Immunity Index Read online

  “I’ve never seen people this sick.” She swallowed hard against rising bile—fear or illness or just a reaction from the stink? She needed to find help—and there was a whole dormitory of people who could be recruited.

  She walked out of the bathroom and banged on the first door she saw, and without waiting, opened it, since the locks weren’t working. “Wake up! We need help!” Let the centaurs come. She ran down the hall, hammering her fist on every door, yanking them open, and shouting to the residents inside: “Can you help? People are sick!” “Are you okay?” “We need to help each other.”

  Behind her, a door slammed shut. “Get away!” a voice shouted from inside. “You’re contagious!”

  He had a point. Too late, though. We’ve all been exposed to whatever this is.

  A guy with sleep-mussed hair came to the door across the hall. “What’s going on?”

  “People are sick and need help. There’s one in the bathroom there.” She pointed. “Can you help?”

  He looked at her for a moment. “What do I do? I’m not a doctor.”

  “Just get him back to bed so he can rest. And check on your neighbors.”

  He thought. “Is this something they did, the administration? Like, poison us?”

  “Good question. I don’t know. I do know we can help each other.”

  “What if it’s Sino?”

  “It wouldn’t be worse if it was.”

  He looked at her for a moment. “I’ll go,” he said reluctantly, and crossed the hall into the bathroom.

  Other people had come out of their rooms. “Check on your neighbors,” she said. “Help each other out!” They stood there, frozen. “It’s the Dejope thing to do!” She shouldn’t need to explain something so basic.

  They stared at her—like I just gave them a pop quiz about something that wasn’t on the syllabus. Well, tests are learning experiences. She turned and went back to Sergio’s room. Drew had helped him into bed and was wiping up the vomit with a towel. The roommate had been brought back, too. One of the neighboring students came in, looking scared.

  “What can I do?” he asked Drew.

  “A glass of water can make the difference between life and death,” he said, much more patiently than Avril could. “Sometimes it’s that simple, basic care.”

  “That’s all?” He looked doubtful, but he agreed to do it.

  They left to find Hetta’s third mutineeer, and they immediately learned that the floor on that wing was already organized. The study lounge at the end of the hall had become sort of a medical command center. Several people wore purple. Avril looked at them in admiration. Everyone should be doing this. Including her own floor, she realized. She could have organized something rather than dithering for hours.

  “We’re looking for Bessea,” she said. “Is she here?”

  “Try one floor down. I guess there’s a meeting there.”

  As she left, someone called, “Oh, and don’t bring your phone. We think the centaurs can only track us with phones. The building doesn’t have much internal surveillance.”

  “But the phones don’t work.”

  “The phones don’t work for us. Take it back to your room and they’ll think you’re there.”

  She and Drew sprinted to their rooms to leave the phones. Hetta was now sitting at Avril’s desk. Shinta, she said, was still okay. She looked so glum that Avril gave her a hug; then she had an idea. She took Celia Ruiz’s book from a shelf. It told a magical story about all the exhilarating things that the color red could do. “This might help you feel better.”

  Hetta looked at it, dumbfounded, and started crying again.

  “Oh,” Avril whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  “Uh-uh, I loved this book when I was a kid.” She picked up the book and hugged it. “This is … this is good. Thanks.”

  She and Drew sneaked down to the second floor and found a half dozen people in the kitchenette. They looked up suspiciously.

  “Hetta sent us,” Avril murmured. She touched her scarf. “Also, we didn’t bring our phones.”

  A guy motioned for them to sit down. He wore a purple armband. “I was saying, we’re up against learned helplessness. That’s been the goal all along, to destroy any sense of community. When we can’t carry out our natural impulse for fight or flight, we freeze and appease.”

  Avril pulled up a chair and vowed to listen patiently—for only one more minute. She hadn’t come to debate tired old philosophy, even if that guy had a point.

  No one else seemed to want to debate that idea, either. Instead, someone said, “How about using this space as a clinic?”

