Outbreak: Brave New World

by Van Dusen, Robert

Carl opened his mouth to say something but caught a warning glance from his sister out of the corner of his eye. “Yes, sir.” he muttered under his breath. Carl walked past the officer “Excuse me, sir. I wanna get that wheelchair in the corner.” He bundled Paulie into the chair and took the kids out of the room.

  Amy, Frannie and Lacey looked awkwardly at one another. The major nodded then went out into the hall and looked both ways. “Okay, I just didn’t want the kids to hear this.” Tennyson admitted as he glanced at the floor. “As far as we’ve been able to establish, this FOB is the only operating military base in a four state area. We’ve got thirty nine troops, mainly Marines and Sailors, forty nine civilian contractors here and thirty nine civilian personnel here.

  “We’ve got commo with what’s left of the government at…some secret undisclosed locations around the country. For right now they seem to have held the outbreak at the Mississippi River. Everything between that and the Atlantic is under quarantine. We’re working with the Mexican and Canadian governments to coordinate our efforts. The government’s still trying to sort everything out, so it’s likely going to be awhile until that quarantine is officially lifted.” Major Tennyson said quietly as he moved around the room. The man paused to look each of them in the eye. “There are Navy assets in the Atlantic being used to airlift in materiel we can’t scrounge or make ourselves, but there’s a long wait list. That’s about it for outside assistance. Luckily, we’re getting on our way to self sufficiency here. There were a dozen crates of heirloom seeds waiting to be loaded onto a truck. We’ve got machine shops and, obviously, an aid station.”

  “There’s been limited infection here, probably due to the low population density.” Tennyson continued as he walked in a slow circle around the room. He scratched at an itch on the side of his nose. “The town of South Sanford to the northwest of us is the largest population center and it’s been largely abandoned or overrun. Our mission is to pacify the area, reestablish government control and provide aid to the civilian population.”

  He caught a troubled look on the Air Force female’s face. “Pacify the area, sir?” she asked. Tennyson had read the information that the medics had gathered from the boy, Private Lacey and the little girl over breakfast an hour ago. As highest ranking person on hand she had taken charge in Boston and led them out of the city to Hanscomb AFB. “Beg pardon…but what do you mean by that?”

  “There’s gang bangers and thieves operating in South Sanford, Airman.” Zachariah said gravely as he maneuvered to get a surreptitious look at the woman’s name on her chart. He looked each and every one of them in the eye, speaking slowly and clearly to make sure that there were no misunderstandings. “Making life miserable for decent people. Just like those animals that ambushed you and your people south of here, Frays. Standing ROE until you hear different from somebody with more rank than me is shoot on sight.”

  Amy, Frannie and Adam looked at each other. Shooting somebody who was trying to shoot you was one thing…but did he expect them to kill somebody because he was stealing a couple cans of beans from the Wal-Mart? What if Major Tennyson had caught them in the Walgreen’s trying to get food to feed the people at the school? Would he have ordered his men to open fire on them?

  “Well, I’ve heard you’ve got a busy day lined up.” Major Tennyson said as he gave them a wide grin. “So do I, so somebody from FEMA will be around to talk to you guys this afternoon and then we’ll see where you’ll fit in. Welcome to Forward Operating Base Freedom, folks. It’s not much but its home.”

  Amy blinked and shook herself as she watched the man leave. She had to wonder if she was still stoned from whatever the doctor had given her last night. “Oh Lord.” Frays muttered as she made the sign of the cross.

  “What?” Lacey asked as Carl burst into the room pushing Paulie and Becca in the wheelchair. He had apparently been sprinting full tilt down the hall and barely made the turn into the room but the children were laughing and clinging to the chair’s armrests.

  “The FOB I was at in Iraq was called Freedom too.” Frays muttered under her breath. She could only sort of half smile and try to shake her head. The brace around her neck was going to take a lot of getting used to. “I gotta wonder who comes up with these names.”

  They got left alone for a little while, giving them a chance to catch up. Carl, Lacey and Becca had spent the night in a little building about half a block south of the hospital. The medics gave them a basic checkup after Carl and Lacey checked their weapons and grenades in to an armory. There were four armed men that he could see so it did not seem like it would make much sense to put up a fuss.

