Generation M (The Toucan Trilogy, Book 3)

by Scott Cramer

  William stopped pacing. “There are two ways to get to Atlanta: fast or slow.”

  The door swung open, and one of Wenlan’s assistants barged in with wide eyes. “Wenlan, come here. You’ll never believe who just came in.”

  Wenlan followed her assistant out of the room.

  “Because of all the wrecks, only a motorcycle can navigate the roads,” William continued. “I can get you motorcycles and enough fuel to make it to Newark, New Jersey. I know the leader of the Ponytail Gang in Newark. Leo owes me a favor. He’ll give you gas and food, but then you’re on your own. You’ll have to deal with the White House Gang, and even if you make it past them, there are the Grits in Georgia. Have you heard about the Grits?”

  “You eat them for breakfast,” Toby said.

  “The Grits will eat you for breakfast,” William said. “They’re a super gang. The leader rides a green Harley Davidson. From the stories I’ve heard, she’s pure evil.”

  The Grits and a girl on a green motorcycle were of little concern to Abby as the cramping intensified. She worried more about her ability to ride a mile on a motorcycle, let alone a thousand miles. She hardly had the strength to stand. Even sitting on the back of a bike would be difficult. They’d have to lash her to the rider.

  She imagined the slow way was to sail down the east coast. The idea of being stuck in a boat for three-to-five days was not very appealing either. How many kids would fall victim to the Pig while they were on the way? What if the wind died?

  “Are sailing and riding the only options?” she asked William.

  Wenlan returned.

  “Who mentioned sailing?” the fuel king asked.

  “That’s the slow way, right?” Abby said.

  “Going by motorcycle is the slow way. Your other choice is to fly, but there’s only room for three of you in the plane.”

  2.12

  MYSTIC

  Even though Jordan had lugged Eddie for two hours and he had no sleep and little to eat over the past two days, he felt energized. His legs felt strong and fresh. Figuring he was about four miles from Wenlan’s clinic, he broke into an easy jog.

  Jordan wondered if the Pig was only widespread on the island and in Portland, but that hope deflated when he came across more survivors catching insects in a meadow, while other kids, armed with bats and rocks, guarded the field. They eyed him warily as he passed by.

  Jordan spotted The Port’s antennae a mile away. He remembered his last visit to the station. DJ Silver owned a bicycle. The Port was half a mile out of his way, but he decided the time he could save on a bike would make it worth checking out.

  He reached the station in less than an hour and pumped his fist when he saw a bicycle. One tire was flat, but most bike owners had repair kits. The generator next to the building was running, leading him to believe that DJ Silver was inside.

  He stepped inside, greeted by DJ Silver’s voice crackling over the speaker mounted in the reception area. He stopped to listen.

  “For real, dudes and dudettes. Call it what you want, the Pig or AHA-B, the germs are everywhere. The adults have known about it for months. They’ve developed an antibiotic and are only giving it to their precious seeds for a new society. You heard me, seeds for a new society. Those are the kids who live in the colonies. What about us? I’m afraid we’re out of luck, big time.”

  Jordan shook his head to make sure he was awake. DJ Silver only dedicated songs. The Port only played music. Now, the DJ was talking about the Pig?

  Jordan moved to the window to look into the control room. DJ Silver, kicked back in a chair with his feet propped up on the desk, had the mic to his lips.

  “We can do something about it. They can make pills in Atlanta. I want every single one of you to go to Atlanta. Tell your family and friends to go there. Demand that the adults make pills for us.”

  A boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, stood next to him, scribbling on a piece of paper. He handed the paper to DJ Silver.

  “Late breaking news,” DJ Silver said into the microphone. “The Pig doesn’t kill everyone, but if everyone riots, everyone will be killed. Share your food.”

  Jordan stepped inside the control room. Immediately, DJ Silver sat forward and put the mic down. He stared at Jordan. The other boy also stared, giving him a funny look.

  DJ Silver grinned and shook his head. “Cool. We’re having a Leigh family reunion here.”

