She nodded carefully. “I'll live. Aspirin, a few bandages to replace this headscarf,” she smiled, “I'll be fine.”
Billy nodded and followed her. A few moments later they were winding through the trees on the road he had followed in.
The Nation
The fires burned low in the main meeting area of the cave: A few people stood talking as Jessie walked past them and she nodded and smiled when they looked her way.
The Community was growing fast. There were people coming in regularly now, sometimes fairly large parties, this was a good place to live, a safe place, as long as what had to be done was done. She was on her way now to do one of those things that had to be done now.
She stepped out into the cold night and shrugged more completely into her heavy coat as she headed down the trail that lead into the valley. She heard footsteps behind her before her name was called.
Brad rushed up slightly out of breath and laughing. “I'll walk you down, Jess,” he said seriously.
“You can't come into the barn... We have a bad one. I have to call it. A young woman that came in with a group. Bitten, they think,” her eyes narrowed and she looked away. “Still working on wiring?”
“All of us,” Brad allowed. “We will need miles of wire for all the projects Dustin has planned.”
“Brad,” she turned to him and held his eyes. “I was thinking... Why leave here. Why should we leave this place? It could be a good home for us, you and me, the baby.” She watched his face as a smile began to spread across it.
“I like it... I thought you were set on making your own place. The fold,” Brad said after a careful pause.
“I am.” Jessie looked down at the path and then back up at the snow that was still falling lightly. It was a beautiful place. She wanted it to be her own place. “It could be this place. I've thought it out. I'm not a political person, well, maybe a little, but it isn't my main motivation for what I want to do. I was upset about the way they ran that meeting of theirs the other day. It was clear they had already had a meeting of some sort and made their decisions. There was no way they were going to let any opposing viewpoints in.”
“Whoa... Slow down, Jess. I'm lost,” Brad told her.
“Okay.” She slipped one arm through his. The path was stone. Slippery under the scattering of heavy, wet snow. “It's like this. The fold should have an equal say here and it doesn't. There should be no difference between the two controlling parties... The Nation.... The Fold, it should be the same and it's not.”
“Jessie,” Brad shook his head. “There is no control for the Fold. That's why we're leaving in the spring. To have our own place where it is an equal say on how things run. Make the trip to Snoqualmie, see how it is; find that place you've dreamed about in the desert.”
She nodded quietly. “But that is my point, Brad.” She pulled at his arm, making him turn away from the falling snow. “We could have all of that. It could all be one. Why couldn't it? A rule that stretched from Seattle to here. Maybe on to the east coast too.” She looked at him.
“Are you asking me, Jess?”
“Of course I'm asking you. Why is it that there is no say for the majority? We know the majority have different ideas, but they just shove their agenda through. We have no say. Why is that?”
Brad shrugged. “Jessie, it's their show. Their valley. Their rules. I guess that means that the answer is they don't want other opinions... Ideas.”
“Right... So they think, but I'm telling you that I have asked around and that is not the case. They are doing it by trickery,” Jessie said.
“Jess,” Brad started.
“Listen, were you invited to the secret meeting? Did you or I or Sandy, or Susan or a dozen others I could name get to go? No. They invited Steve Choi because they wanted him on their panel... To smooth things over. He talked to me. He told me they laughed about the way they were going to shove the things they wanted through before anyone could get wise. He didn't actually have much choice about whether he was on the panel or not. Nobody even knows that there was a secret meeting beforehand to shape the direction of the meeting so no one could interject anything they didn't want to have in. No one.”
Brad scuffed at the ground as they walked. Silent in his thoughts. “Okay. It is what it is, Jess.”
“Yes it is. Thank you, but why did you make me fight you to get you to admit it? Is that how a relationship stays strong?”
“No,” Brad admitted. “I just don't see the point. Yes, it's their valley. They run it the way they want to. We're leaving next spring, or maybe not. I'm not sure where you went with that. I...” He stopped on the path and Jessie stopped beside him. “What are you saying Jess? Are you saying take over somehow? Subvert their control? Take it away from them? That seems crazy to me. You can't mean that.”
