I don’t know when I finally fell asleep. I don’t remember getting tired. I woke to the sound of the nurse calling my name through the intercom. It was time for my morning blood check.
I climbed out of bed, walked to the wall, stuck my hand inside the box and waited for her to prick my finger and take her share of my blood. It was in the middle of the blood test that I noticed the empty room.
“Where’s Kelly?”
“Who?” the nurse asked.
“The girl who was in that room.” I pointed at the room across from mine.
“You ask too many questions.” She grabbed her supplies and walked away.
I dropped to the floor, staring at Kelly’s room through the watery blur of tears.
Quarantine, day ten
My blood was still clean. All the tests coming back showed I was in good health. I started to relax. Fewer people were being pulled out of quarantine. I hoped that meant the rest of us were healthy and would finish our time without a problem.
I was sick of watching television. It was the only form of entertainment I had except for a few books, which I’d already finished reading. I’d even read through the PODs packet—twice. I had no human contact—since Kelly had been pulled from quarantine our group wasn’t the same. Everyone seemed to want to keep to themselves. All that was left was television, with its constant coverage of the effects the virus—and the raffle—were having on the country.
There were new theories about the virus. Some people believed it was man-made and that’s why it’d shown up so quickly. Scientists were baffled by the first cases, stunned at how quickly it had spread. Where it had originated was a mystery, how it was transmitted still unknown. It was an enigma.
“The military has been experimenting with germ warfare for decades!” The middle-aged man in the worn baseball cap gestured with wild hands at a reporter wearing a surgical mask. “They made this! Just like they did with AIDS! With Ebola! They made them all!”
I shut off the TV when the nurse arrived to take yet more blood. “May I have another book to read, please?”
“No. If anything from the outside that hasn’t been properly prepared breaches your quarantine room, you’ll be deemed a liability and banned from the POD system. We still don’t know how the virus is transmitted. It may be possible to contract the virus through touching contaminated objects. If something were added to your room without being properly sterilized, you’d run the risk of contracting the virus.”
I stuck my hand in the little box set into the glass wall. “There’s nothing in the other rooms?”
“No.” She slid the specimen box into the port on one side, the outer layer peeling away as she pushed it into place. The layers of sealed plastic prevented any contaminant from the outside world coming into contact with the air of my isolation room, and vice versa. Sliding her already-gloved hands into the permanent gloves on the other side of the box, she reached for the inner layer sealing the specimen container, which seemed to gasp as she broke the vacuum seal.
“What happens when someone is removed from the quarantine area?” I asked.
“They’re replaced.” The nurse lanced the side of my finger with a little metal stick, and then squeezed my finger until a fat drop of blood formed. She collected the sample with a thin glass tube. They took blood several times a day; I had little nicks and scabs on all of my fingers. I thought I ran the risk of them getting infected. Death by blood tests—that’d be ironic.
“How are they replaced?”
“You’re always full of too many questions,” she snapped. Usually the nurses wouldn’t talk to me at all.
“You’re the only person I’ve got to talk to.”
“There’s a waiting-list of extras—extra people to fill spots when someone is removed from quarantine.”
“Why are people removed?”
“Either they are a carrier of the virus or they have another health issue that can’t be dealt with in the PODs.”
She placed the blood sample into the specimen container and wrapped a Band-Aid around my finger before pressing the inner seal onto the container and sliding the outer layer back in place as she removed it from the port.
Picking up her things, she looked at me. “All done. Lunch will be here shortly. That’ll give you something to pass the time. It’s spaghetti day.”
I loathed spaghetti.
Quarantine, Day… something
“How many more days?” I asked the nurse. I’d nicknamed this one “Happy,” since she was one of the few nice ones in the rotation. “Grumpy” had done the blood draw the night before.
“Just two more, sweetie,” she answered.
I stood still while she drew my blood for the third time that day.
