The Immortality Virus

by Christine Amsden

It looked like all the others, a plain brick building with a single window and single door. There was no lock on the door, Grace noted. Obviously, that was not how they kept the slaves chained to the farm, but she had not expected that to be the means. She thought it had much more to do with the tall electrical fences and the guard house.

  “This is it,” Barb said as she opened the door. She smirked, and pushed Grace inside before slamming the door behind her.

  The room buzzed with activity for a few seconds after Grace entered. Men and women were talking, playing cards, sewing, and eating. Slowly, a hush began to fall over the room until finally, everything was still and all eyes were on Grace.

  “Who the hell are you?” one of the women asked after a long pause. Between the flaming red hair, bulging muscles, and fixed expression of anger on her face, she did not look like someone to mess with. She was big, but there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her body.

  “My name is Grace Harper. They’ve assigned me to this barrack. I’m new.” Grace tried to sound as friendly as possible when she said this; she even thought she managed a small smile, but it was tough to be sure. The stares felt like knives on her skin, or maybe it was the bone-setter and the fresh tattoo on her back.

  “You’re dead,” the woman said. “Where the hell did you get that bone-setter?”

  Grace stared down at her bone-setter, not sure what to say. She had expected hostility, but now had no idea what to do about it. She wished she could remove the bone-setter, but that required a special tool. Part of her thought this woman would find a way to rip it off.

  “I asked you a question. Where’d you get that thing?”

  Grace cleared her throat. “The farmers broke my arm when they captured me.” She knew instantly it was the wrong thing to say, but she had a feeling there was no right thing to say, and that included keeping silent.

  “I don’t give a damn how you broke it. I want to know what makes you so god-damned special that you get a bone-setter.”

  Try the silent approach again, Grace told herself. She tightened her mouth and then, as an afterthought, looked down at the floor. She did not want to look confrontational. She didn’t particularly want to be in this bunk but the wind howling outside was a constant reminder that she didn’t want to be out there either.

  “She must be something,” a woman standing near Grace said, “smells like perfume. Must be sleeping with the owner’s son or something.”

  Jane did not respond to the comment. She still stared intently at Grace. “No bone-setter came down from on high to heal my Stephen and keep him alive.” She had her fists clenched. Several of the other slaves also began clenching fists and tightening jaws.

  “We could kill her for you,” the hook-nosed man said. Jane turned her steely gaze to the man who had spoken. “A quick death may be best. My Stephen chose to die a man’s death, but she couldn’t handle that.” She paused. “On the other hand, perhaps you deserve every moment of pain.”

  “We could break her other arm and see if they give her a bone-setter for that,” said Hook-Nose.

  “Now that is a thought,” Jane said.

  Grace weighed her options. Here, inside, in the heated bunk she was surrounded by dozens of slaves who looked ready to pounce. No amount of training would help her to fend off such a group. On the other hand, leaving would put her out in a bitter January evening without her thermal-lined coat. Either way, things looked bad.

  “Go on,” Jane said. “Turn around and walk out the door. You can plead with the weather easier than you can plead with me. We don’t accept broken, useless slaves into Clan Conway. Now the question is will you beg?”

  “Stephen begged,” Grace distinctly heard one of the women say under her breath, but when Jane whirled to look for the speaker, no one admitted having said it.

  Jane seemed to meet the eyes of each and every slave in the room when she said, “He was dead. The dead don’t behave in the same manner as the living.”

  That was when the pain-filled gears in Grace’s brain seemed to finally manage one last, feeble effort at turning. This woman had turned out her own lover because he had some kind of injury. She had declared him dead before the fact. What chance, then, did Grace have?

  She began to turn back towards the exit, not three feet from her.

  “Beg,” Jane said.

  Grace stopped and turned to stare.

  “How dare you come in here with that contraption on your arm and pretend you’re better than us? Better than Stephen? I’ll hear you beg before I turn you out.”

