Immunity Index Page 13

  “People feel terror at the thought of the so-called Sino cold. I’m Chinese, and children were pointing at me on the street. Now they’re going to find out their partner or child apparently has that life-threatening illness. Or they themselves do. How will they know they’re not about to die?”

  After a brief silence, Grrl said, “We’ll be looking at panic.”

  “Short-lived, if it happens,” Node 6 said. “From what I’ve heard, the Prez will announce that the country has been successfully vaccinated. Everyone will rejoice.”

  That was wishful thinking, brought to you by the people who believed flags would stave off illness. Also, how had they heard that?

  “Even as contagious as that virus is,” I said, “from the figures we have so far and the patchwork distribution of the virus, it’s not going to reach herd immunity anytime soon.”

  “People will try to catch it,” Node 6 said.

  I felt tempted to start ignoring Node 6 because of manifest idiocy, but they’d tipped their hand. What they asserted seemed idiotic because, as I said, the Prez’s team were idiots. I was talking to one of its members.

  “That’s for someone else to figure out,” Node 5 said. “Our job is to look at how it will react to that other virus, the real thing, the deadly one, when that hits.”

  I had already run several models that had left quite a few questions unanswered. The biggest of all was how a given patient would respond to simultaneous exposure to both viruses, and how the viruses would interact with each other. They might swap genetic material with every possible kind of result, from beneficial to catastrophic. I presented all my doubts, and Node 6 had predictable quibbles. In order to observe Node 6 closely, I answered them all with more patience than I knew I still had in reserve, although few of the objections seemed reasonable and all of them had been based on an unsophisticated understanding of the interaction between the human body and viral infections, and between viruses themselves.

  I was arguing for specific tests to confirm and expand on my concerns (I can err, too, and knowing that saves me from some kinds of idiocy) when Node 1 interrupted.

  “We have reports of sudden complications.”

  In fact, we had reports of severe illnesses and several deaths from around the country. The symptoms seemed to surpass the original delta virus. Within an hour, we had a genetic analysis of the virus, and as I studied it, time slowed until it stopped with a horrifying jolt.

  “This is new.” I struggled to talk through my anger. “It’s not the attenuated virus meant as a vaccine. This is the deadly delta virus, the real thing, but it’s a slight variation, a new strain.” I actually saw much more than that, but I wasn’t going to tip my hand yet.

  “You’re sure?” Node 6 said, anger hissing in the distorting static.

  “We should check, of course, but I feel confident.”

  “You know an awful lot.” Their voice rang with the singsong of sarcasm.

  “I do.” At that point, I ran out of patience. And fear. “You might know me as Peng. I’ve done quite a lot of work with genetics.”

  “Peng? You—you’re that Peng?”

  “Yes. I could build you from the ground up. Now, how did this deadly virus suddenly appear in so many places at once?” I had a terrifying, infuriating guess.

  After a long wait—but not silent, because at some node, people were shouting in the background—Grrl said, “Another question, and very important. How fast can we predict specifically how this will interact with the vaccine?”

  “We can start work now,” I said.

  I was going to have some conditions to demand, however, because I knew what I had seen.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Avril helped Hetta to the sink to wash her face after she’d thrown up—out of fear, Avril hoped, not illness. It was four in the morning, and the bathroom down the hall from Avril’s room had become sort of a health center—bare, echoing, damp, with soap scents unable to cover what fear apparently smelled like, which was blood, bile, and loose bowels. She hadn’t expected to find Hetta there, or to find her needing so much help.

  Hetta rinsed her mouth and face and blotted it on a towel. Tears dripped down her cheeks. Her bathrobe was spotted with blood. And probably pathogens.

  But I’ve already been exposed. Dead woman walking. We’ll see how far I get.

  Fear—or rage or despair—whined in Hetta’s voice. “I didn’t know what to do. I was holding her, and she was trying to breathe, and blood was coming from her mouth, and she started thrashing and then she just stopped, she stopped moving. I couldn’t do anything.”

