“I’m sorry, but no one can leave during school hours without authorization.”
They heard shouting from the classrooms and some kids were arriving at the front area.
At the same time, in the street, an ambulance arrived at the door of the school.
“Dad, they won’t let me leave,” she said into the phone.
“Are you at the entrance?”
“Yes, Dad, the paramedics from the ambulance are coming in.”
“Sofía, if you want to wait for me, I’m coming, but if you can, get out. They can’t stop you if you leave,” Juan Carlos assured her, heatedly, while he looked for his keys and wallet.
The paramedics entered and the door started to slowly close. Dragging Marisol again, Sofía moved confidently towards the door and opened it, before it locked, and went out to the street.
“Ladies, you cannot leave!” shouted the receptionist.
“Marisol, get home!” shouted Sofía as she started to run. Just as her father had said, she saw that no one was following her. She walked fast towards her house that was just a few blocks away, while on the phone she told her father: “Dad, I got out, I’m heading towards home.”
“Okay, see you,” he said and hung up.
They ran into each other out of breath, halfway home. Juan Carlos had run out to look for her on the way she always took home. They hugged and went home.
They locked themselves in and put the news on and looked online. The news and news sites couldn’t keep up with all the news. Social networks were virtually unusable, inundated with messages about the end of the world.
“This is ridiculous,” protested Juan Carlos showing some apocalyptical messages to Sofía.
“I don’t know, Dad, you wouldn’t be laughing if you’d seen my teacher today.”
Juan Carlos was waiting to hear from the faculty, expecting them to call about Sofía but hours went by and they heard nothing. He finally decided to call the university, but despite ringing several times, no one picked up, even though it was still during school hours.
Sofía sent several messages through Whatsapp to Marisol and she was answering, commenting about what had happened. Towards the evening, though, Marisol stopped answering. The last message said “Sofi, I have to rest, I feel bad. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Sofía sent her another message: “Are you alone?”
A little while later, Sofía got the answer. “Mom is at the hospital, she says they can’t cope. I’m going to sleep, don’t worry, see you.”
Sofía relaxed a little, thinking that if Marisol were very ill, she would tell her.
Around ten at night, the phone rang. Juan Carlos looked at his gadget, and picked up, surprised.
“Pedro?” answered Juan Carlos.
“Juan Carlos. I....I’m only bothering you to say that I’m sorry we fought.”
“I was fighting? That’s how you see it? If so, you lost your memory after all of these years. My wife was dying at the same time,” Juan Carlos said, feeling a knot in his throat.
“Yes, okay,” murmured Pedro, and was quiet for a moment. Juan Carlos could hear it was a lot of work for him to breathe. “I’m sorry about your wife and I hope someday you can forgive me,” he said good-bye and hung up.
Juan Carlos looked at Sofía.
“Maybe it really is the end of the world,” he murmured with a shiver.
CATASTROPHE
Rho, November 24 2027. 10:10 a.m.
Tzedek was seated at the screens, reading the data coming in. He ran his hand over his head.
“What the hell is happening?”
“Father?” asked Althaea, who was working at another desk in the Rho command center.
“Look at this. Yesterday there were a few reports and I thought it was a lamentable secondary effect. Today there are thousands of reports. Althaea, the virus is killing the humans. This retrovirus is supposed to modify the DNA to remove the genes for violence and competence. Our design was meant for the humans to turn meek and non-competitive, with little or no sex drive—to return them to what they were, not kill them. We knew there would be some secondary effects, perhaps a small loss of intelligence among them, but in no way should it be lethal.”
Althaea was dismayed.
“Father, everyone was infected. That is, that was the idea, but not that everyone would die, right?”
Tzedek went to the communication center and activated communication with Alpha.
After a minute, Marsan answered.
He could see him in the middle panel and a minute later, Halius and then Musa appeared.
“Halius, your team was in charge of developing the virus to alter the DNA of the humans, and the vaccine. You had more than enough time and resources to prepare them. I’m getting reports of thousands of unexpected deaths caused by the virus. What happened?”
Marsan raised his head, couldn’t help covering his mouth with his hand, and everyone heard a rhythmic sound. Marsan’s shoulders shook to the sound. For a moment they looked at him, intrigued. He lowered his hand showing his face. His teeth and mouth were in a wide smile that showed his joy.
Tzedek, Halius, and Nikaia looked at him in horror.
“You and your damned humans. All the inventions we helped them develop, all the discoveries we provoked them to research, and they always used them to kill and destroy. This time, the problem will be solved forever,” shouted Marsan, now furious.
Tzedek was livid.
“What have you done, Marsan? Sabotaged the work? How dare you challenge me?”
“I’m sick of the swarms of garbage in this world. If we’re going to go on like that, I don’t care if you kill me. And if you don’t do it, at least I’ll be in a cleaner world with no humans,” he boasted, raising his head haughtily.
“What did you do? What the hell did you do?” shouted Tzedek, now frightened, something unusual for him.
