Lethal Seasons (A Changed World Book 1)

by Alice Sabo

  Where were her children?

  * * *

  Nick set about sorting everyone out and planning the route. Wisp assured him that they were only a few hours from High Meadow. They made a caravan with the horse cart bringing up the rear. He didn’t want to box them in with the two vans, it might make them feel trapped. He drove slowly enough that they could keep up. The road out of the valley climbed a low hill and flattened for a long straight line north. The flooding had wiped out the road completely in some places. It was better on the rise, but turned into a potholed mosaic on the straight-away. After an hour of jostling along the rough road, Joshua accepted the invitation for Mary to ride in one of the vans. She was joined by Elsa, although Nick couldn’t imagine how the small woman could protect her if things went sideways.

  They crossed a river on a high stone bridge then on to a dirt road that was thick with mud. It slowed the horses even more. Nick was beginning to worry that they would have to stop to rest them. He kept waiting for Everett to signal for a break. None came, and they inched along the road making painstaking progress. The sun was low behind the trees when the High Meadow train finally station came into view.

  Chapter 44

  “Some foods are gone. Pigs have all died off, that I am aware of. Chickens are making a comeback, and I have heard that a few wild turkeys have been sighted. Sausages, cold cuts, hot dogs, all sorts of manufactured meat produces are no longer being made because no one has the knowledge or the machinery.”

  History of a Changed World, Angus T. Moss

  Tilly checked the stove. The people who had volunteered to help cook had done a decent job. They were transferring all the food into serving trays and loading up the steam tables. The warmth of the kitchen and the familiar aromas of cooking eased her emotions. She checked the dish room, made sure the flatware was set out. The multicolored pile of napkins caught her eye. Old Agnes, who was truly old, had spent weeks hemming scraps of old sheets so that they could have a steady supply of napkins. Tilly looked over the crowd of people wandering into the cafeteria for Agnes. The old woman was seated with a few other old-timers at a table in the corner. Tilly relaxed a little. They hadn’t had a case of flu today. She was cautiously optimistic.

  She stood at the back of the steam tables watching people fill plates, chatting among themselves. They settled at tables in their customary clumps and bunches.

  “Everything all right, Miss Tilly?” Harley held a tray in one hand, but he’d stepped behind the steam tables to check on her.

  “Yes, just keeping an eye out that folks don’t waste food.”

  He nodded gravely and rejoined the line.

  Angus wandered in, his eyes on a notebook. Tilly felt a smile tug at her mouth as she watched people work their way around her husband. Angus moved erratically as he read more than walked. Tall Joe came in and guided Angus out of the way seating him at a table. She gave Joe an appreciative nod as he collected a tray. People were good to her husband.

  Martin arrived looking flushed. His eyes skipped over the room till he located Angus. Tilly left her station to join her husband.

  “What?” she asked nearly breathless with anxiety.

  “A couple vehicles just passed the train station.”

  “Nick?” Angus asked.

  “Maybe. Probably.”

  Tilly’s heart sank. “But you don’t know.”

  “They’ll be here soon. Where’s Harley? They’ve got a horse cart with them.”

  Angus let out a sharp laugh. “Then it is most definitely Nick!”

  * * *

  Tears threatened when Tilly saw Nick get out of the van. She ran over and gave him a hug. She could tell he was surprised, but she didn’t care. She even hugged Wisp, who surprised her by hugging back. “We were so worried!”

  And then she met all the people that had been prisoners, and scientists, which had Angus nearly tap dancing with excitement and a pregnant woman and more biobots, tiny ones. She launched into her role as lady of the manor ushering them all in for dinner. She had rooms made ready. Harley came out to comment on the horses and show the young man where to bring his. Nick called her over to see the loaded cart he was bringing in.

  She was thrilled with his discoveries. Poking through the boxes, she praised him.

  “Where’s Susan?” he asked with a smile. “I knew she’d be over the moon with this lot.”

