by Tom Calen
For Nieves to mention the gossip to Paul, it must have been more than just ‘some of the boys’ talking. They could read a map as well as he could; there were few islands left worth searching for survivors. Combined with the talk from the National Council regarding fuel preservation, he also wondered if the S&R team was embarking on its last mission.
When he had met with Reed earlier that week, Paul had hoped to obtain a more credible and definitive answer, but the man had simply pushed the question off.
“You’ve done great work with the squad, son,” Reed had replied. Even a simple compliment from the weathered man carried a force of irrefutable authority. In his late fifties, Reed’s face could have been carved from stone save for the numerous lines that age had drawn. His eyes were always intent and carried the weight and wealth of knowledge. With a voice of gravel, it was hard to distinguish between the man’s lighter and darker moods. Not one to crack a joke, nor raise his voice in anger, his even tempered persona added even greater gravity to him. Towering over most around him, and remarkably solid for his age, Nathan Reed was all that a general of the army should be.
“Thank you, sir,” Paul said. “I only ask because we’ve been hearing…”
“I know,” Reed said, cutting him off. “The Council can’t seem to control their leaks.”
Unexpectedly, the general leaned across the desk, and his voice dropped to a conspiratorial level that made him almost inaudible.
“I don’t think I can get them to OK another island mission, but something has come across my desk that I think might interest you and your team.”
Returning to his previous position and volume, the general indicated an end to the conversation when he said, “When you get back from Turks, we’ll talk.”
Though not specified as a confidential meeting, Paul was hesitant to discuss the conversation with Nieves based on the tone Reed had adopted.
With full honesty, Paul answered Nieves. “I don’t know what’s coming next, but for now we have a job to do. That’s our focus.”
“Agreed.”
As Nieves left the room, Paul began to gather his own paperwork from the small desk he had occupied during the briefing. He knew that regardless of what the general may be planning, if the team returned from Turks and Caicos without any survivors Reed would have a very difficult time convincing the National Council to authorize further expeditions.
With his material indelicately stuffed into his briefcase, Paul exited the room, pausing briefly to turn off the lights. As his hand moved the switch down, he smiled to himself. What a difference a year makes.
Chapter Two
Sitting in the soft leather of the conference room chair, Michelle Lafkin struggled to keep her focus on the discussion in which the National Council subcommittee now engaged. The various assistants and deputies were once again debating the plan for the looming planting season. The group of twelve was evenly divided in how best to utilize the recently found caches of seeds retrieved from S&R’s expedition to the Cayman Islands. If she thought the small leadership council in the Great Smoky Mountains had struggled to reach consensus, it was nothing compared to the bureaucracy and self-interest which plagued the National Council of New Cuba. While she enjoyed the work, Michelle still felt herself a novice in dealing with the political intrigues of a formal government. There were times when she caught herself thinking that survival in the wild had been markedly easier.
In the year since she and her fellow refugees had reached the sanctuary of New Cuba, Michelle quickly immersed herself in the established government of the island. Perhaps more so than her companions, she had adapted to the civilized lifestyle with relatively minor missteps.
After being released from quarantine, she had set out to become an active member of the vast society. She soon secured herself a position as the Deputy Assistant Director of Agriculture to the Councilor from the Southeastern United States. She laughed to herself whenever she thought of the verbose title; in the wild she had just been known as Michelle who managed the food.
The position, just two levels removed from the Councilor himself, was an enormous source of pride. It had seemed unlikely the years scavenging for food and surviving in the mountains would have prepared her so well for employment in a structured government, but her superiors had quickly recognized her ability—despite her youth—in maintaining a thriving refugee camp for so long a time. At first Michelle balked at what she thought was an outrageous description of the refugees as “thriving.” In time, however, she saw firsthand the condition of other survivors whenever Paul Jenson’s S&R team proved successful. Sallow skin stretched thinly over bones, the rail-thin frames of the malnourished had initially shocked her. The refugees with whom she had arrived were in peak physical condition compared to the broken bodies which had joined the city in the past year. So many suffered not only from a severe lack of food, but were also plagued with a variety of illnesses and diseases that had kept the medical crews quite busy.
Knowing she was helping to provide them with better conditions than they had previously known was reward enough for sitting through yet another contentious meeting.
Whenever she grew dismayed with the political infighting she had but to recall the faces in each new band of refugees, and she also drew strength from her own battles with adversity. In the wild, each dawn carried with it the threat of death and defeat. Every action and decision risked the lives of those she had grown to consider as family. Even when she and the refugees had been just miles from safety, she felt the ever present danger that had become intrinsic to daily life.
That final day had been the closest she had ever come to completely losing faith in survival. In the stillness of a quiet moment, she could still recall the hopelessness that had engulfed her as bullets had torn through the air, felling many of her friends. Where so many days of the past were now a blur of memory, the moments before boarding the ship to Cuba were captured in their entirety.