  Avril began to reach out to take her hand, but stopped. Her own hand was trembling—she might die herself, other people were dying, and what could she do about them?—so it might not provide much comfort. Their phones had long been cut off, so they had no one to consult. Two other women stood nearby in pajamas, pale and huddled together.

  “They want to kill us all,” Hetta said. “That’s why we’re locked in.” She sobbed even harder.

  Maybe she’s right. It was one way to destroy the university or the mutiny.

  First, survive. There had to be something concrete to do, or Avril would start sobbing herself. She gestured at a shelf of over-the-counter remedies that people were sharing—cold medicine, painkillers, even an asthma inhaler—along with what little advice they could give.

  “I hear these might help. A little bit. So people don’t go into a death spiral.” She’d given some cough suppressant to Shinta, who was not sleeping more peacefully—but not worse, either. Avril had come to the bathroom to moisten a cloth to put on her forehead to cool a scary-hot fever. Would that help? There had to be a way to find out for sure.

  “Are there any med students in Dejope?” she asked the two women as gently as she could, hoping to draw them into a discussion and give them support. “Or premed? Nursing?”

  “Can’t we just break out?” one of the women answered angrily. “Go get help? If we stay here, we’ll all get sick and die.”

  Avril shook her head. “They’ll shoot us. So far I’ve seen more than one guy try to run out of here and get shot. Haven’t you heard the gunfire?”

  The other woman began weeping. Avril felt her own eyes tear up. Crying is as contagious as a cold. Out in the hall, a voice boomed. Avril peeked out. A centaur, one of the ones usually guarding the ground floor, was patrolling the hallway to terrify the residents. “Remain in your rooms,” it commanded in that too-human voice.

  She closed the door, shaking. “There’s a centaur in the hall.” That was a stupid thing to say. Anyone could have guessed.

  “Another robot?” the crying woman said. “I haven’t seen any human guards. Maybe we can find someone and reason with them.”

  Who’d want to guard a plague ship? There was no point in trying to reason with a robot. Even if somewhere someone was directing it, those people tended to act more inhumanely than they would in person. Metal made people mean.

  Hetta covered her face with her hands. “What do I do with … my roommate? I can’t go back there. I…”

  “Come with me,” Avril said. She didn’t want to be alone, either, and she needed to get back to Shinta. She took her damp washcloth and peeked out again. The elevator was shut and the centaur gone. For the moment, it was safe to leave.

  Shinta seemed unchanged, her forehead still hot. If the cool cloth did nothing but help Avril feel useful, that might be enough—no, she needed to do more.

  “What exactly was supposed to happen today?” she whispered to Hetta, who slumped utterly morose on Shinta’s desk chair.

  “I don’t know much. Cal knew more. Mutiny. Today. Don’t obey. Wear purple.”

  “That simple?”

  “Yeah, just don’t obey the Prez. All sorts of people are going to say no and do things right.” She cradled her head in her hands.

  Avril stared out the window wondering what to disobey. The campus lockdown, for starters. How many centaurs
were there, or to be precise, how many of them compared with the entrances to the dorm? Could the residents fight back? What weapons did they have? Maybe someone had a gun, or better yet, unregistered, disruptive electronics. How about weightlifting dumbbells to throw at centaurs or windows? Equipment in the food court like knives? It was time to think creatively.

  This lockdown was going to fail if she could do anything about it. What Dejope residents needed was leadership. Avril had been taught how to lead teams in high school, and one had won a computer competition. If she was going to be a rebel dupe, she could start now.

  Dead woman walking. Stay out of my way.

  * * *

  Berenike woke to the sound of uncontrollable coughing. She sat up in a panic and started to climb out of bed. Papa! Then she realized where she was. Karen. Her roommate was sitting on the edge of her bed struggling to breathe, lit by the night-light through the open bathroom door. Karen might have caught that cold that was going around, which wasn’t the Sino, just the sniffles—although she was doing more than sniff. Well, the Prez was a liar, so maybe …

  Berenike hopped down from the top bunk. “Karen?”

