The Nirvana Plague

by Gary Glass

  But she understood some of it. She could hear in it some echoes of his scientific training. And echoes of other things too — of mystical religious rants from some dry “history of religion” course she’d had in college way back when, and also of more recent conversations overheard in student pubs — smart, smug little brainiacs holding forth in their intensely dreary way about the metaphysics of politics, or the politics of metaphysics, or some damn thing.

  Still, she didn’t trust the connections she was making. She knew she wasn’t half getting his point. But she knew with perfect certainty that this time, this time, at last, he actually had a definite point, a real point, which he was struggling to express — and she to grasp.

  Roger talked for an hour, till the sun was up and their little apartment was bright again.

  She couldn’t remember how long it had been since they had talked together this much. The more he talked the more emotional she became. She remembered how she missed him, how she admired him. The smartest man she’d ever known. And she missed him laughing at her jokes. He got her as no one else did. He saw through her as no one else had. He’d always known, when no one else did, that she’d always been mocking herself when she mocked everyone else.

  The power did not come back on, but the stove was gas, so she put on a pot of water to boil for tea and broke some eggs into a skillet — all the while keeping him talking over her shoulder. He was coming back from wherever he had been and she wanted him back. But he was coming back different too. This was not that same Roger she’d known then. This man had come unstuck from him. That Roger, her Roger, was really dead now. She cried a little as she scrambled the eggs, but kept him from seeing it.

  And then someone knocked hard on the door, and she jumped. She saw the cat go skidding around the end of the counter into the bedroom, and heard from beyond the door a man’s deep voice:

  “Mrs. Sturgeon! Open up, please!”

  Chapter 22

  It was dark by the time they reached the carrier. An officer met them on the deck and handed Benford a tablet.

  “Orders from Washington, sir. As soon as you’re cleaned up, we have a conference room set up for you to make your call.”

  He led them to their quarters below decks.

  Marley had a small stateroom to himself. The other bed would have been Tennover’s. Marley peeled off his filthy soldier garb and slipped into the cramped little shower. The hot water felt like a blessing from God. He enjoyed less than two minutes of this bliss before someone came rapping on the shower stall door.

  It was the young lieutenant who’d been assigned as Peters’ aide. He was a tall, good-looking kid. But he had a hectic look in his eyes. He had a clean blue jumpsuit over his arm.

  “I’ve been reassigned to you, sir,” he said without smiling. “We’re all very sorry about Lieutenant Tennover. He was a friend of mine.”

  “Yes.” Marley rubbed the water out of his eyes. “Sorry, what’s your name again?”

  “Lieutenant Friedlander, sir.”

  Friedlander handed him a towel.

  Marley hadn’t seen him since the night of the attack on Camp Alkarbah. Friedlander had spent that night fighting alongside the camp forces while Tennover and the civilian members of the taskforce had been holed up in the tomb with the “bambies.” Looking in his face now, Marley wondered if Friedlander had ever seen action before that night.

  “What’s your first name, Lieutenant?”

  “Mark, sir.”

  “I need to call my wife, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir.” Friedlander held out the jumpsuit. “The team is assembling in the conference room, sir.”

  Friedlander led him to a crowded meeting room, where he found the rest of the team — Benford, Delacourt, Sikora, DiGrandi, and Wenslau — already seated around a cramped table under glaring ceiling lights — everyone except Fred Peters.

  Delacourt greeted him warmly: “I’m so glad to see you’re all right!” she said.

  He took a seat beside her. The aides stood around them, crowded up against the grey soundproofed walls. The screen on the wall was empty, except for the words Waiting for party to connect.

  “We’re just about to start,” Benford said. “Waiting for General Harden’s office. It’s still morning there.”

  “Where?” Marley said.

  “Washington.”

  “What time is it here?”

  “Nineteen-hundred hours.”

  “Why are they on morning time and we’re on military time?” Sikora said.

  “Let’s keep this professional, please,” Benford said wearily.

  “Who’s General Harden?” Marley said.

  “My boss.”

  “I need to call my wife, colonel.”

  “Of course. Right after the meeting.”

  Delacourt poured a cup of tea for him from a pot on the table. “You look well,” she said to him privately.

  “Thanks. Not much damage done.”

  “Sorry about Tennover.”

  “How’s Fred?”

  “Physically, he’s fine. Quarantined.”

  “You saw him? He wasn’t hurt?”

  “Yes, I saw him. He wasn’t injured. He came in on one of the flights this morning. Along with the other IDD cases from the camp.”

  “I saw it happen to him. I saw him lose his mind. You can actually see it happen.”

  She studied him sympathetically.

  He looked away. He felt shaky.

  The wallscreen lit up at last and descrambled into a view of a large, paneled conference room. Several men and women in suits sat round a varnished semi-circular table facing the screen. Electronic nametags appeared above each head.

  General Harden, in uniform, sat in the middle. He quickly introduced the participants on his side of the world.

  Benford introduced her team members to them.

