The Schrödinger Enigma

by Greg Krojac

  “We’ve survived this long. We’ve seen our neighbours drop like flies and we’re still here, so I think it’s probably safe to assume that we’re immune to the disease, whatever it is. At least we’ve got that in our favour. But we do need to find others like us. Other Immunes. That’s another reason why we really can’t stay here for much longer. We’ll stagnate and maybe become bored or complacent. That’ll make us vulnerable. I suggest we use tomorrow morning to gather up supplies - food, water, clothes, and whatnot - and then set off in the afternoon. Is that ok with everyone?”

  Everybody agreed with the plan – even Burt Prentice.

  “Right, let’s get some sleep. We’ve a busy day ahead of us tomorrow. Xi, I know it’s kind of obvious, but can you pick out some medical supplies to take with us? I’m sure you know what stuff we should take with us.”

  “No problem, Patrick. Mai and I can make a list tonight before we go to bed.”

  Patrick shook everybody’s hands as they prepared to go home.

  “Let’s wake up fresh tomorrow to a world of new hope. Goodnight, everyone.”

  That was the cue for the neighbours to go back to their own homes to sleep in their own beds for the last time before setting off on their new adventure.

  DAY THIRTEEN

  6 May– Infected 652,343,273 Dead 1,022,509

  Sitara was dreaming of the previous year when she had visited her family in Pakistan. It had been a wonderful time, celebrating her parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary, although she hadn’t much liked having to pretend that she was something that she was not. Alone with her parents she felt at ease, being herself, but at a semi-formal social event such as her parents’ party there were certain expectations to be met – those of her parents’ friends and colleagues; she was forced to switch to a completely different personality when in public back in Pakistan. As a Muslim woman, living and working in the west, and having a foot in both camps, she was now more inclined to lean towards the lifestyle of America. Initially, the battle between her Pakistani conditioning and the desire to fit in had been a struggle, but the USA was where her life was and – barring any major upset – she would be there until her dying day. This didn’t mean that she was abandoning or rejecting her Pakistani roots, but she needed to integrate with the people around her – compromises were both necessary and inevitable. She had Instagram and Facebook accounts – just as most people did – but she had two of each; one with restricted permissions for her closest and most trusted friends and one that was suitable for general consumption. She didn’t like having to live her life like this, but there was no other alternative. It’s how things had to be.

  In her dream, she was just about to start dancing when her mind betrayed her and dragged her back to the real world, away from the festivities. Her eyes slowly opened and, when they had become accustomed to the daylight, she was forced to acknowledge the stark reality of her surroundings.

  Normally, isolation was a strategy to stem the potential spread of any disease, but the numbers now were simply too large for preventative quarantine to be of any use. The world had never seen so deadly a virus spread so quickly. Now that the virus had taken hold, the wave of deaths had turned into a tsunami and had already passed the million mark. It would be much more efficient a use of CDC’s facilities and dwindling manpower to discover why Sitara was unaffected by the virus and try to make projections of how many would survive the onslaught and be left to rebuild the world.

  Everybody who had been on or near the fishing trawler that fateful day was now dead – except for Sitara. Almost the entire population of Dutch Harbor had died. Progress had been made in classifying the disease – it was similar to the H1N1 influenza virus – but there was something different about it, something that the CDC couldn’t pin down. It was more virulent and deadly than even the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 that killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people worldwide, a third of the planet’s population at the time. But the differences suggested that it hadn’t originated on Earth, which was obviously a ridiculous idea.

  Sitara was ensconced in an isolation suite of the National Institute of Health Special Clinical Studies Unit in the city of Bethesda, Maryland. An outsider, upon seeing all the locked doors and other security precautions, might think that she was a prisoner, but Sitara had been locked away willingly. She knew her immunity could be the key to creating a vaccine.

