“It’s just a stupid school paper, Huck. You’ve put so much into it...like it matters. Like any of this,” she waved her hand, the side of it hit the chair, but she didn’t flinch, “matters.”
“What makes today different?” he asked her. He folded the paper and held it in his lap.
His wife looked at him and then hiccupped a lone, reluctant sob. Straightening her back, she tilted her head toward the sky. “Because it’s over.” Then he turned to him, her eyes wet and glistening.
“In one sense...”
“In every…single…sense.”
“Kymberlin believed. She believed in greatness and she had her own ideas! She was going to be a great engineer someday.”
Josephine laughed. “Oh...to be dead. Everyone remembers you how they wanted you to be.”
Huck recoiled from the statement. “But—”
“She was perfect. But she was lost. Amazing. Brilliant. Kind. But flighty. You hold that paper like it’s a key to our daughter...but it was just a fantasy, Huck. She wrote that paper to impress you. You think if our daughter was still alive, she’d want you throwing everything into her hippy-dippy ideas of communal living? Abandoning your business, your friends...because you thought that you could save the world?”
“We are at war.”
Josephine brought the glass to her lips and threw back the rest of the wine. Then she took the glass and held it out over the chair and let it drop, the stem cracking and the bowl shattering into tiny pieces.
“We will always be at war,” came her reply.
And Huck ran his fingers over the crease in the paper again and again.
“Give it to me,” she commanded, and he handed the paper over. She examined it, shaking her head. “It’s kid stuff. Science fiction. There is nothing even remotely possible about building this utopia of hers. You are so blinded by what you wanted her to become. She was a child when she wrote this. A child!”
“She was still a child!” Huck replied. “Maybe, just maybe, if we listen to children—”
Josephine raised a finger and cautioned him with one look. Then she stood up and brushed herself off and stepped over the shards of glass with delicate tiptoes.
“At least say goodnight to Blair before you pass out,” Huck whispered to her back. “At least pretend like you give a damn about her.”
“I have nothing to give that child,” she replied, and she waltzed to the edge of the building, putting her hand on the protective lattice.
“You fought for that child,” he snapped. He rose to his feet. “You can’t give her back because she isn’t Kymberlin! You can’t punish her because she wasn’t the clone you hoped for.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he hung his head, his chin resting against his chest. “I’m sorry—” he looked up, but Josephine hadn’t turned. “That was wrong.”
“You are right,” she said to the wind. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Blair would be better off if she had never have been born.”
“I didn’t mean that,” he pleaded, practically begging. “We wanted joy...we wanted happiness...peace.”
She turned and exhaled, the edges of her mouth rising in a snarl. “Go find it.”
Huck paused. He stepped forward. He felt the glass under his feet. “Jo—”
She took a step onto the cement wall and brought her legs up under her. She tottered for a second and then kicked the lattice swiftly to the street, where it fell with a distant crash. “You have my blessing to find happiness. Peace.” She balled up the paper he had taken so much time to locate; crushed it in her hand and tossed it out to the night air. Huck watched the paper disappear and he spun to the rooftop door, taking several steps before turning and then taking a step back toward Josephine.
She stepped up and over the cement barrier and to the ledge below. Then she turned and reached her hands up above her head, her dress rippling like waves.
“Josephine!” he called and he imagined himself running after her, arms flailing, reaching, reaching for her hand and grabbing her bony wrists. He closed his eyes tight and called her name again, his voice echoing and bouncing off the other buildings—the other condos and apartments, their curtains wide with people milling about, going through the motions of their day, oblivious to all facets of their tragedy.
When he opened his eyes, his wife was gone. The space she had occupied consumed by darkness.
And his feet remained rooted against the cement roof, planted over the remnants of the wine glass, crunching the pieces as he shifted this way and that—searching the void and hoping for her shape to materialize. After a long minute, a gust of wind shook him into a startled inhale. He turned and walked back to the stairwell, his hands clenched into fists by his side. When he looked one last time, silent tears stung his cheeks, and Huck wondered if he would be able to find Kymberlin’s school paper drifting on the street. He noted the wind trajectory and tried to remember which way she had dropped it. Closing his eyes, he watched her ball up the white paper and he imagined being the paper, sliding past the eastside windows, maybe landing outside the pizza parlor or the nail shop. It had to be down there; the paper was waiting for him to find it. He would find it.
Huck must have stood there with his eyes closed for minutes.
It was the sirens that jolted him back to reality.
CHAPTER ONE
Scott King nodded to the guard on Floor E and ran his finger across the scanner to enter Pod 4. He smoothed down his blue button-down shirt and tried to walk with confidence toward the boardroom. He didn’t know why Huck Truman, leader of the System and the new world, was calling the powerful and elusive Elektos Board together, but the air underground was tense, and the prolonged time without natural sun or freedom was wearing on the System’s inhabitants. Even Scott felt antsy, his armpits wet, his stomach churning as if he were on the brink of gastrointestinal distress.
He wiped his forehead, and a droplet of sweat gathered on his index finger. He did not feel like facing the Board today. He did not know why Huck had asked him to bring three vials of his new virus or what he intended to do with them, but he knew that their appearance at this meeting wasn’t arbitrary. Or optional.