  Avril felt better, but as soon as she had the chance, she said, “I want to break into the building management office.” She waited for people to stare at her in disbelief.

  No one did. “That’s next on the agenda,” the learned-helplessness guy said.

  * * *

  Berenike listened to the recording for the ambulance service again to confirm what she hadn’t wanted to hear. “We are sorry, but all ambulances are in service now. The wait exceeds several hours. If you are calling about a respiratory illness and your symptoms are severe, please arrange for your own transport as quickly as possible. All are welcome at any hospital or health center in the city of Milwaukee, regardless of ability to pay. Services will be free. If your symptoms are not severe, please visit your regular physician as soon as possible. Here is some information about home treatment.”

  She paced to the kitchen sink and back. The recording offered nothing new for home treatment. But it had confirmed that there was an emergency for people with respiratory illness. That had to be Sino.

  Deedee noticed her anger. “What?”

  “Ambulances are busy, but if she can get there, it’ll be free.”

  “Today’s the day, right! Is it the Sino cold? The flags wouldn’t hold it off forever.” Deedee frowned. “I meant that as a joke. I know they were stupid.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Then why all the lies? Something wasn’t making sense. “I’ll call a car to take her to the hospital.”

  “No.” Karen’s voice rasped worse. “Just let me stay home.” She lay back down, wincing.

  “Karen, the emergency room is free today,” Berenike repeated. “There’s a mutiny under way. Phone, AutoKar, place order … Okay, a car is coming. In a half hour.” Actually, a little more. That was a very long time for four in the morning. Something was really, really wrong.

  “Huh? Today?” Karen said. “Oh, today. Yeah. I’m really sick.”

  Deedee climbed out of bed. “Everybody, be sure to wear purple today. I’ll help get Karen to the hospital.”

  Berenike nodded to her as thanks. “The car’s delayed. I’ll transfer it to you for the notice when it gets here. I made it urgent.” Urgency from an assistant manager didn’t seem to do much: only five minutes less. She rummaged in a dresser drawer and pulled out a wide purple belt. “This should go great with a teal uniform.”

  “I can give you some purple hair clips,” Deedee said. “Nina, want some, too?”

  Nina was looking at their phone. “I’d love to wear a couple. The cold’s not on the official news, for what that’s worth. Not colds, not flu. But they’re liars. Hey, there’s suddenly more channels now. Maybe I can find more out. No stay-at-home orders, though. So maybe it’s not Sino.”

  They stood up, looking at their phone as Nina talked. “Here’s my plan: At work, I’m not going to obey the stupid laws, you know, like who can eat at restaurants. I’m going to serve everyone who walks in. I might even make the food free if their payment is refused. I’m so tired of this bullshit.”

  Berenike washed up, put on her uniform and the wide nonregulation purple belt, and slipped the clips in her hair. She wished they were bigger, but at least they were bright. As she left, she glanced back. Karen was sitting up, but she looked bad. I’m so tired of this bullshit. That thought gave her energy.

  In the cool, dark streets, she searched for a bike and fo
und one a block away. As she rode toward downtown, she met with little traffic, even for four thirty in the morning, and yet autocars were delayed. Something weird was definitely up.

  She neared a street where she’d once walked with Papa. He, more than anyone else, had helped her start to think politically. He was gone now, just when he was finally having some success. She blinked away tears to try to see clearly. A mistake could get her killed, since plenty of people still drove their own car. They always thought they were good drivers, and they never were.

  She arrived at work forty-five minutes ahead of her usual shift. Two coworkers were arguing in the second-floor work bay loud enough for their voices to echo down to the customer service desk.

  “We should both get out of here!” It was Jalil.

  “Not me. Too many bucks. You can go. I won’t blame you.” That was the guy they called Old Man Tito.

  “I mean,” Jalil said, “look at that car!”

  “Yeah. We’ve got equipment to clean that up.”

