Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds

by Peter Adam Salomon

  M & Elle

  Devid pressed her own name in his phone to call her.

  Her own voice answered, soft and happier than she ever remembered. She missed happiness, missed the feel of it. The way she missed chewing. And sunlight. Other people. Humanity.

  To miss the mass of humanity. That particular disease they’d spent so long to eradicate, which turned out so much worse than the illness itself. Be careful what you wish for. That should have been their motto rather than Cure the World.

  Not just too late, now. Far too late.

  Far, far too late.

  “I was hoping you’d call,” Amy said.

  “Busy?”

  “Always. A break wouldn’t hurt though. You?”

  “About to be,” Devid said. “Wanted to talk to you first, in case anything goes wrong.”

  “What could go wrong?”

  Devid studied the monitor, with its darkweb-inspired software waiting to play. “Pretty much everything. Or nothing. I’ll let you know.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Wish me luck,” he said. “Bail me out, if it comes to it.”

  She laughed.

  L cringed, remembering what she’d just forgotten. Always hated laughing. Until Devid joined in, tempering the sound, forging it into something new, something distinctly unique. Something them.

  “Good luck.” Then, before hanging up, she whispered, “I love you.”

  L remembered whispering ‘I love you.’ Remembered hanging up. Remembered wondering what happened right after she hit ‘End.’

  Devid paused, savoring the words they’d never touched before. “I love you, too.” But she’d already disconnected.

  The words burned into her memory. L tasted them, heard out loud for the first time when she’d missed them in the reality of his speaking them. She laughed, and it was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard.

  He pulled out a small tin from beneath his keyboard, shaking it once to listen to the rattle. Inside, he sorted through a handful of pills. Different colors, different sizes.

  “Cure the world,” he said, before swallowing them all.

  L lost touch with reality, the world tilting for a few minutes before straightening, a little blurry.

  Wide awake and burning with energy, Devid turned to the computer, opened a spreadsheet containing one email address and began to play, whistling a happy tune.

  Kimberly Meyer was a low-level research assistant on loan from the University of Houston Entomology Department to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. Her latest research proposal included a paradigm-shifting exploration of the transmission vector preventative properties of viral carrying insects in potential war-torn hot zones in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, was it possible for a vaccine to be transmitted via genetically altered mosquitos the way the original virus was?

  She didn’t know it, but she was about to request slightly deeper information than she’d previously needed in a polite, somewhat vague, email sent to a senior fellow at the World Health Organization’s African Region viral load research testing facility in the Republic of Congo.

  That email, with its embedded trackers and spiders sat on the WHO server system for eight-tenths of a second before the firewall detected and deleted the malware.

  During those eight-tenths of a second, Devid’s spider collected the email addresses of every single employee of the WHO. And, more importantly, the current internal chain of responsibility the World Health Organization used for all requests and official acquisitions. He’d long since known the emails. He needed the chain.

  Hacking the system posed no challenge. But stealing from the system required something different than brute force. Stealing information was simple. Stealing something real? Something highly guarded? That required a plan.

  Devid had a plan. Now he knew which breadcrumbs to follow.

  The low-level research assistant, toiling in her lab at the CDC, unaware she’d sent the first email, had no idea she was about to send a second. No attachments, those could be carrying a virus, so for security, all requests were to be via traceable emails. Safer that way. More secure.

  Devid had a plan.

  Once more he emailed the African Region facility of the WHO. This time, the same message, without any malware at all.

  The senior fellow’s inbox received the email, but he never saw it. Instead, Devid hacked in, using the map his spiders constructed in those eight-tenths of a second.

  He added a small note at the top of the email: “Approved, please expedite” and forwarded to the senior fellow’s boss at the WHO.

  Another hack. Another forward, with another note to another boss. Another.

  Devid methodically, step by step, followed the chain per internal, classified WHO regulations.

  Within hours, Kimberly’s request for more data and material had been approved and signed off on by all necessary parties.

  Devid ran his hand over the small heart taped to his monitor before hacking into the inbox of the World Health Organization’s Coordinator of the Inter-Country Support Team for the South and East African Countries. There, waiting for him, was the email he’d last forwarded.

  At the top of the response, he added the Coordinator’s final approval and prepared to forward the email to Fort Detrick’s United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

  All his investigations and studies, everything he’d learned from his mother, taught him one simple loophole. The easiest way to steal something is to be given it.

  He hit send.

  The mammoth bureaucracy of the United States Military immediately kicked into gear. Operational security vetted the email chain every which way, and it passed each test. Every approval double- and triple-checked, each approver noted and verified against known and cleared individuals and currently designated authorization paths. They traced all the steps of the email chain, logged the request, confirmed all levels of approval, notated all pertinent information, and entered the final authorization into the system per regulatory due diligence.

  Standard operating procedures and protocols required all possible tests be performed in order to determine and certify the authenticity of each individual associated with the request. Every test but one: no one involved with verifying the documentation contacted the requesting party to see if she’d actually requested this rather meaningless data and this one piece of rather meaningful material.