  Lieutenant Haskins came in. “Alright…” she said leafing through the papers on the clipboard in her hand. “I need Private Lacey, Mister Frays and Becca. Time to finish off on your inprocessing.” She stood to the side and let the others pass by into the hall. Frays raised an eyebrow as she watched Lacey following the lieutenant out of the room. Did she just catch him checking out the other woman’s butt? More disturbingly, was that a twinge of jealousy she just felt? “Mister Jones will be around in about half an hour or so to take you to your appointment, Airman. Everybody should be back by then.”

  “You nervous, Frays?” Rodriguez asked as she smiled across the room at her. Paulie started fidgeting in his bed a little bit. “Hey Paulie. I bet you a quarter that Amy’s gonna have a girl. What do you say?”

  The boy made a thoughtful face. “I dunno, Frannie.” Paulie said as he studied Frays. “I think it’s gonna be a boy.” He looked a little glum and fiddled with his blankets. “I’m bored. I wanna go play outside.” The little boy wondered what happened to his cars. They were in back of the army truck with everybody else’s stuff. Did Amy and Carl grab them? He hoped so…

  Amy and Frannie both smiled at the kid. “I’m sure it won’t be long, buddy.” Rodriguez said reassuringly. She had to wonder if somebody was going to come by with something to read or something if they were going to be kept cooped up here much longer. “I’d like to go outside too, little man. Just a little longer.”

  “What did you see out there, Paulie?” Amy asked. There was something that did not sit right with her about this place but she could not quite put her finger on it. It was probably what the major had said, but still… “Didn’t Carl take you outside?”

  “No, he pushed me and Becca in the wheeliechair.” The boy said and smiled then looked a little frustrated. He liked Carl, even if he did not much like his sister. “We went fast around the room where the chairs are. The lutenent lady made him stop.”

  “Did you see any other people or anything?” Frays pressed and frowned when to her surprise, Tom the medic from the ambulance the night before came into the room. He smiled and unfolded the wheelchair from where Carl had put it when he brought the kids back. Amy became quiet then looked away before smiling at the man.

  “Alright, Airman.” Tom said as he brought the wheelchair to Frays’ bed and backed it up. “Your chariot awaits.” He helped Amy get out of bed and get situated on the chair. Frays smiled at his joke. The medic glanced at the others. “Hey, little guy! How you doin’?” He paused in wheeling Amy out of the room.

  “We got eggies for breakfast!” Paul told him with a grin. “Amy was nice and gave me her sausage.” Tom grinned back and laughed at this. “The doctor lady was nice too, but she gived me a shots.” The boy frowned and held up his forearm so Tom could see the band aid with little cartoon animals printed on it.

  Tom frowned and nodded gravely at the boy’s arm then his face brightened. “Hey Paulie, do you wanna see somethin’ neat?” he asked. Tom turned to Rodriguez and smiled. She could not help but smile back. “You can come too, if you want. I’m gonna take Airman Frays here down the hall to get some baby pictures taken.”

  Once they got into the exam room Tom helped Amy up onto the table. “Alright, Corporal Waterman’s gonna be right in.” he explained as Rodriguez and Paulie got settled into a chair in the corner. “Lieutenant Haskins is alm
ost done with your people so I’ll go grab them up and bring them down here.”

  There was an awkward silence in the room after Tom left. Frays toyed with the drawstring of her pajama bottoms and twitched her bare feet back and forth as if to some unheard rhythm. Frannie took a seat in one of the plastic chairs against the wall and bounced Paulie on her knee while Amy quietly hummed to herself. Who would get here first?

  Lacey came in and scooped up his boy, followed closely by Becca and Carl. “Did we miss anything?” he asked as he held Paulie. After a few moments the child started squirming so he put him down. “They didn’t take the ultrasound already, did they?”