  2.13

  EMORY CAMPUS

  An ember of agitation burned in Doctor Perkins’s chest as he peered out his second-story office window, surveying the grounds of what was once part of Emory University.

  Perkins could not pull his eyes from the perimeter fence. Some type of green material was affixed to it. A section had ripped, and he could see ragged-looking survivors gawking at them. Did guards even patrol the area along the colony perimeter? Under normal circumstances, a six-foot high fence topped with razor wire would serve as a deterrent, but the desperation of the survivors increased by the day.

  Lieutenant Mathews’s voice crackled on his walkie-talkie. “Doctor Perkins.”

  Perkins brought the radio to his lips. “I was about to contact you.”

  “There’s something you should see, sir. A communication we picked up from a radio station in Mystic.”

  After signing off, Perkins retreated to his desk and reminded himself that compared to the day’s biggest event, all these problems were minor. Earlier, four planes had safely transported the seeds of the new society to Atlanta from Colony East.

  Mathews entered his office five minutes later and passed him a transcript.

  DJ Silver says be cool. Dudes, the adults are giving us the shaft. They have a cure for the Pig, but they don’t want you to know it. They want us to die or kill each other over food. Are we gonna let that happen? No way. Dudes, listen to Silvy. The adults have gone to Atlanta.

  Perkins crumpled the paper and dropped it into the trash. “Dawson?”

  “It has to be,” Mathews said.

  “What’s the range of the station?”

  Mathews maintained a steely expression. “About a sixty-mile radius during the day. At night, someone could pick it up from several hundred miles away.”

  Perkins drummed his fingers, pleased with the idea that popped into his mind. “Start up the CDC station. Inform the survivors that we are making progress on the development of an antibiotic, and we expect to begin distribution soon. Tell them to stay indoors and wait for further updates.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t call it the Pig. It’s the AHA-B mutation syndrome. I abhor sloppy scientific terminology.”

  Mathews nodded. “Don’t worry about Dawson.”

  Perkins tented his fingers. “He’s a thousand miles away, and he has three thousand useless sugar pills, but he’s proven he can still be a thorn in our sides. It’s prudent to remain wary.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I can handle him.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Now, for more important matters. The security here is appalling. I want you to prepare the bunker to house everyone on campus. We should plan to stay there for up to two months.”

  “When do you want to make the move?”

  “ASAP.”

  Mathews saluted and headed for the door.

  “Lieutenant,” he called before she exited. “I told Doctor Hoffer to inform the staff that Admiral Samuels had a massive heart attack. Hoffer asked if I was planning to hold a memorial service. I thought you should know.”

  “A memorial service is an excellent idea, sir.”

  Perkins studied her face. It was a mask of pure composure. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she had gunned down her commanding officer, and she seemed pleased to hold a memorial service for him.

  “Have a seat,” he said, wanting to find out what made Mathews tick. “I bet you didn’t know I had an identical twin brother? His name was Donald. We were inseparable. We played chess together. Our parents gave us an ant farm.”

  In the ch
air, Mathews sat ramrod straight with the cold eyes of an assassin.

  “Sadly, we were born with a heart condition known as Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome. Our hearts had an extra circuit. For those with the syndrome, electrical signals sometimes travel down an abnormal pathway that stimulates the ventricles to contract prematurely. The heart races, pumping less and less blood. Three hundred beats per minute are not uncommon.

  “Donald went into cardiac arrest and died at the age of ten. The year after his death, medical researchers at Princeton developed a procedure to burn the extra circuit. I had the procedure performed on me, and my heart has beaten steadily ever since. My grief has never left me. It ages like wine.

  “I came away from that experience with a revelation. Science can end suffering. The greatest crime of humanity would be to sit idly by as we lose the foundation of our knowledge. That’s what drives me to ensure the success of Generation M. Lieutenant, do you believe in God?”

  “Yes, I do believe in God.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” Perkins said, “but if there is a higher power, I’ve fancied that He created the Perkins twins for a reason. If one of us failed, the other could carry on and complete the mission. We were a redundant system, so to speak. What about you, Lieutenant? Has a life event shaped your direction? What motivates you?”