  And there it was. She had to huff out a few breaths before she could speak. “We lost her, Nick.”

  He went very still for a moment. “I’ll miss her,” he said. Simple and heart-felt.

  Tilly fought the tears that threatened. Her plans for putting Nick and Susan together were over. She didn’t even know if it would have worked. “It was a bad season. They went so fast.”

  “It is a bad one. Took a lot of people at the lab.”

  Tilly nodded not trusting her voice.

  “I’ll get someone to help me with this,” he said, pushing his cart down the hall toward the supply room.

  He deserved more praise for what he’d pulled off. From what she saw, they would get through the winter more comfortably. She determined to make sure she talked to him later. Now she needed to check with all the new people and all their new needs. She hurried back to the cafeteria to find that Lily had taken the small biobots in hand showing them to the children’s table, which was more appropriate for their size. Tilly worried that they might have been designed for entertainment, or worse. She couldn’t imagine why someone would want people the size of children.

  “How are we doing here?” Tilly asked with her best welcoming smile forced upon her lips.

  Lily gave her a real smile. “They’re all grown up, but they’re still little,” she said.

  “I’m Tilly. Is there anything you need? Any dietary restrictions? Or, um otherwise?” She stumbled over her concerns. “I know that Wisp can’t be around large groups of people, so we found him some space in the field house.”

  “I am Elsa.” The little woman said, putting out a slender hand. Tilly shook her hand gently, noticing how fragile her bones felt. “It is kind of you to accommodate him. I was unaware of his sensitivity.”

  Tilly got the feeling that Elsa was fishing. The man sat watching. He hadn’t said a word, nor touched the food in front of him. She decided to take the first step. “They tell me he’s an EE.” Elsa’s eyes widened, so Tilly figured she must know what that means. “He’s been very helpful around here. Nick says he’s a finder. I believe that’s how he makes his living.”

  “He found my brother!” Lily piped up gleefully.

  Elsa glanced at the child. “How did you lose him?”

  “We had to run away from some bad men with guns. He went back...” Lily looked away, her lip trembling. Someone caught her eye and she sucked in a gasp. She grabbed Tilly’s arm. “Tilly, Tilly, who is that lady?”

  Tilly looked where she was pointing. “That’s one of the people that were being held prisoner, sweetie.”

  “By the men with guns?” she squeaked.

  “I haven’t heard the whole story yet. I don’t know if there were bad men there. Do you know her?”

  “I have to find William,” Lily said and she dashed out the back door of the room.

  Tilly looked back to Elsa. “Kids,” she said with a sad smile. “To finish Lily’s story...the children got separated. William was taken prisoner and badly beaten. Lily went to Wisp for help. He found the boy for her.”

  “No one here would help?” The man asked in a tone that immediately put Tilly’s back up.

  “Oh, I’ve jumbled the story haven’t I. It’s a good deal longer actually.” Tilly took a breath trying to consolidate the convoluted story of Nick, the notebooks, Lily and the massacre at Riverbank. “Lily isn’t from here, she just ended up here. Nick was in the right place at the right time to run into her and William and Wisp.” She shrugged, suddenly uneasy with the turn the conversation had taken. “But I wanted to find out if you needed anything.”

/>   “We are quite fine, thank you,” Elsa said, a bit formally.

  “I’ll have rooms ready for you by the time you’re done eating. Do you want...” she hesitated, unsure of their relationship, “um, to share the same room?”

  “Yes, please. Dieter is my husband.”

  “Good,” Tilly said then flinched at her tone. “You must excuse me, I have to check on the others.” She came away feeling that she’d made a mess of things. She went over to see how the pregnant woman was doing. Some of the young mothers had already gravitated that way. She’d be up past midnight sorting out this lot, but part of her was deeply grateful for the distractions.

  Chapter 45

  “After years of train food, we had a great celebration, in Year Seven, for the harvest of our first potato crop.”

