Contagion

by Teri Terry

  “Let’s wait a moment,” he says. “See if it passes.”

  He obviously doesn’t live in Scotland: this could go on all day.

  We get off the bike, and he takes off his helmet. I take mine off also, shake out my hair. The wind whips it around my face. The rain is thundering down in sheets but hasn’t made it under the canopy of this heavy tree. Yet.

  The wild weather seems to suit Kai’s mood. He turns to me, jaw set. “I’ve made a decision.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m going to go see my ex-stepfather with this Brian’s photo. I still think he’s involved. I want to see if his reaction gives anything away. It’s obvious that Dougie isn’t going to do much, so it’s up to me.”

  I gaze steadily back at him, then nod. “Okay, then. I’m coming with you.”

  His eyebrows go up; he’s surprised. “No, you’ve done enough, and thank you for all you have done. You don’t need to come.”

  “Yes. I do. I’m the one who saw Brian Daugherty, aren’t I?” That’s what I say, but what I’m thinking is this: I know the anger inside Kai, and what he thinks of his ex-stepfather. He can’t go alone. He might do anything.

  “Really, you don’t need—”

  “I’m stubborn; I don’t take no for an answer. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.” I stare back at him, a hand on each hip.

  He half frowns, then half smiles. “I can see that. If you insist, you can come. But I don’t want to leave it for the weekend. Anyhow, he’s easier to find at work on weekdays.”

  I shrug. “I’ll cut school. Exams are over, so no drama. Mum doesn’t mind if I have a good reason.” There is a voice inside that says going to speak to someone that Kai thinks is a potential abductor of children wouldn’t fit into Mum’s “good reason” category. “Where is he?”

  “Edinburgh. He works at the university. Can you make it there tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Tomorrow; no problem. I’ll get the bus from school to Stirling and then get the train to Edinburgh, and meet you at the station there. Deal?” I hold out my hand.

  He hesitates, then takes mine in his. Shakes it. “Okay, deal,” he says, and keeps hold of my hand longer than needed for a handshake. His fingers curl around mine, light warm pressure, then finally let go.

  The rain starts to drip through the leaf canopy over us, but Kai doesn’t seem to care. He steps out into the rain, looks up, and lets it pour down on his face while he laughs.

  The sun struggles through; the rain breaks with tradition and stops moments later. And likewise with Kai: now that he has decided to do something, his tension is gone.

  We continue, more circumspect than before, on roads now running with water.

  CHAPTER 12

  CALLIE

  THE FRONT DOOR SLAMS.

  “Hello?” is called out. It’s my brother, it’s Kai!

  He walks into the front room, and I drink him in. Tall; he’s so tall. Has he grown since I’ve seen him? The blond streaks in his hair catch the light as he turns, takes off his bike jacket, and puts it on a chair.

  “Hey,” he says to Martin, who is still on the sofa, answering all the quiz questions between mouthfuls of dinner.

  “Where’ve you been, Kai?” Mum says, and Kai walks toward her, to the table.

  “Nowhere.” He smiles.

  “I don’t like that look. Tell me you’re not getting into any trouble.”

  “If you must know, I went for a long ride. With a girl. Are you happy?”

  She’s surprised: very. So am I. Has Kai got a girlfriend?

  “Can I meet this girl?” Mum asks.

  He shrugs. “Maybe one day. I’ll be out with her tomorrow too.” He peers at Mum’s plate with a hungry look. “That looks good.”

  She raises an eyebrow at the change of subject but lets it go. “I kept some warm.”

  He goes into the kitchen, and I follow while he scoops dinner onto a plate, takes it into the front room, sits on a chair near the TV. I lean against the chair by his feet. If he’s got a date tomorrow, then so do I.

  The news is on now and something Mum hears makes her get up from the table and go around to stand next to Kai’s chair, listening.

  “…and doctors are warning at-risk groups to have their flu shots, but will the standard vaccine protect against this new strain of flu? We have this report from Aberdeen.”