Since their arrival in The System, Huck had called together the Elektos Board on two other occasions: the week they arrived to their new underground home and the day before Lucy and Grant appeared among the survivors. The first meeting, the entire Board was there in person. The master tech had not yet been able to secure remote communication. Huck had assembled his fleet of pilots and airplanes and shipped in each of his most trusted followers.
The Elektos Board had fourteen members: two representatives from every Elektos Underground System, Gordy as vice-president and Huck as president. Huck’s daughter Blair was not a member of the Board, but had imposed herself as the meeting secretary. She sat in the corner of the room—away from the view of the other members—and kept elaborate notes that Scott was certain no one ever read or looked at again.
At the second meeting, the only members there in the flesh were Scott, Huck, Gordy, and Claude Salvant (architect of the Systems); everyone else communicated via video chat from their distant locations across the earth. That meeting had been lively and jovial—with reports of their successes documented and inarguable.
Huck had accomplished the first two steps of his plan without resistance.
Step one: annihilate the earth. Step two: relocate survivors to their temporary underground homes in the Elektos Underground Systems scattered across the globe. Each System contained a cell of people dedicated to the cause. For decades, Huck had built a secret army of bright and incomparable minds. As the date closed in for their attack, he sought out others invaluable to the cause.
Doctors, nurses, computer scientists, physicists, chemists; the best electricians and pilots, craftsmen and construction workers. Trade skills and academic minds were of equal value in Huck’s mind. He had recruited the best and the brightest and left the r
est to suffer the fate of the Release.
Scott, engineer of the virus that killed the world’s population, wasn’t sure how he landed such a coveted role at Huck’s table—there had been more deserving men among the saved—but he took pride in his role as one of the elite. For this meeting, though, his fear outweighed pride. It wasn’t a secret that Huck was uncomfortable with the new arrivals—Lucy and Grant, then Ethan and Teddy—and Scott knew he was responsible. Interactions became tense, and Huck had seemed withdrawn, distrusting.
Scott put his hand on the boardroom door, but he paused when heard the hallway pod slide open. Claude entered and smiled, walking toward Scott with purpose and confidence, his head held high.
“A beautiful day for a meeting, don’t you believe?” Claude asked. His thick Haitian accent gave Scott pause for a second. While he had become more accustomed to Salvant’s dialect, sometimes he needed an extra moment to process. Claude’s daughter Cass had a smooth drawl, a silky mesmerizing way of speaking; Claude seemed more clipped and perfunctory.
“Is there any possible way to tell if it’s a beautiful day?” Scott replied with a weary smile. Claude blinked. And Scott looked to the ground. “Because, you know. We don’t have windows.” He raised his eyebrows and assessed Claude’s stoic expression. “Unless, of course, you know something I don’t? Secret periscope?”
“It’s an expression, not a declaration,” Claude said matter-of-factly. “No periscope. No, this meeting is no doubt about the Islands. At least I can assume, since I was asked to bring our latest plans.”
“How are they coming?” Scott asked, his hand still on the door.
Claude smiled. “They’re beautiful.” He opened his mouth to say more, but the boardroom door opened wide, with Gordy on the other side.
“I thought I heard you two,” Gordy said. “Ready?” He motioned them inside, and they settled in at their places at the boardroom table. Scott watched as Blair entered the room and set up shop in the corner without a word. She arranged her yellow legal pad on her lap and kept a collection of colorful gel pens just within reach. Although the meeting hadn’t started, she was already jotting down various tidbits in multicolored glory.
Huck sat with his back to the men, his eyes trained on the six screens set up along the conference table. As Claude, Gordy, and Scott took their seats, the other Elektos members began popping up before them. Within minutes every member was present, and the room filled with greetings and smiles. Scott watched Huck spin—his mouth taut, his eyes narrowed as he examined each face in turn—and he knew that the cheery Board members could not sense Huck’s ever-souring mood. The vials in Scott’s pocket felt heavy, weighted with questions and worry.
“That’s enough, that’s enough. Let’s begin,” Huck announced, and the voices settled. Everyone turned to his or her camera and watched their fearless leader float before them.
While Scott had only met the other members once in person, he knew them well enough by face and reputation. He waved to his computer’s built-in camera and watched as his broadcasted image lifted his hand to the screen, too. Except his image was delayed by a full second.
Victor Barbosa waved back to Scott from the corner of his screen. A contingent from the EUS One in Brazil, Victor was broad shouldered and frog-like, with a mouth full of tiny, even teeth. In his former life, he had been a local politician—independently wealthy, without a family, and touting a liberal platform that kept him aligned with the left. His transition to leader of the EUS One and Elektos Board member was seamless: from one area of power to another. He relished his role and it was evident in his eagerness.
Victor spoke first.
