by Lynda Engler
“Not all of it. This building was a pharmaceutical research company. It was mainly offices and laboratories, but this lab was shielded from the radiation and the electromagnetic pulse.”
The scientist placed the cat gently on the floor before getting out of his chair, his frail body creaking like an old tree in the wind. He paced the room as he spoke. “The enemy hid trucks with small nuclear bombs in over thirty cities and when they set them off, they disabled all the technology. New York, of course, was one of those cities, and we were close enough here to be affected by the abrupt pulse of electromagnetic radiation. The resulting rapidly changing electric and magnetic fields coupled with electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges. Effects of an EMP depend on a lot of factors, including the size of the detonation, energy yield, gamma ray output, interactions with the Earth's magnetic field and electromagnetic shielding of targets.”
It was clear that Dr. Rosario had a habit of going into long dissertations whenever he had a captive audience, and Luke proved to be just what he needed to start a lecture.
The scientist seemed to have run out of energy for pacing the room, but not for talking. He sat back down in his chair and picked up the orange tabby cat again, stroking the furry creature under the neck. The cat pushed his head into the man’s fingers, plaintively asking for more attention and petting.
“Ordinarily, the damaged electronics could be repaired, or replaced, but with so many dead, our infrastructure failed and there was no one left to manufacture anything new. I have repaired the security cameras on the outside of Le Rochér over the years, so I could monitor anything approaching the building.”
“Did you kill the tiger?” asked Luke in a weak voice. He did not have much strength to move so he just lay on the thin mattress, looking up at the old scientist.
“No, not with a hand gun from that distance. I may have wounded it though. The tiger took off, and I was able to drag you inside the building.”
Luke nodded his thanks, but even that small motion made his head throb.
The old man continued. “We were trapped inside this building at the time of the attack. Since the only shielded area was this lab, the office workers outside were not protected from the nuclear radiation. They didn’t die right away, but those of us inside the lab – we knew better than to leave. There were eight of us in the lab at the time.”
Dr. Rosario explained with such composure that it seemed as if he had told this story a hundred times before. “We felt terrible about the people in the building. We wanted to help them. We’d worked with them every day of the week. We knew many of their families. We had NBC suits because our lab handled radiation experiments, so we would have been able to safely go outside and get them. I was naive enough to suggest to the others in the lab that we bring the rest inside. They laughed at me.”
Luke watched the old man, but did not say anything. His grandfather had always called the suits by their proper name, just as Dr. Rosario had done. NBC stood for nuclear-biological-chemical. He and his sibs had always just called his grandfather’s safety suit a “chem-rad” suit.
“Being quite young, I hadn’t thought it out very well, but the lab supervisor had,” continued the doctor. “Too many people in here. We would run out of food and clean water. And those outside had already been exposed. They would require medical care we couldn’t give them. There was nothing we could do to help them, but letting them in could hurt us.” The frail old man got up from his chair again and began pacing the room again. Luke looked at the floor and could see a path of scuff marks between the lab bench and where his mattress lay.
Fifty years inside a lab. Luke had trouble believing it, but then it was not all that much smaller than his family’s underground complex and ten of them had lived there. At least the good doctor and his fellow scientists had chem-rad suits. They could go Outside whenever they wanted.
As if reading his mind, Dr. Rosario continued, “We went Outside from time to time to get supplies, canned food and drinks, but it was heartbreaking seeing the bodies every time. Especially when it was someone we knew. We wanted to burn the bodies, but Max – he was my boss – said it might attract enemies. So we left them there. Eventually the wildlife ate them.” His pacing complete, the old scientist took his place in his leather desk-chair once again. Pumpkin immediately jumped back into the man’s lap. It seemed to be his favorite spot.
“Gross,” groaned Luke. “I’m glad you didn’t leave me out there for the wildlife. Thank you again for saving my life. I really thought I was dead.”
“You would have been. I’ve been watching the animals for five decades. I know which ones died out, which mutated, and which did not. As far as I know, cats are the only species that didn’t mutate. The tigers, while not native to this part of the world, are highly adaptable so they prospered. They are solitary creatures, which is a good thing for you. If a pride of lions had attacked you, there would not have been anything left to save. One tiger will run from the sound of gunfire. A group of lions wouldn’t budge.”
Luke bolted upright. “There are lions out there too?!” He immediately regretted his hurried motion as pain shot through his wounded arm and stabbed inside his head.
With the cat now curled up asleep in his lap, the old man leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “There were, but I think they moved south when the weather changed a decade ago. Lions do not like the cold, but tigers have no problem with it. They can tolerate the heat of summer and our frigid winters, but I cannot experiment on something that wants to eat me. That’s what Pumpkin is for. The cat was a gift from your sister, or actually from her daughter.”
“Come again, Doc? You want to take it from the top? You lost me there,” said Luke.