“Why can't I mean that? Why is it theirs when we have all helped to build it? Does being here a month longer than the rest of us make it completely theirs? Didn't we hate the old world for exactly that sort of stuff?” She shook her head and they began to walk once more.
“Look, you make it sound evil or something, subversive... Okay, maybe it is a little of all of those things, but it is a little of all of those things because that is they way they made it. They forced our hand, not the other way around. If they had said it was equal, if they had made a provision for both sides. If, if, if. They didn't, so it is a moot point. All that is left for us is to get enough people together and force their hand. Make them put people that represent our thoughts on that council. Let them think all the new replacements are on their own side and then swing those same people over to our side.” She paused and looked at his face again. He was looking out over the valley.
“I don't believe they went about this maliciously. I think they are just trying to... Protect this place, I guess. I think they are just trying to protect this place.”
“I don't disagree,” Jessie said quietly. “What I want though, is fairness. I don't think I would let everyone have a say either, but I don't want my fate in someones hands that doesn't have my best interest in mind.” The barn was coming up fast. She stopped and pulled Brad down to her own face and kissed him.
“All I am asking is keep an open mind. Sandy... Susan, Steve? They are on our side. Janna: Sandy says she has talked to her and she and James would go along too. They can pull the strings to make another meeting happen. We can have equality.”
“And if not? Do we leave in the spring?” Brad asked.
Jessie just stared for a few moments. “I don't think so... Maybe it won't be us that leaves,” Jessie finished quietly. She kissed him once more and then walked off to the barn.
~
Conner watched as Jessie stomped the wet snow from her boots and then walked over to her.
“Jessie, thanks,” Conner told her. He took one hand. “How's that leg?”
“Hurts, Conner, but a head wound would have hurt more.” She smiled as she finished and his face turned serious. “You are too serious, Conner. You are.” She pulled her gloves from her hands and stuffed them into her pocket. “Let's see her.”
She followed Conner over to a stall in the barn that had been reinforced with steel panels and closed in.
“Arlene is in there with her,” Conner sighed. “She says she was cut, but it looks like the plague to me. Little black veins running away from it. It looks bad, but she swears it was a scratch... I thought, well, maybe you might know. I guess some infections can look that way?” He raised his voice at the end and turned his statement into a question.
“Sometimes... It depends on the circumstances and the amount of infection. I can't say without seeing it... You have her quarantined?”
“We had to... Safety,” Conner said. He looked guilty.
“Don't feel guilty, Conner, if she doesn't have it we'll know. If she does have it we can't take the chance she dies and turns. She, anyone, could do a great deal of damage before we could kill them,” Jessie said. She reached the door and wait
ed for Conner to open it.
Bluechip
Adam and Beth
The room was white. The walls, the door, the trim around the door, even the trim at the floor was white. The steel bed that was bolted to the wall: White. The blankets, the sheets, everything. After a while it had begun to drive Adam crazy and so he had had to put it out of his mind and concentrate on something else: Escape and freedom.
There was little noise. Little, but it was there. Routine sounds, or sounds that he had come to associate with the word routine, the feel of routine. The guards came around every so often, if asked to guess, he would say it was an hourly schedule, it felt that often. He never saw them, only heard them. Hard heeled shoes, or most probably boots, on the vinyl tiles of the hallway. Hard, but they had to be rubber because they squeaked from time to time. Leather didn't do that. Leather creaked, and he had heard none of that at all. They stopped somewhere about a half second away from his door, stayed for about a second and a half, and then moved on to his door, stayed the same second and a half and then they were gone.
He had no idea what they saw or did in that second and a half of stopping outside his door, or the stop before his for that matter. There were no windows. No cameras, or at least none he could see.
