Plague

by Victor Methos

  Samantha left the restaurant and as she started her bike, she noticed for the first time how empty the streets were. The sun was high though it was late in the evening and there were no clouds.

  She wondered how it was that a paradise like this could be harmed by anything.

  CHAPTER 24

  It was dark by the time Samantha arrived at Niche Café. It was small and cozy with a view of the beach outside. There were only a handful of people inside and most of them were locals having a final meal at the closest restaurant; a sign over the door letting everyone know that the café would be closed tomorrow morning at ten.

  Duncan was sitting at a booth, sipping a fruity drink. He smiled and waved when he saw her. Wilson had been right; his face seemed to light up and Sam found it cute.

  “How’d the meeting go?” he asked.

  Sam sat down and ordered an ice water. “Depressing.”

  “I’m not there yet. This isn’t the most virulent outbreak I’ve seen, but I haven’t seen a pathogen spread so quickly in the population. We’re lucky this is an island, so there’s that to be grateful for.”

  “Do you always look on the bright side of everything?”

  “That’s the only way to live. Whatever thoughts you put out into the universe, that’s exactly what the universe gives back to you. It’s like some magical genie granting your wishes. But it doesn’t know what’s a wish and what’s just random thought. You have to keep your thoughts positive.”

  “If one of your loved ones was dying slowly in our cots, I don’t know how positive you’d be.”

  “True. You can never really know until you test it. Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how you look at it, I have no loved ones.”

  “No family?”

  “No, I was adopted by an elderly Mormon couple when I was six. They had some siblings, an aunt somewhere, but no one else. When they passed, that was the end of my family.”

  “Did you ever try to track down your biological parents?”

  “Once, when I was in college. I met my dad actually. He was a trucker in Wyoming. I called and asked if I could come see him. He had a new family now and didn’t really want to but I had to see him. I had to see where my genes came from.”

  “And what’d you find out?”

  “That genes are overrated.” This made her smile. “What about you?” he said.

  “I have a brother and two sisters. My brother’s a physician. One of my sisters is a stay at home mom and the other is a physicist. My mom lives in Atlanta.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He passed away when I was in my twenties. He was a really successful entrepreneur. You remind me a little of him actually. He was really into the positive thinking and self-help movements.”

  “Sounds like a smart guy. How do you think he would feel about you chasing down the worst diseases in the world for a living?”

  “I think he’d be worried about me but he’d understand the odds. Death due to exposure to pathogens is nearly unheard of for CDC employees. We’re very careful.”

  The waitress came and took their order; Sam ordered a pulled pork sandwich and Duncan had chicken nachos.

  “Did you see the report by Pushkin?” Duncan asked.

  “No? What’d it say?”

  “It was just released a few hours ago. He’s termed the pathogen Agent X. Essentially, the report found that the cultures he developed resemble smallpox and Ebola, but are a distinct entity.”

  “An unknown hot agent,” she said as she absently played with the straw in her water. “I knew they existed, but I never thought I’d be in the middle of an outbreak for one.”

  “There’s a section of USAMRIID’s labs devoted to unknown hot agents.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Most people don’t. You need top secret clearance just to go in there. See what happens is American—well, don’t really know what to call them—corpses I guess, are shipped to USAMRIID after death when a hot agent is suspected. These are usually CIA operatives, FBI agents on special assignment, military intelligence, people like that. We never learn their identities or even where they picked up the pathogen. We don’t know anything about them other than they’re a body on our slab.

  “If we find a hot agent after autopsy and analysis of blood and tissues, and it turns out to be unidentifiable, it’s stored in the unknown agents lab. We have over a hundred unknown agents in there. I’d kill to find out where they came from. We added one several months ago that caused the brain to lose consistency. Didn’t affect any other part of the body. The brain would just melt. It came from the corpse of a woman, but of course that’s all I know about her. It’s fascinating how many ways nature can dream up to kill us.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want us here. We are the only species that actively destroys her. This could be her way of fighting back,” she said.

  “We’re her children like anything else. She doesn’t strike me as the type to destroy her children.”

  “I disagree. Look at extinction. Ninety-nine point nine percent of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct. Extinction is the norm on our planet, not longevity. It’s that change that allows a new species to rise, have their moment in the sun, and then fade away. It’s required somehow, but from our perspective, we’re infinite. Like we have to exist forever. It’s just not the case.”

  “We’re the most intelligent beings that have ever existed, though. If anyone can find that longevity it’s us.”

  “There’s actually some argument to be made that intelligence is counter-evolutionary. It gives us the ability to destroy ourselves at a speed that nature never could. Just look at nuclear weapons. Every time one is ignited there’s a small probability the nitrogen in the atmosphere will ignite and burn away all the oxygen. Yet we’ve still taken that risk over and over again. Eventually, we won’t pull our lucky card.”