  She clocked in. New orders came up on the screen. All cars had to be cleaned and disinfected as they came in, not just the usual, taking out or vacuuming up whatever crap customers left, and customers could be pigs. Every single car had to be cleaned. For biohazards. Fuck. Sino for sure. And besides, that would mean delays as long as hours. What did AutoKar know about this cold? Why no quarantine?

  Jalil came down the ramp wearing a stiff plastic visor over a paper surgical mask, gloves, and stained white paper coveralls. He reeked of pine-scented cleaning fluid.

  “Berenike. Hey, you okay?”

  “Yeah. Well, I … Family stuff. I lost my papa.”

  “To that cold?”

  “Cold? They said food poisoning.”

  “Cold, poison, plague. I don’t care.” He pointed at the display. “You see the orders. They know something’s up. My friends, and their friends, they’re saying people are dropping dead all over. I’m young. I got family. Old Man Tito up there, he’s staying. He’s got no one and nothing, but I do.”

  “But today’s the day.” She pointed to her hair clips.

  “I don’t care. I don’t want to die for it.”

  “People need cars to get to the hospital.”

  He was about to say something, thought again, and said, “Yeah. But I got family.”

  She nodded. There was no point in arguing. “Come back any time. We’re going to need you.”

  “Thanks.” He was about to offer his hand, then looked down at his glove and stopped. He stripped off his biohazard gear, shoved it into a trash can, and clocked out. “Hey, take lots of vitamin C. My sister’s friend’s a nurse, and she says a megadose will really work.”

  “Thanks.” Not very likely. Whatever the disease was, though, she’d been exposed. Her future had already been decided. The thought made her feel dizzy for a moment. She took a deep breath. Nothing she could do would change that now.

  She was checking statistics before he was out the door. Usage was down 12 percent for 5:00 A.M. on a Monday, but that wouldn’t be enough to keep cars moving with the new requirements. It took a half hour to clean each car and let the cleaning fluid dry.

  People are dropping dead. She still felt fine, energized by the bike ride. How fast did this plague hit?

  Meanwhile, she had to disobey, to mutiny, and an epidemic might make her tiny piece of the puzzle more important. Infrastructure keeps people alive: that was what they always said at management training, although they paid her more like she was a nuisance than a lifesaver.

  If the mutiny passwords she’d been given would do what they were supposed to, she could make AutoKar available for everyone, citizens or not, and any class of citizens—and fuck the Prez, whose official news said nothing special was happening, although he didn’t say so himself with his bright smiling face, so maybe it was a lie and he wanted to give himself plausible deniability. But thinking about him was a waste of time.

  She opened the card and followed instructions, working her way one by one up through a series of administrative privilege levels, and finally she reached the last one. She tapped in a long series of numbers, letters, and symbols. Then she waited while the system rebooted. These instructions had to be an inside job. AutoKar had more mutineers and at least one in a high place. Good.

  “System settings,” she said. They came up … and it worked! She had full, god-level access to every setting in the franchise. With a grin that felt splendidly evil, she began to change them.

  Mutiny. Yeah. And then what happens? A fight was coming, and she had fired her first shot.

  Meanwhile, up in the work bay was Old Man Tito, too poor to retire, which he deserved. She should say hello and see if he needed help, and then she’d make sure that more staff was coming in soon. The smell of disinfectant filled the air, rotting pines dissolved in kerosene.

  Her father could have made a funny video about that, about stinky-clean cars.

  She started to cry. No. Deep breath, no crying, not right now. Today was going to be freedom or disaster, and in any case, a lot more complicated than the battle anyone had expected.

  * * *

  Thirty years ago, my every move had radiated exhilaration: a young, strong woman wearing dangling, glittering earrings, murderously high heels, ample makeup, and ample attitude. I had a thriving business, and I had a dream, although it had turned into dust, a husband had divorced, and the woman had long dozed. But now, that Peng had reawoken. World, take heart. These old-man clothes hid a dragon on a mission.

  Colonel Wilkinson wore disaster and sleep deprivation on his face. He had come to my little jail cell, and he would acquiesce to my demands—if he knew what was good for him. He had to know I understood at least some of the situation. I saw my own face reflected in a screen: a steadfast, confident, fire-breathing grandfather.