She wore a green hazmat suit and large, thick yellow gloves, and even behind the clear plastic, her face was covered by a white mask from her chin to the bottom of her eyes. Her hair was shoved into a green hat the same color as the suit. She looked like she was auditioning for the role of “Green Bean Number 1” in a school play.
The only way I could tell her apart from the other nurses was her voice, soft and soothing. She’d talk to me, called me “sweetie,” even. The others just took my blood like greedy vampires.
“What day is it?” With no windows and no clock it was impossible to keep track of time. I guess it was preparation for the PODs. We’d , and my chest
Chapter 6:
Introductions
Day One
I finished quarantine and was moved to my new home—POD 78, sub-POD 29. According to the packet, all sub-PODs housed ten people, five female and five male.
Locked in an underground tuna can with strangers for an entire year? I sure hope we all get along.
After being sealed in a transport container that felt like a glass coffin, the techs wheeled me to the POD entrance and sealed the edges of the container to the doorframe before letting me out on a landing at the bottom of a small ramp. My suitcases were marked with large stickers declaring them “Decontaminated,” along with chalk markings of “78/29” and what I assumed was today’s date on both sides. In front of me, elevator doors stood open, and a tech wearing a hazmat suit stood inside waiting for me. We rode down the elevator—the slowest ride ever—and when the door finally opened I stepped out into a large central room, round with high ceilings and ringed with doors. The tech walked me to the door labeled “sub-POD 29.” A red and white striped metal box was attached to the wall just beneath the sign; a glass panel revealed a red lever within, like an oversized fire alarm.
I walked down the metal corridor to the sub-POD I’d call home for the next year. The sound of my footfalls reverberated off the walls, and the grated walkway shimmied. I had to hold the railing to keep my balance.
Looking around, I saw the chute running from the main POD to the sub. According to the packet I’d received in quarantine, it worked like a bank teller’s window. Open the door, insert what you wanted to send, close the door and push the button. Suction and air flow did the rest. We’d receive our weekly allotment of fresh fruit and vegetables through the chute, and our required blood test kits as well. Much like in quarantine, a disinfectant vapor would fill the chute before items were allowed to enter the sub-POD. The same was true for things we sent to the main POD. This was designed to eliminate contamination between PODs.
On my right, a water line ran to the sub-POD from the water supply in the main POD. With the treatment and filtering systems in the sub-POD, the water was recycled, but each sub-POD could receive additional water through this line, if necessary. Under the water pipes were several large metal tubes. I guessed that one was our electrical supply, another the internet cable—the packet said each sub-POD had its own wi-fi node—while the others were the air supply and carbon dioxide filtering systems. I wasn’t sure how it all worked—I just prayed it did.
I hesitated when I reached the sub-POD door, biting my lip as something tightened in my chest. I’d spend the next year of my
life—maybe longer—with my POD mates. What if we didn’t get along? What if…? The tech escorting me grew impatient and pushed me I said a prayeradl, and I couldn in the POD through the circular door, shutting and locking it behind me.
I stood just inside the POD and looked around. There were already seven people there; I made eight. Two more and the POD would be full.
“Hi,” I said to the others in the room.
I got a less-than-lackluster welcome. A pregnant girl sitting on the couch in the main living area smiled and said hello. She looked a few years older than me, with blonde hair a bit lighter than mine.
I guess there are nine people here. I sure hope the geniuses locking us down here have a plan for when that baby is born.
The dark-haired guy sitting against the wall with earbuds in his ears didn’t hear me, or decided not to acknowledge me.
A boy and a girl about my age, both with laptops in front of them, sat at opposite ends of the table in the combo kitchen and dining area. The whole place was painted stark white—it looked very sterile and clean, even with the chocolate-colored carpet in the living area. The girl waved and said something in a language I didn’t understand. When I didn’t respond with anything more than a dumbfounded look, she smiled and said “Hi” in a thick accent. In my head I named her Friendly, because she’d offered me a nice welcome, even if I didn’t understand most of it.