  “You know, I think if you want to believe we’re helpless cogs in the wheels of nature, then that’s how you’ll see the world. But if you believe we’re luminous beings put on this earth for a purpose, then that’s how the universe will appear to you.”

  “You’re religious, aren’t you?”

  “Mormon, like my parents.”

  “You don’t find it odd that almost all children happen to end up the same religion as their parents but claim they’ve independently reached the conclusion that their religion is the correct one?”

  “Ouch. Going right for the jugular.”

  “Oh, wow, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I just meant—”

  “No, I’m totally kidding. It’s fine. Well what if children were meant to be part of that faith and that’s why they were born into it? But we don’t need to talk about that. The French say you should never discuss religion or politics at the dinner table because you’ll ruin your appetite.”

  She grinned. “Have you been to France?”

  “Yeah, several times.”

  “I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “Well, maybe I can take you some time.”

  She smiled and, for the first time since she’d been around him, thought she felt herself blush.

  They finished dinner and stayed at the restaurant for over two hours talking, until the wait staff told them they would be closing up for the night. They headed outside and the moon was bright in a cloudless sky. They decided to walk around the block.

  Few people were out on the streets and Sam found the quiet peaceful. It was odd how used one could get to the most aggravating sounds: construction, sirens, car horns, shouting…a city was filled with so much noise that it seemed our brains had to go into a trance simply to shut out all the sound so we could function.

  They talked about their lives growing up, about why they chose science as the field they wanted to dedicate their lives to. Their reasons were polar opposite: Duncan thought that science, as shown through the recent developments in quantum mechanics and quantum cosmology, ultimately led to God. He believed
God had given us the chance to probe his creation and discover secrets that would make our lives better.

  Samantha had gone into science because without God, she felt the universe was a cold and lonely place. Science brought order to that loneliness. The fact that the third law of thermodynamics worked on earth the same as it worked on an alien planet a hundred million light years away was comforting. Science showed her that at the core of the chaos was stability.

  They came back to where her bike was parked and talked a few more minutes. Duncan came in for a kiss when they heard a man speaking to them. Sam looked over and saw a homeless man sitting with his back against the restaurant’s exterior.

  “What was that?” she asked him.

  “Can you spare some change?”

  He began to cough. It sounded wet and he spit a glob of black fluid onto the pavement.

  CHAPTER 25

  The next day Sam awoke and saw that she had six voicemails on her phone. She had turned it off to try to get a night’s rest and didn’t think anyone would need her within the five hours of sleep she was going to get. She checked her messages: they were all from a nurse at the rec center. They were running out of space.

  She took a quick shower and then headed down there. The streets were completely empty. Every once in a while a car would drive by but that was the only other evidence that anyone inhabited this island at all. Nearly every business was now closed; the only ones she saw open were bars. The grocery stores had already locked their doors.

  When she got to the rec center every parking space was taken so she parked her Ducati on the sidewalk next to the building. She went inside, suited up, and went into the gymnasium. She thought she had entered a war zone.

  Every cot was taken. The nurses had not turned away anyone and when they’d run out of cots they put patients on blankets in any nook they had available. The sounds were something out of nightmares: a cacophony of vomiting, coughing, groaning…the sounds of people who knew they were dying.

  “There you are,” one of the nurses, an older woman with thick glasses said. “I’ve been trying to reach you all night.”

  “What happened?”

  “What happened? All these people got sick is what happened. Many of ‘em are just kids.”

  “How many people did you admit?”

  “I don’t know, everyone that wanted in.”

  “We had a specific limit for a reason. You won’t be able to take care of all these people.”

  “I told her it was okay,” Duncan said, walking up behind them.

  “Have you been here all night?”

  “Yeah, I just dropped in to check on them and we started getting an influx of patients. I thought I’d stay and help out. Many of the younger kids,” he said, stopping a moment as he choked up, “many of the younger kids don’t have the immune systems to fight very long. No more than a few hours after they’re ill enough to come here. We’re going to need more pain medication to make them comfortable.”

  Samantha looked out over the sea of cots and the bodies huddled on the floor. “We need a larger space first. I saw a stadium a few days ago; I’ll look into getting that for us.”

  “Okay, I’ll speak to Ralph about ordering some more meds.”

  Sam nodded, not taking her eyes off the patients, their eyes empty, many of their faces caked with dried blood. She took out her cell phone and stepped outside. She felt the urge to take a deep breath and exhale furiously to get everything out of her lungs. It was instinctual, nothing based on reason, and she fought the urge and instead dialed Ralph Wilson’s cell.

  “What’s going on, Sam?” Wilson said, answering on the second ring.

  “We need a bigger space than the rec center. We’ve run out of cots.”

  “Already? How many patients are there?”

  “I don’t know, the staff didn’t keep track. I would guess somewhere around twelve hundred.”

  “I’ll get some more volunteers down there. What else do you need?”