  The screen changes to another reporter, standing in front of a hospital.

  “Schools are closed again today in Aberdeen, as medical officials continue to be concerned about the new flu that has swept through the city.”

  Kai looks up from his dinner. “I can’t remember them ever closing schools for the flu before.”

  Mum shushes him, but the report is already over.

  “That report was very short. And thin on detail,” she says.

  Martin puts down his fork. “I’ve heard that it is much worse than they’re letting on.”

  “You’ve heard—how?”

  “I have a friend who’s a post-doc at the University of Aberdeen. They’ve called in the army to quarantine whole neighborhoods, but it’s being kept out of the news. They’re afraid of panic, of people leaving and spreading it further.”

  Mum’s face is grave. She gets up, goes to the phone in the hall, and quickly dials a number.

  “This is Dr. Sonja Tanzer. I need to speak to Dr. Lawson.”

  She waits a moment. “Hello, Craig? Yes, it’s Sonja. Tell me: what’s really happening in Aberdeen?”

  She’s quiet for a while. Interjects with questions a few times. Finally says goodbye and hangs up.

  Her eyes are open wide, her head shaking side to side.

  “Mum?” Kai says. “What is it?”

  “That is just the right question: what is it? They don’t know. My friend Craig is with Public Health England; he liaises with Health Protection Scotland. He wouldn’t tell me much, but from what he did, I’m very worried. Many have died, and far faster than with any flu.” She shakes her head. “The flu story is covering something, but what?”

  Kai and Martin are looking at her.

  “He told me to stay available, that I might be needed. They’re setting up a consultation group, something like that. To decide what category to escalate the situation, and cooperate between England and Scotland.” She shrugs, impatient. “Politics! What they need is science, and they need it now. They have to work out what they are dealing with and how to contain it, before it spreads. Simple as that.” She snaps her fingers.

  If only I could speak in a way she could hear, I’d tell her.

  It got out, didn’t it? It must have. It got out from underground in Shetland, and it must have spread to Aberdeen with all the injured and dying they rescued from the island and took there.

  Many people will die, and there is nothing they can do.

  CHAPTER 13

  SHAY

  IF I COULD EVER PICK one thing from all the many things there are to study, how I’d love to come to Edinburgh for university. But how can I decide? I want to really understand the quantum paradox that is Schrödinger’s cat—how can it be both alive and dead at the same time until you open the box? I want to know how everything in my body works, from blood to heart to brain cells; the way genes interact with environment to make everyone the separate unique person that they are. I want to know everything. How can I narrow that down to study one thing?

  At school I’m always getting in trouble for lack of focus—they say if I’m always distracted by something else, I’ll never be really good at anything. And what’s the point of university if you don’t know what to take?

  But if I ever do decide, Edinburgh has something about it that I like, particularly as it zooms past from the back of Kai’s motorcycle. And, as Mum keeps pointing out, if we live here long enough to convince them I’m Scottish, university will be free. Though I’m sunk if they check my accent.

  Kai seems to know where he’s going.

  He pulls in to a campus of the
university that is high above the city, and parks his bike. We walk to an old building. It almost looks like a block of council flats.

  He pauses away from the door and turns to me. “Having you along might be useful after all.”

  “Might be? Gee, thanks.”

  “I’ve been told to never come here again, and there’s someone by the door who might recognize me and call security. But if I hang back and you distract them with a question or something, perhaps no one will notice I’m there.”

  “Why were you banned?”

  “I might have gotten angry the last time I was here.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “They might have called the police too.”

  “Were you charged?”

  He looks sheepish. “No. Not that time.”

  “I see.” I shake my head. “And not today either, right? Losing it isn’t going to help.”

  “Of course. Today we’re going for the calm and rational approach.”

  “What approach were you going to use to get in if I hadn’t come with you?”

  “Well, I was thinking of climbing in through a back window.”

  I roll my eyes.