“Let’s just say that the pneumonic plague looks like a cold compared with this. And the mortality rate...oh, well, I hope it’s 100%. I can’t rule out someone surviving, but it would be extraordinary. The retrovirus is fatal for humans. Except those who were vaccinated, of course, at least if I didn’t fool you about the vaccines,” he mocked, laughing.
Althaea covered her mouth and exclaimed:
“No, by Gea!” Even Halius and Musa looked at Marsan with terror.
Tzedek clenched his fist furiously and hit the table several times. Marsan collapsed, shouting in agony. Tzedek forced himself to control himself and opened his fist. Marsan was inert, although he was breathing.
“Can it be stopped? And if we vaccinate all of them?”
Halius slapped Marsan on the ground and shook him.
“Answer!” he demanded, “Can it be stopped?”
“No, it can’t. It’s impossible. The vaccine only works before getting sick. The incubation period is three to five days. The outcome happens between a few minutes up to forty-eight hours maximum. The retrovirus alters the DNA and the humans become tame and disinterested...but the adrenaline generates a cyanotic reaction. I think I forgot to inform you of that detail during the preparations. Unless it’s a Tibetan monk or something, any human that has any type of reaction that generates adrenaline will trigger the cyanotic reaction and die suffocated. I calculate that in less than three days there will be no humans left on Earth except the ones we chose. At least, of course, unless you find some lucky person who didn’t get infected and you can give them a vaccine. But we used almost the entire dose of vaccine, and making it takes a couple of weeks,” he added, laughing again between groans of pain.
“Aarrgghh,” shouted Tzedek, clenching his fists in paroxysms of fury. Marsan arched on the floor and a thick, red-gold colored liquid burst forth from all of the orifices of his head.
“Damn you, you cannot do this to me, I did not want this!” he screamed.
“Tzedek, our chosen ones...we have to rescue them. If all the humans die, ours won’t be able to get here. And worse, if they don�
�t all die, ours will be in grave danger,” Althaea said in despair.
Tzedek tried to control himself.
“You’re right, Althaea.” He breathed deeply and thought for a moment. “Do we have a way to contact all of the selected ones who are already vaccinated, who still aren’t in the city?”
“Yes, Tzedek, at least for now.” Musa, passing over Marsan, who was lying inert on the floor, wrote for a moment on the computer and advised: “I just sent you the current list of all those vaccinated who haven’t yet arrived at each city. If what Marsan said was true and everyone is going to die, it’s predictable that the infrastructure will collapse in a few more days.”
Tzedek went to his screen and opened the list. There were dozens of names, but it wasn’t that many. The problem was that few of the names were from cities near their destinations.
“Damn Marsan.”
They probably couldn’t bring all of them from very far. Certainly, everything would collapse in a few hours, which meant air transport was out of the question. Coming from Central America to the south could take weeks by vehicle, the same on other continents, assuming they could get food, drink, and fuel for the trip.
He opened the application to send messages to all the contact methods for each one and thought what he could say to save them. He typed rapidly:
“Rho City is safe, no one is sick here. You were vaccinated against this strain of virus. It is very dangerous and lethal. We have infrastructure, food and medical services. Come immediately to save yourself, don’t put yourself in danger.”
He didn’t know if it was enough, but he couldn’t think of anything else for now. This was a disaster. He pressed the button to ‘send’ and the notice went out to all its destinations, and he instructed the rest to do the same with their respective humans.
He looked at the body of Marsan and snorted, frustrated. Incredible. Damned traitor. There were so few of them, and they had to suffer such treachery. And now they were one less.
“Kick the body on my behalf, Halius, and incinerate it. Without any ceremony.”
“Yes, Tzedek,” Halius agreed contritely.
Tzedek shut down the screen with a gesture. He started pacing from one side to another between the desks, thinking. Suddenly, he took a monitor and with a shout of fury, ripped it from its base and threw it across the room where it exploded in a rain of plastic and glass. He kicked the desk and then hit it with his fist. Again, and again. It was as if he couldn’t stop. He hit it, and hit, and hit, denting it, while he kept screaming with everything he had in his lungs.
“Father,” whispered Althaea from the other side of the room, frightened.
His daughter’s soft voice interrupted him in the middle of a punch, that was softer than the previous ones. With great effort, he managed to control himself, stopped screaming and stopped his hand raised in the middle of another blow, before touching the desk, in a gesture of impotence. He looked at the furniture, completely battered, and the computer pieces, and felt ashamed of himself. Not for what he had broken, but by how he had been tricked. Marsan had spent centuries gaining positions of trust until he became his righthand man, he had practically been his advisor. How could he have been so naïve?
For the first time in a long time, he didn’t have any idea how things would turn out. And that was not acceptable.
THE CRUISE
MSC Grandiosa, November 24, 2027. 11:00 a.m.
