According to everything that had been calculated, there was no cosmic incident to precipitate this event, and there was no planetary alignment that unlocked the ancient curse, blah, blah, blah. Anatoly was sick of this type of thinking. Even though he admitted it must be eliminated as a possibility, it didn’t mean that he thought for a second that this was extraterrestrial in nature. In his spare time, he had been trying to think of whom on Earth would have the motive and capability to do this? What was the endgame?
Anatoly didn’t believe that the Mayans knew something about an end of time event coming over two thousand years before, nor did he believe it was something from Space, like in every Hollywood movie ever. No, Anatoly believed that these animals ingested something that time delayed in their system. Like a remote bomb, and maybe whoever did it was able to set them off somehow.
Then it hit him—the somehow. Radio waves. Radio waves could set off that remote bomb. Anatoly headed to see Karen Bascom, as the U.S. needed to check to see if there had been a spike in radio waves before the incidents.
Then he got more excited, as he remembered reading a paper about spikes in radio waves near earthquake events, and he knew several places were now monitoring them worldwide. California was a place where geologists would have such monitoring equipment, and Anatoly was hopeful that he had come up with something worth pursuing.
* * *
Hoang Ngo was feeling a little down. She had been a bad girl last night in Hong Kong and now she was paying the price. She knew she was going to be on an International Flight today, yet she chose to be led down the wrong path and went dancing with her co-workers, disregarding the teachings of her trainers at flight attendant school. At the moment she was glad she was not a pilot flying the plane, because she was definitely on the border of reporting for work in an unsafe manner.
During her pre-flight routine, she double-checked that all her passengers had picked a meal, and if they had not, then she would go see what they preferred, chicken or fish? Those were the choices nowadays, unless one wanted the vegan option, of course. She saw that a man sitting in row 15 had not chosen a meal, so she headed off to ask him his preference.
She took maybe two steps before she got quite lightheaded. Hoang actually had to grab the seatback of seat closest to the rear of the Boeing 747 just to keep from falling over. It was terrifying, but it was over just like that. Once she got over the initial scare of almost passing out, she was fine; just a bout of lightheadedness. Hoang swore to herself, no more partying before an International Flight; but that was for the future. For now, she just had to make it to San Francisco and she hoped it was going to be an easy flight.
* * *
Jack looked at his phone, terrified. After all he had been through the last few days, the missed call represented a prospect that he did not want to face. And that was the possibility of opening the deepest wound he’d ever had. With all the madness going on as of late, he had finally gotten his mind off of her, but now her name was listed as the missed call: “Christy.”
He had not spoken with her in nearly two months, not since the last time they had talked and she mentioned divorce. He bolted from the conversation and had been too terrified to talk to her ever since. He knew it was coming, how could it not, as she was not with him anymore; but regardless, he prayed that somehow she would change her mind. It was with that dwindling, yet slightly alive hope that Jack hit the call back button.
She answered on the third ring, “Jack.”
He replied, as he always would have, with a touch of mocking jocularity, “Christy.”
He did this because due to her family’s pomposity, they thought the normal mannerisms of society didn’t apply to them. It was something that always grinded on him and although he masked it with jokes, the lack of a more sincere greeting after this long of a break was not what he imagined.
“Jack, what is happening? I’m so scared, Jack.”
Even though it was just a couple of sentences, he could see himself right back in the saddle with her. He envisioned the moist, pouty lips that were now asking for his help. “Honestly, we don’t know. It’s just as the news has said, scientists the world over are at a loss. Everyone is working around the clock to come up with answers, but truthfully, this die-off is unprecedented, especially with all the sub-species that keep popping up.”
“I know, I’ve been watching on the news. Satellite imagery found a cow species in the deep Amazon, in a place where no outside travelers have ever been to. They were all floating in the river dead. It’s all very scary Jack, and it hit me last night when my dad was talking to me. Although he is my dad, and I do feel comfort in him, all I could think about was you, Jack. When can I see you?”
Any other time and Jack Zarifis would have exited with a trail of dust similar to that of the Roadrunner of the cartoon fame, but now was hardly the time for emotional reconciliations or absences from work.
Truthfully, even Christy could not pull him away from his work right now, as this was his moment. David Ho convinced Jack that this was their war, and they had to have one hundred percent dedication to this cause. All personal time or matters were on hold, which was okay with Jack, as he had no life other than work right now anyway.
“Christy, I won’t be able to see you for a long while. You know David, and you must certainly know how things are here right now. I cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel, either, as we’re just starting to dispose of all the cattle. Everyone in my department, from the meat inspectors on down to the rendering plants, is being taxed beyond reason.”
“Jack, I’m scared and I want to be with you.”
Jack finally heard the words he longed so desperately to hear, yet somehow he knew that without this crisis, he never would have heard them. “I’m going to sleep in our house for the next few days. If you want, you can drive there; but like I said, I am coming home to sleep and leave, probably for no more than a few hours, Christy. Plus, there is literally no food in the house, you will have to bring some.”
