Emergent, p.15
Emergent, page 15
part #1 of Cerenovo Series
“I’m fine.”
Ridley puffed up his chest and stepped forward. “What brings you to the island?”
“These MREs were just sitting in a FEMA. Nobody remembered that they existed. I suggested that we bring some here.”
“That was kind of you to remember us,” Diane said.
John tried not to stare at her. “You’ve lost weight.”
“Not by choice,” she said.
“I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay,” she said.
John whispered, “When no-ones looking, I’ll get you a few more boxes.”
“No. Please. Don’t do that,” she stammered, “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?"
“It wouldn’t be fair.”
It wasn’t long until the cardboard boxes and the ferry terminal were empty. John asked the captain when the ferry would head towards the city again. The captain replied, “Not until this evening. Seven o’clock.”
The other soldiers took naps on benches in the shade of some maples trees. Diane took John’s hand. “Ridley and I are going fishing. Since you have a little time to kill, why don’t you join us?”
Ridley tried his best to be friendly. “I’ll teach you if you don’t know how.”
John was hesitant. “Sure… Why not?”
They walked to the dock where Charley’s boat waited, boarded, donned their life jackets, and enjoyed the rare sunshine as Ridley maneuvered north to a sheltered cove. Diane sat next to the soldier, but did not cuddle, trying to be respectful of Ridley’s feelings.
Ridley turned off the engine. “Is your unit back together yet?”
“Sort of,” John said, “Headquarters still wants us isolated from soldiers that haven’t been exposed, at least until everyone is vaccinated.”
Ridley opened a tackle box. “There’s a vaccine?”
“An experimental one. Shipment came in yesterday.”
“I take it that soldiers are the guinea pigs?”
“Yep. I’m glad I was exposed to the real thing now.”
Diane said, “How did they get a vaccine so quick? Without computers?”
“Supposedly, the CDC got some of their computers working. We’ve been able to talk by ham radio,” John said, “They have evidence that the influenza virus was manufactured. They said that the virus has significantly more mutations than expected from natural processes.”
Ridley and Diane exchanged knowing glances. Ridley cut some bait with a pocket knife.
“Any ideas on who released it?” Diane asked, “Terrorists or…?”
“It would have to be someone pretty sophisticated to pull off something like this,” John said.
Ridley shook his head as he baited a line and handed the pole to Diane. “I don’t know. All they’d need is a really good home computer and a DNA printer.”
“DNA software will not print pathogenic sequences,” John argued, “The software has triple-encryption to prevent that from being bypassed.”
She cast her line. “How hard would it have been to write a new piece of software? Or strip out the encryption?”
“Hard,” John replied.
She seemed unconvinced by his short answer. “But not impossible?”
“Ask Ridley,” John quipped, “He’s a programmer.”
Ridley handed John a pole and then cast his own line. “You’d need a massive supercomputer to crack the encryption and then someone smart enough to alter the influenza virus. This wouldn’t have been like introducing existing genes from one plant species into another. The person who did this would have to understand biochemistry exceptionally well to create something so deadly.”
“Maybe they used existing genes from another virus. Ebola has been the virus of choice for terrorists for a decade now,” Diane argued.
Ridley shook his head. “Ebola doesn’t spread very well because it kills too quickly. They needed a disease that would incubate and spread before killing.”
“Exactly,” John said, “Besides, the CDC would’ve recognized any borrowed genes. This wasn’t the work of a basement chemist. It couldn’t have been the work of one person or even a few people. This came from an entire lab of PhD scientists. You’d have to be a genius to pull that off alone.”
The boat rocked back and forth. “What about the botnet?” Ridley asked, “Could it have been behind this?”
John did not understand the meaning of Ridley’s question. His eye twitched as he said, “The botnet took down the computers that would’ve identified this as a new virus. The spooks haven’t figured out much about the botnet yet, or at least they haven’t said anything publicly. But whoever released it is probably the same group that released the flu. It backfired on them. Both the flu and the botnet spread worldwide. They hit every nation.”
Diane’s fishing line became taught and she squealed in delight. The enormous skate struggled at the surface of the water. Ridley used a net to pull the fish into the boat. Its wings flapped in desperation. The skate barely fit in their small cooler. John noticed the cubes of ice. “There’s a luxury I haven’t seen in a while. How’d you get ice?”
“Solar panels power the refrigerator,” he said, “And for some reason, the CPU in the refrigerator hasn’t been affected.”
“That’s surprising,” John said.
Diane cast her line and then turned to John, “Anything else of interest in the city?”
“The Engineer Company thinks they have figured out how to fix the power grid,” John said, “They’ve isolated most of the damage from the fires and they’re stripped out all digital controllers. It’s going to be manually controlled.”
“Won’t that be dangerous?”
“We’re going back to the 1970s, but it should work,” John said, “Though it’d be a lot easier if we could get an effective antivirus working again.”
The boat drifted in the current, bouncing up and down. “Ridley has some pretty unique ideas about how to stop the botnet.”
John’s interest piqued. “Really? Tell me.”
Ridley waved his hand at the soldier. “I don’t want to bore you with things you wouldn’t understand.”