  History of a Changed World, Angus T. Moss

  Wisp snagged a tray of food and headed for the field house. Too many emotions in an uproar back there. The farmer folk were excited and worried in equal measure. The small biobots had a feel unlike any other he’d encountered. That worried him a little. He had no idea what their skill was. The fact that they had been with the farmers said that they were probably innocuous, but he needed to have a quiet word with Nick about that. He hadn’t been alone for more than the time to pee in days, and he could feel the tension in his shoulders and neck. His head ached from holding on to his mental barriers so tightly. It was a relief to be more than a few feet away from people. Walking across the campus to the field house helped the ache in his head. The press of human emotions receded, and he could reach out beyond himself again. He could feel the horses’ contentment. Harley and Harold were down there brushing them. The chickens were already in their coop, tiny flickers of sleepy thought. Further out, the Watch was doing the rounds, a few more than before. He approved of that. Beyond the watch, were the families up in the woods—no more nor less than the last time he’d been here.

  The food wasn’t as good as the previous time he’d eaten here. He’d heard that the cook died. Nick’s happiness at being home had dimmed suddenly. Wisp supposed he was hearing about the people they had lost. There were less people here now than when they’d left for the lab. He didn’t know if it was deaths, or if people had left. He ate slowly, relaxing in the quiet, as cramped mental muscles eased.

  Angus would want to talk to him. With all the scientists arriving, Wisp was sure that Angus would be busy with them for awhile. He needed to think about the events at the lab. It would be great to spend some time with Kyle, but he wasn’t sure what Ruth wanted. It was clear from some of her comments that she hadn’t experienced the reality of the new world. She loved Kyle. That was quite obvious, even to a unskilled mind like Nick. How far she was willing to allow that to go was a different question.

  The destruction of the lab and the shut down of the train stations were important in and of themselves. There was a bigger concern here. One he needed to think about, and he knew Nick and Angus would be chewing on it for weeks. How did the accident at the lab impact the lives of the people at High Meadow? There wouldn’t be any vaccine this year, but he knew plenty of settlements that survived without it. More important to Wisp, was whether the government would want Ruth and Kyle back. They were skilled assets. Someone somewhere would realize that eventually. Whether enough of the government was left standing to demand the return of two scientists was another issue that needed to be parsed. That was something he needed to discuss with Kyle. But for now, he wanted to enjoy being alone.

  A sudden spike of joy shimmered out like fireworks. Three people. Wisp feathered it, unraveled it and felt the distinct pattern that was William, and one that felt like Lily. And the image that he’d remembered as someone else’s memory came clear. The ex-prisoner that he’d recognized—Melissa was William and Lily’s mother. The memory was of Melissa braiding Lily’s hair. He found himself smiling, coasting along on their happiness. Another distraction for the High Meadow folks. Another complication to take up a few hours of the day before anyone got back to working on the more serious issues at hand.

  He finished his dinner and went for a walk out towards the stream. Martin had declared it unstable and off limits. That meant it should be a quiet place for Wisp. He sat on a fallen tree breathing the night air and enjoying the low murmur of people far in the background.

  Chapter 46

  “It’s a death spiral of ignorance. If you don’t know what you don’t know, how can you learn? If you don’t know what you could know, how do you seek it?”

  History of a Changed World, Angus T. Moss

  Nick was in Angus’s office first thing after breakfast, which had been a fabulous cheese omelet. Tilly was doing the cooking, and it looked like there were a few new faces in the kitchen. It had been hard to not see Susan there. Every year, he tried to not get attached to people, and every year he found himself mourning the loss of another friend. It snuck up on him, friendship. A smile here, a joke there and before he knew it, he was looking for certain faces in the room.

  He settled in the old armchair to the left of Angus’s habitual seat. Someone had brought in a tray of coffee for the meeting. Nick proudly noticed the addition of the milk and sugar. Angus was at his desk gathering up way too many papers, which made Nick worry that the meeting might take all day. He helped himself to a cup and sank back into the comfort of the old chair. It felt good to be home and to not be in charge for once. If he was lucky, the only decisions he’d have to make today would be plain and simple, like whether to have seconds at lunch.