Jack did not say that she had to stop by the store on the way, as the stores were all empty, completely bought out. America was desperately trying to restock after the initial panic wave spread, as right after the cows passed, the general populous was fearful that Armageddon was right around the corner.
Asked with genuine concern for her still husband, “What have you been eating, Jack?”
Responding with appreciation in his voice, Jack replied, “David has been having food brought in, mostly sandwiches.”
“Well, I am going to take a frozen chicken out, drive up there and make you a home cooked meal. We still have chickens, right, Jack?”
In a way, this was a very odd world occurrence in more ways than the obvious ones, not that their insignificant lives meant a hill of beans in the big picture of things. The two of them frequently fought over food. Jack loved a good steak, or a nice side of bacon in the morning, but especially, Jack loved lamb. It is truly amazing the things a man will forsake for the woman he loved.
The only meat Christy ever ate was chicken, and the first time he cooked lamb and made her try it was the last. Actually, she was so appalled by the flavor, and the fact someone would eat such an adorable animal was enough to push her over the edge and she banned the meat from the house.
It was a big deal, and one that he never told his mom. If Jenny Zarifis had known that her son had forsaken something so deeply rooted into his culture and life over what a girl told him to do, she would have hit him over the head with a spatula.
Jack knew he was overlooking the reality, that when you finally get what you are longing for, it is then that you realize you forgot what the problems were to begin with—like having to make a second meal anytime he wanted anything other than chicken.
“Yeah, babe, there is no problem with the chickens.”
Sensing her relief, she inquired, “But the news says avian and swine flu have already mutated together; that’s what H1N1 is. It has three kinds of f
lu mixed together and that usually chickens get it first. Now that flu has no swine to mutate with, they were speculating that a super avian flu could take out all of our poultry, too. Then what, Jack? What will I eat?”
Sensing her heightened fear, Jack waylaid them, “You don’t have to worry; there is no threat to our poultry.” Then Jack had to go there, this was just too easy for her, just to step right back in after all the hurt and suffering on his end.
Being a Zarifis meant that Jack was part of his mom. His mom was able to ferret out bullshit with sensible straight talk, and Jack was definitely his mother’s son. So he could not help himself from blurting, “Our old neighbor, Rod Stevens, says a process server came looking for me last month. We both speculated I was getting divorced, now this? It’s more than a little odd, as you wanted nothing to do with me and our home that you abandoned.”
It took a lot of bravery for a despairing man to get that out, especially since the secret here was that it didn’t matter her answer, Jack would take her back regardless.
“I miss you, Jack, I made a mistake, and I want to work it out. This crisis made me realize that I would feel safer with you than anyone else. I need you, Jack.”
And as far as Jack was concerned, the past was bygones, “Okay, please be careful driving up here, don’t forget the checkpoints.”
That was it—with a single phone call Jack’s marriage was resurrected from the ashes. He hung up the phone just as David Ho appeared at his desk. “Did I overhear that call right? Was that your wife coming back?”
There was no use denying what David obviously overheard, “Yes, and I am still trying to piece it together.”
“Well don’t, the fact that she ran to you when the shit came down is all you need to know.”
Jack was trying to comprehend that he just heard David Ho cuss for the first time ever, when his boss shared some information, “One of the scientist up in the Space Station came up with a very interesting theory. If some kind of cosmic time clock were doing this, then there would be a strong increase in radio waves. Parkview, California has such monitoring equipment, and sure enough, there was a spike in radio waves during the cow incident.”
Jack’s head was reeling from that information. Could it be that these die-offs were being unleashed by some ancient time clock? Then the Mayans came to mind, and the types of things that were supposed to happen in 2012.
Surely these situations cannot be that?
* * *
Nhu-Y Le was looking to the rear and she did not see Hoang Ngo come out with her service cart. She was already done with two rows. Feeling concern by the third row, she backed her cart up and pulled it into the galley so she could get around it and go check on Hoang. When she got to the back, Hoang was still sitting in her stewardess seat, belted in. Nhu-Y Le could see she was drenched in sweat and sleeping.
She nudged her before speaking, “Hoang, hey Hoang, food service has started.”
Nhu-Y Le reached out and felt her unresponsive co-workers head, it was burning with fever, and as she was about to call the pilot, Hoang awoke. “No Nhu-Y, I’ll get fired, I was out partying last night, it’s just a bad hangover. Just give me a minute, then I can get up and work.” She unbuckled herself and shakily got to her feet. Nhu-Y Le was very concerned and with good reason, as Hoang Ngo did not look ready for work. Nhu-Y Le watched as she went into the bathroom and gathered herself enough to pull off her meal service, but Nhu-Y Le was watching her, as she was shaky at best, certainly not herself. Nhu-Y Le wondered, what was wrong with her? Then she washed her hands, just in case it wasn’t a hangover.
