Immunity: Apocalypse Weird

by E. E. Giorgi

  “Are you ok?”

  As he ran around the car to check on her, she tossed her own handful of ashes at him and laughed.

  It was stupid—childish, actually—and yet that little shared complicity helped them revive their spirits. She’d come to the lab determined to unveil the mysteries of H7N7 and find a cure. And now, nine months later, she was leaving defeated, her last hopes destroyed by a devastating fire.

  Loud pops from the street interrupted her thoughts. They both ran to the parapet, David yelling, “Down! Stay down!”

  The blast of fire rattled over the usual background roar of the blaze.

  Anu brought a hand to her face. “Oh no! It’s from the Tawani building.”

  “That’s where Joyce, the Lab director is,” David said. “When she spoke to us during the blindness, she said she was with a visitor. A general.”

  Anu remembered the Koala helicopter still parked on top of the garage. “I saw him arrive in the morning, with two other men.”

  They heard more gunfire, quick shots in rapid succession. Anu’s breathing quickened. “It sounds like somebody’s attacking the Tawani building.”

  They looked at one another. David patted his jeans, where the gun he’d used on Jeff— the same gun Anu had stolen from the infected officer yesterday—bulged from his back pocket. “The crazies out there may be armed, but so are we,” he said. “And apparently, I even know how to use these puppies.”

  Anu nodded. “Let’s go, then,” she said. “We can’t leave without knowing what’s happening to Joyce.”

  * * *

  Smoke muted the colors and suspended everything into thin layers of fog. The Tawani building rose on the other side of a round plaza paved in pink stucco tiles, with a raised flowerbed about four feet tall in the middle. The façade was concave and it followed the curvature of the plaza, with sleek reflective glass panes and metal fixtures.

  David and Anu reached the place proceeding side by aside, backs against walls, doors, railings, their vision hampered by the limited visibility. Smog stung their eyes and throat. Anu tripped on something, swore, and when she looked back gasped.

  A man in military slacks lay on the ground, three bullet holes across his chest, and two in his head. As she strayed her eyes across the plaza, more black bumps sprawled on the ground took the shapes of disarrayed bodies.

  “Another killing spree,” she mumbled.

  David took her wrist, squeezed it, and brought a finger to his lip.

  This is crazy, Anu thought, realizing how little visibility they had. They stood no chance against a random shooter.

  A random shooter…

  An even scarier thought crossed her mind. What if the gunfire they’d heard earlier wasn’t random at all?

  Christine had not awakened from her induced sedation on her own. Somebody had unleashed her, and somebody, maybe the same person, spread H7N7 among the military, sending the whole place into complete chaos. If that same somebody was after the lab, the ultimate target would’ve been Joyce Warren, the lab director. No other person on the premises had the power and knowledge that Joyce had. And that power and knowledge made her extremely vulnerable.

  Anu had no doubt Joyce was in danger now.

  Through the drifting smog, she spotted a black shadow in front of the Tawani building.

  “An armored vehicle,” Anu whispered.

  “Not sure it’s friendly. Stay low.”

  They followed the perimeter of the plaza, then jogged to the raised flowerbed and crouched behind it. The air was still and charged. More shooting, from within the building this time. David took out the gun and pointed it to the entrance.

  “As if I knew what to do with this, really,” he mumbled.

  “Stay down and don’t do anything stupid,” Anu hissed.

  The main doors of the Tawani building sprang open and two guards marched out holding rifles. They scanned the place, then stepped aside and let the rest of the party come out.

  Joyce walked out first. She took small steps, limped almost. There was something strange about her, but Anu couldn’t tell if it was just the weight of the past forty-eight hours. The mist was so thick she couldn’t see her face clearly and David kept motioning her to stay down and hide behind the flowerbed enclosure.