  “Sorry,” she answered, and tried to say more and couldn’t.

  She’s apologizing for waking people up even though she might be dying. Typical Karen.

  Deedee, a light sleeper, stirred.

  Berenike considered what to do for a cold: rest, fluids, cough medicine, and painkillers. But for Sino? That disease killed people.

  “Karen?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, but she gasped and panted. Berenike felt her forehead—definitely warm. “Let me get you a glass of water.” She could do that in the dark, get a glass from the cabinet and cold water from the kitchen sink. Karen drank it quickly.

  “She okay?” Deedee muttered.

  “I’m fine,” she rasped.

  Berenike sighed. “She’s not.”

  Their fourth roommate, Nina, sat up. “Apartment, lights on.”

  Berenike blinked in the light, and when her vision adjusted, she saw froth on Karen’s lips. Oh, fuck! Like Papa. Maybe Berenike had brought whatever it was back with her. But food poisoning wasn’t contagious, much less genuine poisoning, and she didn’t feel sick. And Karen had been sick last night. But what if Papa really died of Sino? The people from the funeral home were angry about something.

  “Karen,” Deedee said, “you look really bad. Maybe we should call an ambulance.”

  “No, I don’t have … insurance. And I have things to do.”

  “They might take her for free today,” Nina said.

  Nina knows, even the date. So much for secrecy. Still, free service at the emergency room. Health care even for the uninsured.

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” Berenike said. “Yeah, today’s the day. We all disobey.”

  Deedee cheered, although she kept her voice muted. “I know! I’ve been waiting for this! Is everyone here on board?”

  “Hell, yeah!” Berenike said, trying to echo her hushed enthusiasm. But she really felt dread. Because Papa died? Or because this whole idea is way too optimistic? And that food-poisoning lie. Too much was plainly going wrong already.

  Her phone chimed. A message from AutoKar: “Attendance today is mandatory. Failure to report will result in termination. Employees will receive double pay and are urged to report as soon as possible, even ahead of scheduled shifts. Partial hours will be compensated to the minute.”

  That was weird beyond words. Why would those cheap motherfuckers offer double pay by the minute? Maybe the mutiny had the corporate headquarters scared, which meant the Prez was scared, since corporate kissed his butt. If they insisted on her coming in to work, that was their mistake.

  * * *

  Irene’s alarm woke her at four in the morning next to Nimkii’s pen. He snorted at the noise, wondering why she was awake, but she knew. No one in the house would be up.

  She slid from beneath the mosquito net, slipped on shoes, and headed for the truck. The light on the farmhouse porch dimly lit the way. The truck door wasn’t locked—Alan never bothered. Irene touched the controls on the dashboard to turn on the navigation panel. She wanted to be quiet, so no voice commands. The navigation history would tell her where the truck had gone yesterday.

  Out of three trips, two went to the same place on Highway 29 almost due north of the farm, barely more than a mile. That close! Irene could walk there. She was pretty sure she’d seen a farm there with a huge sheet-metal barn, the sort that covered a livestock operation. She gently closed the truck door.

  So, now what? She would go and take a look. Nimkii could be on his own for an hour. He usually spent the night alone anyway, and he showed no interest in escaping again. The lights were out in the house, and she could be back before Ruby got up for work, or if not, no one paid attention to her anyway.

  The quarter-moon provided enough light to keep her on the shoulder of the road. Crickets chirped, and gravel crunched under her feet. A secret prison seemed like too much to expect—but even the Prez gloated about political prisons already, although he called them public safety centers. The hurricane and flooding refugee camps in southern states amounted to prisons, too. Was this what Mamá was sending her a message about? Mamá had told her the mutiny would free the prisoners.

  When she approached the highway, she stepped into the drainage ditch, where tall weeds provided cover. A prison would have tight security, but it was alongside a public highway, so if she was noticed, she might be ignored. She wasn’t taking chances.