  Grace closed the gap to the door in two seconds, turned the handle, but did not get a chance to open it. Innumerable hands were on her, pulling her away from the door, throwing her to the ground.

  Grace did not struggle. She did not want to give any of her attackers extra reason to be rough with her, and she knew she could not fight them. From somewhere up above, she saw Jane’s face hover over her. “Beg. Beg to be allowed to stay here in the warmth and out of the snow. Beg to let me turn you over to the dykes, if they’ll take you. Beg me not to break you other arm and both legs.”

  Grace had never been so much at the mercy of another person. Everything here hinged on her words, not her actions. She had to find the right thing to say to get this woman to let her freeze to death outside. So she begged, but not for mercy. “Please let me freeze to death in the snow. I’ll even give you my bone-setter. You can keep it for one of your own.”

  Jane’s face flashed momentarily with surprise, but the expression dissolved back into rage so quickly Grace might have imagined it. “We don’t want your damn bone-setter. We’re stronger than that.” She stayed that way for a while, poised with a look of permanent rage on her face. Did she ever look any other way? Finally, she said, “Let her freeze to death in the snow if that’s what she wants. Let it linger for her. I want to find her frozen corpse in the morning and spit on it.”

  Slowly, the hands pinning Grace to the floor released her. Before another word was spoken, before Jane had a chance to change her mind, Grace slipped out the door and into the deadly cold.

  Chapter 12

  It began to snow as Grace left the shelter of the barracks. Great wet flakes whipped through the wind tunnel, splattering her face and soaking through her thin gray pants. She turned against the wind so the flakes would stop stinging her eyes, but the paths between the barracks were so poorly lit her eyes weren’t of much use anyway.

  With outstretched arms, Grace felt her way along the path until she came to the edge of the ten by ten grid, where the wind wasn’t quite as bad. It still stung her exposed ears, hands, and face, and she knew she would not survive the night without shelter. She tried in vain to wrap her hands in her sleeves, but they didn’t even cover the bone-setter, let alone her hands. She rubbed them together to create friction and pressed them against her ears, but it did not help much.

  Up ahead, she saw the many lighted windows of the plantation house. Viewed through the snow, they seemed to flicker like fire. Somehow, the thought of fire made Grace feel even colder.

  There would be no shelter for her there. She saw lights through most of the windows of the slaves’ barracks, but did not hold out much hope she’d have better luck with them than with Jane and her clan.

  Moving quickly to keep the blood flowering through her body, Grace edged along the sides of the barracks grid. There had to be other buildings out here–she’d seen a silo and a factory as she had walked up the path in the daylight. The factory would probably be heated. She just had to break her way inside somehow. Maybe there would even be a night shift at work, pumping out nutri-bars around the clock.

  Then she remembered Agnes and the Soylent Green.

  Stop listening to rumors.

  A sudden noise interrupted her train of thought. Off to her left she saw a small grouping of trash cans. Something was climbing out of one with a small prize hanging from its mouth–a rat, maybe? Which might make the animal a cat. Grace had seen very few cats or dogs
in her lifetime, since most of them ended up as food for the starving city masses. Those who kept them as pets had to keep close tabs on them. Grace had never wanted to spend the money to feed an animal.

  Just now, though, the cat seemed like the most beautiful thing in the world. As it scurried off into the black distance, Grace hurried after, sure this was her best shot to find shelter. That cat had come from somewhere and now that it had food, it would probably go back.

  She lost the animal after a few hundred feet, but it didn’t matter. She could see lights another hundred feet beyond and even heard some kind of noise. It wasn’t the factory or the silo–it was much too small–but after listening to the noise a while longer, she realized she was hearing some kind of animal sound. This must be the stable.

  Following the wall to the north, she soon found the entrance and the source of the animal noise–a large spotted horse who looked particularly dirty against the backdrop of falling snow. As soon as she was in out of the wind, she spent a few minutes staring at the beast, who seemed supremely disinterested in her.