  Behind Joyce came three men. One of the men was in a military dress uniform complete with medals. The other wore a vest over a black T-shirt, tan cargo pants, wraparound sunglasses and a ball cap. From their stance and body builds Anu recognized the same figures she’d seen leave the Koala helicopter yesterday morning. The third man looked more diminutive, a lanky figure in a white lab coat, vaguely familiar, actually, and if it weren’t for the thick fog she’d swear she’d seen the man before…

  Stein! It had to be Larry Stein, from the Lab medical center. She itched to go ask him what the hell he was doing with Joyce and what was going on, but David kept squeezing her arm and pushing her down.

  Joyce wobbled across the tiled floor. She looked drunk. She tripped, yelped, and the bulkier man with the sunglasses grabbed her from the waist and lifted her. The other man—tall, authoritarian stance, certainly the boss—looked upset and shook his head, so Joyce was put back down. Stein jogged ahead and opened the door to the MRAP parked by the curbside. Joyce stood in front of the open door, hesitating. The big man shoved her inside, making her scream, then they all scrambled after her.

  “Did you see that?” Anu snapped. “They’re kidnapping her!”

  David gripped the butt of the gun, his hand shaking. “There’s nothing we can do. Let’s see where they take her and raise the alarm.”

  “Raise the alarm to whom? Those are uniformed men taking her!”

  David suddenly remembered his conversation with Jeff. “Must be the general she’d mentioned over the phone when we’d all gone blind. Naga—she said his name was General Naga. Jeff said he wasn’t even a real general, just some Asian philanthropist with a lot of money. Have you ever heard of him before?”

  Anu frowned.

  Naga—the snake demon.

  Yes, she had heard the name before. But where?

  A story, many years ago, when she was too little to remember. A woman’s voice reading to her, was it her mother?

  Who is Nag? I am Nag. Look, and be afraid!1

  The MRAP vehicle tore off from the curbside and screeched around the plaza.

  “Damn it, they’re gonna see us!” David pushed her around the flowerbed.

  Anu protested, “We’ve got to stop th—”

  He draped a hand on her mouth and pushed her down. “Hide!”

  As soon as the vehicle merged into the street, Anu wiggled away from David’s grasp and ran after it.

  “Anu! Where the hell you think you’re going?”

  Too late. The barrel of a gun poked out of one of the open windows and fired two rounds in her direction. David grabbed her and pulled her away from the street, bullets skidding on the asphalt and sidewalk.

  “Are you insane?” he yelled.

  “We can’t lose sight of where they’re going.”

  David pointed. “That’s where they’re going. The parking garage.”

  The armored vehicle tore through the lowered bar of the garage and screeched up the four different levels all the way to the top.

  “We can still stop them!” Anu yelled, running after them.

  No other emergency vehicles were in sight. And even if they were, she no longer knew which ones were friends and who, instead, were the traitors. She couldn’t get Larry Stein off her mind. What the hell was he doing in that kind of company? Was he being kidnapped too? He didn’t look like it, though. His stride was different than Joyce’s. He had walked confidently to the armored vehicle and held the door open for the rest of them. Unlike Joyce, who’d been shoved inside, he’d deliberately climbed inside the vehicle and closed the door behind them.

  Neither man was insane or showed signs of AVP, the post H7N7 madness. And Stein, of all people, was a medical profession
al. He was supposed to be helping out during an emergency like this.

  A medical professional.

  Stein must’ve seen Christine when she was taken in yesterday. He must’ve visited her, he… Could Stein be the one who’d awakened Christine out of her induced sleep?

  Her thoughts were reeling. She pushed her legs past all that she’d endured over the past twenty-four hours and ran to the parking garage.

  “Anu!” David caught up with her, too short of breath to talk. She could read it in his face that he thought she was crazy to be running like that, yet he followed. They jumped over the broken divider and then stepped inside the elevator. Up on the garage top floor, the blades of a chopper started slapping the air. Anu punched the button to the top. The elevator jerked up.

  David leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, catching his breath.