The stubble-faced, heavy-set boy sitting across from her looked up, his blue eyes boring into me as he drummed his fingers on the table. After a few seconds, he gave a disgusted sigh and returned to his computer.
Mr. Antisocial. This could be a really long year.
Sitting in a beanbag in the middle of the room was a boy with several facial piercings and tattoos; his blond hair was cut close to his head in a military style. He smiled in answer to my greeting, but didn’t speak. I dubbed him Beanbag Guy—I thought “Piercings Dude” was too obvious.
A girl sat in a corner of the living area, crying. She looked younger than me, maybe twelve or thirteen, with a mocha complexion and her hair in tight braids. I named her Baby. Not because she was crying—I did enough of that myself—but because she was obviously the youngest.
Finally, there was a boy sitting against the wall, doodling in a notebook. Brown hair fell over his face. He didn’t look up as I came in. I named him Doodle Boy.
I picked up my bags and walked to the hallway that led off the main room. I stuck my head in the first door and looked around. The room had the same white walls and brown carpeting as the main living space. Five beds—more like cots—filled the room, aligned perfectly from one end to the other. Only two were neatly made; one had a tangle of sheets and a pile of clothing that spilled onto the floor. What looked like two windows were set into the far wall—the curtain on one was pushed aside, revealing a glass pane that emitted a yellowish glow in a pale imitation of daylight.
“That’s the guys’ room,” I heard someone say. I realized it was Doodle Boy. He still didn’t look at me.
“Oh… sorry.”
“The girls’ room is at the end of the hall.”
“Thanks,” I said with a smile. My smile was wasted. He didn’t look up from whatever he was doodling.
I walked down the hall, passing a bathroom and what looked to be a storage room before reaching what was apparently the girls’ bedroom. I went to see each other.ldor to be inside and looked around. It was a mirror image of the boys’ room, with one minor exception. There were only four beds—the fifth was a crib. The three girls who’d arrived before me had claimed their beds. On the bed closest to the wall was a box with my name on it. I flipped it open and found a laptop, the lid labeled with my name and the POD and sub-POD numbers.
Interesting.
Closing the box, I looked around for a place to store my things. Someone spoke behind me and I jumped. I turned around and Friendly’s face was so close to mine our noses nearly touched.
I took a large step back. “Do you speak English?”
The girl raised her palms up and shrugged. “Little,” she said before rattling something off in a language I didn’t understand. This time it was my turn to shrug and smile.
Friendly started talking again; reaching under the bed, she pulled two drawers from the bed’s base. She pointed at my bags and then the drawers. She reached around me to the headboard and pulled down the front. Inside were shelves and a clock reading the day and time.
So much for storage space.
I smiled. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, her accent stretching out all the vowels.
She walked into the hall, motioning for me to follow her. When I didn’t, she ducked back in and motioned to me again, I followed. She entered the bathroom, where she showed me a row of metal lockers—the kind they had in school. They were about four feet high and two feet wide—not a lot of space to store everything I’d need for the next year.
Each brown door had a name on a card in a slot. The girl pointed to a name and then herself. “Jai Li.”
“Jah Li,” I said, trying to say it like she had. She smiled and nodded.
“Jai Li.”
I found my locker and pointed at it. It was labeled with my full name, Evangelina. She frowned and I laughed. I pulled a pen from my bag and scratched out the ending of my name, leaving only “Eva.”
I pointed to my name, and then myself. “Eva.”
She smiled. “Eva,” she repeated.
“Jai Li,” I said in return.
She giggled. I smiled at the sound. I’d just made my first friend. Of course, the only thing we could say to each other was our names, but maybe before this whole thing was over we’d find a way to connect.
