by A. G. Riddle
The tears rolled down Kate’s face. She closed her eyes, and she wasn’t in the bed with David in Tibet. She was back in San Francisco, on a cold night five years ago, in a hospital bed. A gurney. They were rushing her out of the ambulance and through the hospital. Doctors and nurses shouted around her, and she was yelling at them, but they wouldn’t listen to her. She grabbed the doctor’s arm. “Save the baby, if it’s between me and the baby, save—”
The doctor pulled away from her and shouted at the burly man pushing the gurney. “OR two. Stat!”
They wheeled her faster, and the mask was over her mouth, and she fought to stay awake.
She awoke to a large, empty hospital room. She hurt all over. There were several tubes running from her arm. She reached quickly for her stomach, but she knew before her hands made contact. She pulled the gown back to reveal the long ugly scar. She buried her head in her hands and cried, for how long she didn’t know.
“Dr. Warner?”
Kate looked up, startled. Hopeful. A shy nurse stood before her. “My baby?” Kate said, her voice cracking.
The nurse’s eyes drifted down, focusing on her feet.
Kate crumbled back in the bed. The tears came in sheets now.
“Ma’am, we weren’t sure, there’s no in-case-of-emergency on file, should, is there anyone we should call? A… father.”
A flash of rage stemmed the tide of tears. The seven-month romance, the dinners, the charm. The internet entrepreneur who seemed to have it all, almost too good to be true. Not almost. The accident, the apparently faulty birth control. His disappearing act. Her decision.
“No, there’s no one to call.”
David hugged her tight and brushed the tears from her eyes.
“I’m not usually emotional,” Kate said, through the sobs. “It’s just, I… when I was in…”
“I know.” He wiped a new wave of tears from her cheek. “The scar. It’s ok.” He took the journal from her hand. “That’s enough reading for tonight. Let’s get some rest.” He pulled her down beside him, and they drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 94
Situation Room
Clocktower HQ
New Delhi, India
“Sir, we’re pretty sure we’ve found them,” the tech said.
“How sure?” Dorian asked.
“The two-man team on the ground, some locals told them a train came through this region.” The tech used a laser pointer to circle an area of mountains and forests on the giant screen. “The tracks are supposed to be abandoned, so it couldn’t have been cargo. And the drones spotted a monastery not far from there.”
“How far out are the drones now?”
The tech punched some keys on the laptop. “A few hours—”
“How? Jesus, we were right on top of them!”
“I’m sorry, sir, they had to refuel. They can be in the air again within the hour. But— it’s dark now. The sat image is from earlier. It will be—”
“Do the drones have infrared?”
The tech worked the keyboard. “No. What should—”
“Do any of the drones nearby have infrared?” Dorian snapped.
“Stand by.” Images from the computer reflected in the technician’s glasses. “Yes, a little farther out, but they can reach the target.”
“Launch them.”
Another tech ran into the command center. “We just got an eyes-only from the Antarctica operation. They’ve found an entrance.”
Dorian leaned back in the chair. “Verified?”
“They’re confirming now, but the depth and dimensions are right.”
“Are the portable nukes ready?” Dorian asked.
“Yes. Dr. Chase reports they have been retrofitted to slide inside a backpack.” The skinny man held up a sheaf of printed pages too thick to be stapled. “Chase actually sent a rather detailed report—”
“Shred it.”
The man tucked the report back under his arm. “And Dr. Grey called; he wants to talk with you about precautions at the site.”
“I’m sure. Tell him we’ll talk when I get there. I’m leaving now.” Dorian rose to leave the room.
“There’s something else, sir. Infection rates are climbing in Southeast Asia, Australia, and America.”
“Is anyone working on it yet?”
“No, we don’t think so. Or, they think it’s just a new flu strain.”
CHAPTER 95
Kate opened her sleepy eyes and studied the alcove. It wasn’t night, but it wasn’t quite morning. The first rays of sunrise peaked through the large window in the alcove, and she turned away from them, putting them off, ignoring the coming of morning. She nestled her head closer to David’s and closed her eyes.
“I know you’re awake,” he said.
“No I’m not.” She tucked her head down and lay very still.
He laughed. “You’re talking to me.”
“I’m talking in my sleep.”
David sat up in the small bed. He looked at her for a long moment, then brushed the hair out of her face. She opened her eyes and looked into his eyes. She hoped he would lean closer and—
“Kate, you have to go.”
She dreaded the argument, but she wouldn’t compromise. She wouldn’t leave him. But before she could object, Milo appeared, as if out of thin air. He wore his usual cheerful expression, but below it, on his face and in his posture, were the unmistakable signs of exhaustion.
“Good morning, Dr. Kate, Mr. David. You must come with Milo.”
David turned to him. “Give us a minute, Milo.”
The youth stepped closer to them. “A minute we do not have, Mr. David. Qian says it is time.”
“Time for what?” David asked.
Kate sat up.
“Time to go. Time for,” Milo raised his eyebrows, “escape plan. Milo’s project.”
David cocked his head. “Escape plan?”