  She sat up in her bed and looked through the glass pane of the entrance door, anticipating the arrival of two specially trained nurses who would want to take more of her blood. Unlike a regular hospital, it wasn’t just a case of arriving at the patient’s bedside, drawing the required amount of blood, and then sending it to a lab for analysis. The safety procedures were very strict and rigorously applied, and this particular part of the hospital was on lockdown; nobody could leave. Those still there were volunteers who had stayed behind to help the struggle to find a vaccine, but nobody judged those who had decided not to remain; people had families and loved ones they wished to care for, to protect, and to die alongside.

  Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, Suzy Wong and Ian Petrocelli let themselves into the ante-room, which separated the main corridor from the isolation room. The ante-room was maintained at a lower pressure than that of the corridor, to prevent air from leaving and contaminating the rest of the establishment. The isolation room was similarly protected, resulting in two levels of security. At first Sitara had been concerned that the external air could contaminate the internal air of her room, but when the two-level negative pressure safety precautions were explained to her, and she was assured that the air in both her room and the ante-room was changed every three minutes, her mind was put at ease.

  She watched as both nurses sanitized their hands before Ian commenced the ritual of donning protective clothing. [a8]He and Suzy were fastidious in adhering to the safety procedures, donning the slash-suit in the prescribed fashion, checking seals and the correct functioning of the air purifier. The last part of the process looked really funny. She grinned as Ian, now clad head to toe in his protective gear, performed a range of motion-fit tests to ensure that he could perform his duties unhindered by the suit. The fact that Sitara couldn’t hear anything from the ante-room only added to the absurdity of seeing a so strangely garbed man bowing and doing squats, like the Karate Kid warming up before a fight.

  As it was the second day of Ramadan, Sitara’s breakfast, her sehri, had been brought to her just before dawn. If her room had had a window, she could have watched the pink blush of the sunrise as the sun began to force darkness into retreat, and she said her prayer of Fajr, but a window would have compromised the integrity of the room so she just had to trust the clock on the wall and her intuition. She would also say the prayer of Maghrib at sunset, despite not having fasted during the day. These were unusual times and some flexibility was to be expected. But she didn’t feel any guilt at her inability to follow the rituals correctly; things were what things were – circumstances were beyond her control. She normally only prayed in the mornings anyway, but during this sacred period, she did like to increase her prayers to the prescribed five a day.

  She was a modern Muslim woman, unlike her mother who was more traditional but who – to her credit – didn’t chastise her daughter for her approach to her religion. She may not have fully approved, but she recognized that the world was changing and that Sitara’s life was her own and accepted her choices. Sitara loved her mother all the more for that. She didn’t lie to her mother about her personal brand of Islam, but she did omit certain details. Her parents had no need to know that she had boyfriends, sometimes drank alcohol and even smoked the occasional joint. She had nothing better to do right now anyway. She didn’t ask for forgiveness and a better life in her prayers, but rather used them as a vehicle for gratitude and love, well aware that she was living a good life of good quality and therefore Allah deserved thanks for his blessings.

  She ate her breakfast quickly, not wanting to miss
the fasting deadline, even though that was a part of the ritual that she couldn’t participate in this year as the taking of blood samples invalidated the fast. She didn’t bother with the short prayer of opening iftar – there didn’t seem much point if she were unable to fast - and then let[a9] the nurses perform their duties. [a10]It took hardly any time at all to draw the blood sample, unlike donning and doffing the safety equipment. Sometimes her nurses would stop by during the day for a chat, but this was always via the intercom. She wondered how much longer she would be cooped up inside the unit.

  Her breakfast would be brought to her before dawn for the next thirty days – if she were there that long - and her daily routine of saying her prayers, giving blood samples, and watching movies wouldn’t change. The nurses were friendly enough, and she knew that she was doing something for the greater good, but it didn’t stop her from sometimes wishing that she could unlock the door and go outside for a walk, just for a while, to remind her what the outside world looked and felt like.