  “How fast can we act?” he said, a reasonable question.

  “Not fast enough, but we can do a great deal of good.” (A lot more than that, I knew.) “Is it possible to have person-to-person, direct communication with the other nodes?” My tone glowed red-hot.

  He hesitated a moment. “They’re here, most of them.” He gestured toward a locked door. “We … we had security concerns. You can understand, Dr. Peng.”

  “We also need to know what’s going on. Access to news, uncensored. The ability to communicate and come and go as we please.” He winced, and I felt guilty pleasure. “Not many secrets are left now. We can’t do much more harm with anything we could say. We deserve to be here freely, not held as prisoners. And we need final decisions made on medical criteria, not lunatic politicians who think flags can prevent an epidemic.” (Oh, the thrill of giving orders to the powerful!)

  To my surprise, he said, “Agreed.” Then he gestured to a purple ribbon on his lapel, clearly not part of his uniform, so that tiny scrap of fabric had to mean something exceptional. “We have a new chain of command. There’s a mutiny under way.”

  He saw my face collapse into that of a befuddled old man.

  “Some of us,” he said, “have decided we cannot obey illegal orders. To be honest, we obeyed them for far too long, and I owe you an apology. But now a line was crossed. A deadly version of the deltacoronavirus, the variation you recently examined, was deliberately released, and that accounts for the sudden illnesses. We don’t know precisely who did it, but we’re sure it was with the consent of the man who used to be my commander in chief.”

  His voice held enough steel to arm a battalion.

  It also relit the fire in my breath. “That version has a lot to tell us.” He would find out just how much, if I could genuinely trust him, although a trustworthy mutiny seemed like too much to hope for.

  “We need to act fast,” he said, “and I’m glad to see your energy and willingness to take an active role. You’re free to go, but you might want to stay within this facility for your own safety. There will be confrontations.”

  “I’m more worried about others than myself. I’ll stay he
re.”

  “Thank you.” He rose. “Let’s begin.”

  I turned back to a screen littered with letters and molecules that spelled out life and death and their permutations and possibilities, some of those sequences badly misspelled. He left to face danger and disaster head-on. I tried to parse hope from molecular words and grammar, breathless.

  Fifteen minutes later, the door that the colonel had pointed to opened. Grrl walked in, indeed female, but unlike my younger self, not performative in her appearance: instead she was simply dressed and with a practical haircut. Still, her intellect and character glowed like a beautiful halo. I’d already seen that face with its stately cheekbones, although her eyes now glinted with misgiving.

  “Peng. I’m Vita.” Beyond the door she’d walked through, voices spoke a bit more calmly than earlier when I’d heard them shouting. The panic had sunk to professional levels.

  “Vitória Peixoto?”

  She bestowed a thin smile of acknowledgment.

  “I’ve read your papers. I am honored.” In certain fields her knowledge outshone mine like the sun to a candle, so I had long wished to meet her, doubting that I ever would.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry to say things aren’t going well at all.”

  I followed her up a stairway into a larger room (right above mine!) filled with soldiers and civilians looking at data with grim faces. Someone started sneezing, but no one seemed concerned. The attenuated virus circulated freely in that room. For all my rancor, I was glad of it.

  * * *

  Irene pretended that the commotion had woken her up, although she’d been lying and thinking for a long time about ways to break open the prison. She had no contacts in the mutiny. Mamá had tried too hard to shelter her. And now she couldn’t help Mamá.

  All the lights in the house had come on, and Ruby and Will rushed out.

  “I’m worried,” she shouted.

  “I’ll drop you off and come right back,” he said.

  Worried about what? Something at the prison? She checked the news on her phone yet again. She could get the official reports, but so many other channels had been shut down that she could get little else besides a weather report and some music and entertainment that was heavily vetted. Officially nothing unusual was happening. She knew from her mother’s artwork that empty space in a composition could tell the viewer something important. A news blackout means there’s news.