* * *
President Walter Kessel was thanking the Russian President Grigory Yeshevsky one last time before they hung up. The call had been to go over scientific reports and theories. So far, every theory was a dead end, but earlier in the call, the Russian President broke in with some possible good news. One of their scientists on the International Space Station had an idea, one that they were working on together now.
The scientist in question had been thinking about radio wave spikes during earthquakes, and then wondered if there was a similar spike that could have precipitated the die off events, pointing to this being a cosmic rather than pathogenic event. Radio waves were fascinating and truly science was just starting to use and understand them. The Hubble Telescope might be the rock star of astronomy, but radio wave technology was proving to be the workhorse of the future.
Walter knew NASA was able to penetrate and map parts of the Milky Way with them, and he also knew that it was proven in 1989, by a scientist in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, that during their large seismic event there was a massive spike in these waves. Jesus, thought Walter, what is this, some bombardment from an event light years away? Is it possible it is intentional?
His brain was spinning, as his Chief of Staff, Gary Salisbury, and Sid Langston, had just left him with the current state of affairs of the country. How could things have gone so bad so quickly? His advisors had let him know that the country was on the edge of revolution. Revolution at what, was the question at hand? It was classic mob mentality, and it was truly lashing out at the biggest and sturdiest target, the Federal Government. People everywhere were entertaining the notion that it was the governments of the world embroiled in some secret battle, and the threat was real and growing.
In his second public address, he told the nation that all corn production would immediately be used to process food and not fuel. Although there was a surplus because it was no longer needed for livestock feed, the President reminded the country that we would soon be called upon to help out with the needs of a great many other nations and now was the time to really get moving with alternate fuel sources.
His speech caused an immediate backlash from farmers who made better money selling corn for fuel, but he offered to subsidize them to even it out as the world was going to need all the food it could get.
A mini-recession had already started as the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the new reality started filing for government assistance. An overloaded FEMA was now having to work under the Director of Homeland Security and the National Guard was setting up food distribution points in all fifty states. But already there had been a food riot in Atlanta where three people were shot and killed by police.
Up for discussion was to find the best way to dispose of the millions of dead animal corpses, and it was decided that incineration was best, where possible, just like the pigs. His people said that in California alone, the smoke from that incineration was putting a fetid stench over a three state area. And that was just California; the same was happening all over the country and the world.
It reminded Walter of war and how quickly lives changed for people in World War II. His mother’s best friend was Italian and had lived in a small village in Northern Italy. She told stories of how rapidly life changed once the Nazis rolled in, but also how quickly people had adapted to the new realities that came with them. Those stories always stuck with him, and now they were ringing true in his country.
Not that his country hadn’t gone through a Great Depression, wars, and upheavals, but the United States had never been invaded in modern times. And this had a feeling of an invasion.
He just couldn’t shake the thought that Tehran had finally figured out a means to carry out the many great threats that they bestowed upon America. Or maybe it was North Korea, or something as far out as a sect of Islam that had gotten a hold of some mutating pathogen somehow.
Pathogen? I guess I am settled on what I think this is. Now how to find out who unleashed it on us. On the world.
* * *
The last of the passengers exited the 747 on their way to a wonderful stay in the international city of San Francisco. Nhu-Y Le was sure of that, because she had only wonderful times here. She loved the United States. She would have been more jubilant right now, but the last time she saw Hoang Ngo, she looked so bad that it had sucked out all the joy that she would normally be fee
ling.
Nhu-Y decided that if she touched Hoang’s forehead and it was still hot, she was going to insist Hoang see a doctor. She looked to the rear galley, but did not see her, so she made her way down the aisle. For some reason, she felt a heightened anxiety rising and it would not subside, so she yelled, “Hoang Ngo,” but there was no response. She kept advancing on the galley, eyes peeled on the curtain, expecting to see Hoang come around it any second with a white trash bag in her hand, ready to clean the aisles.
Without warning, Nhu-Y Le tripped hard on something and went face down in the aisle way, knocking the wind out of herself and actually spraining her left hand as she tried to break her fall with it. Out of instinct, she called out for the person she knew would come to help her. “Hoang Ngo, help me,” she cried.
Nhu-Y was looking up the aisle, and when she didn’t see Hoang come out, she had another thought, what did she trip on? She turned on her right side and looked to see what tripped her. Barely sticking out of the aisle were a pair of feet, and it didn’t take long for her to forget about her injured hand, scramble to her feet, and ascertain that it was in fact Hoang Ngo laying on the ground between the seats—and she was unconscious.
* * *
Karen was talking with Anatoly and Julien about the progress of Anatoly’s radio wave theory when Harshal came in bearing news of an urgent nature, “My father called. A stewardess aboard a transatlantic flight from Hong Kong has collapsed after their arrival in San Francisco. My father says his source at the CDC claims it to be H5N1.
After a stunned silence at the news that the stewardess had a rare strain of avian flu, Harshal continued, “My father also said that several passengers had already made it out of the airport, and have not been tracked down, so we could possibly be facing a pandemic of epic proportions, as those passengers interact with God knows who.”
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