Immunity Index Read online

  She had to stop and catch her breath, panting not from exertion but from fear.

  Nimkii walked through the open gate and into the pen. He trumpeted. Home! Safe! Or so he thought in his simple world, back in the place where no one and nothing would hurt him. But maybe, since he had no food inside, after a little while she could tempt him out and they could go back to the cornfield.…

  A car pulled up in the driveway. Ruby?

  Irene needed to hide and fast—maybe in the alfalfa field. It grew waist-high. She could lie down in the path Nimkii had made. Ruby wouldn’t see her, wouldn’t even look for her. She’d think Irene was dead, asphyxiated in that prison. She dashed into the shadow of the winch, then behind some weeds, and dove into the field.

  The front door to the house slammed. Irene inched forward until she felt completely hidden. She lay in the dark, seeing nothing but the sky, and listened to Nimkii rumble, confused and anxious. Would he stay in the pen? Did she want him to? Would he come looking for her?

  She waited. Maybe she would have to wait all night. Mosquitoes buzzed around her ears, and bugs whined and chirped in the field. The wind hissed above her head. Slowly, the stars shifted in the sky.

  Voices came from the farm, two voices, one Ruby’s, the other maybe a man’s, quiet and urgent. They’re making plans to go away, Irene hoped. No, they were coming closer. To shoot Nimkii? Could she stop them if she tried?

  “Irene!” Ruby shouted. “Come out! If Nimkii’s here, we know you have to be here, too. We can see you with infrared, there in the field. Stand up. Put your hands up and come out.”

  Maybe they’d shoot her instead of Nimkii. Or both of them. And she couldn’t stop them—unless she could talk them out of it somehow. She stood up, raised her hands, and started walking. The man looked like a shadow against the porch light at the house. Ruby’s face was lit by the yellow light of the screen on the gun’s target system as she pointed a rifle at her.

  Mamá, a ti me voy. I’m coming to you.… Every step was taking her closer to Mamá.

  Ten feet away, she could see the man more clearly, young and dressed in hunter’s camouflage. He stood stiffly and announced, “In the name of the United States of America, we’re making a citizen’s arrest. You’ve been identified as a secret Chinese agent. Do not resist and you won’t be hurt. We’re going to turn you in to the authorities.”

  That made no sense. “Chinese agent?” She started to drop her hands in astonishment, then shot them back up.

  “You’ve seen the news.”

  “No, I haven’t.” The Prez’s news? Lies, lies, lies.

  “The White House said Chinese agents are here spreading chaos and disease to undermine our ability to fight.” He seemed to be reciting that.

  “I’m not Chinese.”

  “You’re a Chinese dupe.” He held out his display and turned it up to large. There was a gallery of photos, mostly of people who looked Asian. He scrolled down a bit. There were Irene, Avril, Berenike, and a fourth woman—no, a child—another identical sister.

  “Oh, the fourth one,” she said. Wait, that was the wrong thing to say.

  “So she was hiding.”

  “Well, no, I don’t know who she is. My mother got me from an IVF clinic, in vitro fertilization.”

  “Dupes aren’t natural. That whole clinic was sending spies to the United States, that’s what they said.”

  “Well, I didn’t know I was a spy.” Nimkii had been silent for a long time. Was he listening intently? Stay quiet. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Ruby could swing that gun toward him in a heartbeat.

  “You were just talking to one, and she was talking to a big-time spy. That’s what it says here. It’s tracking all of you.”

  What? Oh, Peng. Their phones must have been tapped.

  Ruby laughed, an ugly noise. “Mutinous mutants. How does that sound, Ethan? They’re spreading the killer cold. You infected Alan.”

  She didn’t sound angry. Suddenly something made sense.

  “Will said Alan was spreading it,” Irene said, “and he got what he deserved.”

  “He said that?” Ruby kicked at a stone in the driveway without lowering the rifle. “You’re lying, and no one can prove otherwise.”

  Irene knew that if what she’d heard from the mutiny news was true, anyone could prove otherwise—but she wasn’t going to spend her last breath saying that.

  “Look,” Ethan said, “we’re wasting time. We need to make this arrest and deliver her to the sheriff.”

  “Yeah,” Ruby said, “get in the car.” She jerked her gun.

  “First,” he said, “handcuffs. Put your arms out.”

  Irene did. He closed them so tight they hurt. The sheriff? Apparently not a mutineer, but maybe she could reason with him—if she got there alive. She’d have to make sure that happened. She walked toward the car, an old-fashioned sedan, and glanced back at the pen. Nimkii’s bulky shadow stood silent, watching without comprehending. He rumbled so low that Irene felt it more in her chest than in her ears. She climbed into the back seat. Ethan slammed the door shut.

  Maybe Nimkii would leave as soon as he realized she was gone again … and he’d wander around, get lost, and maybe panic and attack someone. Get shot as a dangerous nuisance. Or maybe he’d just starve.

  Goodbye, Nimkii. I love you.

  The car started up and crunched down the gravel driveway, headlights slicing through the night. Ruby drove manually and turned east toward the city of Wausau.

