“You were,” said Marnie glumly.
Christine nodded and bit her lip to stop the sudden sharp sting of tears. She began assembling the delicate parts, allowing herself to become absorbed in the task. Marnie went back to the wall of boxes and sifted through a few more. Christine swiped at her eyes with the back of her arm, the leather band of her watch hitting the tip of her nose. It still smelled sweet and green like Sevita’s empty tea can. Christine had kept her keys and watch in it since Sevita had given it to her, revealing the tiny diamond ring it had held for months. She looked at the vacant finger where it ought to be. Her fingers were too swollen to wear it now. Sevita had laughed about it, kissing Christine’s puffy hand. They’d had to use a tiny bit of shortening to loosen the ring and Sevita had twisted it gently off, wiped it clean and handed it back to Christine.
“You should wear it,” Christine had said.
Sevita frowned. “I got it for you, only you.”
“I know, and I love it. I don’t want it to sit in a tin can for eight more months. When I look at it, it reminds me that you love me, but I won’t see it in the can. You wear it, and I’ll know you love me every time I see your hand.”
Sevita smiled and kissed her. Christine slid the sparkling ring onto Sevita’s finger.
And there it remained. Even its ghost imprint was gone from Christine’s hand. She had the watch, though. She looked at it again. Seven now. She wondered what Sevita was doing and if she were hurt. There was a loud clank outside the bunker door and Marnie looked up from her box. Christine stood up.
“Stay back here,” she whispered, “and stay quiet.” She edged up the narrow corridor toward the front door. She tried to convince herself that it wasn’t Sevita, but she couldn’t shake the idea. She checked the video feed. Just the janitor and one of the wasp men. The janitor was shutting off the generator and talking to the soldier, but the intercom was off, so Christine couldn’t hear. She noticed that the basement light stayed on, even after the generator’s vibration ceased. The two men left, unhurried, not even glancing toward the bunker. They must not know yet, she thought. Did the return of power mean it was safe? Christine glanced back at Marnie who still looked like a wary cat ready to leap away. They’d have to wait for Sevita. If it was okay, Sevita would come back. Or she’d send someone.
“Just the maintenance guys,” said Christine. Marnie nodded and went back to her boxes. Christine wanted to pace the tiny hallway. Instead, she forced herself to sit back down in front of the unassembled radio.
Twenty
Even five miles from the harbor, the smoke left a piercing tang in the air as it mixed with the summer thunderclouds. The airport was soaked in a dull copper light as they woke. They seemed to swim through the heat, though the hairs on Sevita’s arms prickled and ached as if she had goosebumps. Whether it was from the heavy static charge that laced the air or her own nerves, she couldn’t be certain.
Dan was already checking on Tom, whose croupy cough made Sevita wince with sympathy. Paul chewed on another cookie and looked out at the flat tarmac. The tank stood alone on the large slab of road, making it look much smaller than Sevita knew it must be.
“Why is it out here?” she asked Paul.
“Because of the planes. You must remember the planes, right? I’m pretty sure my partner and I chased one of your crews out of here.”
Sevita nodded. “I was just an intern. But I remember the planes.”
The City had already had military personnel stationed within its limits. It was the one luxury of being the first to collapse under the December Plague. There was a day or two for help to be called in before it was everywhere. Before the entire globe plunged into chaos. It was only hours before martial law was declared. Thinking it would prevent the spread of the disease, the state’s governor ordered the airways closed, but it was already far too late. Not only was the contagion already worldwide, every plane had already left the airport. Some pilots had loaded their planes with the first healthy looking passengers that had shown up and taken off, others had held out for massive amounts of cash that they probably never lived long enough to spend. There was even one crew, later on, when the Infected were already in the streets, who would only take children, thinking they could shield them if they could just get away. But once in the air, no place would let them land. One of the planes went down not far from the City when the copilot turned and attacked first the pilot, and then the crew that came to help. The others traveled from airport to airport, haphazardly switching flight paths in the panic of the moment. No one relented.