She had been at the head of the group as they made their way along the vehicular barricade on the road. It had seemed a minor thing when she saw Mike Allard accompany Lisa Velazquez to the rear of the party to confer with a member of the security team. With the intermittent rain that day, the first blast of gunfire was assumed to be thunder. But one blast was immediately followed by another and another until the screams of her companions rivaled the volume of the shooting.
It was Andrew Weyland who had slammed her into the ground, covering her body with his own, a human shield against the deadly onslaught from unseen attackers. Glass and metal were torn from the cars and trucks around them as the massive shots flew through the air. At that point, hope still lingered as she watched the armed refugees return fire. She had struggled to her knees behind an old station wagon in order to join the defense. Michelle could still recall the pain that ripped through her when she tried to reach for her weapon with her right arm. Confusion embraced her when she found no wound, dissipating with the realization that her shoulder was dislocated.
Andrew was shouting something to her, but whether from the shock or the shells, his words failed to reach her ears. With his back pressed hard against the car’s door, she saw the panic on his face as he continued shouting and firing his handgun. Though her surroundings were askew, something about Andrew seemed wrong to her. Her eyes quickly scanned his chest and limbs, but found no injury. Then she understood what had struck her as odd; Andrew was aiming behind them, and not at their attackers. Turning herself around, she felt the last remnants of hope leech from her body. A wall of diseased forms, heads cocked awkwardly to their shoulders, the Tils bore down on them with blind greed and rapacity. Hundreds, her mind shouted. No, thousands!
Her view of the infected soon blurred as fires began to spread across their path. The flames engulfed the vehicles that sat idly, creating a wall of smoke and fire that burned her eyes and throat. Whether from heat or despair, Michelle could feel the tears streak down the sides of her face.
Forms began to
emerge from the inferno. The Tils, unhindered by pain or fear, continued their steady, unrelenting march. She felt her stomach turn as their flesh sizzled in the damp air. The stench forced the contents of her stomach to rush out of her mouth. A feeling of ice in her veins kept her body frozen as the burning figures approached. Smaller groups of torched infected broke off from the main force and swarmed around her companions. The fire that burned flesh and muscle would not stop the Tils from feeding.
Surrounded by enemies, human and Til, Michelle accepted that after six years of struggle, her end had come. The pounding fear in her chest soon became a drumming calmness. Using her left hand to retrieve her gun, she began a rapid succession of trigger pulling. Faced with death, a voice inside her demanded that her death not be so cheaply bought. She would exact a costly toll from her enemies until her last breath was drawn.
With the distance of twelve months, Michelle was now able to look back and remember the serenity that had coursed through her in those final moments. The world—with its horror, its unforgiving hate—melted away. The cacophonous deluge of gunfire evaporated until all that existed were the sounds of her weapon firing. She had barely felt the strength of Andrew’s arms as he tried to lift her from the ground. Finally she was able to hear his words, “We broke through their line,” but they held little meaning for her. Even as he dragged her into a run with him, she still held the gun before her, squeezing the trigger though she had long since emptied the clip.
It was not until her feet felt the rolling deck of the ship that she had realized her surroundings. Death had been so near that she had believed it had already taken her. Her eyes glanced around the ship. Men scrambled across the deck, men she did not recognize. But there were other faces, faces to which she could put names. Lisa, Erik, Paul, and…Derrick? Finally she saw Mike, his still body lying on the floor as blood pulsed fitfully from his abdomen. Above his pale form stood Paul and…Derrick, yes, it was Derrick. The latter shook his head solemnly before he turned and vaulted over the stern, disappearing into the chaos. As the ship motored its way across the sea, Michelle’s senses returned to her and she understood that once more she had survived.
They only travelled some hundred miles across the water that day, yet the distance could not have been greater between beginning and destination. They had left a land of death and arrived in a city that brimmed with life. She often wondered how the refugees looked to those that witnessed their arrival to the island. Huddled close in tight masses, they had walked with wounds and fear down the metal stairs that had been rolled up to the side of the ship. The residents kept their distance while also keeping their eyes glued to the disembarking procession. Michelle had marveled at the stark contrast that was immediately evident between her past and new present. The city held all the sights and smells of life that she had come to forget over the past six years.
The easily overlooked hum of electricity blended smoothly with the low grumble of car engines and foot traffic. Wafting scents of cooking meals and burning fuels reached her on the salted air. As her eyes scanned the incalculable movements before her, Michelle could not help but flinch from its dizzying unfamiliarity.
“So many people,” she mumbled to no one.
The forced quarantine was a necessary precaution, but the refugees readily welcomed it, as it allowed them time to process events both past and future. Mike had been rushed to an operating room within the secure facility and a team of surgeons spent the better part of a day bringing him back from the darkness. By the time Michelle and her companions were allowed to leave, Mike’s colored had returned and the doctors believed him to be cleared from danger.
The next weeks had been a steady blur of orientations, tours, and welcome gatherings. Residences were selected and furnished, jobs offered and begun, and life managed to ease back to what was once considered normal.
