Schism

by Britt Holewinski

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Jim will come by in two days to scan his thumbprint, and he’ll bring these.” Ben held up the bracelets for the three male aliases: John, Michael, and Matthew.

  “And you want me to add his thumbprint to all three?” Danny asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “No problem. Just tell him to come by before ten.”

  Narrowing his eyes on Danny, Ben gave him a knowing look. “What, you hitting the clubs or something?”

  Danny looked sideways at Maria for a spilt-second as he placed his laptop on the coffee table before answering. “Well, what the hell else is there to do in this town for fun?” he said unapologetically as he leaned back in his chair and cupped his hands behind his shaved head. “I gotta blow off steam somehow. I can’t keep watching Li and Dez play video games every day. I’ll go insane!”

  “Does everyone still go to Papillon?”

  “Yeah, I hear it’s packed almost every night.”

  “What’s Papillon?” Andy asked.

  “It’s a nightclub in the Meatpacking District,” he murmured, still looking pensive. “You know if Luke still goes?” he asked Danny.

  “Probably. Sean’s there at least three nights a week, so Luke’s gotta be there too.”

  Ben stood up and announced that it was time to go. “Thanks, man.”

  “Hey, easy day, brother,” said Danny. “Part of me wants to know what you’re up to, but the rest of me doesn’t wanna know a thing.”

  From his backpack, Ben pulled out the second kilo of cocaine that he’d promised. However, Danny waved it away. “Nah, man. What you gave me last time was enough. Just tell Jim to bring me some food when he comes if you got any to spare. Something other than eggs or apples.” Then he whispered out of earshot of the girls, “Hey, I know I give Dez shit for almost every word that comes outta his mouth, but I admit he’s right about those girls. They’re gorgeous, particularly that Isabel. Instead of a kilo of coke, I’ll take one night with her.”

  “I’ll be sure to pass that along,” Ben replied sarcastically.

  “Seriously, what did you do? Go to L.A. and find all the leftover models and movie stars or something?”

  “I met them all just like I met you—by accident.”

  As Ben chucked, Danny shooed away the gibe with a wave of his hand. “Whatever, you lucky bastard. Maybe if I looked like you, girls like that would also fall right into my lap too.”

  ***

  Sean looked at his watch with impatience. More than five minutes had passed since one of the guards went to find him a hazmat suit. After another five minutes, the guard finally arrived. He was wearing a cumbersome blue hazmat suit and carrying another.

  “Jesus Christ! How long does it take to find a suit? Aren’t they supposed to be kept in this room and not beyond this door?”

  From within the confines of the suit, the guard nodded up and down meekly, and a muffled “sorry” was heard from beneath his helmet.

  Sean snatched the suit out of the guard’s hands and hastily put it on. “Let’s go!” he barked once all the seals and zippers were closed. The guard wordlessly obeyed, and after passing through two hermetically sealed safe rooms, they stopped at the prep room to recheck their suits. Satisfied that everything was in order, Sean gave a nod to keep going. Once inside the next room, he turned on the safelight and carefully opened the medical freezer.

  Inside were seven small glass vials sitting on a metal tray. Sean carefully picked one up with his gloved hand and examined it. The contents of the vial looked like water and appeared to be equally as harmless.

  In the six years since it had been unleashed on the world, the virus had never been called anything else. It didn’t need a unique name, for it had entirely redefined the meaning of the word. The explosion at Fort Detrick had destroyed most of the vials and all the research documents, but these had miraculously survived.

  Sean placed the vial back in the freezer and closed the door before turning to the guard. “When was he infected?”

  “Uh, eight days ago.”

  “Then let’s get moving.”

  The guard opened the cipher door to what was referred to as the “vacuum room” before approaching the final safe room. Beyond that was their destination.

  “The Pit” was nothing but an empty room, cold and sterile. The windows had been sealed off and covered to suppress the faintest beam of light from the outside world. A single florescent light bulb high above in the ceiling gave the room meager illumination.