  The stables were cold, but not as deadly as the farm beyond. Well-insulated walls blocked out the wind and cold, and somewhere in here someone must have set up an area warmer–not as good as central heating but survivable.

  Of course, it probably meant there was someone inside with her. As her ears began to defrost, she thought she detected a gentle scraping sound, perhaps a chair being pushed back.

  “Is someone there?” a hesitant female voice called out.

  The hesitation bolstered Grace’s determination. She hadn’t been sure she would have more luck here than in Jane’s barracks, but now she knew that one way or another, she would make her stand here.

  She moved down a hallway lined with stalls, most of which held horses far more attractive than the first. One tall, sleek, jet-black horse snorted and stamped as she passed and seemed to gaze into her soul with his eyes. Whether he judged her worthy, she would never know.

  “Who’s there?” the voice called out again. “I’m armed.”

  Grace stopped in a doorway that led out to a tackle room. At the far end, an open door led to another corridor. In the center was a round table and five chairs. Four of the chairs were vacant and tucked neatly under the table, but the fifth was pushed back, and a short, angry woman stood before it clutching a knife.

  She clearly had no idea how to fight with a knife. She clutched it in her whole fist, set to make downward jabbing motions. Grace estimated she could get the knife from her in about five seconds if need be.

  “My name is Grace.” She decided to start out with a friendly approach and shift tactics only if needed. She did notice with no small amount of jealousy the gloves, hat, ear muffs, and thermal-lined coat flung haphazardly over the back of the woman’s chair. The area heater set into the east wall warmed this room enough to make the winter protection unnecessary.

  “You don’t belong here.”

  “You’re right, but I don’t have anywhere else to go. The farmers assigned me to a bunk but the slaves kicked me out.”

  “You can’t stay here.” She moved forward in what she might have thought was a threatening gesture, but the ploy failed when she hit the table with enough force to scoot it forward a few inches. She tossed her long, thick, brown hair over her shoulder and glared at Grace with piercing blue eyes as if determined to pretend that hadn’t happened.

  A flash of movement took Grace’s eyes off the frightened woman and turned her attention to the open doorway directly opposite. Two men came through–two men she recognized from Jane’s clan. In an instant they were on top of the woman, attacking from behind in a cowardly strike.

  Grace’s impression of the woman’s ability to use the knife was correct. She dropped it within seconds as the larger of the two men, the one Grace had thought of as Hook Nose, pulled her around by the hair and the other twisted her arm in a way that would make it snap before long. Having seen the reaction of the slaves to her own bone-setter, she knew such an injury could be fatal.

  She seized her opportunity while the men were preoccupied with the other woman. Apparently, they had underestimated her threat potential, because they did not keep a close eye on her movements as she slipped behind and found her opening–an acupressure point on the back of the neck that dropped Hook Nose in an instant.

  She grabbed the knife from the floor and spun to face the other man. “I actually know how to use this. What would Jane think if you came home with a knife wound?”

  He must have been thinking along the same lines, because he spun on his heels and fled without sparing a glance for his fallen comrade. Grace spared a glance for him, though; or at least for his thermal coat. She pulled it off his body and threw her own thin rag unceremoniously atop of him.

  His coat covered her bone-setter and even her hands.

  “Thanks, I think,” the woman said as Grace turned back to face her. She had her eyes fixed on the knife. “Can I have that back?”

  Grace shrugged. She didn’t have any need for it and did not think this woman would be able to use it against her. Besides, returning the weapon might turn out to be just the right gesture to tip this situation her way–if fighting off two thugs wasn’t enough.

  Taking the knife carefully by the blade, she offered the handle to the woman, who took it without menace.

  “I’m Megan, by the way.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Megan.”

  Hook Nose moaned, and Grace went over to plant a foot on his chest. “What are you doing here?”

  He blinked his eyes open. “Jane told us to follow you.”