  We wait until some students head for the main doors, and go in behind them. I distract the receptionist, saying I’m visiting a grad student whose name Kai had told me, and ask for directions while Kai slips down the hallway.

  As easy as that.

  I follow behind Kai, up the stairs at the end of the hall. “He’s on the fourth floor,” Kai says.

  We climb the three flights of stairs and then go down a hall.

  “His office.” Kai gestures; a plaque with Dr. A. Cross, Professor of Theoretical Physics hangs on the door.

  He knocks on the door; no answer. He turns the knob; it’s locked.

  Kai lurks around the corner while I wait. The hallway is bright; there is artwork on the walls, all blotches of crazy color that somehow says I am very expensive. Is this usual in a university science building?

  It’s class change time now. There are voices, footsteps. Another professor-looking type passes, goes into an office. Students in lab coats go past.

  Finally Dr. Cross comes around the corner. I recognize him from Kai’s photo, but somehow it’s more than that—have I met him before? He’s tall, with silver hair. Piercing blue eyes. He puts the key into his office door, and I step forward.

  “Hello, Dr. Cross?”

  He turns and smiles as he opens the door. “Yes?”

  “I was hoping I could speak to you for a moment. Well, we were.”

  “We?”

  Kai steps out from around the corner.

  Dr. Cross’s smile doesn’t falter. “Hello, Kai.”

  “Hello, Alex,” Kai says, with no trace of one of his own.

  “It’s good to see you, if a little surprising. Are you and your mother well? And who is this?” Dr. Cross gestures toward me. His accent is American, though the edges are softened as if he hasn’t been there for a long time. He turns to smile at me again, and I’m struck by something he has. Some charm—but that isn’t the right word. He’s, like, ancient, but so appealing at the same time, and something about him makes me smile back. I can’t stop myself.

  “Come in, both of you. I’m sure you will retain civility, Kai, in the presence of a young lady.” His voice is gently chiding. “I’ll make us some tea, and we can catch up.”

  He steps into his office and we both follow. He fills a kettle and I look around us.

  His office is huge, well furnished. He must be somebody to have an office like this.

  There’s a photo on his desk. Him with his arms around Calista, taken perhaps three or four years ago. He walks across and sees where my eyes are looking.

  “My beautiful daughter. Kai’s sister, Callie.”

  “Your daughter?”

  “Did you assume that as I was Kai’s stepfather I was also Callie’s? No. She was my daughter,” he says. Of course: his blue eyes are so like hers.

  She was my daughter: he used the past tense, and Kai is bristling. “She is your daughter, though I try to forget that,” Kai says.

  Dr. Cross’s face saddens. “You must accept that which you cannot change, as I have begun to do. As hard as it is. After all this time, we’re not likely to find her.”

  “How could you know that, unless you know what has happened to her?” Kai’s voice is discordant, harsh, next to the melody of his stepfather’s—gentle and reasonable.

  “Kai, as I have told you over and over again, I don’t know where Callie is. I wish I did.” His voice is so sad, wistful. “But this can’t be why you’ve come today, to go over the same ground again. And who is your lovely friend?”

  His eyes are back on mine. “I’m Shay,” I say. “Well, Sharona, really.” Why did I tell him that? I never volunteer my name.

  “Ah, a beautiful name—from a classic song!”

  His eyes, on mine, still say why are you here? I glance at Kai. He nods slightly. “I saw Calista after she went missing.”

  He turns toward me now, all eager attention. “You did? Where?”

  And I tell the whole story, including the man I saw, the car he came in that Calista got into.

  “Have you been to the police?”

  “Yes. They didn’t seem that hopeful.”

  “It has been almost a year. How hard must it be to trace this man and car from so long ago?”

  “But now I know who he is.”

  “You do? How?” His eyes are on mine: warm, intense. “Tell me.”

  I take the page from the paper out of my pocket. Brian Daugherty is circled. I hold the paper out to him, and he takes it.

  He studies the photograph. “This is him? Why is he in the paper?” He unfolds the page and sees the headline. “Ah, I see. He has died in the Shetland disaster.”

