by A. R. Daun
She sighed. “Thanks Edmund, I'll see what I can do. Please tell Mr. Jiang I'll get back to him as soon as I can.”
She cut the connection and switched on her own flat screen. TV programming on the ship was delivered via satellite to the ship's TRO antenna and then piped through an onboard video distribution system. She noticed that although all the news channels seemed to have disappeared, the other channels featuring information about the ship itself and various onboard and port activities remained, and for some vague reason this worried her.
She thought for a minute then dialed her phone.
“Hello Staff Captain?” she said when the other line was picked up.
“Annika?” Gani's usual calm, carefully modulated voice came back. Gani Uwais was Staff Captain of the Coral Odyssey and second in command of the ship, and although they were fair acquaintances, she would normally never have called him directly about ship details such as this. “What can I do for you?”
Annika considered her response. “Some of our VIP guests are complaining about not getting any BBC or CNN news channels, and the lower departments don't seem to know what's going on,” she finally said. “Is there something that I should be aware of?”
“I was not informed of this problem,” he said easily, although she detected a slightly tenseness in his voice, and she wondered whether he was obliquely reminding her that as second in command of the ship he was not required to be involved in such a problem, nor was it her prerogative to disturb him about it. “I'll see what I can do about it.”
Annika shrugged inwardly, and resigned herself to making some fatuous excuses to the guests. It was obvious that the Staff Captain did not care about the problem. But then his voice came back in a whisper. “Listen, meet me at the main theater balcony on Deck 7 in say...” He paused. “Say 20 minutes...and wait there until I come. Don't tell anyone where you're going and pick a middle seat away from the aisles.”
“What??!” Annika actually blurted out before she could stop herself, but Gani had hang up. She shook her head, embarrassed for him and angry at herself for calling. She had seen her share of pick-up lines during her 10 years in the industry, but never from one of the top officers of a ship, who had always displayed the utmost professionalism before this, and certainly never from Gani, who had always been cool towards her.
She blushed, thinking about his request that they meet in the ship's movie cinema, which doubled as the venue for stage shows as well. The Starlight Theater was located on the bow of the Odyssey, occupied several decks, and could seat up to 1500 passengers. She could be there in a few minutes, but it was infuriating of him to put her in this position of trying to decide whether to accede to his unusual request.
In the end, curiosity got the better of her, and she hurriedly dressed and made her way forward, acknowledging the greetings of the crew with an almost absent-minded air as her mind whirred with the possibilities.
The theater was dark and cool, and she could see that it was barely a quarter full, with singles and couples scattered haphazardly in the mostly-empty seats. The late night movie was a rerun, and thank God it was an old Robin Williams film called “Patch Adams” about an idealistic doctor, and not some romantic chick flick.
Annika carefully made her way down the steps and picked a middle seat far enough away from any of the other audience, then sat in her seat wondering whether she had made the right choice. Meeting another crew member like this was highly unusual since most tended to socialize, if they did at all, in the crew bar, and not where passengers tended to congregate.
She was almost getting ready to stand up and leave when another form in a starched white uniform slipped silently into the seat next to her, startling her and making her gasp. The newcomer must have realized he startled her because he placed a strong firm hand on hers and put one finger to his lips, the universal gesture to stay quiet.
Annika steadied herself and pulled her hand from under his. “Why did you request that I meet you here, Staff Captain?” she whispered coldly. “This is highly unconventional, to say the least. And if you don't explain yourself I'll walk away right this minute.”
Instead of replying, Gani turned and watched the screen, chuckling softly as Robin Williams used an enema ball as an improvised clown nose and made a roomful of young cancer patients squeal with glee and laughter. He had an arresting profile, with full lips and a wide but not overly-generous nose, and long eyelashes that sheltered under masses of tousled jet-black hair.
He turned back to her. “You know, it's funny, but I always loved this movie because Patch was so much the rebel. He was willing to defy authority in order to do what he thought was the kind thing. The right thing.”
He paused, then said more seriously. “All my life I've always been been the straight one, the stickler for rules. The one who was always wound up so tight. So I guess his irreverence and mockery of authority strikes some chord deep within me.”
He shook his head. “Annika,” he whispered. “We have a problem. A big one.”
She made as if to speak and he again put fingers to his lips, silencing her.
He continued. “I'm telling you this because I think you can help with the passengers when the news gets out, and I'm very sure sooner or later it will. You have a cool head, and you deal well with problems. Captain Brodersen instructed the department heads to cut the news links under the pretense of some technical difficulties, but the top staff will soon be appraised about the real problem.”
Annika could only watch in growing bewilderment and alarm as he continued.
“Something big has happened on the mainland.” Gani said matter of factly. “A disease maybe, or perhaps some sort of invasion, and we've lost all contact with it. The USA, Canada, even Mexico and farther down south. The entire continent. No one here knows what's happened. There have been no outgoing communications as far as we know since news coming out mentioned rampaging crowds and cities that have suddenly emptied.”
Annika digested this news for several seconds, mulling over the consequences, trying to grasp the enormity of what he was telling her. In the distant background she heard appreciative laughter as the audience cheered Patch on.