The other sounds were some sort of ventilation system. That he could see: High up near the ceiling, and low down at the floor level, a fresh air entrance and a return. The one on the floor seemed to be pulling air so the one up top was pushing it. Maybe, he had thought more than once, there was a camera hidden in that air vent, but at ten feet or so above the floor he had no way to reach it to find out.
The first stop, he believed, was Beth. She must be close by, but he remembered the corridor of doors as he had been brought down here. Close by could mean any one of two dozen doors.
He got up and crossed the room to the door. The guard, or whoever it was that checked, had done their check and moved on more than three minutes ago. He had counted those seconds off in his head. Three minutes should put him far away from the hallway, somewhere that he wouldn't hear him. He lowered his face to the floor and the small gap at the bottom of the door, if Beth was nearby he had to know. He listened intently and then called out. She answered immediately, sounding much closer than the half second. He involuntarily pushed away from the door, and just as quickly lowered himself once more.
“Adam?” Her voice was not much more than a whisper, but there was so little noise that he heard it easily.
“I'm here, Beth.” He drew a breath and slowed his breathing purposely. “How does it look to you? This room is all white, no windows, cameras, a vent high up I can't reach.”
“Nothing here either... The same setup. It's bad, but I have your promise to see me through.”
“Beth, what” Adam started, but she cut him off with a harsh whisper.
“Your promise. I have it... It's a comfort.”
Adam stayed silent. She was telling him something, he just didn't know what. He had promised to love her. He had promised not to coddle her. He had promised to let her lead her life. He had promised her his own life. He had even promised her forever, even though they both knew forever was not theirs to promise.
“I meant what I said,” Adam told her quietly. “I meant it.”
The silence spun out. Adam felt the coolness of the tile against his face. He listened to the minute sounds of Beth breathing, slight rustle of clothing, it was a comfort and agonizing at the same time.
“I love you, Beth,” he whispered.
“I love you too, Adam... It will be fine,” Beth whispered back.
Adam listened a few moments longer and then, reluctantly, he returned to his cot when he heard the sounds of footfalls coming. Off schedule. Far too early, he thought as he listened to them grow closer. The footsteps continued to his cell and he heard the key clicking as it was inserted into the lock past the tumblers. He wondered for a brief second if hearing those pins depress as the key passed them would mean anything to anyone. Probably, he decided. Most likely there was someone in the world that could hear that and gain some information about that lock set. He was not that person. To him it was just a soft metallic clicking as it passed the pins. The locked clicked louder, the handle turned, and Major Richard Weston stood framed in the doorway looking down at him.
The Nation
Jessie stepped into the small closed off space. Florescent lights dotted the ceiling. The floor was straw over raw dirt. A small wood stove burned in one corner. The woman was handcuffed to the steel cot with a long chain that allowed her to reach most areas of the room except the door or the wood stove. A lidded bucket sat nearby with a roll of tissue. A jug of water sat close to the bed.
“So, they finally sent someone,” The woman said as Jessie entered. Conner followed her in and closed the door.
“Has it been a long wait?” Jessie asked. She directed the question at the woman, but turned to take Conner in too.
“Three days,” The woman said. She glared at Conner. “I've done nothing wrong and I'm locked up like some criminal all because someone said they thought I was bitten. I wasn't. I was never at all.” She rolled up the sleeve of her shirt to show Jessie her lower forearm.
“Arm looks okay to me, Jess,” Conner whispered. “Her stomach is a mess though.”
Jessie walked to the woman and took her arm in her own hands. She turned it from side to side. “What caused this wound?” she asked.
“Skinned it... Falling down. I was running away from some dead, I was, but they didn't bite me, I skinned it on the road when I fell,” her voice was panic filled. “I didn't get bit, honest I didn't.”
“I'm a doctor,” Jessie told her. “I can see this is not infected with plague. I have to agree with you. I should give you something for it though.”
“But it isn't a bite,” she peeked around Jessie and glared hard at Conner. “It's not a bite.”