  The guard remained by the door while Sean approached the only prisoner in the room, a boy who had been caught stealing food from one of the food banks. Though only a few millimeters of protective material guarded him from infection, Sean stepped forward to get closer to the boy.

  Wearing only the thinnest of hospital gowns, he was experiencing nearly all of the major symptoms: large, puss-filled boils on his arms and legs, uncontrollable shivering despite suffering from a fever, and profuse sweating. Death would come within hours, but not without severe pain. Soon his lungs would fill with blood. In the end, the virus simply asphyxiated its victims to death.

  In his agony, the boy barely registered Sean’s presence. The intense shivering and pain numbed all senses to anything outside of his own skin. He knew his end was near and it couldn’t come fast enough. Suddenly, a gloved hand grabbed his arm, and seconds later a needle was inserted into a vein in his forearm and a liquid was injected into his body.

  “How long will it take to know if it works?”

  “Hard to tell,” the Fixer answered Sean through his helmet. “But if he’s still in the same shape by morning, we’ll know it failed.”

  Sean stared down at the trembling boy and wondered how excruciating the ordeal truly was. “When you find out, send someone to let me know,” he commanded before turning to leave.

  Chapter XXII

  01 August 2023

  “This time turn your back to me.”

  Bent over at the waist with her hands on her knees, Andy looked up at Ben like she wanted to give him a hard kick to the groin, but a real one this time. She was breathing heavily, as was he.

  “C’mon, I’m not doing this to be a pain in the butt. I want to make sure you can defend yourself,” he insisted between breaths and beckoned her with his hands. “Let’s go.”

  After slowly standing upright, Andy raised her hand. “Give me a minute.”

  “No. Go now. If you can do it when you’re tired, you’ll be able to do it anytime.”

  Knowing he was right, she took another deep breath. “All right,” she said hoarsely, and turned her back to him.

  They were in the backyard. The cool weather enjoyed during those first days of their arrival had transformed into the persistent mugginess of summer, and despite it being nearly eight o’clock in the evening, their faces were red and glistening with sweat.

  Andy prepared herself with another deep breath as the faint sound of Ben’s shoes walking on grass drew closer. A tense pause followed, then he grabbed her from behind, his arms bear-hugging around her chest and arms. The sweet scent of his sweat just barely hit her nose as she reacted swiftly to the attack by stepping one foot out to the side and squatting down to lower her center of gravity. Still moving fluidly, she jutted her elbows out to the sides, which loosened his grip just enough for her to break free.

  “Good,” he said approvingly. “Let’s do it again.”

  Andy didn’t complain this time, and they repeated the drill three more times before Ben decided she was ready for the next scenario.

  “Now this time, raise your arms up, and my arms will go underneath them.”

  As with the other scenarios, he would slowly walk her through the sequence of movements until she understood exactly what to do to defeat her attacker. With her back to him once again, she raised her arms, which allowed him to wrap his arms around her even tighter than before.

  Ben caught a hint of the fragrance of her hair
. “God, you smell…”

  “What, I smell?” Horrified, Andy broke away, startling him, and she quickly sniffed underneath her arms.

  “No, no…you don’t smell bad,” he said, laughing. “I meant to say that you smell nice.”

  “Oh…” She self-consciously brushed loose strands of hair away from her face. “It’s this new shampoo that Maria and Carmen made. It’s got lavender and some other sweet things in it. Chamomile, I think,” she added hastily. “I don’t really know.”

  “Well, whatever it is, it smells amazing.” And without warning, he stepped forward and leaned in to smell the top of Andy’s scalp again, catching her off-guard, and she instinctively backed away. “Relax. I just wanted to smell you again,” he said before shutting his eyes tight and looking embarrassed. “Sorry, that sounded weird.”

  “Just a little.”

  “Want to try again?” he asked.