  “Listen to this,” Ethan said. He ordered his phone to play a recording and turn up the volume. A woman with a California accent was nattering about how the Chinese took a long view of everything and made plans a hundred years out.

  “Yeah, exactly,” Ruby said. “That’s why they need to interrogate you. That’s why we’re turning you in. If I’d known this, I wouldn’t have put you in the prison.”

  “Then she got out,” Ethan said sarcastically, as if it were part of a long-running argument.

  “Yeah. That mammoth. When we’re done with her, we’ll go back and shoot it.” She chuckled. “It’ll be fun.”

  I hope he kills you first. Or maybe Irene could wrap her cuffed wrists around Ruby’s throat. As if Ethan had read her thoughts, he turned and pointed a handgun at her.

  “Don’t get any ideas, dupe.”

  The recording droned on about how certain members of the United States population were Chinese followers, useful idiots, especially the ones running the electrical system.

  “That’s where the civil war is happening,” the California woman said. “Cities are in rebellion. We’ve gotta shut them down. Hit ’em where it hurts. Electricity. We have the means to shut it off if we use our might. Some of the power companies refuse to do it, and the people working for them refuse to do the right thing, too. The two major grids, Eastern and Western, are in open revolt. The Texas grid is different, it’s doing the right thing. Austin is dark, the way it always should have been.…”

  Ethan said, “They just don’t get it, some people. The war. What we gotta do.”

  “They never get it,” Ruby said.

  The car pulled into the parking lot at the side of the courthouse, a sleek, low, grayish twentieth-century building.

  Ethan got out, pointing the gun at her every moment.

  Ruby opened the rear door, and Irene stepped out. She wished she were contagious and had infected them. She’d been around sick people. Maybe some viruses clung to her clothing. Maybe the sheriff would be reasonable.

  The door to the courthouse was locked. Ethan buzzed an intercom next to it. A panel lit up. After a while, a woman’s voice answered.

  “Marathon County Sheriff.”

  “We’re here to deliver a prisoner, someone wanted by the federal government. Get in front of the camera, girl.”

  Irene walked forward. If they didn’t let her in, what would Ruby do? Shoot her. Let me in! She glared at the camera as if she were evil and worthy of incarceration.

&nbs
p; The door buzzed, and they marched her inside, Ethan pointing his handgun at her, ignoring the NO GUNS sign at the entrance.

  A deputy in the hall spotted them, ran through the nearest door, and closed it behind him. Irene suddenly realized she was with a group of what would look like armed intruders. In the chaos of the killer cold, anything could happen, including an armed takeover attempt of a sheriff’s office.

  She held her handcuffed arms up in surrender before she got caught in the cross fire.

  “You idiots!” she said. “You’re walking in with guns! They’re going to think you’re invaders.”

  “We’re delivering you like we should,” Ethan said.

  “No,” Ruby said, “I think maybe she’s right.”

  As she said that, a drone came buzzing out of a doorway ahead. “Put down your weapons,” it announced in an authoritative male voice. “Put down your weapons.”

  Ethan gestured at her. “She’s a dangerous criminal.”

  The drone fired a bullet. At that close range, he didn’t have time to react. It hit him in the chest. He dropped.

  Ruby turned and ran. The drone fired again. Irene closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see what would happen next. She kept holding her hands up, waving them to be more obvious. Footsteps ran down the hall, and voices yelled. Someone grabbed her. She opened her eyes. A deputy wearing a surgical mask.

  “I surrender! I’m innocent.” She let him drag her away.

  From the hallway, she heard Ruby shouting.

  The deputy holding her said, in a conversational tone, “Keep your hands up.” It was reassuring. “Don’t move.”

  A female officer approached. “I’m going to pat you down for weapons. Spread your legs and don’t move.” The deputy kept his grip on her arm. The woman, wearing gloves, was fast and efficient, and all she found was Irene’s phone. “We’ll take this.”

  Ruby, in the hall, was screaming now, keening for Ethan. “We’re patriots. We’re on your side.”

  “Come this way,” the woman said to Irene, glancing at the hallway door. “You can put your hands down.”

  “Thank you.” They’d become stiff. Was she safe now? She was still breathing fast. Her instincts said no, she was still in deep trouble.

  They took her to a little room. “State your name and address. Everything you say is being recorded.” Irene remembered from old movies about being told some sort of rights. Well, that was no longer in force. The woman looked at a screen on a side table.

  “So, you’re wanted as a Chinese agent.” She shook her head and looked at Irene. “We’re kind of stretched thin now. We don’t have spare time for this, and now those idiots made a mess in the hallway. Come with us.” She slipped Irene’s phone into an envelope, scanned a code on the envelope, and left it on the table.

  They led her through a hall, through another hall, down some stairs, and unlocked doors that led into an open area lined with doors with small, narrow windows. The man opened one of them and motioned for her to enter. She held up her handcuffed hands.

  “That man has the key. His name’s Ethan.”