  General Harden, briefly but more or less effectively, expressed his regret over the unfortunate turn of events to which some members of the taskforce had been subjected. Then he turned the meeting over to someone named Linney sitting next to him. Harden’s nametag dimmed, and Linney’s lit as she started talking:

  “As some of you know by now, we believe the incidence of IDD has increased significantly in the past two days. It’s difficult to get reliable numbers, of course, but we’re pretty confident about the trend. Dr. Lang’s latest epi curve makes the point pretty clearly.”

  She signaled to someone off screen and a second later the graphic appeared.

  “That spike you see yesterday represents, obviously, the biggest one-day gain we’ve seen,” she said.

  Benford said, “Anything you’d like to add, Dr. Lang?”

  “I’ve only just updated these numbers about an hour ago,” Dr. Lang said, her pretty voice making a little song of it. “I’d like to point out that the figures for the 13th, the last day shown here, that is today, are probably incomplete, since the 13th is still in progress. But I have included it to show that even with the count we already have for today, the number is already higher than any day previous, except, of course, for yesterday’s remarkable spike.”

  The graphic shrank up to a corner of the screen, out of the way.

  “Well,” Benford said, “if anyone was harboring any remaining doubts about whether what we’re looking at is a real epidemic, I think this data has to be considered proof positive.”

  “Agreed,” Linney said.

  “General Harden,” Benford said, “what we’ve seen in the Karakoram theatre over the past few days has convinced me that this thing is not a weaponized chemical or biological agent. Even if the origin is biochem technology — for which we have no good evidence, of course — it’s obviously loose in the wild now. We saw with our own eyes what we believe to be at least twenty-five cases of it among the guerilla units that captured us, and we also learned there are many more of them elsewhere. I think we should assume that the enemy is getting hit by this thing at least as hard as we are.”

&
nbsp; Harden frowned. “So the good news is it’s not what we thought it was. And the bad news is that it’s not what we thought it was.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s about the size of it. We know it’s not a weapon, but we don’t know what it is.”

  “Pathogenetic organism?” Linney said.

  “I can’t think of any other possibility,” Benford said.

  “But?” Harden said.

  “But it’s hard to see how it could be an infectious disease. It doesn’t fit any known incidence pattern.”

  “Agreed,” Lang said. “It’s too widespread to have a short incubation period. And it’s spreading too fast to have a long one.”

  Tired and impatient, Marley said flatly: “It’s not a pathogen.”

  “It’s too soon to say that definitively,” Benford said.

  “Whatever it is,” Harden said, “wherever it came from, the first thing to decide is what are we going to do about it? How are we going to stop it?”

  “Standard containment protocols,” Linney said.

  “We’re already doing that,” Delacourt said. “Isn’t the CDC already doing that?”

  “We need to take it to the next level,” Harden said.

  “It won’t work,” Marley said.

  Harden’s head tilted toward Marley’s image. “What will work, Dr., uh, Marley?”

  Marley was so bone-tired he hardly registered Harden’s obvious annoyance. “It won’t work because it’s not an infection. You’re not containing anything.”

  “We’re containing the outbreak,” Harden snapped back.

  “Yes,” Linney said, “whatever it is, and however it spreads, isolation will stop it, if anything can.”

  “Agreed,” Lang said with a defiant nod.

  “Colonel?” — Harden wanted to make sure he had Benford’s buy-in.

  Benford glanced at Marley. She looked nearly as exhausted as he did.

  “At this point,” she said, “I don’t see anything else we can do.”

  “Period?”

  “Sir?”

  “Thirty days?”

  “Yes, sir. That sounds reasonable.”

  Vaguely, Marley wondered what they were talking about.

  He felt Delacourt’s hand on his arm, supporting him. It felt odd. He must sound even worse than he felt.

  “All right,” Harden said decisively. “I’m going to be speaking with Secretary Pritzker in a few minutes. I’m going to recommend to him that the CDC be given approval to amplify current quarantine orders to implement mandatory isolation for all known cases of IDD and thirty-day quarantine for all suspected cases and for anyone who has been in direct contact with a known case within the last thirty days.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, that’s how we plan to get it under control. How are we going to kill it?”

  After the meeting Marley returned to his quarters. Friedlander brought him a comm phone and jacked it into a wall plug. Each team member was getting eight minutes of “personal air time” to call home. Friedlander waited outside while Marley called. Marley gave the officer on the line his home number and waited while he placed the call. Ally was already crying when she came on the line.

  “Carl!”

  “Don’t cry, Al,” he said. “I’m all right.”

  “You don’t sound all right,” Ally said.

  “Well, I’ve been through … something.”

  Marley leaned back against the wall. The windowless little stateroom seemed to be shrinking around him. The bunk under him felt like a slab of ice. There was a clock on the wall. Almost 8:00 o’clock. AM or PM? PM. Benford had said it was — something-hundred. Evening anyway.

  “Are you still there?” Ally said.

  “Yes. I’m here. I’m only allowed eight minutes to talk. I haven’t had much sleep in … in — what day is it now?”

  “It’s Saturday, Carl. I haven’t slept either!” She was starting to cry again. “I thought I’d—” she stammered, “I thought you’d — Can you imagine what it’s like to get a message like that?”