  DAY FOURTEEN

  7 May –infected and dead too many to count

  Sitara had awoken at 5am on her fourth day of isolation, the third day of Ramadan, and awaited her breakfast. She accidently dropped back off to sleep, something she didn’t realise until she suddenly woke with a start.

  She looked at the clock on the wall and was shocked to see that it was nearly 6:30 am. The nurses should have brought her breakfast over an hour ago. Her rumbling stomach reminded her that her breakfast was overdue, but she was secretly grateful that she was unable to fast. At least when her food did arrive, she could eat it with a clear conscience. She hoped that she could survive the day on no food. She went to turn on the TV, but changed her mind and decided to take a shower to freshen up instead.

  After her shower, she sat up on the bed wrapped in the bath-towel. She was not only becoming anxious for something to eat, but also the fresh clean clothes that come with the food. What was keeping the nurses? She went over to the entrance door and looked through the glass, hoping to see them donning their protective garments. She tried to open the door, but it was a pointless exercise; only hospital staff could open those doors. She tightened her towel’s grip on her body and pressed her face against the glass pane, straining to get a better look around the interior of the ante-room. Everything looked normal and in its place. Suzy and Ian hadn’t even entered the room yet. She told herself again that they were just late, they would come soon.

  Another hour passed. Now Sitara was becoming really worried. This definitely wasn’t normal. What if nobody was coming? She would be trapped. She tried to open the ante-room door again. No, don’t try the entrance door. That was foolish. Try the exit door; that opened outwards. That was locked too. The doors had to be locked, not so much to keep Sitara in, but to keep unprotected people out. Anxiety was in danger of giving way to panic. She told herself to calm down and think rationally. First task - accept that nobody was coming. She was on her own. Second task - find a way out of the room.

  She looked at the door. It was neither heavy nor particularly solid, as it was the difference in air pressure between the two environments that provided protection. Somehow she needed to open, or break the lock. It was an electronic lock, activated by thumbprint, but she had to try something. Her rumbling stomach reminded her that death by starvation would be torturous. She tried pushing against the door. Then she tried taking a run up and barging the door, but all that resulted in was a sore shoulder. She looked around the room for anything heavy enough to make an impact. The medical equipment was state-of-the-art and too lightweight to be of any real use, so the only things that might be heavy enough to do some damage were a bedside cabinet and the bed. Sitara squatted down behind the cabinet and released the locking wheels, before pushing it with all her might into the door. There was a loud noise at the impact, but the door didn’t budge. It was certainly stronger than it looked. She tried twice more, but all she succeeded in doing was damaging the door varnish.

  She stared at the door and then at the bed. Perhaps the bed could do what the cabinet couldn’t. Again she released the locking wheels, before manoeuvring the bed towards the door. She sighed deeply as she realized that that wasn’t going to work either. If she pushed the bed at the door, it would just come [a11]to rest in front of the door, prevented from travelling any further by the wall. And there simply wasn’t enough space to force the corner of the bed to strike the door with any force. She was trapped.

  Sitara climbed onto the bed again and started to sob. Had she survived the pandemic only to die of starvation, imprisoned in a protective tomb? It wasn’t her official time to pray, but she felt the need to do so.

  The formally pristine white porcelain bowl was now a disgusting shade of lumpy brown, orange, and green. Suzy was on her knees, her head leaning as far as possible into the toilet bowl, trying desperately not to vomit again but failing miserably, as wave after wave of nausea overcame her body and a fresh payload of her recent meals surged from her mouth, landing with a resounding splash amongst her stomach’s previously evacuated contents.

  She was suddenly aware of a strange sensation, a dampening of the seat of her denim jeans. She couldn’t speak, as her mouth was far too occupied with the unpleasant choice between continuing to throw up and trying to hold the vomit in. It was no contest really. The build-up in her cheeks and mouth gave her no option but to part her lips and let the offensive liquid shoot out. She gingerly moved her right arm behind her and laid the back of her hand against the centre of her bottom. She withdrew her hand quickly and looked at the wet stains that had appeared on her knuckles. She looked into the toilet bowl again. That wasn’t good. She was bringing up blood now.