A few returned to the City, circling the airport like great metal buzzards hulking over the death throes of the modern world. But the Governor ordered them shot down if they attempted to land. It was useless to argue that they had originated from the City, that they were full of the Governor’s own constituents. He ordered the military unit in and the tank, with its large guns tracking the faltering planes. A few hours later, all but one of the planes had crashed into the ocean just a few miles from the harbor, their desperate pilots trying to save whoever they could. The last plane called the Governor’s bluff. The engines failed at last, simply out of fuel.
Paul never knew if it was the children’s plane, but that was the one that went down over and over in his dreams. That was the one with the woman’s arm and the maggot baby. He’d never even got near it.
The mangled silver was hidden now, crushing under its own weight as rust ate it into a delicate lace, wildflowers and long grass tangling over the mound where it had been. It was the lump in the grass, the blanketed skeleton that Paul watched as he stared out the window. As if he were still waiting for survivors. As if all those little kids would come tumbling out again someday, rubbing their eyes in the bright summer light, crying for their dead parents, like the Pied Piper finally sending them home to Hamelin.
“It’s going to be a bad day,” said Paul.
“They’re all going to be bad days, from here on,” Sevita replied, watching Dan help a staggering Tom up off the luggage room floor. Paul just nodded and went on staring out at the field. Sevita left him to help Dan.
Tom wasn’t coughing anymore, but he was slow and stumbled. Sevita knew the smoke had weakened his immune system and the Plague had made huge leaps forward inside him overnight. It wouldn’t be long.
“Maybe it should jus’ be me, Boss,” he murmured as Dan helped him sit on a plastic bench. “It won’t be long now. Few hours maybe. You three might not be sick. Lemme do it. You fin’ your wife. No need for you or the others—”
“You don’t even know how to drive it,” growled Dan. “We’re a team, we do this together.”
Tom shook his head. “Waste. Jus’ put me in a straight line and jump out. Other people need you. What if there’s another exit?”
“It’s not up for discussion. We’re already doing more than anyone has a right to expect.”
Tom pointed past Dan at Sevita. “At leas’ not her. She has something to do. She needs the truck. She’s a civ anyway. Promised to help when she turned. I’ll turn first. Sorry, ‘Vita.”
The nickname jarred her like a scabbed wound suddenly opening. He wasn’t doing it on purpose, it was the slurring. It made her ache to talk to Christine again.
“This true? You have another plan?” asked Dan.
“It isn’t enough. People are going to find a way out. Others are going to find a way in. To loot, to locate relatives, for curiosity’s sake. We have to warn the outside,” said Sevita. “We have to make them afraid of coming here or of anyone coming from here. I can do that. I can also sit in the tank with you, but I won’t be much help. I’m not afraid to die,” she straightened up, defiant, as if he’d accused her of cowardice, “but I want to be useful before I do. I can make a broadcast loop. No one in the City will know. The power plant will only be able to restore half the City at most. They’ll concentrate on the hospital and the barracks, workplaces, not homes or the station. No one in the City will be listening. But peo
ple outside might. There are still working radios out there. And I can power up the station’s with the barrel of ethanol we saved. It’s not the television broadcast, but it’s something.”
Dan sagged into a chair next to Tom. “Can— can you tell my son—”
“You can tell ‘im yourself, Boss,” said Tom, “Jus’ go with her.”
He shook his head. “I should be in the tank.”
“People gonna be turning next few hours. ‘Vita needs help. Someone to watch her back while she works. Paul and I can use the tank to distract ‘em. Paul can jump out, last second. He can finish if I—”
Paul looked around at the mention of his name and came toward them. “I can finish,” he said, “The whole reason we’re doing this is to save the people outside. They have to know, they have to be warned. Otherwise, they’re going to come poking around in a few months. Go with Sevita, Boss. Make sure this isn’t all for nothing. You don’t know anything more about tanks than we do.” He dropped a hand onto Dan’s shoulder for a moment. “C’mon Tom, let’s go make sure this thing is fueled up.” Paul helped Tom up and they walked slowly toward the door.