“If I may, Mr. Truman, begin with a request. My people here are restless,” he said in English with only a hint of a Portuguese accent. “Explain to me, again, why we cannot arrange trips above ground? I see no harm in allowing—”
“We discussed this last time,” another voice interrupted. Scott’s eyes moved to the center of his screen where Roman, from the Australian EUS, lifted his finger and launched at Victor. “If your System jeopardizes the safety of all the Systems—”
“That is ridiculous,” Victor said, raising his voice. “We confirmed a lack of life. There are not people barging...” he looked to the side for confirmation that he had used the right word and then nodded, “yes, barging, down our doors. It has been long enough. Let my people breathe.”
“Are your filtering and air purifications systems unsatisfactory?” Claude asked.
Blair scribbled on her notepad. Huck looked at her with a sidelong stare, but either she didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“They are fine—”
“We are on a timeline,” Roman continued. “We discussed this last time. How will we ever get to new business if you continue to want special treatment for your one System?”
Mueez, from Pakistan but living inside the Saudi Arabian EUS, clapped his hands. “Thank you, Roman,” he said. “I, for one, did not come to listen to Victor’s whining...”
“You have asked me to help be the voice for my people here. And so I will raise concerns as I see fit,” Victor continued. He leaned his face closer to his camera, his wide-set eyes looming on the monitor with such ferocity that Scott pulled back from his screen.
“You were not elected,” Roman said in a lengthy drawl. “You are a mouthpiece for Huck. You’ve been given voting powers and a place at the table.”
“The EUS Four is equally tired and cranky, Victor. But I have provided them with fine words of hope. Weren’t you a politician in a former life? Can’t you do the same?” Mueez asked.
“Hope for what?” Victor asked and threw up his hands. “Huck? Huck?” he called and tapped his camera; the echo of the thud, thud, thud was loud and shrill.
“If I left my handpicked leaders to their own devices, you would all crumble into the same fate as our predecessors,” Huck said, frowning. “Peace, dear men. And patience. We are all on the same side. Do we need reminding of that?”
He paused.
No one interrupted.
“Perfect. Now, Victor.” Huck turned his eyes to the Brazilian leader on his screen. “I appreciate your concern for those you have been charged with caring for, but I assure you that if you trust my plan, you will not be led astray. Get control of your System. Appease them with whatever means you have. And if that does not work...” Huck trailed off and shrugged. “At one point or another, these people made a decision to save their families. If they have had a change of heart, we are more than capable of taking back that choice.”
“Threats?” Victor shook his head. “Dearest Huck, you know I trust you, but they are only asking for sun—”
“And sun they shall get. When it’s time. And it’s almost time.”
The Board went silent as they processed Huck’s statement. It was Morowa, the lone female Elektos representative, living in Botswana in the EUS Four, who was the first to clear her throat.
“The Islands are ready?” she asked. She cocked her head and examined Huck’s face from across the world on her small computer screen. “We will be able to leave these Systems soon?”
Huck nodded.
“We have several Islands ready. The others are still under development. But I believe we will be ready for our move within the month,” he replied.
“A month is a long time to wait,” added Gabriel, the second representative from EUS Four. “But some things are worth waiting for.” He smiled wide.
Huck couldn’t help but smile back. “I share your enthusiasm for this plan. The Islands are our lifeline, or labor of love. The Systems were always intended to be temporary shelter. Don’t lose focus so close to the goal, my friends.”
Everyone murmured excited agreement.
Then Huck put up his hand and waited for the voices on the screens to halt. When he had everyone’s attention, he leaned close and grimaced, as if his next words were already giving him pain.
“The iss
ue I need to bring forward today is of variables.” He said the word like it disgusted him. “We have discussed this before and the conversation, unfortunately, is not over. You see, they are dangerous, and they threaten the good we wish to accomplish.”
“We have no unknowns here,” Morowa said with authority. “Our population is grateful for shelter, water, food. We are deeply committed—”
“The EUS Five can also boast of no variables, Huck,” said Yuri, from Russia. “You cannot think that we are harboring people without your knowledge?”
Huck looked at Gordy and snapped his fingers. Gordy tried to shake him away, but Huck snapped again. Covering his camera and his microphone, the screen on the computer cutting to black, he leaned over to his dad. Blair’s pen stopped writing and remained poised above the paper at attention.
“Now?” Gordy asked. “This is not the time, Dad. You said as a last resort. You said if they disagreed...you haven’t even given them time to disagree.”
“They don’t understand,” Huck said. “Let’s help them understand.”
“You have to execute this perfectly or you will risk everything. Are you ready for that?” Gordy whispered.
Blair looked between her brother and her father with just her eyes, the rest of her body frozen into position. She was holding her breath.
“Bring them in. Now,” Huck commanded and pointed to the door.
“Are you ready to take this risk?” Gordy asked again.
Scott watched them volley. He felt his heart lurch as his thoughts wandered to the vials in his pocket. When he looked over to Claude, he saw the man staring at him, his eyes dark and penetrating. Whatever Claude was trying to convey, Scott had missed the message. He exhaled and settled into his seat, watching the faces of the concerned Elektos Board as they whispered among themselves.
Gordy withdrew his hand from the camera and rose from his seat. He exited the boardroom and slammed the door.
The Variables (Virulent Book 3) Page 2