  She wished she wasn’t alone. She would have been embarrassed, of course. Nobody wants anyone to watch them throwing up and now, apparently, shitting themselves. Not under normal circumstances anyway. But these weren’t normal circumstances

  She didn’t want to die.

  But she knew that she was going to die.

  Her donning buddy, Ian, had already died a few hours earlier, having shown the same symptoms. It had started with a viciously intense headache accompanied by severe pain behind his eyes, and in his joints and muscles. Ian had tried to insist that it was just a mild case of the flu, but both nurses knew different. They had seen enough people succumb and die to know that a course of Gripalax pills wasn’t going to sort this out.

  As soon as the red wheals had erupted on his face, arms, and legs, Ian had known it was all over. He’d begged his colleague to smother him with a pillow or something, to put him out of his misery, but Suzy just couldn’t bring herself to do it. She had watched him as he had spent two hours in the bathroom throwing up, just as she was now doing. She had squirmed at his embarrassment as his bowels had sporadically vacated themselves without warning, and had watched him finally struggle for breath as his lungs began to cease taking in air. She watched him die a cruel and agonising death.

  She looked at the deep red marks on her own arms, wishing that she had put on a long-sleeved blouse that morning. It wouldn’t have made the marks disappear but at least she wouldn’t have been able to see it. She’d been on her way to her locker to fetch her favourite blouse when she had been forced to make an emergency diversion to the bathroom. That was an hour and a half ago and she hadn’t left the bathroom since. But she decided that if she was going to die, she was damned if it was going to be in the bathroom.

  She hauled herself to her feet and leaned against the bathroom wall. The door was open as she had felt in no condition to worry about closing it behind her when she had started vomiting. She was the only one in the recreation room anyway. The only living person, anyway. Her colleague was slumped in an armchair, but he was stone cold dead. Suzy would have liked to have been able to lay him on the bed that stood in the corner, somewhere for the staff to take a nap at break-times. She would have liked to have allowed him some dignity in death but her searing headache had started abou
t an hour before he died and she just didn’t have the energy.

  Suddenly she remembered that there was somebody else who needed her attention more urgently. Sitara was alone and would probably be panicking by now. If Suzy didn’t let her out of the isolation room, Sitara would die – not from the virus, but a long, lingering death due to starvation. Suzy couldn’t let that happen to her.

  The journey from the bathroom to the isolation unit was a real effort. Suzy wanted to fall down and curl up in a ball. She wanted her mom [a12]and dad. She wanted someone, anyone to make this pain stop. She didn’t want to die alone.

  She managed to drag her aching, puking, shitting body through the corridors towards the isolation unit, stopping for a breather only when faced with an electronic lock to negotiate. There were three locked doors en route and each time she took a deep breath and pressed her thumb against the optic reader, sighing with relief when she heard the welcome click of the lock disengaging and the door opening. Each time she almost fell through the door and watched as it closed behind her.

  The pain was almost unbearable now. It was becoming harder and harder to breath and she could hear herself starting to wheeze. She couldn’t give up though, she didn’t have that luxury.

  Doing her best to ignore the pain that she was feeling in her elbows, she pressed her thumb against the reader and the door to the ante-room opened. She somehow dragged her aching body inside and heard the door close behind her. She saw the protective gear hanging in its place, but looked away. There was no point in donning the equipment now - there was nothing to protect her from. She staggered over to the equipment table and picked something up, securing it tightly in her left hand, before pressing her right thumb against the fingerprint reader.

  Again, she let out a sigh of relief, but not as great a sigh of relief as Sitara when she saw the door opening. Then it was a gasp of horror as Suzy fell through the doorway, this time allowing herself to collapse on the floor, preventing the door from closing again. When she saw the condition that Suzy was in, Sitara rushed over to help her but she was beyond help, gasping for air, forcing herself to speak.