“Walkies on,” called Dan, “We’ll be right behind you most of the way.”
Paul paused for a moment to click his small radio on. Dan looked at Sevita. “You’re sure this is necessary?”
“Who else is going to tell them? By the time the Governor admits there’s a problem, it’ll be way too late. Christine could do it, but it’ll be a while before she thinks about it. And she’ll only try to reach the Cured colony. There are dozens of little bands out there that need to be warned. We need a beacon.”
Dan nodded and stood up to go. “We need to split the ammo with the others. Just in case. You get the truck ready and… I don’t know, write your script or whatever it is you do. We’ll leave in forty-five minutes.”
Twenty-one
Stevens hacked and squinted his watering eyes against the dense smoke that swirled in the hotel archway. It stuck there, caught between the ocean breeze and the warm push of the air coming from the sunny street beyond. The Governor eyed him, as if the coughing were a personal recrimination.
“You think they’re right, don’t you Stevens?” he asked.
“Who, sir?”
“Those bleeding hearts that want to save the Cureds. The ones that came to the house the other night. You think they have a point.”
Stevens coughed to buy himself a few more seconds. “I imagine it must be very hard sir, to give up something you’ve tried for so long to protect.”
The Governor turned away from the stinking pile of wet ash to face him. “You don’t have to imagine, Stevens, you’ve been in this fight as long as I. Don’t you want to save what we can?”
“Yes, of course, sir. But how do we do that? We have to separate the Infected from people that still have a chance at immunity, but any action we take to do that will spread panic and rumor.”
The Governor tapped his cap against his knee, deep in thought. “The symptoms are too subtle for us to catch during the curfew visits. We need them to self-identify if we want to find them all.”
“But why would they, sir?”
“Exactly, Stevens. That’s the point exactly. Right now, all they know is that there’s been a chemical spill of some sort. They don’t know about the violence, because everyone involved is still in quarantine. What if we tell them that we’ve been studying a syndrome that we think is related to the spill, with the same symptoms that we are looking for?”
“There’s still no reason for them to come forward, sir. They’ll be afraid to leave their families or that exposure will mean their homes or goods have to be isolated or confiscated.”
“You obviously have something in mind, Stevens, spit it out.”
“What if we say we’ve discovered that some members of the community are suffering from malnutrition. We list the symptoms and tell the public that those who have those symptoms should report to the Farm for extra rations and evaluation by the doctors.”
The Governor shook his head. “No, that won’t work, then everyone will show up to the Farm.”
“That’s what the evaluations are for. We’ll hold one symptom back. The slurring maybe. Or the auto-cannibalism. Those that exhibit that symptom without being told to synthesize it will obviously be ill.”
“And what do we do with them once they are separated?”
Stevens shrugged. “I’m with the other guys, remember?”
“You really don’t think we can beat this?”
“Sir, the trial was over a month ago. If things went Dr. Pazzo’s way, he’d have wanted to prevent this. He may have even held the vials until the very end. But he couldn’t be certain of the date, he didn’t have that reliable of communication with Glist. He must have told him to deliver the pens either when the verdict came in or after the trial. It certainly would have been within the week. That means he and the nurse have been walking around, unaware for at least five weeks. It’s a small city sir, even a relatively reclusive person like Glist had to get his groceries at the Farm. Our service people— the messengers, the farm workers, the medical staff see every member of the town every week. Maybe within a day or two. It took eight weeks from Anne Connelly’s infection until the first worldwide Infections started popping up. A month later, the Infection was total. There were eight billion people the first time.”
The Governor nodded, staring absently into the dead cinders of the dock. “So I should just give up? Let the disease rip through us and cower in my home until the Infected find me or I succumb and eat my own people?”