“No, it isn't,” Jessie agreed. “Now, let's take a look at the stomach? I assume you slid on the pavement and it also got scraped up?”
Tears began to leak from the woman's eyes immediately. “It... It got cut up... I couldn't get up fast enough... They were right there,” she began to sob. “I don't want you to look at it. I don't want you to.”
Jessie sat on the edge of the cot and pulled the woman to her with one arm. “Honey, if you leave it untreated... If it is a scrape and you leave it untreated it will get infected. Then you'll really have a problem, as it is I have to give you a tetanus shot. You don't want to fool around with that,” Jessie soothed.
“Can't you... Can't you just give me the shot. My stomach hurts, it hurts bad. I... I have it bandaged. It'll be fine,” she begged.
“What is your name, Honey?” Jessie asked.
“Jenny,” she raised her eyes to Jessie's own, pleading.
“Well, Jenny, I see no reason to look at it now. Let's let it heal a little and then we'll take a look at it, okay?”
A smile spread across her tear streaked face, and her reddened eyes blinked rapidly. “I would appreciate that. I would. I'll be fine. I will,” she said.
“Oh I know you will, Honey.” Jessie reached forward and began to slowly unbutton her shirt. The smile leapt away from her face and her hands came up and grasped Jessie's tightly.
“The shot, dear. The shot goes in your upper arm, that's all.” Jessie smiled as she gently moved her hands away and continued to unbutton her shirt. Once she had the shirt unbuttoned she helped her out of it, glancing at the bundle of bandage and the black capillaries that ran from under the bandage toward her head and upper thighs. She made her eyes keep moving as she took her small black bag she had bought with her from Conner and began to dig out her supplies.
“We try to be clean, but we're living in the wild here,” she said as she pulled on gloves and then freed an alcohol swab from its foil package and swabbed the area. “It's hard to keep things as clean as we want them to be,” She eased a needle from a package and then filled it from a s
mall bottle she pulled from the bag as well. “This won't hurt, well, this won't hurt much,” she laughed. “Don't you hate it when doctors say that and then it does?” She laughed again and Jenny laughed along with her. Jessie wondered briefly what they would do when there were no longer usable supplies of medications out there? What would they do then? No easily treating even the most common problems.
“Okay, Honey... A slight pinch,” Jessie told her as she slid the needle into her shoulder. She finished, withdrew the needle and expertly ran a small bandage over the puncture. Maybe tomorrow I'll stop by and get a better look at how you are doing. Meanwhile, I think we can do away with the cuffs... Conner?” Conner moved forward and freed her from the cuffs.
“There, better?” Jessie asked her. “Come on, Jenny, let's get you into bed and resting. That shot will make you feel a little woozy. Maybe a little sick to your stomach too, but it will pass in a few hours and then you should start feeling better. I'll come back in the morning, take a look see, and get you started on some antibiotics, okay?” Jessie asked.
Jenny nodded as Jessie fluffed up the pillow and laid her head back on it. “I am tired. I am tired already,” Jenny told her.
“I know, Dear. It works fast. Very fast. You wake up feeling refreshed. Much better. It will all be over with,” Jessie waited, but Jenny said nothing more. She waited a few seconds longer and then reached forward and carefully peeled away the bandaging. Jenny moaned in her sleep and then fell quiet.
The wound was a mess. Black veins pulsed under the skin. The black capillaries had spread across her chest and up into her neck; some larger blood vessels there were turning too. The black had spread lower into her groin and her thighs. It was far beyond hope.
Around the wound itself there were distinct bite marks. They may not even have been so evident earlier, but since she was still alive the body had begun to treat them as the wounds they were. Individual teeth and bite marks showed perfectly well. Some ragged edges of the wound showed bite marks as well.
“She's far gone,” Jessie said. Her voice hitched. She turned her tear filled eyes to Conner. “I hate this part of it,” she told him.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 125