  She couldn’t speak. Her lungs hurt too much. Too much running, too little oxygen. When the elevator doors opened again, the larger man in cargo pants was pushing Joyce inside the helicopter, the same Koala that Anu had watched land yesterday. Stein saw her this time and stiffened, his hair swept back by the wind from the rotor blades. Behind him, the other uniformed man—the general, she recognized his insignia now—held her gaze for a good minute and then smirked. Anu blinked. She hadn’t expected it, yet she was ready to swear she saw a smirk on his face.

  As though he’d recognized her.

  General Naga. I swear I’ve heard that name before…

  Then came David’s scream and she fell to the ground, David’s arm wrapped around her shoulders and his wide hand flattened her head to the floor. The loud thrumming of the chopper’s rotor blades muffled the now familiar rattling of fire.

  “Don’t waste time on them,” a voice yelled. “Climb up, we’re leaving!”

  Anu pushed David’s fingers away from her face in time to glimpse the cabin doors close and the chopper lift off, cold wind mixed with smoke blowing in her face. She wiggled out of David’s grasp and jumped back on her feet.

  “What were you thinking?” she yelled.

  He winced, taken aback. “Didn’t you see it? They opened fire on us! You’re welcome!” he yelled back.

  Anu clenched her teeth. “Damn it.” She spun on her heels, frantic, the chopper rotor thrumming in the distance, echoing the crazy beating of her heart. There was an R22 parked on the far corner of the garage roof, a single-engine, two-bladed helicopter that Joyce’s pilot used for emergency transfers.

  I just hope…

  She ran to the small aircraft and tried the doors. Luck was on her side: the R22 was unlocked with the keys still jammed in the ignition. No surprise, there. People didn’t even lock their homes in this isolated part of the world.

  “What the hell are you doing?” David asked.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” she snapped, climbing inside the cabin. “Chasing the bad guys!”

  David gaped, a lost look in his eyes. “You don’t mean to—”

  She narrowed her eyes. Never before in her life she felt more determined. “I completed my training two years ago,” she said, buckling up. “Dual instruction and solo flight. Had my checkride and all.” She donned the headset, adjusted her feet at the pedals and turned the master switch on and then the fuel valve. The tank was full—plenty to go on. Radio comms were dead. She flipped it off together with the transponder. She didn’t want to risk the kidnappers intercepting them during the flight. The cockpit was tiny compared to the Schweizer she’d trained on, and it had a T-bar instead of the cyclic stick she was used to.

  Small details, she thought. From all she’d heard, the T-bar was easier to maneuver than the cyclic.

  She cracked the throttle one quarter of an inch, then stared at David, still standing a few feet away from the chopper and looking aghast. “Well? Are you coming or not?”

  He clicked his jaw a couple of times, desperately looking for something smart to say, then gave up on it and jogged to the other side of the chopper. “Of course I’m coming. You think I’m gonna let you go suicidal all by yourself?”

  She turned the key to the “start” position, miffed, and then rolled the throttle. The engine came to life with a roar and a high-pitched whine. The blades of both the main rotor and the tail rotor started turning, slow at first, and then coming up to idle. She smiled to herself. She hadn’t flown in months. The work on H7N7 had been so absorbing she had run out of playtime. She felt the pedals under her feet, left hand on the collective, right on the T-Bar.

  David climbed on the other side of the cabin and donned his headset.

  He stared at her, large green eyes under ash-cluttered lashes. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  She grinned and rolled the throttle to full open. “Get ready to rock, baby!”

  * * *

  1 Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, by Rudyard Kipling

  * THIRTEEN *

  Anu’s dad had died in a helicopter crash five years earlier. A particle physicist at the Institute for Nuclear Physics in Seattle, he’d taken a helicopter ride from the Hawaiian island Maui to Lanai, where he was slated to give a plenary talk at the fifth international conference in astrophysics.

  Professor Nilush Sharma never made it to his destination in Lanai. Witnesses said the helicopter started making weird grinding noises as it approached the heliport, then lost its tail rotor and crashed into an empty building after leaving half a mile of debris.