  “To make sure I died, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why shouldn’t I kill you, then?” Grace pressed her foot harder into his chest.

  He swallowed. “I’m sorry. Jane’s my clan leader. I do what she says, and she protects me.”

  “Sounds like she’d kick you out if you had a sprained toe.”

  Hook Nose’s face twisted into an ugly kind of smile. “We don’t let useless slaves stick around. It makes us strong. Better than her clan.” He nodded at Megan. “Half of ‘em are being wiped out by some kind of bug ‘cause they’re too weak to kick ‘em out.”

  “Let him go,” Megan said. “It’s not worth a clan war.”

  Grace lifted her foot, and Hook Nose squirmed away, grabbing the ragged coat just before sprinting from the room.

  “So,” Grace said, turning back to Megan and searching for something to say. “You here by yourself?”

  To her surprise, Megan’s face turned a little pink. “I’m not supposed to be. I’m just supposed to be in training. I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. There’s usually four on the night shift, but two died from this thing that’s been going around and the other two decided to get into some stupid fight–over me.”

  Megan didn’t look like the sort of woman men usually fought over, but perhaps that impression was partly due to the ugly uniform. Even beneath its shapeless form, Megan’s breasts looked almost comically huge. She did have a pretty enough face. Grace hoped she wasn’t sick. The last thing she needed was to catch “this thing that’s been going around.”

  Hook Nose had mentioned it, too. She might deplore Jane for sending off every slave with an injury, but a deadly contagious disease was another matter.

  “I can stay with you tonight,” Grace said.

  “Do you know anything about horses?” Megan asked.

  Since she’d never seen one before that night, she didn’t even try to lie. Besides, claiming to have skills one does not possess is the flimsiest kind of lie. “No.”

  “Oh well, at least you can fight.” Her eyes fell to Grace’s injured arm, though the thermal coat now covered the bone-setter. “With a broken arm and everything. How come they gave you a bone-setter and not a good coat?”

  “Good question,” Grace said.

  When Grace didn’t volunteer any more information, Megan continued. “I bet you’ve go
t an interesting story to tell. They don’t normally give bone-setters out, you know.”

  “I know.”

  An uncomfortable silence sprang between them for a minute. Megan was the first to try to fill it. “Grace, did you say? That’s a nice name. Do you like it?”

  “Do I like it?” Grace blinked a few times, not sure how to answer. No one had ever asked her that before. “I don’t know. It’s not really me. It’s got more to do with my mom and her sense of propriety. She named my sister Charity.”

  “You could change it.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. After one hundred and thirty years you get kind of attached to a name. I wouldn’t know myself by anything else.”

  “One hundred and thirty!” Megan whistled. “Wow, there aren’t many slaves that live that long. I bet you–” She broke off, seeming to understand that Grace didn’t want to talk too much about her life. “Well, I wouldn’t mind changing my name.”

  “Why?” Grace asked.

  “I guess twenty-three years isn’t as much time to get used to it. I was thinking of Meg. Do you like it?”

  “Sure, if you do,” Grace said.

  Meg nodded. “I’m making a fresh start here. My old farm was horrible, not at all like this place. This place is nice.”

  “Nice?”

  “Oh yeah. We’ve got indoor plumbing and heating and air conditioning, and the farmers treat us well and...well, anyway.” Something flashed in Megan’s eyes, and Grace got the impression there were things in her past she’d rather not talk about either.

  “I didn’t think slaves were usually sold between farms.”

  “Er, they’re not.” Meg stared at a spot on the wall for a minute. “I ran away, actually.”

  “You escaped?” Grace suddenly perked up to full attention. “How did you do that?” Then another question came to mind. “Why did you do that, and then come to another farm?”

  “How’d you end up on this farm?” Meg asked.

  “Not by choice,” Grace muttered.

  “There are lots of things that happen to us that aren’t by choice,” Meg said. “I only made one choice in my entire life, and it went to hell–heck.”