by Mark Tufo
"When do I start?" she asked.
"I have to work out the change in payment arrangements tomorrow, so I'm assuming the switch will be immediate," George said with a sigh.
Shelley pulled a can of corn from the cupboard and emptied it into a shallow saucepan. She turned on the stove, placing the saucepan over the lone burner.
"I have to say, you're taking this really well," George said, feeling a little relieved.
"How did you expect me to take it?" Shelley asked, keeping her voice level and calm.
George shrugged. "I wasn't really sure, but I'm relieved that you understand."
"Dinner will be ready in just a minute," Shelley said, ignoring George's last comment. "Serve yourself." She hurried out of the kitchen in a dramatic display.
George served Kurt, wondering if he should follow Shelley. They had all already lost so much within the past few days, and he knew that this latest blow had to be devastating. George lost both of his parents to the tail-end of the tuberculosis epidemic. He had been working for Law-Corp for just a few years, and he had only just met Virginia. Because he was forced to move across the quadroplex, to District 89150, he never saw his parents after he moved, and he learned about their illness by telephone. When he got the news that they died, he held onto his sanity by losing himself in his job.
What did Shelley have left?
The bathroom door slammed shut.
"Daddy, why's Shelley so mad?"
"She's just sad, buddy."
Kurt nodded.
George gave Kurt a kiss on the forehead then went down the hall. He tried the bathroom door, finding it locked. "Shelley?"
"Go away!"
"Come on, now! I'm doing my best here! What am I supposed to do?"
"Not get drunk and ruin my life!" she cried.
He took a deep breath, then sat down beside the door and waited for her to say something more. She met him with only continued silence.
Finally, he decided to try again. "Shelley? I'm really sorry."
"Ha!"
"It was inevitable, anyway! We're living off a single income now. We've all got to make our sacrifices if we're going to get through this," he said. Another sad sigh escaped him as she refrained from any further response. He turned as Kurt met him in the hall.
"Why are you fighting?" Kurt asked.
George sat forward and put a reassuring hand on Kurt's shoulder. "Why don't you go in your room and play? Everything's fine."
Kurt crossed his arms, a subtle scowl giving him an angry, pouty face.
"Go play, buddy."
Kurt turned to the door. "Shelley, what's wrong?"
"I just need to cool off," Shelley said.
George got to his feet. "Okay. I've had enough of this." He reached over the door's upper threshold, pulling a key from atop the paneling. He nudged Kurt aside as he unlocked the door and threw it open.
Shelley scrambled to gather the pens and short stack of papers that lay before her.
George stormed in. "What is this? Where did you get these?"
"Please—just let me have this!" Shelley cried, holding her writing supplies close.
"Do you know what would happen if—"
"I don't care!" she cried. "I don't have any future, anyway, so why not do what I want to do?"
"Because you know that's not how it works, sweetie."
She turned away defensively. "I don't care how it works!"
Kurt began to cry. "Please stop fighting!"
Both turned to Kurt, falling silent.
He shifted his glance between the two of them, dumbfounded by their response. He sniffled, going quiet himself, waiting to see what either would do next.
"May I see?" George finally asked her, his voice light and inquisitive.
Slowly, her hand shaking, she offered him one of the pieces of thick, pulpy paper.
George carefully read the poem:
* * *
Sickly blue,
pale windows to an empty shell,
Pestilent and putrid;
when will your luster die?
Twisted membrane,
a matter of grey gone black,
Rotten and deformed;
when will your last spark fire?
Fraudulent body,
true colors feigned with closed eyes,
Foul and tainted;
when will you go still?
* * *
George nodded. "I like it."
"You do?" Shelley asked, surprised.
"Why don't you come out and write by the heater, so we can turn out the click-light?"
She nodded, and the three returned together to the warming kitchen.
Chapter 98
THE LINE 270 SHUTTLE inched itself toward the garage, finally approaching its destination after nearly a two-hour power delay. Had it not been thirty degrees out, raining and hailing in heavy waves, Virginia would have tried her luck finishing her way across the district on foot. She had enough tunnel and outdoor travel ahead of her with just the shuttle transfers as it stood, however, and as uncomfortably crowded as the shuttle was, at least it provided enough body heat inside to keep a person from freezing to death.
The Line 50 shuttle seemed to move faster. It also moved more deviants than humans, which filled Virginia with a strange mix of discomfort and ease. She could look around the shuttle without calling attention to herself, but at the same time, being surrounded by so many natural deviants at once elicited a programmed response from within her that she couldn't just rationalize away. She could feel heavy beads of sweat begin to trickle down her forehead and over the core of her body, and she started to shiver.
A young deviant woman, also dressed in a sanitation associate's uniform, turned to Virginia. "Are you okay?" she asked, sincere concern in her crystalline blue eyes.
Virginia nodded, although it was clear that she was beginning to panic. She felt herself go dizzy, and she closed her eyes for a moment in attempt to regain her composure.
"Try to slow down your breathing," the woman said, her voice calming.
Virginia nodded, although she struggled to catch her breath. She felt like she was suffocating no matter how hard she worked to control her heavy lungs.