“We can't continue to San Juan, can we?” she asked what she thought was the most pertinent question in her mind, though it was more a statement of fact than a query.
His dark eyes locked with hers and he shook his head. “No port will take us. We're effectively quarantined until people have figured out what's going on.”
She thought about this for a moment. “What are we going to do?” She finally asked. “Wouldn't we run out of fuel after awhile?”
He nodded. “Yes, and food too. I suggested we continue to San Juan or the Dominican Republic and anchor offshore to wait things out, but the Captain is adamant on returning to Manhattan.”
“But that's crazy!” She blurted out, then cupped one hand to her mouth. “I'm sorry, but are we really going back?”
“I'm afraid so,” Gani said grimly. “You need to be prepared for the worst when the news gets out. What we don't need is 6000 passengers panicking in a confined ship.”
Annika lowered her head. She felt light-headed and somewhat nauseous, and she wondered whether she would pass out right then and there. She lifted one arm in some confusion, and felt a strong hand grip it to steady her.
“Are you okay Annika?” Gani asked, concern written all over his face, which was mere centimeters away from her own pallid features. In the reflected light of the screen she realized he was wearing contact lenses, and she suddenly wondered what he would look like in glasses. The triviality of this knowledge, the grounded normality of it, calmed her down.
“I'm fine, Staff Captain,” she replied, smiling wanly and letting a little cold formality creep back into her voice. “I just...I think I just need time to think this over ok?”
He let go of her hand and nodded. “I have to go now, but please think about what I just said. And if you ever need anything just call
.” And without another word he stood and slipped quietly out from the theater, leaving Annika to ponder the terrible ramifications of his news, while on the screen Patch pleaded: “What's wrong with death sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can't we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor.”
Annika hugged herself against the pressing cold and shivered in the darkness. She knew what was wrong with death. Oh yes, she knew it very well. It was endless nights of lonely vigil in sterile hospital rooms, and the monotonic beep of uncaring monitors as they counted the hours until dawn; it was the emptiness of a home that once held the laughter of close family and the secret intimacy of flesh against yearning flesh; it was a hole in your heart that scabbed over with regrets about unfulfilled dreams, and the sick desperation that comes with the loneliness of abandoned souls.
She stood quietly and walked out of the theater to muted laughter, accidentally brushing against a slender black woman in jeans and a plaid top who had just gotten out of an elevator.
CHAPTER 10
Day 3 A.R. (12:00 am EST)
500 miles Northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico
Nanotechnology will let us build computers that are incredibly powerful. We'll have more power in the volume of a sugar cube than exists in the entire world today.
- Ralph Merkle
“Oh, excuse me,” Mara said, as the woman hurried past her and into the elevator. But the stunning blond either did not hear her or was too preoccupied with her thoughts to notice.
She shrugged and continued down the corridor opposite the Starlight Theater. She was obviously lost, and at this hour there were not that many other people around, but then she noticed one of those touch screen maps that were scattered on walls throughout the ship.
Mara consulted the map and continued aft towards the casino areas. She had been reading Terry McMillan's “Waiting to Exhale” the last several hours after dinner, and she was now wondering how her husband Steve was doing. No sooner had the casinos opened in international waters than he had excused himself from her to spend some time in roulette or blackjack, or one of the other multitude of games that he loved to indulge in for hours on end.
She shook her head wryly. It was their honeymoon and the gaming tables were getting a lot more action than her . She wondered briefly whether taping casino chips at strategic points around her nude body would entice Steve to pay more attention to his erstwhile wife, but then laughed it off and decided she did not have the audacity to try a stunt like that. Besides, Steve might simply pluck the chips from her writhing form and head on to the ship casino anyway, and she snickered to herself again.
The Coral Odyssey's state of the art casino sprawled like a vast octopus amidships, sandwiched between the Starlight Theater and one of the main dining areas. The transition between the relatively subdued decor of the rest of the ship and the garish interior of the casino was complemented by the rising sounds of frenetic activity that always seemed to accompany such establishments no matter whether they were in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, or hundreds of miles from shore.
Mara wandered around the vast enclosure, which was lined by wall to wall slot and video poker machines and cluttered with blackjack, roulette, craps, and poker tables. Passengers sat in front of slot machines, robotically pulling levers, while dealers held court to groups of anxious players at the ornately fashioned gambling tables.
She finally saw Steve at one end of the room, his shoulder-length locks and height making him stand out in the crowd. Mara was about to wave to him when she realized that he was not alone. Her heart froze, a terrible crushing pain bore down on her chest, and for one brief second she thought she could not breathe.
The girl was young, perhaps a decade younger than Mara's 28 years, a little red-haired waif in a crop top and skinny short shorts who giggled and smiled coquettishly up at her husband. Steve leaned over her and grinned rakishly back. They were so enraptured with one another that Mara doubted that her husband would even notice if she had called out to him from across the space between them - a space that had grown suddenly into a bottomless chasm.