Dr. Rosario told Luke about his work to find a vaccine against mutation, and how the cat fit into the whole plan. Luke lay back on the mattress to listen. The tiger’s tear across his chest muscles burned. He winced and shifted into a more comfortable position, his energy fading with every passing minute. The pain was enough to convince him that it would indeed take time to heal from the injuries the wild cat inflicted on his flesh, muscles, and bones. He needed to rest but Isabella was still out there, unaware of the danger she was in.
Luke fought against the urge to close his eyes. “Can I be honest with you, Doc? What you’re doing doesn’t sound all that different than what the military is working on. The people at Telemark told me the army captures mutants and experiments on them too.”
“My work is very different!” The old man exploded out of the chair, his high-pitched voice unexpectedly frantic, the cat flung from his lap into the air. “A cat is not a human and I am humane in my work. Do you think this animal would purr in my lap if I was harming him?”
Pumpkin landed on all fours and eyed the two humans with suspicion before sauntering away as if nothing had happened.
As the man began ranting, Luke painfully shook his head but did not utter a sound. This old man had more than a few lose screws. He was not sure if the cat would ever go back to his favorite sleeping spot after that outburst.
“My work will help humanity, but I will NOT harm anyone in the process. The government’s work is very different from mine. I don’t capture mutants, and I certainly don’t capture and experiment on the Eaters to find out why they survived or if there is a serum I could make from their blood. That’s what the military is doing.” The anger in the man’s voice faded away as suddenly as it had begun, and his voice returned to its earlier calm. “But last I heard, they have been unsuccessful so far.”
Satisfied that the old man’s demeanor had returned to some version of sanity, at last for the time being, Luke lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.
* * *
Isabella
Twenty-five miles from Dr. Rosario’s lab, Isabella and Malcolm pitched their tents near the edge of the Alpine community, beside the stone wall that encircled the village. Isabella was glad that they had broug
ht two tents. When the little girls clamored to have a sleepover in Clay and Kalla’s tent, she acquiesced with little arm-twisting. She missed the privacy she and Malcolm had enjoyed briefly during their stay in Telemark, when they lived in a small house of their own. Where their daughters had shared a room of their own.
While Malcolm tucked in the girls next door, Isabella arranged their own sleeping bags. She unzipped them both and laid them flat, one atop the other. The nights were warm and they did not need blankets, but two thick sleeping bags together made a better mattress than one alone. She really missed her bed in Telemark!
Telemark was a wonderful place, and she could see making a future life there for her and her new family, but it also held sad memories. Andra’s little brother, Joey, who they had adopted along with the little girl, had sickened and died in Telemark. The community’s doctor – or perhaps witch doctor was a better term for her – did everything in her power to help him, but was not able to save the child’s life. The new human healer had a strange mutation; one which Isabella had not thought true until she saw the healer work. She was able to lay her hands on the child and physically take the pain from his body into her own. It weakened her to the point she needed help just to stand up, but it eased the boy’s illness, lowered his fever, and let him sleep. In the end, however, his fragile body was not able to fight the illness, and he died quietly in his sleep.
The memory of her loss brought tears to her eyes and she was suddenly angry at her grief. Dwelling on it would do no one any good. She wiped her face, sniffled, and focused again on arranging their belongings in the tent.
Malcolm crawled into their shelter behind her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. Isabella sighed and leaned back into her husband, reveling in the warmth that radiated from him. She was momentarily surprised when he began unbuttoning her blouse, but soon gave in to his advances, all memories of sadness erased for the moment by his tender touch. Malcolm kissed her neck slowly, then with more urgency as he worked his way down her bare skin, touching the sensitive spot at the small of her back, gently and carefully exploring every inch of her body. For such a large man, he was remarkably tender.
She turned to face him, looked into his emerald green eyes, and brought his right hand to her lips, lovingly kissing the tips of each of his six fingers. She thought, and not for the first time, how lucky she was to have him, and how full her life was now that he was in it. Then she pulled his t-shirt over his head and caressed the now-familiar muscles and soft skin of his chest and strong upper arms, working her hands down to his stomach and feeling his flat, muscular abdomen beneath her petite fingers. She sighed as he returned her touch and they fell back onto the sleeping bags, entwined like two jungle vines growing as one around the same tree.
Chapter Twelve
Isabella
Much the same as agricultural communities had done for millennia, the village of Alpine rose early. There were crops to tend, food to prepare, and clothing to make or mend and – much to Isabella’s delight – children to educate. After her experience at the illiterate village of Telemark, she had not expected Alpine to have a rudimentary school system. Once the children finished their morning chores, they went to class to learn farming techniques, practical math, and history, such as the teachers knew it.
“Too bad reading isn’t part of what they learn,” commented Kalla as the visitors viewed the classrooms with Diane. There were seventy-two children in the school. Since new humans barely lived past twenty-one, almost everyone was a child, by Isabella’s reckoning, but for those Outside, age ten was roughly the cut off for childhood. The school split the kids into five groups beginning at age three. The oldest child was ten.
“I doubt anyone here would be qualified to teach reading,” replied Isabella. “And we can’t stay long enough to train a teacher. I have an idea though. Maybe once we get back to Telemark and teach enough people there to read, we can come back in the spring with someone qualified to teach here.”