Leora Shapira walked the upper deck, getting some air and looking at the horizon, free of obstacles as far as the eye could see. She had noticed a few sidelong glances and murmurs as she passed through the ship, which had tensed her up, but she hadn’t yet received any complaints, nor had she been able to discover what the problem was. She’d sent her second officer to investigate. Meanwhile, the sun’s rays and the breeze, in spite of the cool weather, had calmed them down. Her white uniform gleamed in the sun, warmed her body, and her hair was neatly gathered up in a bun behind and under her captain’s cap. She didn’t wear rings, earrings, or any kind of jewelry. Walking on the ship’s deck, one could almost forget that they were on a luxury ship. It was like walking through a resort. She breathed deeply and smelled the combination of sea water that surrounded them, and the pool that was on the lower deck. The ocean was very calm, and the ship’s motors couldn’t even be heard from the height at which she stood. She perceived them only very gently, like a constant vibration, through the soles of her shoes or her hands, if she leaned on a railing.
She was admiring the panorama when her second officer, Romano Castillo, approached rapidly. A large part of the crew was Italian, as she was. Although most of them were bilingual, speaking Italian and Spanish or Italian and Portuguese, she was a true polyglot, also speaking English, German, French, and Greek fluently, as well as various dialects. It was one of the reasons that finally, after many years as a first officer, they gave her her own ship in spite of being a woman. You could count the female captains in all the maritime fleets on the fingers of one hand.
“Captain, several passengers want to make a complaint,” Romano informed her.
Leora sighed. She thought something was wrong.
“What happened?”
“They say they can’t communicate with land.”
“Is there a problem with the satellite? Did you try changing the frequency?”
“That’s the thing, everything seems to be fine, but we’re having problems on the bridge, too. I was going to tell them that inconveniences with the satellite isn’t our responsibility, but...hmm, Captain, it would be better if you came to see what a passenger has shown us. I thought it was a joke at first, but now...”
Leora sighed.
“What do you want me to see?”
“He came with me, he’s waiting there.”
“Are you serious, Romano?”
Romano came closer and whispered: “Leora, I think something serious is happening on land. Please look at this.”
Leora took a deep breath, and followed by Romano, went towards the entrance to the stairs where the passenger was waiting.
Romano went ahead and made the introductions: “Captain, the passenger is Ignacio Iglesias and he wants to show you something important.”
“My pleasure, Captain. Please know I wouldn’t bother you if it didn’t seem very serious. It may be that you have seen things like this, and I don’t think panic is a good thing, so...”
Leora raised her hand.
“Fine, what is this about?”
“Look, Captain, it’s a chat I had with my brother on land over an hour ago. He’s in Buenos Aires. If I understand correctly, it’s our next port.”
Leora took his cell phone and started reading the conversation.
Dante (10:31):
Ignacio, I wanted to tell you something. I’m sick.
(10:32):
Hi, Dante. What’s wrong with you?
Dante (10:31):
Are you all okay on the ship?
(10:32):
As far as I know everything is fine, the cruise is good.
Dante (10:33):
Ignacio, no one must disembark for any reason.
(10:33):
What does that mean? I don’t drive the ship.
Dante (10:35):
People are dying.
(10:35):
What people?
Dante (10:37):
Everyone. The hospitals are overwhelmed.
Dante (10:37):
There are no police and no help. It’s chaos.
Dante (10:38):
Ignacio, it’s a virus or something. They say it’s an attack, we’re all sick.
(10:39):
Is this a joke? It must be some kind of epidemic, but it’s going to be okay, you’ll see.
(10:39):
Did you call a doctor?
Dante (10:39):
There are no doctors, they’re overwhelmed.
Dante (10:40):
Ignacio, look at the messages on the internet or s
omething, it’s a disaster, it’s serious.
Dante (10:41):
I feel bad, I’m going to rest. I’ll write you later. Hugs.
Leora tried to ignore the spelling mistakes and concentrate on the important part. She raised her head and looked at Ignacio. The man looked serious and worried. Then she looked at Romano, who had the same expression, and she sighed.
“Mr. Castillo, did you see the news today?” Leora asked her second.
“I didn’t have time. The passengers are really difficult today. I don’t mean you,” he said looking at Ignacio, who had crossed his arms.
“If this is true, it would be in the news. It would be best if we find out. Where’s the nearest TV?”
Romano thought for a moment.
“In the bar on Deck Seven, Captain.”
“A bar? Isn’t there something more private?”
“I can connect a signal to a monitor on the bridge, but it’s against regulations, it would take a while and the screen is small. We could also look for a TV in some room, but it would waste time and besides, I think word of this has run though the whole ship already, Captain.”
Leora let out an exasperated sigh.
“Okay, let’s go to the bar. Do you want to come, Mr. Iglesias?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
They went downstairs so as not to wait for the escalators and quickly went into the bar. At midday, there weren’t many people in the bars, most were in the restaurants. The few who were there were all standing around the two screens of the small amphitheater inside the bar. The other TVs were turned off. They went towards the bar, where no one was standing. It surprised Leora that after a decade of service, the ship still smelled new. The dedication of the crew, which meticulously reviewed every detail to keep everything clean, and repaired everything that broke, had a lot to do with that. The artificial leather chairs in red or black, depending on the area, the imitation stone panels, and the soft lighting made her feel comfortable in these parts of the ship, and hopefully it made the passengers feel the same. It was very different from when her tasks took her to areas off limits to the passengers, like for example the wastewater recycling processors.
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