As he stood, John smirked and locked eyes with Ridley. “I understand more than you think.”
“You’d better watch your line.”
Something tugged at John’s line. John excitedly reeled it in, but caught only a plastic bag. He cast the line out again, but yawned as they fished, his exhaustion evident.
Ridley and Diane each caught a few small fish as the afternoon wore on. “Think we have enough?” she asked.
“The cooler’s full,” he said, “Maybe we head back now.”
“Why don’t we boat over to the city instead?” she asked.
John looked hopeful. Diane bit her lip.
Ridley squinted as the sun bounced off the water. “We need to get these fish put away. I’m not sure I want to travel over the sound again in a boat this small.”
They docked and Ridley secured the boat. John helped pull the heavy cooler up onto the dock.
“Do you want some fish to take back?” Ridley asked.
“I’ve got no way to cook them,” John admitted, “And I’m not into sushi.”
Ridley rolled the cooler along the street, which was littered with leaves and pine needles. The soldier walked next to Diane. They stopped at Diane’s cottage. Ridley began cleaning the fish in her kitchen sink.
Diane poured mint tea for the three of them and then sat on the sofa next to John. She pushed her hair out of her eyes.
“How long have you lived here?” John asked from the sofa.
“Not long. I moved out here last fall to get a little peace from the city, and because it’s a little cheaper. This isn’t even my furniture. I wasn’t planning to stay.”
Ridley looked at her in surprise. Blood covered his hands. “I didn’t know that.”
“My plans were interrupted,” she said.
Ridley cocked his head and laughed. “Plans? Since when did you have plans?”
Ridley finished cleaning the fish, put the filets in bags, and then back on ice. He tossed the guts onto the street. Sea gulls immediately devoured the offal.
Ridley cooked some of the filets in a skillet and they ate them with stale saltine crackers. Diane tried her best not to devour the fish in front of John. Afterwards, they played cards. Diane and John sat close to each other. Ridley bluffed and won.
John peeked at an old silver watch with a leather band as he lingered. The watch covered the square black tattoo. “I guess I should be going.”
“Is it that late already?” Diane asked.
John stood. “Are you coming to the city anytime soon?”
Diane followed him to the door. “I don’t know... Ridley and I want to pick up where we left off with the botnet but…”
“I understand.”
She adjusted the soldier’s collar. “You’re going to miss your boat if you dawdle much longer.”
He lingered next to her, as if wanting to give her a kiss. “Would you walk me to the ferry?” he asked.
“I’d like that.”
“I think he can find his way,” Ridley said.
“I’ll be back in a little bit,” Diane replied.
“I’ll go with you,” Ridley said.
John shot Ridley an angry glance. To Ridley’s dismay, the couple held hands and walked side-by-side down the street. The ferry captain was already blowing the whistle, warning that the boat was about to leave. When they reached the gate, Ridley put his hand on John’s shoulder. His words rang hollow. “It was good seeing you. Thank you for the MREs.”
John shook Ridley’s hand and then turned to Diane. “I hate to leave, but,” he said grudgingly, “Duty calls”
“I understand,” she said.
John hopped onto the boat just as it began moving. He winked at Diane. “Miss Everdene,” he teased, “Come see me when you get back to the city. Room 1632 at the Marriott. Remember. One. Six. Three. Two.”
Diane cupped her hands together and put them over her mouth; her lips trembled. John waved and she meekly waved back. He then disappeared into the small group of soldiers, his uniform blending with the camouflage of the others. The boat chugged through the glassy waters and out of sight.
“Miss Everdene?” Ridley asked.
“It’s from a book,” she said wistfully.
“The Hunger Games?”
“Uh… Yeah.”
The clock ticked in the quiet kitchen. Upon the hour, two wooden farmers and the cuckoo did their dance. Ridley froze all but two filets of the fish, which they sautéed with wild greens. After their second meal of the day, Diane gathered the dirty plates and washed them in cold water. “I think it’s time for me to start staying at my place again.”
Ridley gazed at her. “Why?”
“We don’t need to babysit each other anymore. Besides, I’ve mooched off you long enough.”
“You haven’t mooched off me. If anything, you’ve been a godsend. Helping in the garden, keeping this place running…”
“We’re just friends.”
Diane did not need to explain further. John was the reason. She tried to remove the sting of her words. “I don’t want to mislead you. But know that I am grateful we met. I wouldn’t be alive without you.”
He stammered, but could not tell her. “I thought… I thought that maybe we…”
“No. We can’t.”
She kissed him on the cheek, picked up a small tote bag that she had packed, and walked out the door. His heart plummeted into shadows. Ridley picked up the laptop. He replaced the battery and waited until the machine booted. The virus intervened and the screen went black. Ridley slammed the laptop screen closed and shoved the computer aside.
Chapter Sixteen
Three days passed before Diane took the ferry into the city. At the Marriott, she slowly climbed the stairs, pausing to rest every floor. Once she reached the sixteenth floor, she made her way down the dim hallway to room 1632. Diane knocked on the door but no-one answered. Though the door was unlocked, the room was empty. Diane rested again as she surveyed the room. His bed made with square corners. Toiletries were laid out neatly on the bathroom vanity. Two beer bottles had been tossed into the trashcan. She decided not to peek into his rucksack. Having caught her breath, she wrote a note. “Walked all they way up here. Should’ve figured you were out. I hope you get this in time. I’ll see you tonight at 5.”
