by Lara Nance
“We’ll look like their worst nightmare,” Dr. K said and chuckled, a deep throaty sound. “A real ethnic parade.”
His quip lifted the heavy atmosphere in the car, and everyone broke into laughter.
“Whatever happens,” Louis said, settling in his seat to face them. “We are professionals, and this crisis is too important to let petty political ideology side-rail us. So toughen your hides and ignore any derogatory comments.”
They remained silent the rest of the trip, an air of apprehension thickening with the impending arrival at the wall. Annaria couldn’t stop staring at the massive structure as it grew to loom above their vehicle. When they stopped at the entrance, a shiver ran through her and she rubbed her arms.
Gray uniformed Northern troops with laser blasters came from the guardhouse to greet them. The driver had their I.D. chits and handed them to the lead officer. He nodded and motioned them toward the metal doors sliding apart under the arch of the fortress facade. They entered a tunnel that quickly widened into an open area with other vehicles of varied sizes parked at the periphery, sort of a hangar-type structure.
A man in a gray uniform motioned them to a spot, and the driver maneuvered forward and stopped.
They had arrived at The Divide.
Louis left the car first and shook hands with the official in gray. The rest of the team crawled out and joined him. Other gray clothed people went about their business in the area, casting quite a few speculative glances their direction.
“I’m Elliot Spencer, director of this gate facility. This meeting is a bit unprecedented. We’ve tried to provide all that you’ll need despite our regular duties of keeping the border safe,” the man said as they gathered in front of him. He was thin, about fifty, his dark blond hair liberally mixed with gray. He fiddled with his comm-unit and kept glancing around the area in a nervous manner but he made a valiant attempt at courtesy. “We have prepared rooms for you while you’re here. I’ll take you there so you can leave your luggage. Your meeting with the representatives from the South will take place in the joint meeting room between the two fortresses.”
Annaria shared a questioning look with Dr. Borman. A joint meeting room? Did that mean the two sides met frequently? She’d never heard even a rumor of such a thing.
“Please follow me,” Elliot said and started for a door in the side wall.
Footsteps echoed as their shoes contacted the hard concrete-steel floor. The walls appeared made of the same strong material painted a light gray. This place was indeed a fortress of military-grade materials.
The director took them in a lift to the fifth floor. The doors parted to reveal a small open area containing a sitting area, vid-screen, and egg-shaped isolation units where people could link to the station’s computer system and work without distraction. The units could also project different environments, play music, or provide theater and concert events. They had similar ones at the library back home.
Down a hall, sliding doors on each side led to sleeping chambers. Bare but functional, they learned the facility typically used these rooms for those attempting to gain citizenship who had to wait for their application to process. The director had cleared the fifth floor for their stay, so only the science team would occupy this level.
The rooms appeared identical, so Annaria chose one at random. She placed her carryall on a twin bed. Other than the bed, she had a chair, a desk, a vend unit, and a small closet with shelves. Off the end of the room was a small personal hygiene room. She hoped they wouldn’t stay too long. The narrow bed didn’t look very comfortable.
She joined the others in the sitting room, a little jittery at meeting the Southerners. Would they wear guns as she’d heard in the North, like the ancient west cowboys? The thought made her uncomfortable.
“Now, I’ll take you to the joint meeting room. From level four of the gatehouses on both sides, a walkway extends over the common open pass to a suspended meeting room. Please follow me.” Elliot activated the lift, and they descended two floors.
From there, they continued along an area with walls embedded with monitoring devices and surveillance screens. More workers in gray moved among the equipment or stared at the screens, which viewed sections of the wall and the inside of the gatehouse.
After leaving that area, they passed through four security doors with guards at each one that checked their I.D. chits and scanned their implant chips. The fourth door at the end opened to a clear-walled room where more guards went through their totes and Annaria’s backpack then scanned them for weapons. As if.
She couldn’t stop staring at the large room beyond the last door. It also had clear walls and floor. At the center, twelve white-cushioned chairs surrounded a glass conference table. On one side, a glass table held beverages in pitchers and trays of round food pods. No vend machine here. Indeed, the entire room was suspended over a paved area between the two gate fortresses, connected only by the two tunnel walkways from each side. So much glass. It more than confirmed the suspicions still rampant in the two sides. No one could hide anything in there.
The height made her head spin, and she forced her eyes from the outside. After their clearance, they filed into the room. Walking on the floor took a second of reality checking because of her unobstructed view of the ground far below. Since their footsteps made no vibration, Annaria determined the place must be solidly built. Good.
She went to the side. From this level, she could gaze into the South. Close to the fence, their side looked not nearly as bare and devastated at the North’s, and lacked the lines of windmills. In the distance, a forest of thick green trees stretched to a range of blue mountains barely visible in the polluted haze on this side of the fence. Their environment had fared better than the North’s with such lush vegetation. Southern bombs had stripped much of the North bare during the Great Divide War. A spark of jealousy visited the lingering bitterness over Lola, bringing her anger back to full flame.