  “A message?” he said.

  “Yes! Dear Mrs. Marley, we regret to inform you we’ve lost your husband!”

  “I’m so sorry. I’m sure it’s been—”

  “When are you coming home?”

  “I can’t come home, Ally. We’re all quarantined.”

  “What? Quarantined?” She stopped crying suddenly. “Who is? For what? For IDD?”

  “Yes. Everyone. Everyone who has had contact. Everyone is being isolated.”

  “For how long?”

  “Thirty days.”

  “Thirty days!”

  “Yes. It’s worse than we thought. It’s getting worse. That’s why we’re increasing the quarantine level. It’s—”

  “When did this get decided?”

  “Just now. I just came from the meeting.”

  He felt like the wall was giving way behind him. He seemed to be getting gradually more horizontal. He fought to pay attention to the conversation. The phone handset felt like a lead brick in his hand. He noticed a knot in the cord on the way to the wall jack.

  “Carl, are you still there?”

  “Yes! Yes, I’m here.”

  “Where are you? Where are you staying for thirty days?”

  “I’m on a ship. Carrier.”

  “You’re staying on an aircraft carrier for thirty days?”

  “No, Al. Not on the ship. They’re going to set up a special, a special unit, or something. A special facility. We’re going there to, to…”

  “Where is it?”

  “We’re going there to work on the problem.”

  “Where?”

  “I can’t tell you. Anyway, I forget.”

  “What hemisphere?”

  Friedlander came back into the room. “Time, sir.”

  “I have to go now,” Marley said.

  “No!” she said.

  “Al,” he said, his voice breaking, “I love you. I hope you still love me. I miss you—”

  The line was cut. Eight minutes to the millisecond.

  “Mrs. Sturgeon! Open up, please!”

  Roger stopped talking and stood up from his barstool. “I’m sorry,” he said, very solemnly — and fear swept through her.

  “Mrs. Sturgeon! Open up, please!”

  She walked toward the door slowly. Why were they yelling? How did they get in the building? — The power was off! She guessed who it was, of course. She stalled for time.

  “I’m Ms. Hanover. There’s no Mrs. Sturgeon here. Who are you?”

  “This is the Board of Health! Open up!”

  She looked around at the window. Fire escape? This is crazy! “Just a minute!” she yelled back, frightened and angry.

  “Now, please!”

  She heard them trying the door. Bastards.

  She kicked the cushions, blankets, and pillows aside, and put her hand on the lock and the knob. She could feel the tension of a hand on the other side of the knob.

  “What is it?” she yelled.

  “We have a court order.” A different voice. Sounded like DeStefano. “You are required to open this door, ma’am.”

  She turned the lock and let them push the door open.

  Two police officers and DeStefano, the Board of Health officer, stood in the hall, crowded close to the door.

  “What’s the problem?” she said, scared, unsteady.

  DeStefano stuck out a paper at her. “This is an order from the Centers for Disease Control, authorized by the county court, compelling you to surrender your husband to us.”

  She ignored the offered paper. “What the hell for?”

  “Your husband has to be isolated.”

  “He is isolated!”

  “Also, Mrs. Sturgeon, you are ordered to remain in mandatory quarantine in your apartment for thirty days.”

  The three men pushed forward, and she stepped back involuntarily.

  “He can stay here with me,” she said.

  “
No, he can’t.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Just tell him to come with us, ma’am,” one of the officers said.

  “No. I refuse. I want to talk to your supervisor first.”

  “If you refuse to comply,” DeStefano said, “you will be arrested for failure to comply with a court order. If you attempt to prevent us from removing your husband from the premises you will be charged with interfering with an officer.”

  “I want to talk to your supervisor first.”

  “You can call your attorney or anyone you like,” DeStefano said, “but we’re taking your husband anyway. Now tell him to come with us, please.”

  But Roger was already coming up to them, ready to go. Docile as a dog. The officers backed away from the door.

  “Where are you taking him?”

  “To the hospital.”

  “What fucking hospital, for Christ’s sake?”

  “County General.”

  “Why not Joplin where the others are?”

  “Because that’s what the CDC told us to do.”

  Roger went out into the hallway.

  The officers followed him.

  Helplessly, Karen watched them go. Something inside her collapsed. It was like they were taking him to his death. Suddenly she felt very dizzy.

  DeStefano turned back to close the door.

  She leapt forward, blocking the door open. “No!” she cried. “Wait!” She grabbed his arm as he reached for the knob.

  He jerked away from her. “Hey!”

  He was scared.

  “Wait!” she said. “Wait! Let him stay here with me! He can stay with me! Why can’t he just stay with me?”

  Roger stopped at the head of the stair, looking back at her, the half smile on his face, and an odd light in his eyes.

  “He’ll be all right,” DeStefano said, backing away from her.

  She followed him out into the hall, pleading with him.

  “Just let him stay here. Please! Listen! I know how to take care of him! I can make him stay in. He won’t leave!”

  The police officers pushed Roger forward again. He started down the steps slowly, still looking back at Karen. DeStefano went last, descending backwards — like he was afraid to turn his back on Karen.