  It took three sleepless days jacked up on caffeine pills and prescription meds for Devid to receive the affirmation email in the inbox of the World Health Organization’s Coordinator of the Inter-Country Support Team for the South and East African Countries. Which he dutifully forwarded down the chain, deleting each email before the actual recipient realized they’d even received the message.

  If anyone ever checked, they’d discover that Kimberly Meyer, a low-level research assistant on loan to the CDC from the University of Houston, made a simple request of the WHO, which granted that request with all necessary authorizations and validations.

  Six days later, per one more email chain, the United States military processed a shipment to Atlanta. Devid hacked the United States Post Office, diverting the package to Yasmeen, before spoofing the tracking information to verify receipt at the CDC.

  The box was tall and rectangular, with a UN Package Certification Mark and a Category A Infectious Substance label taped to it. Inside, a rather sizable metal watertight tube held an inner tube of absorbent packing material surrounding another watertight tube, this one plastic.

  Within that plastic tube, one hundred fifty milliliters of blood infected with the most recent mutation of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever.

  “Clear.”

  An alarm sounded. “Medical emergency, please respond.”

  L tried to catch her breath, but her heart beat out of control, panic pressing on her, leaving her shaking in the medpod.

  “Medical emergency, please respond.”

  She b
it her tongue trying to talk, teeth chattering and clenching together. The medpod tilted backward and the sensor array burned against her skin.

  “Enough,” she said, the word garbled and harsh through the pain.

  “Heart rate stabilizing,” the computer said.

  The drugs worked their magic and she tried to remember what had happened to send her into a tailspin.

  “I was—” she smacked her fingers against her forehead, closing her eyes to block out the metal ceiling. “I was Devid. I was Devid for days, how did that happen?”

  She tried to remember if something like that had ever happened before. She’d no memory of eating or sleeping, one moment she’d been Devid on one day, the next moment she’d been Devid days later. The pills? She remembered him taking a handful of pills. Everything after that fuzzed into an indistinct blob. Something important. Or what might have been important before it all became rather unimportant.

  “Time?”

  “Eighteen minutes.”

  She inserted a food pouch and the medpod resumed its upright chair-like position. “How long?”

  “Eleven hours, thirty-three minutes.”

  “Alert at nine hours.”

  “Nine hours and counting.”

  L practically fell down the ladder. She made her way through G, H, I, and J. Almost all locked doors. The medical triage room on I. More empty bedrooms. More storage rooms. No mystery compartment with four bodies and their DNA.

  Then to K. The only level left. The chill in the air reinforced the fact this level was not like the others. It seemed never ending, the corridor heading off into the distance in both directions, with numerous side corridors.

  “How many rooms down here?” she asked after exploring for a while.

  “That information is not located in any accessible databases. You have logged four hundred and ninety-three locked doors so far on this level.”

  “Any other information?”

  “Accessing secure databases. DNA authorization required.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “Please repeat your request.”

  “It wasn’t a request.” The words echoed. She followed the sound, walking to each and every door, waiting for it to open or not.

  Not one single door opened.

  She’d chosen to start by going left. She’d gone that way and had yet to reach the end. She’d ignored all the side corridors. Almost five hundred doors. Each door twice her height and just as wide. It had taken far too long to get through what seemed just a small fraction of the length and breadth of K level.

  She sighed, walking to the ladder. “This is never going to work.”

  “Please repeat your request.”

  She twitched when she reached B.

  The alarm went off. Nine hours.

  “I’m running out of time.”

  She glanced at M’s medpod, looking at the fog through the translucent panel and trying to remember what he looked like. The image was distorted, fuzzy and out of focus.

  “Don’t do it.”

  “Please repeat your request.”

  “The stasis, don’t put me under,” L said. “Just let me die.”

  “Is there a point to this?” Amy asked.

  Levi ignored her. He’d put the call on speaker and muted the microphone. She’d talked for almost an hour now. Amy did this every so often; just called to ask questions she already knew the answers to. Mostly just to talk, when she’d already probably talked to Devid. So, he let her talk. Didn’t bother him much, he just went about his own work, mostly just tuning her out.

  M listened to every word, treasuring the brief moments listening to her, hearing her voice. He’d recognized her voice that first time she’d called. It had been the first tangible proof those bizarre memories of L and M could be real. Maybe. Possibly.

  Now they seemed more like déjà vu. He remembered remembering her, and that made the memories real, even if they weren’t. Well, of course she was real, she was Amy. Not L. If she was Amy, that meant L’s name had to be Amy.

  L’s name was L.

  Not Amy.

  That made sense. That had to make sense. Something needed to make sense.

  Listening to Amy made sense. Her voice calmed him. Calmed the thoughts of the end of the world. Soothed the anxiety and the panic when he thought he believed he was M, the last man on earth. Obviously, he wasn’t. Or when he believed he thought he was M. Or something like that.

  Her voice made sense when absolutely nothing else made sense.