A large area surrounded by a tall wire fence held hundreds of ragged tents. Figures in tattered clothing ambled aimlessly among the structures, like animals in a zoo with no purpose but to survive. She nudged Louis who’d come to stand beside her. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s their containment camp for those waiting to immigrate to the North,” he said. “The waiting rooms here can only hold so many people. I understand there’s always more who want to cross over.”
Pity and disbelief welled inside her at the image of poverty in this mass of trapped humanity, extinguishing her anger. There were Southerners who wanted to leave their abundant agricultural environment. It wasn’t all about beautiful landscapes. Political and social unrest could leave souls as barren as the war scared land in the North. “Why don’t they just let them pass? Waiting in those conditions must be horrible.”
“There are too many to process quickly. Until they are, they remain the responsibility of the South. They pile up.” He shrugged. “They have to undergo security checks. I imagine the North can’t let everyone in who applies. Remember what happened yesterday.”
His words evoked the nightmare of her sister’s death anew, and sorrow engulfed her like an aching flu. So many people eager to enter the North. Where were the people who wanted to enter the South?
“Is this how they treat their poor? I know they don’t provide social services.” She couldn’t imagine living in such squalor.
“Their people don’t believe in handouts or taxes. They think everyone should work and make their own living. Those who fall by the way only have charitable institutions as hope. Their organized religion sort of takes the place of government social services and operates some charity hospitals and poor camps.”
He took a last look at the camp and moved away, as she dragged her eyes from the depressing scene.
Name cards directed them to places at the table, interspersing the two sides with an alternating North/South seating arrangement. Wonderful, she’d be between two people from the South. She sucked in a dee
p breath hoping she’d be able to keep thoughts of her sister from intruding on the scientific dialogue. They took seats, fiddling with their tech-pads and trying not to look at the clear floor.
A sound from the other side drew Annaria’s attention. The South’s contingent had arrived. She swallowed, gripping her pad until her fingers protested the pressure.
Four men and one woman, all white, wore formal dark suits except for one man who wore old-fashioned jeans with his white tunic. One guy actually did have a pistol! A guard relieved him of his weapon, and he shrugged with a wry expression. Did he really think it necessary to bring a gun to this meeting?
Her pulse raced as the door slid open and the Southerners entered. They paused just inside the doorway as a group, their eyes scanning the Northerners in an appraising manner. The atmosphere reeked of apprehension.
Dr. Manson rose and cleared his throat then strode toward them. “I’m Louis Manson. Glad you could meet us here.”
His action broke the ice and led to hand-shaking and introductions. With tentative smiles, they murmured pleasantries. Ria stayed in her seat focusing on her pad.
The man in jeans took a seat on her left. His place card read Dr. Lincoln Butler. A tall muscular man, he had rugged good looks and short, bleached blond hair as if he lived a lot of time under the sun. In the North, a man that fit might spend his spare time practicing for the Great Obstacle Event. Her own father had trained and participated for many years but never won. He’d wanted her or Lola to continue the tradition, but Lola found exercise too fatiguing, and Annaria was too ensconced in her studies. Hadn’t she read in a news report that he was the marine biologist who had investigated the whale deaths?
“Annaria Moralez,” she said and hesitantly extended her hand. Did he condone actions like the bomb in Omaha?
“Linc Butler,” he responded, his blue eyes frank and clear. He offered a firm but brief handshake.
She searched for something to say. “You’re the one who investigated the whale massacre, right?”
“Yes. My team is out of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.” He nodded toward Louis. “I’ve followed Dr. Manson’s work for many years. I understand you work with him?”
“I do. We’re at the main university complex in Omaha.”
He frowned. “You had an unfortunate event there yesterday, I understand.”
She bristled, her limbs stiffening. “That’s right, a suicide bomber. My sister was killed in the explosion.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that.” His expression fell into lines of concern. “Do they know who did it?”
She started to deliver a sharp reply, but thankfully, Dr. Manson took that time to call the meeting to order. She might have made a heated comment she didn’t need to voice. She pressed her lips together and unrolled the portable keyboard for her tech pad to cover her unease.
“…imperative that we devise a solution soon,” Louis was saying. “I know from the North’s side, our government is willing to put forth a wide array of resources to solve the mystery of these deaths before they spread further.”
Linc joined the conversation as he passed data chips to the Northerners. “The south is prepared to share information, as well. This is the research we have so far on the whales, seagulls and, um, fishermen.”
She took the chip and inserted it into the data port of her pad. The contents scrolling on her screen pleasantly surprised her. The information was well organized. Her preconceived notions of the South improved a bit. Maybe they weren’t as backward as she’d assumed.
“I’ll save you some time and effort by coming to the main point of our findings,” Linc said in a grim voice. “The deaths were caused by cannibalism, not crazed attacks as we first thought.” He paused as gasps circled the room. “This became most evident in the human remains, and when we re-examined the animals, the findings were consistent. We’re now looking into the digestive systems to determine common food sources that might have been contaminated, but we need help with parasitology identification.”