  Ruth and Kyle arrived, hand in hand. Nick wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Kyle really wasn’t human, despite what Angus insisted. Biobots were printed, not born. He didn’t know if they could reproduce, but even he could see that the possible complications were staggering. They hadn’t been around long enough for anyone to sort these things out. And now there were so many questions that needed to be answered, and so few people capable of figuring them out that whether biobots could reproduce seemed pretty inconsequential. Unless of course, you were dating one.

  Ruth was of childbearing age. She must reproduce. It was imperative. For the race to survive, every woman had to have at least two children. More was better. But if Kyle was sterile, which might be an urban legend, then Ruth’s children couldn’t be Kyle’s, and that was a nasty path he really didn’t want to go down. He knew Angus wouldn’t force a woman to get pregnant, but he had heard of settlements that did.

  They took seats opposite him. Nick offered them coffee. Angus came over, but he was still putting his papers in order, which was probably the only reason Ruth got a chance to speak first.

  “This is a very interesting set-up you have here.”

  Nick heard the condescension in her tone and bristled a little. “From what I’ve seen, it’s one of the best.”

  “Your doctor is in his seventies, at the least.” She avoided his eyes by sipping her coffee.

  “He’s a good doctor,” Angus said defensively.

  “But surely he doesn’t do surgery. His vision and hand strength couldn’t be up to it. Where do you send people?”

  Angus stared at her, his thumb softly tapping against his pile of papers, then looked to Nick, who shrugged, then back to Ruth. “There is nowhere else. People come here from all over for medical treatment.”

  She stared back, a frown forming on her brow. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”

  “Wow, what planet have you been living on?” Nick asked harshly. “There are no hospitals.” He knew she’d been sheltered, but this was more than annoying.

  She gave him the same look she had when he’d told her there weren’t any towns. “But...”

  Angus started shaking a pen at her. “Yes, you see, I knew it. The country has become quite stratified. There are those like you who have been protected, coddled even. You don’t know about us, out here in the trenches and for the most part, we don’t know about you in the mansions.”

  “We weren’t in mansions,” she sn
apped. “I was working eighty hour weeks in the lab for a vaccine for you people.”

  Angus giggled. “Eighty hours.” He leaned over and slapped Nick on the knee. “When’s the last time you heard someone talk like that?” He turned back to Ruth and gave her a gentle smile. “I don’t mean to make fun of you, my dear. But you have to realize that we, out here, have been roughing it for the past decade. And for you, I imagine, life has gone on with little disruption. You still do the work you trained for—”

  “I have an MD, and two PhDs—” she burst in.

  “Of course. I don’t mean to make little of it. But none of us can do that. None of us here do the work we went to school for, trained our whole lives for. Look at Nick. He was an FBI agent. My wife, Tilly, ran a hospital. We have accountants and architects and insurance salesman and even a stock broker. None of those people can do their jobs anymore. Now they work in the fields or bake bread or mop the floors. The only professions out here deal with survival.”

  “I can’t do that!” she snapped. She slammed her cup down on the table. “Do not expect me to mop floors.”

  “Ruth is a doctor,” Kyle said in an even, calm voice. “You have need for one.”

  “Yes, doctors are rare and very welcome,” Angus agreed in an equally calm voice.

  “I am a biochemist. But I am strong. I can work in the fields.”

  Nick flinched at the resignation in his voice. This conversation had gotten off on the wrong foot.

  “Only if you wish to, Kyle,” Angus said. “We don’t force people to do anything here. Find something that interests you. Do something different every week if you like. We keep a jobs list going on the message boards of things that need to be done. And that’s supposing you folks choose to stay.” He said it calmly, but the look he gave Ruth was firm.