  Levi clicked off the mute button. “Think of it this way,” he said. “If we remember, then our own memories will taint whatever comes next. So, we can’t remember. We need to forget.”

  “Still might not work.”

  “I have faith in you.”

  “I’m seventeen,” she said with a laugh.

  “I’m sixteen,” he answered. “And the young shall inherit the earth.”

  “The meek.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You said ‘young’”

  Levi hit mute, returned to answering emails and texts.

  Amy kept talking, something about Devid worrying about the plan. Levi had faith in Devid. He’d faith in all of them. Faith in the plan. Nothing else mattered, let her talk. Besides, his firewalls kept anyone from listening in. No one to hear but him.

  M listened, letting the sound of her voice soothe him, calm him, knowing somewhere deep inside that he might be the last man on earth, which made Amy the last woman.

  And he’d left her all alone.

  It had been too long since Levi ventured outside. The outside contained too much of her and too little of him. He felt out of place, intruding on reality. He wasn’t made for the world. Not this world. The next, maybe. He was remaking this one, but it wasn’t remade yet.

  Should be stormy, dark and gloomy, with ominous thunder and wicked forks of lightning spiking the earth with righteous fury. Instead, soft clouds floated wistfully by. Hints of a summer storm hung heavy on the air, a touch of reality intruding on the artificial pleasantry of the world everyone else lived in.

  That’s what it was. Fake. The beautiful blue sky hid demons and monsters, creatures of hate and malice, waiting to pull the rug out from beneath him if he dared to strive for happiness. To hope happiness existed and wasn’t just a lie peddled by pop-up ads, smacking him in the heart with bitter reality.

  Since his life sucked, everyone’s life deserved to suck. Through all the suffering, he’d learned life wasn’t fair.

  But he was going to make it fair. Infinitely fair. Eternally so.

  Levi didn’t remember the walk from the one and only time he’d visited the cemetery. He’d watched them lower her body into the cold, cold earth. Wanting nothing more than to be there waiting for her, to tell her what he’d done to the assholes who had killed her. Who’d taken her away from him when he’d finally found something worth living for.

  And so much worth killing for.

  There was no headstone, merely a dented metal plaque with the column and row number of the gravesite. He knelt in the warm grass, the summer sun heating his skin, as he ran his hand over the individual blades, wondering how far their roots extended. Hoping she felt his touch.

  It made no sense. Not really. She’d treated him unkindly for so long. So many had done far worse. Her brief moments of kindness erased so much history. How could kindness do that?

  How did a kiss?

  A handful of birds headed in the opposite direction of the strengthening summer storm darkening the horizon. Nature lived and breathed despite the hushed confines of the cemetery and M remembered how much he missed all of it.

  It made no more sense than Levi’s tears. M had read every Step, understood every detail of ARMAGEDDON, and there seemed no reason to miss nature so much. But he missed it with a burning, aching need. They’d only killed humans.

  Right?

  Levi cried, caressing the grass and pretending it was Cathy. Always C
athy. She’d come so close to caring for him. Had cared for him, perhaps. He’d cared for her. In his way.

  “Cure the world.”

  Heat lightning broke a cloud in half, spikes of it licking the sky with white. Thunder rolled and kept on rolling, threatening to never stop.

  He knelt a few feet above Cathy and wiped his tears. He’d never cried when his father left. Or his mother. He figured he’d never cry again. Not even if eight billion people died.

  No reason to cry for Cathy. Not now. Not again.

  Not for someone who might never have cared for him at all.

  Lightning struck a tree somewhere in the distance. Thunder rattled the small metal plaque. Big, fat drops of rain splattered around him.

  Levi knelt, arms outstretched. “Do it! Go ahead, drown me, I dare you!”

  M cried.

  Lightning lit the world with vicious fire. Thunder drowned out the shouting.

  “Try to stop me!”

  The storm raged, and Levi raged back. Soaked to the skin, wind pressed him into the earth. Closer to Cathy.

  M breathed the grass, the living scents of dirt, old leaves, and life.

  Rain slapped into his skin like wet bullets, the lightning strikes almost constant, the thunder never ending. “I defy you,” Levi said, speaking to no one, to everyone. To Cathy.

  To god.

  Levi pushed himself up, spread his arms wider, and laughed into the face of the storm.

  He clutched the small metal plaque with Cathy’s gravesite numbers on it. Before he changed his mind, he ripped it out. Mud clung to the stake, earth absorbing the rain.

  After making his way to the office at the edge of the cemetery, he handed the plaque to the caretaker with a credit card to order a real gravestone.

  The storm beat against him on the walk home, streets empty and quiet, but he barely noticed. There was nothing more that thunder and lightning could do to him that hadn’t already been done.

  Nothing god could take that hadn’t already been taken.

  “I defy you,” he said, standing in his living room and dripping on the floor.

  On his computer, a number of messages waited, and he crossed off a few more Steps. Only a hundred or so remained, each one simpler and yet more complex than the others. They all were. Each had its purpose, its meaning. Each one fed into the next or resolved others. The whole much more than the sum of its parts.