  “I like to win.”

  Perkins waited for more, but her stare unnerved him. “Very well, then. Both Generation M and I are counting on your winning ways, Captain Mathews.”

  That got a grin out of the assassin.

  2.14

  MYSTIC

  Abby trembled in fear as she stood before the red and white airplane. The wing was above the cockpit. There were two seats up front and two in the back.

  As much as her stomach hurt, it seemed risky to fly to Atlanta at any time, but with only one hour of daylight left, it seemed suicidal.

  The plane’s pilot was Maggie, a fourteen-year-old girl with blonde pigtails. William had introduced her as his best pilot.

  “How far have you flown before?” Mark asked the pilot.

  “I’ve gone to Providence,” Maggie replied.

  Providence was north. The round trip there and back was around a hundred miles. Atlanta was a thousand miles south.

  Maggie flipped through the pages of a road atlas. “We’ll fly low and follow the major highways. We’ll need to land once to refuel.”

  “At night?” Toby asked in a tone of concern.

  “The moon’s out,” Maggie replied.

  “What if it gets cloudy?” Mark asked.

  Maggie shrugged. “We turn around and land where we can.”

  Her tone of confidence put Abby a little more at ease.

  “The plane cruises at a hundred and thirty miles per hour and has a range of seven hundred miles,” Mark said, reading from a manual he had found in the cockpit. “We could land at Ronald Reagan airport in Washington DC. After refueling, we can fly all the way to Atlanta.”

  “No problem,” Maggie said with a gleam in her eye.

  “It says you need fifty meters of runway to take off,” Mark went on. “We’re carrying a lot of extra weight. How long is this runway?”

  Abby looked down the straight stretch of Route 1 that had been cleared of trucks and cars. There was an overpass at the end. Imagining the plane slamming into the bridge, the shred of calmness she had evaporated.

  “Sixty meters,” William chimed.

  The color drained from Maggie’s cheeks. “We’re not going to let a little bridge stop us, are we?” After a long beat of silence, she added, “Good. Let’s hit the sky.”

  “Help me get in, please,” Abby said to Toby, feeling her legs were about to give out.

  He furrowed his brow. “Abby, I think we should wait until morning.”

  She didn’t have the energy to argue. “Fine, I’ll get in myself.”

  Scrunching his brow at her stubbornness, he hooked his arm around her waist, and just in time, because Abby felt her knees buckle. Soon, she was sitting in the back, fastening her seatbelt.

  Mark, Maggie, and Toby loaded the supplies into the plane’s cargo bay. William had provided them with thirty gallons of aviation gasoline in five separate cans, as well as drinking water, a few potatoes, a fully charged car battery, flashlights, and a tool kit. If they made it to Atlanta, they could use any leftover aviation gas in an automobile.

  Abby saw William give a handgun to Mark. Toby saw the gun, too. Without saying a word, Mark slipped it into his pack and climbed into the co-pilot’s seat.

  “Who says you’re sitting up front?” Toby said.

  “Do you know how to fly?” Mark asked.

  “No, do you?” Toby challenged.

  Mark shook his head.

  “Toby, sit next to me,” Abby said. Every second they argued delayed them.

  Keeping his eye on Mark, Toby said, “Just so you know, I’m letting you sit up front.”

  He buckled in next to Abby and held her hand.

  “Look after Sarah, please,” Mark said to William. “I think she’ll start to improve soon. Make sure she drinks plenty of water. Bettina should stay with Sarah. As soon as we start manufacturing pills, I’ll come back to get her.”

  “Bring lots of pills with you,” William said.

  After the fuel king had moved back from the plane, Maggie pushed a silver button on the console in front of her and the engine coughed to life. Through the spinning propeller, Abby saw the overpass ahead of them.

  Maggie coaxed a knob forward, revving the engine. The whole plane vibrated and then started to roll. Maggie eased the knob back. The plane turned, and she taxied to the end of the runway. She was going to need every available inch of runway to clear the bridge.