It was an alternative, or at the very least, a delay of Kate’s ongoing argument with David, and she took the opening. She ran to the cupboard and gathered up bottles of antibiotics and pain pills. Milo held a small cloth sack at her side, and she dumped the bottles in it as well as the small journal. She stepped from the cupboard, but returned and grabbed some gauze, bandages, and tape, just in case. “Thank you, Milo.”
Behind her, Kate heard David plant his feet on the ground and almost instantly collapse. Kate reached him just in time to break his fall. She dipped her hand in the bag, fished out a pain pill and an antibiotic, and stuffed them in his mouth before he could object. He dry swallowed the pills as Kate practically dragged him out of the room and into the open-air wooden corridor.
The sun was coming up quickly now, and just beyond the boardwalk floor of the corridor, Kate saw parachutes looming over the mountain. No, they weren’t parachutes, they were hot air balloons. There were three of them. She cocked her head and examined the first balloon. Its top was green and brown. A sort of camouflage scene. It was… trees, a forest. So curious.
The sound. The buzzing. It was close. David turned to her. “The drones.” He pushed her out from under his arm where she had supported him. “Get to the balloon.”
“David,” Kate started.
“NO. Do it.” He took Milo by the arm. “My gun. The one I came here with, the first time. Do you have it?”
Milo nodded. “We have all your things—”
“Bring it, and hurry. I have to get to high ground. Meet me on the observation deck.”
Kate thought he might turn to her one last time and… but he was gone, hobbling through the monastery, then struggling up a stone staircase set in the mountainside.
Kate glanced between the balloons and David, but he was already gone. The staircase was empty.
She hurried down the boardwalk which ended at a spiral staircase made of wood. At the bottom of the stairs, the giant balloons came into view. There were five monks there on the lower platform, waiting for her, waving to her. At the sight of her, two of the
monks jumped into the first balloon, released a rope, and pushed away from the platform. The balloon floated away from the mountain as the monks motioned to get her attention. They worked the cords and flame that controlled the balloon, showing her how to operate it. One of the men nodded to her, then pulled a rope that released one of the sacks at the side of the basket, and they rose quickly into the sky, drifting farther away from the mountain. It was beautiful, the serenity of the flight, the colors — reds and yellow with patches of blue and green. It sailed out over the plateau, like a giant butterfly taking flight.
The other two monks were in the second butterfly balloon, ready to go, but they didn’t cast off. They seemed to be waiting for her. The fifth monk motioned for her to get in the third balloon, the one with the forest scene on top. Kate realized that the bottom side was a cloud scene — blue and white. From below, at the right distance, a drone would see only sky above. If the drone was flying above the balloon, it would only see forest. It was very clever.
She climbed in the cloud and forest balloon. The second butterfly balloon cast off ahead of her and the last monk left standing on the platform pulled two ropes on her basket, releasing the bags and sending her balloon into the air. The balloon ascended silently, like a surreal dream. Kate turned and across the plateau, she saw dozens, no hundreds of balloons, in a panorama of color and beauty, all rising into the sky, the sunrise bathing them in light. Every monastery must have released balloons.
Kate’s balloon was rising faster now, leaving the wooden launching platform and the monastery behind.
David.
Kate grabbed the cords that controlled the balloon just as an explosion rocked the balloon. The side of the mountain seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye. The balloon shuddered. Wood and stone flew through the air. Smoke, fire, and ashes floated, filling the space between Kate’s balloon and the monastery.
She couldn’t see anything. But the balloon seemed ok; the drone’s missile had hit the mountain below her and on the opposite side of the monastery. She fought at the controls. She was rising fast now. Too fast. Then another sound. A gunshot — from above.
CHAPTER 96
The shot missed. The drone had fired the first of its two missiles a second before David had pulled the trigger. That instant loss of weight had propelled the drone through the air slightly faster, past the bullet from David’s sniper rifle.
He chambered another round and tried to find the drone again. Where was it? The smoke rose in thick plumes now. The monastery was almost consumed with flames, and the trees below it had caught fire as well. The green branches burned black, blocking David’s entire view. He stood with a grimace, but his legs responded. The pain pill was working. He had to get to a better vantage point. He turned and was shocked to see Milo sitting in the corner of the wooden observation deck, his legs crossed, his eyes closed. His breathing was shallow and rhythmic.
David grabbed the young man by the shoulder. “Milo, what the hell are you doing?”
“Seeking the stillness within, Mr.—”
David pulled him up with his good arm and practically threw him against the mountain. “Seek it at the top of the mountain.” David pointed, and when Milo turned back, David spun the youth around and pushed him toward the mountain again. “You climb and keep climbing, Milo, no matter what happens. Go. I mean it.”
Milo reluctantly dug a hand into a jagged opening in the mountain, and David watched for a second as he moved up the wall of rock.
David returned his focus to the observation deck. He walked to the edge of the deck and waited. Then it came — a break in the smoke. He knelt and peered through the scope and without a single adjustment, he saw the drone. No, it was a different drone; this one still had its full complement of two rockets. How many were there? David didn’t hesitate this time. He sucked a breath in, held it, and squeezed the trigger slowly. The drone exploded and a tiny stream of smoke streaked the sky as the drone fell to the ground.