“It’s a nice place. I might like to come back here someday. What deem you, Clay?” Kalla asked her intended mate.
“Huh? Sorry, I wasn’t listening. I was looking at the field.” Clay leaned into the picture window of the school cafeteria, staring at the lawn across the road where younger teenagers were drilling in archery and swordsmanship.
All of Isabella's education came from her family shelter, so she had never been inside of a traditional classroom. Her grandmother had been studying to be a teacher when the Final War broke out, and over the years, she had mentioned a few things about the school systems from her youth. Isabella knew that school curriculums back then had included a physical education program. What they were looking at outside the windows did not look like gym class at all.
Malcolm turned to Diane and said, “Looks like they are getting ready for a battle.”
Isabella had been with Malcolm long enough to know when his tone of voice became accusatory or suspicious. His question was both. The look on his face confirmed it.
“Not exactly. It’s for self-defense. Just in case,” replied the village mayor, her lips forming into a tight-lipped smile. She escorted them outside to get a closer look at the drilling field.
“Like your wall?” asked Malcolm. His unwavering eye contact with Diane, even as they walked, showed his earnest concern. “You look like you’re training an army. I’ve never heard of tribes fighting tribes. Are there violent tribes around here? If my family is in danger here, I need to know.” He followed her briskly, his hand gestures punctuating his speech in precise movements.
The Amazonian leader of Alpine looked Malcolm in the eye and replied. “There are always those who want to take away what you’ve worked hard to create. We have a prosperous community but we are very close to the Yellow Zone. Sometimes things come out of there. Horrible, violent things.”
“The Eaters?” asked Isabella. A shudder crept up her spine as her thoughts flashed back to the gruesome battle with the creatures in Dover. She still had nightmares of it that woke her in the deepest part of night, cold sweat drenching her body.
Diane nodded. “It’s been years since we’ve seen any. They are probably dying out now, but you can see why we stay vigilant. If you’re worried we’re going on the offensive against other tribes, we’re not. Please don’t worry about that. We are farmers, not fighters. But we defend what’s ours.”
“I see that,” said Malcolm and then turned to his wife. “This might be the right time to tell Diane what we know.”
“Tell me what?” asked the big woman.
“About a danger you have no idea is coming,” replied Isabella. She took a deep breath and began to tell their story. “It’s why we are searching for other towns and villages. We’re on a mission to educate as many new humans as we can about the government’s plans for your kind.”
“New humans? Government? What government? Other than small communities, there is no centralized government around here. We just have trading partnerships with other villages.”
“New humans are what Isabella calls us mutants,” Malcolm replied.
Isabella picked up where her husband left off in answering the mayor. “The federal government is still out there, hiding in underground enclaves, running things in their own way for the scattered shelter folk. They have plans for humanity and it doesn’t include mutants." She paused to swallow and prepare herself for the next revelation. “When the radiation and chemical poisoning dissipate to safe levels in another fifty years, the government will bring the shelter folk out of their holes. Earlier, if they can. And they don’t want any new humans around when the shelter folk come out.”
“This is why you travel? To tell mutants about people in caves with delusions of grandeur?” Diane’s laughter carried, reverberating off the buildings and trees like a shout in a canyon.
“I’m serious,” said Isabella. “I spent sixteen years in a shelter and I know things about the government.”
Diane huffed her disbelief
, but Isabella trudged on. “Trust me, they have resources that no one Outside has. They resupply shelter families every year with consumables. They bring us manufactured items we can’t make ourselves, like new shoes. And, they have planned genetic breeding to keep the small population of unmutated people safe from inbreeding. They swap people from shelter to shelter so they can diversify the gene pool. Believe me when I tell you the government has big plans, and they are fully capable of executing them.”
“So?” asked Diane. “Even if you are telling the truth about this fantasy government, what does this have to do with us? We don’t care what they plan – they can do whatever they want.”
Isabella emphatically shook her head. “For fifty years, the government’s main mission has been to increase the population and keep the shelter folk safe. They have underground cities they call FRC’s – Federal Relocation Centers, where larger groups of people live. They have a huge underground city where the main part of the government is, and where thousands of humans live. It’s called Mt. Weather. They send representatives to all the shelters to swap people around and sometimes bring the older kids to Mt. Weather or an FRC for higher education. Like I said, big plans,” said Isabella. “And they don’t like mutants. When they finally bring the shelter folk out of their holes to live above ground, they want all the Outside people gone.” Isabella clasped her arms behind her body as she spoke, her head lifted and chest out, standing as tall as her small frame could stand.
“There is plenty of space for the shelter folk to live. They can keep to themselves – keeping far away from us. We don’t care.” Diane waved away Isabella and Malcolm’s information.
Malcolm took a step forward. He was as tall as the village leader and looked her level in the eye. “They care. They don’t want to live side by side. The government wants only pure, undamaged human genetic stock.” He paused, for maximum effect. “They plan to exterminate all the mutants.”