  Toby squeezed Abby’s hand so hard it hurt, and Mark stared straight ahead with a clenched jaw.

  “I have a confession,” Maggie said. “William has better pilots, but none of them would take you. I volunteered because I believe in what you are doing.”

  She pushed the knob all the way forward. Shuddering and shaking, aching to fly, the plane didn’t budge. When Maggie released the brakes, they lurched forward.

  Wishing to keep her eyes open, but not wanting to look at the approaching bridge, Abby focused on what had once been a Jiffy Lube shop. When it passed by, she knew the bridge was getting close. The wheels were still rumbling along the ground.

  Abby’s heart hammered in her chest as the milliseconds ticked by. They were going fast, and she figured they were now past the point of no return, and it was too late to brake.

  The wheels lifted off the ground, and the nose of the plane reared back, pushing Abby against her seat. All she saw was sky straight ahead. Looking out the side window, she realized they were climbing almost vertically. The bridge passed beneath her, then a horn started blaring, sounding like an alarm clock.

  “We’re going to stall,” Mark shouted.

  The nose dropped, and Abby felt weightless. The horn silenced and the plane leveled off. They started climbing gradually.

  “I’ve known a lot of aircraft carrier jet pilots, and very few of them could have flown like that,” Mark said.

  “You are the best pilot and the bravest,” Abby added.

  The coastline came into view, and she settled back in her seat as they sped toward Atlanta at a hundred and thirty miles per hour. All that separated her from Touk was a brave pilot flying them a thousand miles through the night.

  2.15

  MYSTIC

  In The Port’s parking lot, Jordan pumped up the tires of DJ Silver’s bike.

  The story Jonzy Billings had told him had stirred up every emotion imaginable, but rage and hope seemed to float to the top.

  Finished pumping the tires, Jordan took a spin around the parking lot and pulled up to Jonzy.

  “After I get help for my friend, Eddie, want to come to Atlanta with me and Spike?” Jordan asked.

  The way Spike felt about Toucan, Jordan was sure he would j
oin him.

  Jonzy grinned. “You bet. We can start up radio stations along the way.”

  The boys agreed to meet at Wenlan’s later on.

  Jordan pedaled away, still in shock that he had come so close to seeing Abby.

  Gravity was his friend on the first leg of the ride to the clinic. Praying the tires held up, he cruised down the hill fast enough to feel the tug on his scalp as the wind blew his hair back.

  Gravity exacted its toll as he struggled to climb up a steep incline. With the hill amplifying his fatigue, he hopped off the bike and pushed it, slowly trudging up the hill. When he reached the crest, he pedaled his brains out, all the way to Wenlan’s.

  A crowd had formed two blocks from the clinic. Kids, sick with the Pig, filled the street and formed a bottleneck at the clinic’s front door.

  Jordan ditched the bike and went to the back door. It was locked. Eddie’s life was more important than the glass in the door, but just as Jordan was about to smash it with a rock, he saw a window on the first floor slightly ajar.

  He piled cinder blocks on the ground beneath the window, stood on them, opened the window wider, and launched himself inside. Halfway in, with the sill digging into his stomach, he saw two beds with patients in them. It took him a moment to recognize the girl with dark hair: Cee Cee, Wenlan’s twelve-year-old sister. The other girl was a toddler.

  Jordan wormed his way into the room and tiptoed over to Cee Cee. Not wanting to frighten her, he whispered, “Cee Cee, it’s me, Jordan.”

  Cee Cee’s lids barely lifted, revealing watery, bloodshot eyes. His stomach dropped when he rested his hand on hers. Cee Cee was burning up with fever. She looked as bad as Kenny had.

  Cee Cee closed her eyes. If she had recognized him, she hadn’t shown it in any way.

  Jordan rested his hand on the toddler’s forehead. She, too, was suffering from a high fever.

  His heart pounded as he stepped into the hallway, figuring he‘d find Wenlan taking care of patients and passing out the pills that Abby, Toby, Jonzy, and the adult had given her.