The shuttle came to a stop in a smaller garage, and Virginia forced herself to her feet. Still feeling uneasy and dizzy with overwhelm, she exited the shuttle and looked for the Line 70 shuttle track.
The young woman came up beside Virginia, setting down her heavy backpack. "Are you lost?"
Virginia showed her Anne's directions. "I've never been on this side of town before."
"I gathered," she said. She helped Virginia to the correct bench, shouldering her backpack, and then sat down with her. "I'm Mary."
"Virginia."
They shook hands.
"I know where you're going. I can take you there," Mary said.
Virginia smiled gratefully, although she could not wipe the desperation that still riddled her thoughts. "That's very kind of you."
"I just happen to be on my way there, myself," Mary said. She patted her backpack. "I have a present from Power-Corp."
The Line 70 shuttle came in from the left, its brakes squealing as it slowed to a halt in front of them. The doors opened, and Virginia, Mary, and three other deviants were the only people to board. Strangely, the shuttle had no security associate.
"Who's your friend?" the only man on board asked Mary. He was young, had dark, shaggy hair, and wore paint-spattered overalls. His hands were covered with scars, and he carried a large bag. It looked heavy.
"This is Virginia," Mary began. "She's new to this area. Anne gave her directions from the hospital."
The young man nodded. He smiled and extended his hand to Virginia. "I'm Isaac."
Virginia shook his hand, surprised by his grip. "So you both know Anne?" she asked.
"We're all colleagues," Mary said.
"Colleagues?"
"Who is this woman?" Isaac asked, looking suspicious.
"A casualty of war," Mary replied, an answer that seemed to satisfy all but Virginia.
Virginia looked around the shuttle car, suddenly realizing that she was the only one there who was not in on the secret. "What war?"
"Ray will explain everything," Mary assured her.
No one said another word as the shuttle slowed, coming to a stop at a small, private hub rather than in a garage. The rain and hail both continued to come down relentlessly, and the passengers braced themselves as the door opened.
"This is our stop," Mary said.
All five deviants stepped out, immediately getting soaked by the cold rain. They shielded their heads and faces from the hail, and all of them began to run down a muddy path carved through a tall, thick field of wild grass.
Virginia had no idea what she was doing or where specifically she was going, but she ran along with the group, cold and shivering in the rain. Hailstones the size of marbles pummeled the group, and the wind was painfully cold. Visibility was low. The group moved through the trail as quickly as they could. Virginia felt a strange sense of excitement take over her. She felt herself delving far beyond her comfort zone, but at the same time, she was on an adventure to somewhere unknown. She knew she had to let go of everything that had made up her life as Virginia Irwin or she would go insane. She told herself that she needed to embrace whatever the future had for her. Corporate may have taken away her identity, but she was still alive.
Virginia felt her wedding band, wondering what place it had in her new life. The thought of discarding it was enough to return the lump to her throat, and so she moved it to her right hand instead. It felt funny there, foreign. It would take some getting used to, just as it had so many years ago when George first placed it on her finger and she swore her eternal vows. She wondered if George had moved his band yet, being just as much the false widower as she was the false widow.
She hoped he would not grieve too long for her.
The group came up to a parked shuttle at the end of a private line. It sat silent and dark.
"Thank goodness we don't have to wait today!" Mary said, pulling open the shuttle associate's door. She got in, and after only a moment the interior of the shuttle lit up and the main door slid open. Virginia followed the rest of the group into the shuttle, glad that she had more than just Anne's vague directions to get her to her destination. Anne had to have counted on her to stand out by the time she boarded the 70, she figured, because it is unlikely she would have found the place by herself.
The shuttle slowly began to move, picking up speed as it rolled down the track. Isaac and the other two deviants watched Virginia with an unsettling mix of suspicion and curiosity. With Mary in the operator's room, Virginia felt alone and vulnerable, and she smiled sheepishly as she glanced between the three sets of staring eyes.
Despite the cold and the continuing rain, Virginia felt a pang of relief when the shuttle stopped at another private stop and the door opened. She hurried out before everyone else, looking for Mary.
Mary powered-down the machine and closed the shuttle associate's door. Virginia and the others followed in silence as they trekked through a grove of wild trees. Broken branches were everywhere, the result of nature's wrath against the hapless, unoffending foliage, and a direct path was not clear. Mary led by memory, directing the group through the weatherworn domain, to a clearing marked by two large boulders.
The group continued on, coming to the foothill lining a small cluster of mountains. Mary found the mouth of a hidden cave behind a thick gathering of bushes. The rocky entrance was cold and dark, and Virginia made sure she stayed close behind Mary. Virginia felt uneasy in the darkness, unable to see how sturdy the rocky ceiling really was. She imagined the earth above them collapsing in on the tunnel at any given moment, trapping all of them in eternal darkness, and she hastened her pace. As soon as they wound past the first bend, they could see light, and by the time they found the main cavern, they could feel warmth emanating from an electric heater. Virginia hurried out of the shadows, shivering as she moved into the warm, lamp-lit cavern.
The large, rocky area appeared to be a study and stock room, with shelves of electronics and laboratory supplies on one side and several large and expensive pieces of equipment on the other.