  “Okay, but after this one, I’m done for the day.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Andy turned around once more as Ben stepped forward to wrap his arms around her.

  “Now do the same thing. Step out to the side and squat down.”

  She followed the instructions.

  “Good. Since I have a tighter grip on you, you’ll have to use your arms and feet to disable me. So look back and use your elbows to strike me in the face.”

  “Oh, that sounds fun.” She looked back and smiled.

  “Funny,” he smirked before continuing with the lesson. “You can stomp on the feet to further injure the person, but I would go for the face first, either with your elbow or the back of your forearm. Almost anytime you strike someone anywhere on the front or sides of their head, their instinct will be to close their eyes. If you’re lucky, they’ll grab their head. Either way, that’s your window of escape.”

  Andy returned her gaze straight ahead as he released his arms and stepped back. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  After she lifted her arms, Ben stepped forward and grabbed her again. With impressive speed, Andy deftly maneuvered out of his grip, turned herself around, and threw the base of her right palm up within an inch of his nose. He blinked and took a step backward. “Nice work.”

  They repeated this scenario a few more times and then ended the training for the day.

  “We’ll do it again tomorrow.”

  Andy nodded and unwrapped the rubber band that held her ponytail in place. She rubbed her scalp, which released the aroma of the homemade shampoo. It did smell good. “How big is he?” she asked.

  “Who, Luke?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess he’s about my height and build.”

  Andy studied Ben. He was a good eight or nine inches taller than she and easily seventy to eighty pounds heavier. “Is he as strong as you?” she asked, her eyes looking anxious.

  He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he tilted his head to the side and then looked away. This made her uneasy.

  “I won’t lie to you. Luke’s pretty strong.” Sensing her apprehension, he quickly added, “Just remember that he’ll likely be drunk or high or both. That will take away some of his advantage.”

  She looked down at her feet and muttered, “Right.”

  “You’ll be fine. You’ll be the last thing he expects.”

  Looking up, Andy set her gaze to the rear of the house. Through the window that looked into the living room, she could see Susan and Charlie playing a game of cards with Maria and Carmen. Probably poker. Meanwhile, Morgan was reading a book at the kitchen table while feeding Katie. Candles flickered throughout both rooms, as there was no electricity. Princeton sat outside of the zone where power had been restored, and they were too far north from Philadelphia to receive it from that end.

  “How did you learn all this self-defense stuff?” she asked

  “You’ll laugh when I tell you.”

  “Why?”

  Ben stepped over to a wooden bench that separated a small rock garden from the lawn that covered the majority of the backyard and sat down. Andy edged over to him but remained standing.

  “From watching YouTube videos that I got from Danny.”

  “YouTube?”

  “Yeah. Danny has access to every video file that people uploaded on YouTube up to the days just before the outbreak. He’s also got access to all the files from Wikipedia too.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, but get this. Within a year after the outbreak, Sean sent people to the headquarters of both of those companies to bring all of their servers back to New York. He didn’t want anyone else to get their hands on all that information.”

  “Oh my God,” Andy breathed.

  “That’s the kind of person we’re dealing with. While we were all scared and starving, Sean was busy transporting thousands of terabytes of data across the country. Do you know where YouTube and Wikipedia had their headquarters?”

  “No idea.”

  “California and Florida. Both thousands of miles from here.”

  Andy rubbed her eyes as her anxiety returned. “And Danny has access to those files?”

  “Yeah. Part of his job is to go through all the video files and delete all the crap that has no real value, at least to Sean. You know…videos that parents used to upload of their kids doing funny or cute things…useless stuff like that. But of course Danny keeps copies of the really funny things and then gives them to Liam and Dez to sell.”

  “People buy old videos from YouTube?”

  “Sure,” Ben replied with a shrug. “It reminds them of the old days, I guess.”

  It had never occurred to Andy that such things would now be so important. She took a seat on the bench and hugged her knees to her chest. Her shoulder touched Ben, and she made no move to distance herself. “He’s devious.”