  “Duncan’s going to ask you for more pain meds. Just start shipping those now. I saw a stadium on Salt Lake Boulevard.”

  “Yeah, it’s Aloha Stadium. They hold the University of Hawaii football games there.”

  “We need to take it. I’ll call the stadium people. I haven’t read Pushkin’s report. Is it as bad as I’ve heard?”

  “Well, he basically says this agent doesn’t meet the criteria to be identified as any known biological agent. It hit three similarity points for Ebola and four for smallpox, but that’s it. Not enough to classify it as either. And it’s not black pox like we thought, though it has the same symptomology. This is something we haven’t seen before.”

  Wilson cleared his throat and didn’t speak for a moment. Sam knew what that meant. She sat down on the curb and waited for him to speak first, but he didn’t.

  “What is it, Ralph?”

  “The military presented an option last night that is looking more and more viable.”

  “What is it?”

  “There are a lot of smaller islands in the Hawaiian chain. Easy to clear the populations out and put them on the larger islands.”

  “Don’t tell me this is going where I think it’s going.”

  “It may come to that.”

  “You want to take all the uninfected people to another island and let the infected just die here. Like dogs, Ralph? You’re talking about genocide.”

  “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

  “And what are you going to do when a mother is infected but her child isn’t, Ralph? Are you going to rip a child away from their mother?”

  “We’re not to that point yet and there’s no need for worst cast scenarios. It’s just an option if this thing gets out of control. But we don’t need to talk about it yet. The vaccines have arrived. Pushkin doesn’t know whether they’ll be effective, but it’s worth a shot. I’ll need you to set up locations throughout the island to distribute them.”

  “I’ll take care of it right after I get the stadium.”

  “Okay. Keep safe, Sam.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  She hung up and got on her bike. If she was going to get permission to use an entire stadium to hold thousands of ill patients at no cost, she would have to meet with the owners in person.

  CHAPTER 26

  Robert Greyjoy checked the clip in his silenced Ruger .22 caliber pistol and waited around the corner of the restaurant. It was an Italian place, red brick with the white and red checkered table clothes in cartoon depictions of Italian restaurants. It had been closed this morning but friends and relatives of the owners had been coming and going all day, stocking up on supplies, as everyone was uncertain of exactly where meals would be coming from over the next few days. People were no longer comforted by government officials telling them food would be shipped in. Robert had had a sense for decades that every successive generation trusted their government less and less.

  A car pulled up with four men inside. Three of them exited the vehicle and went inside, leaving the driver alone to bury his head in his phone and ignore the outside world.

  Robert waited until the other three men had disappeared inside the restaurant and then he casually walked down the sidewalk, the gun held low by his leg. He opened the passenger side door to the car and got inside, holding the barrel to the man’s crotch.

  “If you honk the horn or scream I’m going to blow your dick off and then drive the car myself. No, don’t talk, just listen. Put the car in drive and start going. Turn right at the intersection that’s up ahead.”

  “Ain’t got that much cash, my man. But you can take it.”

  “I don’t want your money and if you don’t do what I say, you better hope you’ve already slept with a lot of women ‘cause you’re not getting another chance.”

  “Easy, brother.”

  The man started the car and pulled away from the curb. Robert ducked down in the car and to anyone watching it would have appeared like only the dri
ver was in the vehicle. The man turned right at the intersection. The streets were empty and he drove slowly, not saying anything.

  Robert sat up, the gun still pointed at the man. “You made a delivery two months ago and you were paid quite handsomely for it, Richie.”

  “Hey, I don’t know nothin’ about—”

  “Don’t lie to me. It’s very cowardly and if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s cowards.”

  Richie stayed silent a moment and then said, “All right. I remember.”

  “Did you look inside the package you were delivering?”

  “No.”

  “You sure? You seem uncertain. Maybe I should blow one of your balls off and see if that jogs your memory?”

  “No, man. No they told me not to look inside and I didn’t look inside.”

  “Okay, good. You’re doing very well, Richie. Now, who did you give the package to?”

  “The dude.”

  “What dude?”

  “There was a guy, a Spanish guy. Mexican or something. He came down to where I was and he picked it up and that was it.”

  “You sure? You didn’t lose it? Leave it at the airport or something?”

  “Nah, man. I ain’t no amateur. I done this before for you guys.”

  “All right, all right. Here’s what we’re gonna do; you’re going to go—”

  Richie twisted the wheel as far to the left as it would go, hitting the curb. Robert’s head flew into the passenger side window, cracking it. Richie jumped out of the car while it was still moving and rolled onto the pavement. Robert got off one shot, the sound of the ricocheting slug filling the car as it hit a lamppost.

  Robert leapt from the car, holding his head as blood began to flow down and soak his collar. He ran around to the back of the car and saw Richie running down an alley. He aimed his pistol but Richie turned down a side alley and was gone.