  She spotted the barn right away, set far back on the property but brightly lit, which was suspicious in itself—maybe the lights were meant to watch for escapees or attacks. She used the camera on her phone to zoom in. It looked even more suspicious close up. A lot of cars and trucks and vans were parked around it—so it couldn’t be a farm. No farm was that busy. Someone, a silhouette in the bright light and wearing a hat or helmet, was walking into the barn, and when they opened one of the two doors, even brighter lights glared from inside. That also seemed suspicious. If the barn held animals, the lights would be off at night so they could sleep. Animals were treated better than humans sometimes.

  She thought she spotted a security robot—what did they call them, centaurs? Yes, one was walking around the barn. No dairy farm would have one of them.

  Nothing more happened over the next few minutes besides the appearance of a second centaur, so she turned around and headed back. She’d definitely found a secret prison. She had a responsibility to do something with that knowledge, but what?

  When she saw headlights coming up the road, she hid in the ditch again. Most people let cars drive themselves and paid no attention to their surroundings, but she wasn’t taking chances.

  The house was still dark, and Nimkii was waiting for her. He rumbled a greeting. She climbed back into her sleeping bag. She needed to tell someone and had no idea who, so she sent a message to Mamá’s artist network, all of them mutineers, and tried to fall asleep again.

  Lights came on in the farmhouse.

  * * *

  Avril questioned Hetta calmly and gently since she seemed to be on the edge of collapse, maybe about to fall ill. “Who else is in the mutiny in Dejope? We need to get organized.”

  Hetta looked up and blinked puffy red eyes. “What are you going to do?”

  “Disobey. And break things.” She had some specific things in mind. And she would organize health care while she was at it, or delegate that job if she could, since she knew almost nothing useful. Around her neck, she’d looped a twilight-purple scarf with bats on it, a Halloween accessory, the only purple clothing she owned.

  “Cal knew almost everything,” Hetta said, but she could provide three names and room numbers. Avril asked her to care for Shinta, who was breathing rough but steady, and went to the door of the first person she’d named. He answered immediately when she knocked, a square-built, fair-skinned young man in pajamas named Drew, who s
aid he was eager to do something, anything. He whispered—Dejope had rules about making noise at night, and besides, he said, noise might attract a centaur.

  “I couldn’t sleep. Lemme throw on some clothes. Wait there. I’ll be right out.”

  He came out less than a minute later wearing a lilac-colored T-shirt. They tiptoed downstairs to the room of the next person, someone named Sergio.

  No one answered.

  “Maybe they’re out,” Drew murmured.

  “Maybe they’re sick,” Avril said. She tried the door. “It’s not locked.” Someone somewhere was messing with the electronic controls. “Let’s go in.”

  She pushed the door open slowly. “Hello?”

  The room smelled like vomit. That was bad.

  “Are you all right? Are you here?”

  She slowly walked in, Drew following. She thought she heard breathing.

  “Lights, on,” she ordered. The room looked like a disaster, not a mess from bad housekeeping habits, instead like it had been torn apart. They found a young man on the floor curled up next to the vomit. She tried to wake him as Drew stared over her shoulder.

  “Sergio? Sergio, can you hear me?” She shook him by the shoulder, wondering if he was Sergio or Sergio’s roommate, not that it mattered. He felt too warm. He was breathing fast and shallow—very sick but still alive.

  “Let me check him,” Drew said. “My mom’s a doctor. I know a little bit.”

  “I’ll find his roommate,” Avril said. She looked under the bunk bed, behind a desk, and in the closet for someone unconscious on the floor. “I’ll check the bathrooms down the hall.”

  She prepared herself for the worst as she opened the door, or maybe, if she was lucky, she’d find a little meeting like the spontaneous one on her floor. She saw no one—then she heard moaning from a stall, the door hanging open. She looked inside. The guy sitting on the toilet seemed barely conscious, coughing, by the smell suffering from diarrhea.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’ve never felt this sick before.”