  Frowning, he turned to her. “Who? Danny?”

  “No, Sean.”

  “That’s just one of about a hundred words you could use to describe him.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his right arm around her and pulled her an inch closer. Andy closed her eyes, and settled into him. Just a friendly hug.

  “Ben?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please don’t tell me ‘I told you so,’ but I’m beginning to think that this might not be such a good idea.”

  “What, the nightclub?”

  “Yeah.”

  He swallowed hard. “Andy, you already know what I think of this whole plan, but I’ve been trying for weeks now to think of some other way to do it. So has Jim, but the fact is that neither he nor I can be involved. If Sean gets even the slightest idea that we’ve returned, he’ll either add so much security to wherever he’s hiding the virus or he’ll move it and we’ll never find it again. And since Luke is probably the only person who knows if Sean actually has the virus and where he’s hiding it, the only options are to either kidnap him and force the truth out of him with torture, or…”

  “Or do what we’re doing instead.”

  “Yeah.” Ben gently tussled Andy’s hair. “I just…I feel like I’m throwing you to the wolves. I feel like a coward.”

  She abruptly sat up and turned toward him, her eyes burning bright. “Hey, we’ve been through this already. I insisted on doing this. You just have to accept that this is one thing that you can’t do.” Her voice rose in both intensity and volume. “I admit I’m scared, but if we’re going to succeed, we’ll have to do some dangerous things. You know that better than anyone. You’ve already sacrificed enough. Let some other people handle the burden for a while.”

  Ben managed to smile.

  “I don’t want you to worry about me,” she continued. “Maria will be with me the whole time, and between the two of us, we’ll get it done, especially after all these self-defense lessons you’ve been giving us. So stop worrying so much. You’ve prepared me well, Yoda.” She gave Ben a gentle punch into his arm.

  “Yes ma’am,” he said with a smile.

  She s
miled back at him and their eyes met for a moment too long. Feeling the tension, Andy released her knees from her chest and planted her feet on the ground. “I need to wash up,” she said.

  “Ahem, yeah, me too.”

  Ben followed her inside. He went upstairs to clean up while she went to talk to Morgan in the kitchen. “What are you reading?” she asked.

  “Calculus,” Morgan replied, looking up from her book. “Charlie found it at the library on campus. He said it would be a good one to start with.”

  “Calculus? I didn’t know you liked math that much.”

  Morgan grimaced. “It’s not that I like it, but I often thought that I should learn some more advanced math so that I could teach it.”

  Andy’s thoughts turned to her medical books sitting in a box in her bedroom, and she felt a pang of regret for neglecting her own studies of late. “Sounds like a good idea.” She glanced down at her friend’s wristwatch. “When did Jim leave?”

  “About an hour ago, right after you and Ben went outside,” Morgan replied without lifting her eyes from her book.

  Andy offered her pinky finger to Katie who was lying in a vibrating chair positioned on the kitchen table. The baby latched onto her finger with her entire hand but without her usual vice-like grip. Her eyelids were beginning to look heavy.

  “She’s getting close. Want me to put her to bed?”

  Morgan released the pen she’d been using to take notes and looked up at her daughter. “Nah, I got her.”

  While Morgan put Katie to bed, Andy wandered into the living room.

  “Not again!” Charlie lamented as Susan raked in the pot of chips to her corner of the table while imitating an evil laugh.

  “Ha! That’s right, sucker!” she cackled. “You can’t beat me!”

  Both Maria and Carmen threw their losing hands of cards onto the table. Andy assessed the damage Susan had caused to everyone’s stack of chips. Hers was easily triple the size of the others.

  “Wait, didn’t Susan win last night too?” Andy teased Charlie. He and Susan had had a longstanding poker rivalry since their days in Aspen.

  “Why, Andy, I do believe that you are correct,” replied Susan, her voice dripping with sarcasm.