  Amy felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips. It was even money in her book as to who looked more excited: Lacey or her brother. “Nope, not yet.” She muttered under her breath and resumed tapping her feet. An impish little smile came to Becca’s face and the little girl tickled the sole of Frays’ foot. Frays snorted and scowled at the girl. Amy kept moving her feet out of Becca’s reach and Becca would giggle then try to catch her so she could tickle the soles of Frays’ feet. The two of them goofed around like this for maybe ten minutes or so when the door opened up and a machine on a cart nosed its way into the room.

  “Okay, looks like the gang’s all here!” a cheerful voice called as a short stocky white man in ACUs rolled a white machine on a cart into the room. “One side, folks. Gotta get this in there. Thanks.” He smiled at them and started setting up the ultrasound machine. “Sorry I’m late. Gotta just get this set up…won’t be a minute. Had to dig this thing out of the basement. I’m Corporal Waterman, by the way.”

  “I’m Senior Airman Frays.” Amy said and pointed towards Frannie and the others. “That’s Specialist Rodriguez, Private Lacey and his kids Becca and Paulie. That tall guy there in the corner’s my brother Carl.”

  “Take notes, there’s a test on this later.” Frannie said with a small grin. She stood up next to Lacey and Carl, jostling with them to try and get a better look at the monitor attached to the machine. Paulie tugged at her hand so she picked him up so he could see too. Becca scrambled up her father.

  “Okay…don’t think this is the best quality but we’ll see how it shakes.” Waterman said as he fired up the ultrasound machine. He took a tube of something off of the cart and pulled up Amy’s pajama top enough to reveal the lump in her belly. “Here we go.”

  Frays gasped involuntarily when the man smeared a glob of the cold petroleum jelly onto her belly and picked up the sensor. She squirmed then smiled nervously at the medic as he moved the metal and plastic cylinder around on her stomach. It took a little bit but something that looked like a tiny whitish blue peanut showed up on the screen. Amy started to cry when she saw it move. “There it is…” Waterman said as he maneuvered the sensor around to give them a more complete look at the baby. He stared at it a moment. “Looks like a pretty healthy little four month old. A little small, maybe…do you want to know the sex?”

  Amy looked at Carl. The boy shrugged. “Up to you Aim.” he said absently, unable to tear his eyes away from the monitor. She looked thoughtfully at the twitchy little thing in disbelief, unable to quite wrap her mind around actually seeing the little person in her own womb. It was moving on the screen but she could not really feel it.

  “Yeah, yeah I do.” Frays whispered. Lacey put a hand on her shoulder and she covered it with her own, sparing a glance over at him. It did not really matter to her at all if it was a boy or a girl but it would be nice to be able to call her baby him or her instead of it all the time. She looked up at Lacey and smiled.

  There it is! Adam thought and smiled back. He rubbed her shoulder, his hand tightening reflexively. That’s what she looks like when she actually smiles. Lacey could not believe their good fortune after everything that happened that Frays still had her baby and it was reasonably healthy. On a whim he bent and kissed the woman’s forehead.

  Waterman moved the sensor around a little more. “Okay…looks like you’ve got a little boy, Airman.” He smiled at her and extended his hand, pumping it vigorously when she took it. “You’re kid’s in good hands here, Frays. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  Chapter Ten

  24 June 2011 0953 hours NorthCom Forward Operating Base Freedom Sanford, Maine

  Amy grumbled as she stared out the window. This creepy guy who introduced himself as Nick Allens supposedly from some FEMA bigwig’s ‘personnel department’ had interviewed all of them yesterday afternoon. She guessed that the guy was some kind of ‘government contractor’ from his khaki trousers and black polo shirt with the blue diamond shaped logo embroidered on the left breast. There was something scratching at the back of her mind but she could not figure out what exactly it was. So, like with a lot of things that bothered her, she tried to not think about it. Unfortunately there was really nothing much for her to do but sit around and think.

  Frays looked sadly at the little lump under her pajama top as she ran her hands over it. What the heck kind of a world was she going to bring this little guy in to? He would likely never see a movie or get his driver’s license. He would probably never have a hot dog or call up the pizza place for a large pepperoni and cheese…

  On the other hand, she realized that it was not like her son would know what he was missing. All the crap all the violence and insanity going on would seem perfectly normal to him because he would have nothing else to compare it to. Frays put her arms protectively around the fetus in her womb. This place would likely be the closest to the world she grew up in that he would ever know. However long it was until this place fell apart too.

