Ping - From the Apocalypse
Page 18
Kate smiled. He had seen her sunbathing in the raw that afternoon. She’d thought the same about him when she’d first set eyes on him; so gorgeous — it had been like a dream. “I heard you too Jack – mixed in with Travis and Sarah.”
Jack drew a lock of her long hair gently through his fingers. “And I pushed you away when you were most vulnerable.”
“Jack, I've seen directly into your soul. I forgive you, okay?”
He turned away and covered his ears. “I don’t deserve to hear that.”
“Yes you do,” she said, pulling his hands back down.
Jack sighed, and then glanced at her untouched breakfast. “Too sore to eat?”
“A little.”
“Here, I have something that will make it better.” Sitting next to her on the bed, his lips touched hers. “How does this feel?”
“Better,” she mumbled, drifting to a warm place she never wanted to leave. Jack slipped into the bed and she carefully rested her head on his chest, enjoying the thump of his heart.
“Ben looks just like you,” she whispered after a while. “He's going to be very handsome. Intelligent too.”
“We'll just have to wait and see about that. You know Kate… I was adopted. You don’t have to worry about him being anything like my parents.”
She lifted her head and gazed into his brown eyes. “I knew it. You couldn’t possibly have been their child. That is a relief to hear.” She was pensive for a moment and then she said, “It is strange that we are all telepathic.”
Jack was staring up at the ceiling now. “I have a theory about that. In med school, I did a paper on the Bubonic Plague. Why do you think some people didn't get ill, even though they nursed the sick, when they’d obviously been exposed? It was thought that the survivors had a special strain of DNA — a mutation. Perhaps the virus couldn't bond with their T cells, or any blood cells for that matter. Their descendants turned out to be immune to HIV. And we could have something similar going on with us. I really suspect that’s the case.”
“But we did get sick. Every one of us nearly died.”
“Somehow our bodies were able to fight it,” Jack muttered. “We must have an immunity built into our genetics. And it's possible that several related mutations occur simultaneously — which could explain the telepathy.”
“The Bubonic plague on steroids,” Kate muttered. “What virus wipes out nearly everyone?”
“I was talking to Chris about that last night. He believes it was engineered to remain dormant for years after it was released, and then, suddenly wake up. So it’s probably in the water and soil — everywhere. That way, it infected the entire planet.”
“The astronaut told you that?”
“His crewmate admitted to Chris just before he died, that he was part of a CIA investigation researching just that possibility.”
“It’s incomprehensible,” Kate slurred with a sigh, studying Jack’s profile. God he was handsome.
“I hope Ben, and all of our children will be telepathic. We’re going to have to be careful — learn how to control it. Like Travis does with Lucy.” She winced as she tried to turn toward him, certain Jack was right about the cracked ribs.
After she found a more comfortable position she continued. “We will be better for it, won’t we? Nothing bad, like what your father did, will ever happen again. Our children will have insight. They won’t get off track.”
“If we survive another generation.”
Jack looked away suddenly.
“Jack?”
“We should talk about this another time, when you’re feeling better.”
“Don't do that, just level with me okay?”
He gazed at her. “It's just that we don't know the long term effects. Viruses can return decades later, like polio for example. This thing is dormant in our DNA Kate. We don’t know what we are dealing with.”
Kate sighed. It was frightening, but for the moment she felt content, and safe in his arms. “I guess all we can do is hope for the best.”
They fell asleep together and didn't wake up until Sarah and Rose arrived with Ben.
“Bring him to Mommy,” Kate said when she heard his cry. “Look at your son Jack. Isn't he beautiful? And imagine, when we hear his very first ping.”
The End
The story continues with the exciting:
Ping Two – Across the Valley
Books by Susan Lowry:
Ping — From the Apocalypse
Ping Two – Across the Valley
Vegan Occasions — Vegan Recipes for Special Occasions
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