She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the neighboring room. A stacked washer and dryer were next to the door, with a small washtub, a mop and broom, and other cleaning equipment. Beyond the laundry area, thick shelves held all the things we’d need for the year, like bins full of vitamins and shelf after shelf of neatly stacked MREs, each labeled with a POD resident’s name and a date for consumption. I fingered a stack of MREs with my name across the top.
Someone’s picked out what I’m going to eat every day for the next year of my life. How bizarre is that? How do they know I’m going to want lasagna on March 12th?
Additional shelves held things like toilet paper, shampoo, toothpaste, cleaning chemicals, and laundry detergent. I turned around in a circle, taking everything in. My head pounded looking at the supplies. A year’ to see each other.ldor to bes worth of my life sat on those shelves and all I could think was, what if they didn’t buy the right flavor of toothpaste? My mom knew what kind to buy. But she wasn’t there. And a quick glance at the shelf told me the right flavor of toothpaste wasn’t there, either.
What an idiotic thing to think of, Eva. Get a grip.
Across from the laundry area was another small room, the door labeled “Waste.” Inside was a trash compactor and a chute for our garbage.
After the tour, Jai Li and I wandered back into the living area. I stood in the middle of the room, uncertain what to do next…or for the next year.
“I’m Tiffany,” a soft voice behind me said. I turned and found Pregnant Girl smiling at me from where she sat on the couch. She had a deep dimple in her right cheek.
“I’m Eva.”
“Nice to meet you, Eva. Did Jai Li show you everything?”
“I think so.”
“Well, there isn’t much to show.” She stood, her hand against her rounded belly. “We have a 1980s stereo—with a cassette player—and these.” She pulled a sliding panel open on the wall that separated the bedrooms from the living area. There were shelves behind it—shelves full of book after book after book. There must have been hundreds, many of them yellowed with age.
“Well, that ought to keep us busy for a while.”
“Yeah.” She smiled again. “There are DVDs, but we haven’t found a television to play them on yet, so we’re just watc
hing them on the laptops. One’s probably stuffed in the storage room somewhere. We also have some board games and cards, and there are games on the laptops. They’ve set up a social media website on the POD-to-POD intranet, but so far no one’s in the mood for chatting or games.”
I nodded. I understood. Everyone was mourning the loss of someone, of everyone we’d ever known. For every one person in the PODs, there were thousands left topside. We’d all left people we loved up there.
I walked back to the bedroom. Thankfully, Jai Li didn’t follow, and Tiffany eased back into her position on the couch. After spending two weeks without anyone to really talk to, I had thought I’d be chatty, but I didn’t feel like being friendly. Thinking about the people left topside made something deep in my chest ache. My parents were up there.
I started unpacking my things. I reached in my suitcase, pulled out the too-cute-for-words-but-too-expensive purple hoodie my mom had insisted on buying me and started to cry. I slipped it over my head and finished unpacking while warm tears slid down my face.
That afternoon the last of our roommates showed up—a boy about seventeen or eighteen, tall and lanky, with dark mahogany skin.
“I’m Seth.” He didn’t stop to talk with anyone, just walked in the front door and through the POD to his bunk. That was okay. No one felt like talking much, anyway.
Just after Seth walked through the door, the tech locked it, just like he had after I’d arrived. But there was something else. We could hear the seal closing around the door. It sounded like a cat hissing. I hated the sound; knowing what was happening made me feel claustrophobic. I was stuck—we all were. We couldn’t to see each other.ldor to be get out of the POD until that seal was broken…and that could only be done from the outside. It was like we were in a prison. I guess we were.
For the next two days, no one spoke to anyone else. Surprisingly, it was a comfortable silence, considering we were nine strangers.
I fingered the small photograph taped to the headboard of my bed. I stared at my mom’s face; it blurred from my unshed tears. My head started to pound and my throat burned from trying to hold back a sob. I was starting to remember the good things about them rather than the last time I’d seen them. I didn’t want that memory to mar the many, many happy ones I had. But the happy memories were painful, too.
PODs Page 4