Diane walked down to the lobby. A young Latino man with thick black hair was spreading news to his friends. “Ukon has fresh food. They’ve opened the warehouse by the port but it’s going fast.”
A Coast Guard tugboat had freed the grounded cargo ship, which was then towed into port. Amazingly, the vessel’s refrigeration had never failed. With their drones idle, Ukon opened their warehouse doors to the public for the first time.
Trying not to overtax herself, Diane meandered to the warehouse. A menagerie of antique vehicles, driven by people instead of computers, were lined up on the street. By the time she reached the entrance to the complex, a line had formed outside the fence. The Army guarded the warehouse and enforced strict limits on the amount of food a single person could receive. She waited to be allowed in.
The Ukon warehouse was frozen in time, the boxes of consumer goods still tagged with mailing labels awaiting shipment. The floor of the warehouse was littered with robots, square corpses of metal and silicon abandoned in their tracks. Sunlight shone through skylights staggered in the high ceiling.
Diane found Yuri in a dusty modular office situated at the far end of the building, away from the commotion. “How’s it going?”
His eyes were bloodshot. “Not good,” he lamented, “I don’t think we’re going to come back from this. Our network is gone. We’ve tried everything. I don’t know what to do at this point.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Wave a magic wand and make it work.”
“If we only knew what it wants,” she said ponderously.
“It doesn’t want anything,” he snapped, “It is a string of zeros and ones. There is nothing that you can do to help.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“I’m sorry. It’s been very stressful here. You should get some food before it disappears. There isn’t much left.”
She put her hand on his shoulder. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Diane returned to the main warehouse and was directed towards the dock. Customers took food directly from freight containers as they were offloaded from the ship. Diane wished for a shopping cart. She was allowed to fill only two paper bags. She collected cans of refried beans, two tins of sardines, six cans of artichokes, frozen dinners, frozen lab-burger in a tube, boxes of instant stuffing, a loaf of bread, and a sack of flour. Because credit cards and phones were worthless and cash was a historic artifact, workers hand-wrote IOUs that their customers signed.
Diane exited the warehouse with her groceries to see Fiona walking at breakneck speed towards the gated entrance, her heels clicking on the sidewalk with each step. She went to the front of the line and said to the guard, “I work here. I need to be let in.”
The guard stood aside. Fiona carried six fabric shopping bags. She looked up in time to barely avoid a crash with Diane. “Oh, goodness,” Fiona said, “That could’ve been a disaster.”
“I see that hospital stay didn’t keep you down for too long.”
“The color’s back in your cheeks too,” Fiona said, “Stealing groceries too, I see.”
“I signed the IOU like everyone else.”
“Have you spoken to anyone? Yuri maybe? How is Ukon’s network?”
“They’re trying to regroup. Their entire west coast infrastructure is decimated.”
“Rex’s keepers are probably beside themselves right now,” Fiona said with a snide tone in her voice, “If you see him, tell him that we’ll do anything we can to help.”
“Well, I don’t exactly see Rex. Except by teleconference.”
Fiona fiddled with a button on her coat. “I’m beginning to think he’s the secret AI that brought everything down,” Fiona joked, “He really needs to come out of hiding. He’s going to get vitamin D deficiency in that cave.”
“Cave?”
Fiona flapped her hand like a bird. “Oh… That’s… That’s just a saying. Where are you off to anyway?”
“I came to see John.”
“John? Oh, the soldier. You better hang on to him while you can. He’s a keeper.”
“I think so.”
“Is Yuri here? It’s been ages since I’ve seen him.”
Diane pointed towards the desolate office. Fiona fluttered away.
Diane shifted the paper sacks in her arms. She struggled to carry them through the gate and to the sidewalk. There, Cheney greeted her with a huge smile. “Need some help?”
She looked up in relief. “Oh my God. Yes, please.”
He took the bags from her arms.
“You’re no longer wearing a suit?” she asked.
“I got the new vaccine. Hope it works.”
“I’m sure it will. Have you seen John… I mean, Maddox?”
“No.”
“I stopped by his room this morning but couldn’t find him.”
Cheney shifted the groceries in his arms. “They are on a convoy mission to take food to Redmond and Bellevue. They won’t be back until tomorrow.”
She nodded in disappointment.
“Where you going with this?” Cheney asked.
Diane hesitated. “I guess to the ferry.”
At her cottage, Diane unpacked the groceries, ate some of the sardines, and then walked to Ridley’s home. “I didn’t have time to tell you,” she said, “There’s not much left in the warehouse.”
She placed a can of beans and artichokes on his counter. “I know it’s not much, but I wanted to repay you.”
“What were you doing in the city?” he asked suspiciously.
“I went to see John.”
The laptop remained closed. “You should keep those cans. I’m fine. There will be another shipment.”
She refused and put the food into his cabinet. Dirty dishes were piled in the kitchen sink.
