The two Ugandan soldiers assigned to escort and guard Andrew began breaking down the lectern. He gathered his papers and stashed them in his bag.

  Akia reviewed the roster of attendees. “We did pretty well. Only two didn’t attend.”

  “Do you know them?”

  “Yes. They are from the same village—Kasesa.”

  “Where is it?” Andrew asked.

  “In Mount Elgon National Park, near the Kenyan border. About twenty kilometers from here. I will go. It is important to me that everyone in my district knows of this disease.”

  Andrew slung his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No. It may be dangerous.”

  “I’m coming with you, Akia. If it’s important to you, it’s important to me. We’re in this together.”

  The man smiled broadly. “Well then, let us go while we still have the light.”

  The tape went black and the VCR clicked.