  “Yes. And it’s hard to question a dead man,” I say, parroting Iona, the police. I’m watching him, as is Kai.

  “Surely they will pursue this? I’ll hire a private detective again, get them back on the case.” He makes a note on his tablet as he says it.

  “Friend of yours, is he?” Kai says, unable to stay silent any longer.

  “The detective? More an acquaintance, though highly recommended.” A wry, slightly raised eyebrow.

  Kai takes the paper and points at Brian’s ugly face. “You know what I mean.”

  “Ah, unfortunately, perhaps I do. But I assure you, this man was no friend of mine.” He speaks truth; I feel it in every fiber inside me. Kai is wrong about him; he must be.

  I glance at Kai. His fists are clenched by his sides, his eyes cold and fixed on his stepfather.

  “I think we should leave,” I say.

  Dr. Cross inclines his head. “That’s probably a good idea.”

  I give Kai a little push, and he starts to walk to the door, me behind him. By the door is a model on a table I didn’t notice on the way in. Despite the need to get Kai out of here, there is something about it, and I pause.

  Dr. Cross sees where I’m looking. “A curious mind is a wonderful thing. Do you know what this is?”

  And somehow I do, though it is miles in complexity beyond what we’ve studied in school physics. “It’s a model of an atom. Isn’t it? But there are more particles than what we’ve been taught. More than Higgs Boson, even.”

  “How do you know about this?”

  “My science class went on a trip to CERN last year—to see the particle accelerator.” That’s not the whole answer, though, is it? I’d been fascinated by this massive accelerator they’d built under the earth in Switzerland—amazed that the snorefest that was physics at school could lead to this: giant experiments to discover the very smallest things in existence. After that came a phase when I was convinced I wanted to be a physicist, and learned all I could about particles and quantum physics—before I got distracted by the curly hair gene.

  He raises an eyebrow like he knows there is more I’m not saying. “More than a curious mind; an
observant, questioning mind. This model represents what we are theorizing now. You won’t find it in a classroom, even an undergraduate university classroom.”

  Kai had been waiting for me by the door, but now he stomps off down the hall, heading for the stairs. I know I should follow him, but I stay, staring at the model, trying to remember: there is something about it, something it reminds me of…and then I have it.

  “You’re wrong. I have seen it before. Or something very like it.”

  “Oh?”

  “Calista’s necklace. She had a gold necklace with a pendant like this. Didn’t she?”

  There is real surprise in his widened eyes. “I gave it to her as a gift the last time I saw her. You saw it?”

  “She was wearing it.” I picture it inside: look at the model, and compare what my eyes can see with my memory. “But it wasn’t exactly the same as this. It was more complex.”

  He comes closer, looking at me searchingly. “You have a remarkable eye. A remarkable memory.”

  And there is something about his eyes. Something…not quite right. They’re a brilliant blue, like Calista’s, unusual in itself, but that isn’t it. It isn’t how he looks at me, either; it’s something about his actual eyes. He blinks and turns away.

  I’m intrigued and uneasy at the same time, but unease wins. I walk out the door.

  What did I see? It was as if his eyes for that moment changed. Something dark swirled in the blue iris of each of them. I shake my head: that just isn’t possible. I must be imagining things.

  I hurry down the stairs to the ground floor, but there’s no sign of Kai.

  He wouldn’t have left without me, would he?

  I go out the front door of the building: he’s not there.

  I rush to where he parked his bike. It’s gone.

  No way. He wouldn’t, would he?

  He has.

  CHAPTER 14

  CALLIE

  SOMETHING MADE ME WAIT OUTSIDE, not go in and see this stepfather. Kai hates him, I can hear it in his voice, and that’s good enough for me to want to keep away from him.

  Besides, the whole day has me confused, and I want some time to think. First, Kai said to Mum that he was going out with this girl, but then he rides all the way to Edinburgh and picks her up at a station? She’s not very local, then.