She put an empty slot machine between her and the two, and watched Steve put an arm around the girl as they walked out of the casino together. She followed them to one of the midship elevators, and when they boarded one and left, she just stood there, as mute and unresponsive as a stone statue as people flowed past and around her to and fro the casino.
Finally, some 10 minutes later - or perhaps it was an hour, a day, a thimbleful of eternity - Mara slowly dragged herself back to their state room. She lay on the small queen-sized bed and stared at the low ceiling for a long while, thinking about the path her life had taken, the road that led to this tiny cubicle of a room out in the middle of the Caribbean.
They had met at a football game when she was still an ecology graduate student at Syracuse two years ago. She had been sitting next to Tina Hartlow, her best friend at the time, and when their team had scored Tina had raised her hands and accidentally struck Mara's drink (a quarter full plastic cup of root beer with ice, hold the caffeine), which then landed with one big splash on an undergraduate senior sitting directly below her.
“Fuck!” Steve had yelled in surprise, jumping up and whirling to confront whoever had spilled the drink.
With no thought whatsoever, Mara had taken some paper napkins and started to wipe his soaked hair and leather jacket, crooning softly as if to some newborn.
“There there,” she said softly. “Don't be a big baby now and let me clean that up for you.”
Steve Phillips had a reputation among his peers for having a temper, but this time he had stared at her, completely nonplussed, and allowed her to more or less get him dry. All the while Mara made “tsk tsk” noises as she worked, and when she judged him fairly dry, she had given him her phone number and told him to call her if the stains did not wash off.
The next day, he had called her, but not to complain about the jacket but to shyly ask her out. Mara had surprised herself by saying yes. She was slightly older than him, but that was not the main reason she was hesitant about socializing. She knew his type. He was tall and muscular, devilishly handsome, and a born predator, and she knew she would simply end up as one of his scores.
Nevertheless, they went out that night to dinner and a movie, some Tyler Perry comedy flick that she thought was infantile and unfunny, but which made Steve laugh uproariously all night long. He had an unselfconscious way of laughing and carrying himself, and he was a natural story-teller with a surprisingly developed wit, and Mara had to admit she enjoyed the evening with him immensely. She agreed to go out again the next time he called, and only a month later he had moved in with her, a turn of events that surprised her friends and parents, who were staunch Baptists and also adamantly opposed to “living together in sin”, as her mother put it. Steve's parents, who were devout Catholics, were even less enthusiastic about the arrangement.
In the blissful months that followed Mara had never once seen Steve so much as look at another woman, and except for a penchant for gambling that manifested itself when they visited Las Vegas around a year into their relationship, Steve continued to dote on her. Meanwhile, she finished her thesis on predator-prey dynamics in Yellowstone National Park and started work as a post-doctoral student, while Steve graduated and joined his father's hotel business. They were the perfect couple.
At least until two months back, when Mara had announced to Steve that she was pregnant.
Steve had just stared at her at first. “How's that possible?” He had finally said slowly and deliberately, and she had detected a coldness in his voice, which couldn't be right. They were so much in love. “I thought you were taking the pill.”
“I have,” she had replied earnestly. “I have been taking. But I guess accidents happen.” Mara had shrugged.
He had licked his lips, his brow furrowed and his eyes had gotten that faraway look Mara knew indicated he was
heavily in thought. Then he came to her somewhat stiffly and hugged her.
“That's great,” he said unconvincingly.”That's great news Mar.”
Later that night he had proposed to her, and she had accepted. But what should have led to her happily- ever-after moment turned instead into weeks of conflicting signals from Steve. Outwardly, he had been openly ecstatic to his friends and family about their engagement and coming marriage, but Mara had sensed a new reticence in him when they were together, a core of coldness whose icy tendrils crept out and revealed themselves in his distracted kisses; in the way his eyes clouded over when she babbled excitedly about leaving the apartment and getting their own home in the suburbs; in the nervous tic of his eyes when she mentioned anything about the baby.
Months later, and hundreds of miles out to sea, the door to their state room swung inwards, and Ammara Lewis rose like an avenging phoenix soaring from the ashes of its own past confusion.
CHAPTER 11
Day 3 A.R. (12 pm EST)
Off the Coast of Miami, Florida
Nanotechnology in medicine is going to have a major impact on the survival of the human race.
- Bernard Marcus
It was death personified. Its sleek 10-meter body shone like liquid mercury, and from its surface a profusion of sensors and weapons huddled beneath wings that extended for 20 meters.
The MQ-9 Reaper hunter-killer drone probed the environment as it skimmed the air currents 8 km above Miami, its Lynx synthetic aperture radar scanning 50 km around it for any hostiles at 10 cm image resolution.
Complementing the radar was a robust suite of visual sensors giving full motion video, including an infrared sensor, a color/monochrome daylight TV camera and an image-intensified TV camera which could read a license plate on a car from 3 km away.
The air was fresh and unblemished by the city's normally smoggy emanations, and it sensed three other hunter killers flying nearby in support. As much as any semi-autonomous entity could be said to feel anything, the drone was content. It was in its element, loaded with heavy weapons, and doing exactly what it was intended to do. God is great, kill them all and let the Devil sort the broken bodies out.