  Anu was devastated. Her father was all the family she ever had. She was five when he decided the two of them couldn’t live in India anymore. He packed all they had—which wasn’t much anyway—and moved to New Jersey first, then Washington state where he landed a professorship at the INT institute. For the longest time Anu didn’t even want to stare at a helicopter from the distance. And then, one day, she decided to face her fears. At the time she was in her second year of a postdoctoral position at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla. She filled an online questionnaire and received a phone call a few days later saying that she was prequalified to take flying lessons. She was thrilled and terrified at the same time.

  I did it for my Dada. I owed it to my Dada.

  It was easy to overcome her fear once immersed in the immense blue sky and all there was to see below were the rocky cliffs of the Southern California coastline. She learned the electrifying pleasure of chasing pelicans and hovering over the waves cherished by the surfers. It brought her closure. Every time she flew, Anu lifted up in the open sky, the vastness of the ocean opening below her, and she finally felt free. She finally felt reunited with her father.

  If this is what Dada saw in his last hour alive, Dada died happy.

  Anu hadn’t climbed inside a helicopter since she’d moved to New Mexico. The engine of the R22 chopper vibrated, the blades strummed and spun. As she clutched the collective control lever, adrenaline rushed in her bloodstream and washed away all the aches and soreness in her body. The aircraft was small, and the rhythmic chuff and rumble of the engine made her a little nervous. She applied slight pressure to the left foot pedal as she raised the collective. The cockpit vibrated and the aircraft rose unsteadily to a two-foot hover.

  By her side, David instinctively stiffened and squeezed the sides of his seat, his face as white as a full moon. “Watch out!”

  She sent him a sideways glance and smiled. “Relax. I know what I’m doing.” She pedal-turned into the wind and eased the T-Bar cyclic forward while pulling in more pitch. The aircraft gave a slight shudder as it transitioned from hovering to forward flight. “Going through translational lift,” she smugly reminded herself, as they climbed out in the direction where she’d seen the Koala helicopter vanish, swallowed by smoke.

  “Damn it, Anu, stop fooling around!” David shouted.

  “I’m not,” she replied. “Joyce needs us.”

  “Good luck finding them in this kind of visibility.”

  Shit.

  We’ll get through this.

  The smoke had formed a thick column that ros
e from the complex comprising the chemistry, physics, and medical buildings and arched to the west, blanketing most of the laboratory premises. The small aircraft rocked and shook as it crossed the turbulence created by the rising hot air. Anu banked the helicopter away from the thickest of the smog and started a climb. Looking down at the chaotic state the campus had fallen into, she suddenly felt overwhelmed and disheartened. The flames had spread and enveloped the whole length of the northwestern border of the lab. The western side of the canyon looked charred and black, with red tongues of fire lapping at the bottom and working their way up toward the opposite mesa.

  Joyce’s kidnappers couldn’t have braved a smoke this thick. Even if they were northbound, the safest route was to go around it. She banked the aircraft to the right, bringing into view the southern perimeter of the mesa. They flew over the Feynman building, now turned into the Army Guard headquarters. The structure looked abandoned, a light plume of smoke swirling up from one of the windows. As she left the Lab behind and turned southbound, the smoke thinned and the view opened up to the orange cliffs and rocks so typical of the southwest. A long cordon of cars snaked its way down the mesa and into the canyon until the eyes got lost.

  “Wow,” Anu mumbled, her voice metallic through the headset mike. “I didn’t realize there were still this many people up at the Lab.”

  David didn’t reply. He looked even whiter than before, his pale cheeks the same color as the bright, overcast sky around them.

  “Barf bag in the pocket underneath your seat,” Anu offered.

  David swallowed hard. He kept his eyes ahead while groping underneath the seat with his left hand. Once he found it, he pulled the yellow bag out, then bent over and buried his face in it.

  Thank goodness for the headset and the loud engine and rotors covering all the noises, Anu thought. She spotted the black moving dot of a helicopter to her left and immediately pulled in a little more pitch and coordinated the cyclic and pedals in a smooth turn in that direction, the brusque movement prompting another bout of David’s ordeal.