Now, one short year later, Michelle Lafkin found herself struggling to keep her eyes focused as the subcommittee meeting wound to a close. She realized that she had not been listening for the better part of the last hour, but she likewise understood that no decision was to be made today. As she had quickly learned, no decision in politics was made until it was utterly necessary.
Thankful to return to the quiet seclusion of her own office, Michelle scribbled several reminders of tasks that had been discussed in the overly long conference. Though the island had sufficient power, few but the elites of the National Council were permitted to operate computers in an effort to prevent a drag on the supply. It mattered little to her as her flowing script had not been diminished in her years in the mountain camp.
The National Council had selected the former Cuban Academy of Sciences building as its headquarters. The sprawling structure, modeled after the American Capitol building, had served a similar purpose prior to the revolution that swept Fidel Castro to power in the late 1950s. Even after a year of navigating the immense building, Michelle still found herself lost in its halls on occasion. Long a fan of history, she often wandered the building admiring the artwork and architecture that had escaped unscathed during Cuba’s initial struggle with the Tilian Virus.
She continued to marvel each morning as she entered the main hall, at the enormous Statue of the Republic. Locals proudly informed her that the Athena-inspired figure was the third largest statue in the world. Michelle readily believed the claim when she stood, dwarfed to irrelevance, in front of the golden form. The fearless gaze of the warrior-woman, standing resolute, armed with both spear and knowledge, provided a source of inspiration for her.
It was in the building’s library however, that Michelle often found herself spending countless hours. As a student, she had thirsted for knowledge and, unlike many of her peers, she hungered for discovery. The unending shelves of books, the musty scent of antiquity clinging to both cover and page, drew her in whenever she had idle time. Unable to remove the tomes from the property, she passed many nights curled beside a lamp as her strained eyes devoured words.
Andrew, to whom she had recently become engaged, struggled to understand her obsession with the library. In the beginning he had remained awake into the pre-dawn hours awaiting her return to their shared home. Far more frequently now, she arrived at the residence to find him soundly asleep. He no longer questioned why she would rather spend time among old books than share her few free hours with him. As she could not explain it to herself, she could offer Andrew no satisfactory response, and he eventually stopped seeking one.
She loved him—of that she did not doubt—but since their arrival in this foreign land, Michelle could not shake a constant uneasiness that dogged her daily. Even with the safety of New Cuba, and the chance of a new life the island offered, her thoughts always returned to the precipitating factor that had changed the direction of so many lives. The Tilian Virus. The disease had ravaged the world, ended more lives than it spared, and had forced those lucky few to fight endlessly for survival. The medical and science experts that had managed to reach the island were far superior than any could have hoped. Yet, with all their knowledge, a cure for the virus had remained elusive. She knew it unlikely that an answer would be found in her readings, but she recognized that it was that answer that drove her. She needed to know why.
Michelle had attempted to discuss the matter with her fiancée once, but like so many of the others with whom she had arrived, he had quickly turned the conversation to the present and their future. “We’re free of that now,” he had said to her. “Why focus on the past?” She knew he was right, and understood his reluctance to rehash those horrible years. Andrew had lost his mother, had been the hand that ended her life after the infection burned through her blood. Since then, she kept her concerns to herself, forcing a smile and feigning contentment.
There was perhaps one person with whom she could have shared her thoughts and been understood. In fact they had had a conversation on the eve of rescue when she puzzled over how the others in their company believed rescue meant a return to normality. We k
now better, don’t we? had been his reply. Many nights, surrounded by books, she had fought the urge to hurry from the library and seek him out. But he was lost to them now, in mind if not body; like her father before him, he was another victim to the virus and its aftermath. Michelle knew the bonds were truly broken when he was absent from the small engagement party Abby Jarvis, fellow survivor and now new mother, had thrown in her and Andrew’s honor three months ago.
It was not with little sorrow, that she mourned the loss of the ties that had made survival possible and bearable. Though they lived but a few doors down from them, Paul and Lisa had, like Michelle herself, dove into their work, and what had begun as weekly dinners together soon dwindled to perhaps once a month. Abby had understandably been consumed by the birth and subsequent raising of her child, now eight months old. The boy’s father, Adam, had fallen under the hail of bullets on their last day in America. Michelle had purposely made time to visit often with mother and child, but she admitted guiltily that her own efforts to maintain a connection had lately waned.
Erik, with whom Andrew worked in the city’s mechanics force, still came around regularly. The scent of alcohol about him, and the stammer in speech and step, had increased in prevalence and frequency. Andrew recently told her of several instances when her former classmate had been too inebriated to finish out a day’s work. She had also heard, through neighborhood gossip, of a few physical altercations at the local bar in which Erik had been involved. The constant bruises and split lips were a testament to the gossip’s veracity, as was his aggressive behavior at the engagement party.
That had been the last time that she and her friends, with one not unexpected exception, had been gathered together. All had raised a glass to the joy of the occasion, and even Michelle had found herself free of the nagging discontent, if only for a night. Even Doctor Moreno, not a usual fan of parties never mind people, had attended and expressed an uncharacteristic joviality.