David searched the sky for the other drone, but he couldn’t see it. It must be on the other side. He rose to his feet and hobbled across the wooden platform. Through the smoke, a colorful form rose, a scene of sky and trees, parting the black clouds. The balloon. Kate. His eyes met hers just as the mountain exploded below him. Half the platform disappeared in an instant, throwing him off balance. The gun fell from David’s hands and clanged loudly on the rocks as it fell toward the burning monastery. He crawled to the other side of the platform as the boards crumbled and broke free one-by-one. The entire monastery was coming down. The other drone had fired its last missile, and it was a death blow.
The balloon had been rocked, but it was still there, 15 or 20 feet away, swaying wildly. The last of the platform was collapsing quickly now.
David got to his feet and jumped for it. As he cleared the monastery, his forward motion stopped, and he seemed to hang in the air, and just as quickly, he was falling. Kate reached for him, and he could almost touch her hand, but he missed it, and he plunged to the ground. He almost hit the bottom of the basket, but he twisted at the last minute, catching something — a rope — with his good arm. He had stopped falling, but he swung listlessly from side to side. He tried to grab the rope with his legs, but the pain from the wound was too much. He dangled there, hanging by one hand, his legs kicking back and forth as if he were running in the sky.
Fire — below him. He felt the heat creeping up his legs and now his body, getting closer every second. He was dragging the balloon down into the carnage. Kate was above him, trying to pull the rope up, but she couldn’t — his weight plus the sandbag was too much. He had to let go. From this height, it would be a quick death.
Kate disappeared from the edge of the basket, and David heard a whoosh as a sand bag fell to the ground. Their descent stabilized, but they were still drifting lower, into the flames. He was sweating now. The balloon’s material wouldn’t last long in this heat.
“Kate, I can’t climb!” Even through the pain pill, the agony of the chest and shoulder wound were overtaking him. He closed his eyes. Let go, his mind said, and as soon as words formed in his mind, something smacked him in the face — literally. He snapped his eyes open to find a rope — without a sandbag — dangling in his face.
“Grab it,” Kate yelled down to him.
He quickly moved his single-hand grip from the rope holding the sandbag to the new rope. He lost three or four feet in the exchange, but Kate quickly made it up as she began pulling him up toward the basket. David was 6’1”, around 180 pounds. He couldn’t understand how she was doing it, where the strength had come from, but Kate kept putting one hand over the other, pulling, using the side of the basket as a pulley. After what seemed like an eternity, he was eye-level with the top of the basket, and he lunged, grabbing it with his good arm and thrusting himself into the basket, falling on top of her.
She was drenched in sweat from the exertion, and he was dripping from the heat of the fire. His face was four inches from hers, and he stared into her eyes. He could feel her breathing on his face. He pressed into her, moving closer to her mouth.
Just before he reached her, she grabbed him and rolled him off of her, onto his back.
David closed his eyes. “I’m sorry—”
“No, it’s, I felt it. You’re bleeding, your bandages ripped.” Kate pulled his shirt back and began working on the wound.
David panted and stared up at the clouds on the balloon. He hoped that somewhere below them, Milo was sitting at the top of the mountain, safe, and that someday, somewhere, he would find the stillness within.
PART III:
THE TOMBS OF ATLANTIS
CHAPTER 97
After Kate had finished repairing David’s bandages, she crawled to the other side of the balloon and slumped against the basket wall. For a long time, they simply floated through the air, feeling the breeze on their faces, staring at the snow capped mountains and green plateau below. Neither said a word. Kate’s muscles burned from the exertio
n of pulling him into the basket.
David finally broke the silence. “Kate.”
“I want to finish the journal.” She drew the small leather bound book out of the sack with the medical supplies. “Then we can make plans. Ok?”
David nodded, then leaned his head back against the basket and listened as Kate read the last few pages.
February 4th, 1919
One year after I awoke in the tube…
The world is dying. And we killed it.
I sit at the table with Kane and Craig, listening to the statistics like they were the odds for a horse race. The Spanish Flu (that’s what we’ve sold the world on, how we’ve “branded” the pandemic) has moved to every country in the world. Only a few islands have been spared. It’s killed countless millions so far. It kills the strong, sparing the weak, unlike any other flu epidemic.
Craig talks at length, using more words than the information deserves. The long and short is that no one has found a vaccine, and of course the Immari don’t expect they will. But they think they can still sell it as the flu. That’s the “good news,” Craig announces.
And there’s more of it. Overall the mood and assessment has turned optimistic: the human race will survive, but the losses will be intense. 2-5% of the total human population, somewhere between 36-90 million people are expected to die from this plague we unleashed. Around 1 billion will be infected. They estimate the current total human population at 1.8 billion, so “not a bad shake” are the words. Islands offer good protection, but the reality is that people are scared, and the whole world is holed up, avoiding anyone who might be infected. Estimates from the war are around 10 million dead. The plague, or Spanish Flu rather, will kill 4-10 times more people than the war. Of course hiding it is a problem. The war and outbreak combined, roughly 50-100 million people, gone.