“No, sir, I wouldn’t suggest that.”
“Then what do you suggest, Stevens?”
“The people that did this—” he waved toward the wreckage in the harbor, “we know where they are going. We know what they are planning.” He paused and looked directly at the Governor. “Sir, don’t stop them. Separate the Infected from those not showing symptoms, keep the healthy people safe as long as possible, We’ll put the Infected in the prison if you like. We can hole up in the Barracks, use the defenses we already have in place. But don’t let anyone leave, not until the quarantine time has passed and we know for sure who is Immune.
I know you’re angry at the Cured who left. I know you feel betrayed. But I know they understand what we’ve done for them all these years. I know they honor us in the best way they know. They have a chance. We’ve sworn to defend our countrymen from all enemies, even the domestic ones, sir. They will remember us when nobody else can. The City is dying either way. Our only choice now, is whether we want it to mean something that it lived.”
The Governor’s eyes were rimmed with red. Stevens turned away to cough the acrid smoke out and pretend he didn’t see. His cough seemed to drag the Governor from his reverie. “Let’s get out of here, Stevens. We have work to do, no matter what happens to the gate.”
Twenty-two
“Do either of them know how to drive it?” asked Sevita as she sat in the hot truck.
“Both Paul and I were trained in the basics. Neither one of us has tried to fire any of its weapons. Hopefully, it’s not necessary. I’m just glad it was easy to fuel,” said Dan.
Sevita watched the tank lurch across the tarmac. The roadbed was already deteriorating and the pressure of the tank reduced it to sparkling gray powder. Dan took a hissing breath through his teeth as the tank narrowly avoided a sinkhole that opened at its side. He thumbed the walkie talkie.
“We’ve got to go quick Paul, the road is evaporating underneath you. Avoid River Road, the culverts haven’t been repaired in years.”
“Going to take the High Street route, it’s longer, but no bridges. Moving out, Boss.”
Sevita put the truck into drive and rolled out to the road. She’d wanted to follow the tank, but looking at the rubble that spat out of its tracks, she knew there was no way the truck would survive.
“Do we stay with them?” she asked.
Dan squinted
at the tank. “No,” he sighed, “it’ll just draw attention. We’ll say goodbye here. Head toward the station and just let me do the talking if anyone stops us.” He squeezed the walkie again. “Good luck Paul, Tom. Wish there was some other way.”
“Don’t worry about us, Boss. We’ll get it right,” Tom’s voice sounded light and laughing, “All we have to do is crash the thing, I’m good at that.”
There was a burst of static and then Paul’s voice. “See you on the other side, Boss. Let the world know we did something to help.”
Dan nodded at the radio but didn’t respond. Sevita felt a sob bubbling up in her chest as he wiped his eyes. She tried to swallow it and took off down the airport road into the City.
****************
Paul peered out the slim squares of window, gradually getting used to the controls as the huge metal box rumbled down the airport road behind the truck. Tom fidgeted in his low seat. “Don’t get anxious,” said Paul, “we’ve only got one shot, I won’t have time to crawl up and load another.”
“I won’t shoot until you say,” said Tom, “I just feel uneven, seasick almost.”
“It’s this tank,” scowled Paul.
Tom smiled sadly. “Not the tank, Paul. We have to hurry. I keep getting these flashes— I’m angry, and I don’t know why.”
Paul glanced down at him, concerned. “Just a little farther, you hang in there, I need you with me.”
Tom nodded and tried to take a calming breath. Most of the City’s streets had felt claustrophobic to those that drove on them before the Plague, but the dead vehicles had been cleared away years before, and the tank rolled easily down High Street toward the gate. The deep growl of the vehicle drew people into the road after them in small clumps, their mouths open, fingers jabbing toward them as they called their neighbors over. It was only a few blocks before the military vehicles arrived, trying to cut them off.
Poveglia (After the Cure Book 4) Page 12