Ray King sat in an ergonomically correct chair in front of a monstrous desk, reading a file on his computer, a personal bodyguard standing on either side of him. He appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties, but Virginia couldn't tell for sure. He didn't have any gray hair, save a few rogue strands in his beard, but his face had a defined character that developed only with age. He looked up as the group dropped their loot, noticing Virginia as the outsider that she was.
Virginia nervously went up to Ray, and the bodyguards moved in front of her path, blocking her with their combined mass.
"Anne sent her," Mary said, pulling coils of copper wiring from her bag, entering them on a catalogue sheet, and then finding their place on the supply shelves.
"I don't have anywhere else to go," Virginia said, surprised to see so much technology. "Medical-Corp told my family that I was dead."
Ray turned to the others in the cavern, save his two guards. "I need all of you in the work room." He handed Anne's lunch box to Isaac. "We have few new tests I need you to prepare to run." He shouted after the others, "and the builders need help wiring the new turbine."
The room emptied, save for Virginia and Ray.
"You're one of the humans infected with the Blue Dust?" he asked her. "The HD-1 virus?" he amended.
"How did you know?"
"I just assumed." Ray downloaded information from the desk's computer onto a smaller, hand-held computer, and then he began to manipulate the figures on the smaller screen with a thin, plastic stylus. He set the hand-held computer back into its synch port and loaded his changes, turning to Virginia with his full attention. He moved closer to her, studying her eyes. "And you were at the hospital?" he asked.
"The virus gave me a terrible fever . . . a lot of other people too, bad enough for over a dozen of us to be admitted within a week or two of one another. When they saw what the virus did, they refused to let us go."
Ray ensured that his previous information had finished loading, and then grabbed his hand-held computer and began to input more figures. "Good that you were able to get away."
"Anne helped me escape."
Ray nodded, looking pleased. "I knew that girl would come in handy one of these days."
"Do you know who developed the virus?" Virginia asked. She considered how she might react if Ray admitted that he was actually the one responsible for the destruction of her old life. Was she ready to face the person who deliberately took so much away from her so soon after that loss?
"Some of my scientists developed it, but I have no idea who deployed it," Ray said, scratching his beard. "It was not my intention for the virus to get people killed, or even to infect the random people it infected."
"The virus didn't kill anyone. They chose euthanasia over living out the rest of their lives . . . like this. The hospital was happy to kill them."
Ray added another note to his hand-held computer. "I'm glad to know that. Isaac was adamant that it wasn't deadly. I had my doubts." He chuckled. "I guess that's why I'm the philosopher and tactician, and not the biochemist."
Virginia found herself speechless. Here she stood, stripped of her dignity, her family, a lifetime of earthly possessions, her very humanity, and Ray was bragging about his tactical capabilities. "Why?" she finally asked, unable to find any other suitable response.
"Why did we develop the Blue Dust?"
Virginia nodded.
"Leverage."
Virginia remained silent, confused.
"The people in power are always the ones given the privilege of writing history. Corporate is in power, and it's done one hell of a job trying to keep us under its heel. They've said a lot of terrible things about us over the years." Ray punched in a fe
w commands, and then he showed Virginia the screen. A short video began to play.
The video showed an fMRI and PET scan of a deviant brain compared side by side with a normal human's. Although the deviant brain was indeed smaller, it exhibited about twice as much activity level.
"The dark eyes claim superiority, citing brain size as their only proof," Ray said. "But we are very clearly their intellectual superiors."
"You're insane!" Virginia exclaimed. "If you're so smart, then why are deviants only allowed to work in manual labor and sanitation?"
"So we don't take over the world and render the dark eyes obsolete, naturally," he said, the calmness in his voice almost startling. "But we've learned to use it to our advantage. They're only prolonging the inevitable."
"The inevitable?"
"My goal is to spread awareness, to prove to the dark-eyed population that we are people, too. I have been privately funding genetic research, so that I can gather the evidence I need to prove we deserve our place in society. Nothing more."
"How many people are involved in this?"
"More than you would guess. This cave is the smallest of four bases I run from my computer," he said confidently. "And we're connecting with other groups far beyond our districts. We'll have a network across the entire western half of the country soon."
Virginia looked at all of the stolen items catalogued and stacked along the walls. Her heart raced as she realized that she was consorting with the leader of what was probably the biggest organized deviant crime circuit on the West Coast. Somewhere under this man's command, the HD-1 virus had been created. Who knew what else he was capable of?
"So, I'm dead to my family and I look like a deviant. What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go? I don't care if you're only inadvertently responsible for my condition, I want to know what you're going to do to help me get my life back," Virginia said, surprised to find her backbone as the words poured out seemingly on their own accord. She could feel her face going red and she turned away from him, fighting tears.
"First of all," Ray began, still remaining perfectly calm, "You don't just look like a deviant—you are a deviant. Get used to it. Second, if you think I'm going to pay you some kind of restitution, you can kiss my ass. However, I would be more than happy to employ and house you, should you decide you can live with working for a crazy, pompous jerk such as myself, as well as be willing to bend a few human laws about which you, as a deviant, now no longer have any say. Sound fair?"