  There was a sort of wrongness to the place that she could not shake but she could not put her finger on either. The idea of Major Tennyson’s orders to shoot looters greatly unsettled her. Killing someone who was just trying to find some food or something struck her as just so terribly, horribly wrong and as much as she did not like the word Un-American. It seemed monstrous and made her queasy. How could he ask her to do something like that? It was just too similar to the orders that she had received at Hanscomb…orders she had never really intended to actually carry out herself…but she had. She had murdered that poor little boy…

  It bothered her that she had blocked out what happened when everything started going insane. If she could not trust her own memory what could she trust? What other landmines were hiding in there? It was unnerving, kind of like the mental equivalent of walking on eggshells.

  The few ‘civilian contractors’ she had met here did not help ease her mind any either. She tried to tell herself that she was being foolish, that she did not trust them because of her experiences with other ‘contractors’ overseas. Granted, the ones she had met so far seemed like the civilians that processed your paperwork or whatever and not the yahoos bombing around The Sandbox in customized Land Rovers bristling with PKMs and Kalashnikovs. However those cracked out loonies had to be kicking around here some place too. There had been droves of them tooling around New Orleans after Katrina hit, after all.

  Frays grumbled to herself, a little frustrated that she had thought about pizza as it started a craving for a piping hot pie from the Brown Jug, the little pizza joint and bar just off campus where she went a couple times with Jacob and his friends. They liked bringing her along because, as Frays was the only non-drinker, she would drive them to the bar and back to the dorms. She found herself missing Jacob again. Maybe he was still around somewhere. Maybe he had been recalled in the middle of the night like she had. Amy dismissed that idea as highly unlikely. Jacob would have told her if that had happened or called her or something. It did not seem like him at all to just disappear.

  She sighed and continued to rub her belly as she stared out the window. Rodriguez got to leave the aid station yesterday after Allens talked to them all leaving her, as far as she really knew, alone in the building after lights out except for Daryl and Paulie. Frays glanced at her watch and frowned.

  Rodriguez, Lacey and Carl got assigned to a
work detail yesterday afternoon, so they would most likely be busy until well after nightfall. Paulie had been taken off of bed rest so he was busy making friends with all the medics and following Tom around. The man let Paulie act like he was helping him as he made his rounds, leaving her alone in the room. It was going to be a long hot frigging day. The air conditioning in the building did not seem to be working and the open window did little against the oppressive heat building up inside. Her sheets were already soaked in sweat and her pajamas clung to her. Thankfully Daryl had left her a gallon jug of water and some cups on the table next to her bed so she would have plenty to drink.

  Daryl had also dropped off a dog-eared copy of The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien to read. She read some of it to Paulie as the little boy curled up with her during his afternoon nap or before lights out. Fantasy was not really her thing, but she was starting gain an appreciation for it seeing as how she did not have anything else to read right now. Part of her still wondered if Daryl would be able to find a Bible lying around. She also hoped that the chaplain would be around to talk to her. Maybe they did not have one?

  Amy’s heart involuntarily jumped up into her throat when Paulie and Tom came in with a familiar black dog in tow. “Amy! Look, Tommy broughted Freddie to see us!” the boy said joyfully as he hugged the dog and rubbed behind his ear then came to her bedside. She smiled at the man as he tousled the boy’s hair.

  “How’s mom today?” he asked as he grinned at her and took her hands in his. Frays noted that the man’s voice had the slightest hint of Midwestern twang. “Squeeze.” Tom nodded to himself as Amy tightened her grip on his hands. She noticed that he had done his share of manual labor in his lifetime, probably farm work or something like that judging from his tan. Tom’s hands were rough with calluses. “Okay… Doc Haskins’ at a meeting right now. I think you’ll be out of here tomorrow, but she’s gotta sign off on it.”

  “Good.” Amy said as she glanced up at Tom. She felt a little grin spreading across her face when she saw the way that the medic was looking at her. “I hate just sitting around. There’s gotta be something I can do.”