Dr. Manson nodded. “We’d be happy to take a look at the specimens. Will you be able to provide us with tissue?”
“Of course. I’ve brought a selection of cryo-sealed samples for you.” He withdrew a silver metal box about six inches square from his backpack. “This is contained using international protocol GY0-450,” he said as Annaria hesitated to take it from him. “I assure you, it’s safe.”
Manson jerked his chin toward the box, and she slowly relieved Linc of the box.
“If we have parasites, I’ll examine them for possible medical cures already in existence.” Dr. K rumbled in his baritone. “We have one of the most advanced epidemiology departments in the world.”
Dr. Borman’s face had paled at the mention of cannibalism. “This makes the situation even more grave, in my opinion. If a virus or parasite is involved, cannibalism will make the spread exponential. It would be possible for an organism to spread through blood-to-blood contact.”
A Dr. Peters from the South nodded. “No only that, if there are survivors of one of these events, then the deaths will begin in non-infected victims as the infected try to eat them.”
The discussion turned to ideas for containment in the event of survivors, but Annaria’s thoughts remained focused on the samples. The sooner she could examine them the better. Her fingers itched to open the box and start the process. For the first time since yesterday, her enthusiasm for research returned.
“Dr. Manson, if the conversation is moving on to logistics of containment, it might be prudent for me to take these to my room and begin scanning,” she said.
“Good idea,” he replied, and the others murmured consent. “Identifying the cause of this deviant behavior is the main focus at this point.”
She placed the box in her backpack and stood. Forcing a smile at her table companion, she said, “Thank you, Dr. Butler. I appreciate your forethought in bringing these. I’ll start work on them right away.”
“You have a portable scanner?” His brows shot up.
“Yes, we developed one a couple years ago. It comes in handy in remote areas,” she said. Apparently the South hadn’t developed such a device. Technology was an area the South needed help from the North, just like the North needed more agriculture from the South. T.M. Rominoff had promoted sharing of this nature before his attack.
She headed for her room, passing through the four checkpoints. Though they had checked her an hour ago, she still had to provide her I.D. and go through the scanning process to re-enter her own country. Such stringent security made her question again how a person like the suicide bomber had passed The Divide. Maybe secret tunnels or bribes to gate officials let people cross without processing? She shivered, frightened to think of more attacks like the one that killed her sister.
When she reached her room, she set up her scanner on the desk and carefully opened the metal box. She breathed a sigh of relief at the GY0-450 seal on the clear sample chips arranged in the box amid padded dividers. She lifted one labeled whale heart, inserted it into the scanner, and entered the parameters of the search on the screen. Thirty-two other slides waited in the box. Now the wait.
Chapter Seven
Linc had restrained the sarcastic comment that sprang to his lips when the Northern woman hesitated to take the sample box. Did she really think Southerners didn’t know how to properly seal contaminated samples? Typical for what he expected of these people. Like he’d carry around a bunch of unprotected tissue.
Dr. Skinner, their side’s infectious disease expert, had shared a sympathetic glance with him when it happened. He hated to react to stereotypes, but damn, the idea of the superior, condescending Northerner seemed pretty appropriate.
He kept his cool, however. In the field of parasitology, they really did know more than the South. Their own Dr. Peters was no match for the advancements of the North. Dr. Manson was considered the foremost authority not just in the North, but in the world. So Linc would have to tole
rate the snooty assistant. Still, her sister’s death might influence her mindset. No doubt she lumped Southerners together like most Northerners, and assumed they were to blame.
After mapping out a containment strategy and a protocol for investigating future occurrences, the committee took a break to communicate the plan to their respective governments for immediate implementation. A new incident could occur at any time.
He headed to the lodging floor with Dr. Helen Quentin, their chief epidemiologist, while Dr. Skinner waited to have his pistol returned.
“That went better than I expected. Dr. K actually acted cordial about sharing information once we have an organism,” she said, then smirked. “Although they are quite…diverse. All they were missing was an albino.”
He scowled. He hated that sort of thinking. The whole racism issue in the South didn’t fit with his own personal beliefs, especially because of his brother. Thank God, Peter had immigrated to the North, so he’d escaped gay persecution. Peter had been very happy in his new home until his death last year. Regardless, he still missed his twin every single day. “They’re experts in their fields. That’s what matters.”
“Of course. I didn’t—”
“Linc, I need to speak with you. Got a minute?” Dr. Skinner interrupted, jogging to catch up as they entered the lounge area of the lodging floor.
Dr. Quentin hurried off, her face glowing red.
Linc paused. “What’s up, Tom?”
The other man glanced over his shoulder and took Linc’s elbow. “Let’s go to my room.”
Once inside, Tom closed the door. He motioned to two molded chairs beside the bed. “I had a communication from Barton Fisk right before we entered the meeting room.”
“Did he have more instructions from the president?” Fisk had briefed Linc and the other members of the team with instructions on what the government did and did not want relayed to the Northerners.
“Not from the president, from DOI.”