  “Yeah,” the man said, “if we can find it, I’ll come back. It’s—”

  “This is the last thing we needed tonight,” the woman said. The man shut the door.

  The room had a light Irene couldn’t turn off no matter what she said, a steel toilet in the far corner with a sink above its tank, and a narrow cot without any bedding, just a thin plastic mattress. Despite the cuffs, she squirmed down her pants and peed, wiped herself clumsily, and wiggled the pants back up. She washed her hands and realized she had nothing to dry them on. She used her shirt. She flexed her fingers to keep the blood flowing through the tight handcuffs.

  She lay down and tried to fall asleep. There was nothing else to do.

  Sleep did not come. She thought about Nimkii, her mother, her sisters—two or three now!—the cold, her home, her country, and the world, all in a swirl of thoughts that were dark and angry and terrified and sad. Tomorrow … tomorrow would be worse. She cried.

  * * *

  Berenike was standing in the parking lot at a clinic, waiting alongside a light post for a truck to be loaded, and she pondered mortality, since she would not die of at least one specific thing. She could still die of many other things, of course, but they seemed distant even if they weren’t. Immune. Damn, that felt good.

  With that question removed, she had others. She had a new, instant sort-of family, maybe, some sisters, and what were they like? As for her old family, would she even find out where her father was buried? Should she still resent her parents now that they could no longer harm her? Maybe she should just let them go.

  But other people had died and their harm remained behind, and plenty of people were still alive and doing massive harm. She would give her life to fight them, and she’d be dangerous and hard to stop.

  “Hey, you okay?” Neal asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m okay like that too. I gotta keep doing something.”

  They were going to bring antivirals, other medical supplies, and food to the electrical grid control facility in the south suburbs, a nondescript building she was sure she’d seen but never noticed because it was deliberately unmarked and bland to prevent notice and sabotage. A variety of people and groups might try to bring down the electrical grid, even in good times.

  The county government—what was left of it—was still dithering over supporting or opposing the mutiny, so it would neither aid nor block the city’s mission. Rumors said countermutineers were coalescing. The control room might be a target, but a lone unmarked truck, driving manually, off the grid, might not attract attention. Drones would discreetly follow their progress. A remote-controlled decoy truck emblazoned with the blue city logo would approach the main entrance in an attempt to draw off attention.

  Berenike took the wheel. It felt good. “Route plotted with course corrections for red dots.” She mimicked the dialogue from a movie.

  “Full throttle.”

  She poked through city streets at the legal limit and, as soon as they reached the freeway, let the truck go at top speed. With almost no traffic, reckless acceleration was fun. The lights alongside the road were on, and most houses were lit—a sign of victory. Take that, dead Prez.

  “It’s like there’s a snowstorm,” Neal said, “but no snow.”

  They approached a side gate in a chain-link fence on an unlit road and waited for the truck’s electronic ID to open it.

  The window next to Neal shattered. Then the windshield. For a moment, Berenike sat frozen, covered by little chunks of broken glass. What did that?

  An attack. They were under attack. Countermutineers? Had to be.

  She fumbled to unhook her seat belt and ducked down. She stayed down. She waited … and nothing more happened. Maybe they weren’t under attack. Maybe it was something else.

  “Neal?” she whispered. No response. That was bad.

  She fumbled with the visor on her helmet and closed it, then peeked up. Neal. He sat slumped over, restrained by his seat belt. He was twitching.

  “Neal?” she said louder. No reaction.

  Shouts came from outside. “Hands up!”

  Countermutineers, it had to be that. Fuck. She put her hands up. Her fingers felt distant and numb.

  “Get out of the truck!”

  She found the door control, found her feet, everything far away, and stepped out. Her legs shook. Where was the man who was shouting? It was too dark to tell, and all the distances suddenly seemed huge. She tried to focus, to pull things in, to control her own body. Breathe.

  “Step away from the truck.” A blinding light shone on her. She took a couple of steps.

  Was that a drone buzzing? No, two drones, very faint and far away, but maybe not their drones.

  Some people approached: hoods, camouflage, goggles, breathing masks. Pointing rifles. She stood still.

  “Look toward me and take off your helmet.” A man’s voice.


  She slowly turned, reached up, and struggled with unwilling fingers to unsnap the chin strap. She lifted off the helmet, and the cold breeze on her head made her shiver from the sudden vulnerability.

  A silhouette pointed a phone at her. It clicked. A photo. “We’ll see who you are.” Facial recognition. What database did they have access to, and why did they care who she was?

  “What were you bringing?” someone else asked. A woman’s voice.

  There seemed to be no point in lying. “Antivirals, some other medicine, some food.”

  “We could use that a whole lot better than the assholes in there.”

  “Let’s move fast,” a man said. “Dump that body and take the truck.”

  “What about her?”

  “Can you drive the truck?” a man asked her.

  “Yes.” I got it here, shithead. The shock was wearing off and anger was boiling up.

  “No,” the woman said, “that truck has a tracer, for sure.” She pointed up. “And those are drones. Let’s move fast. Just shoot her.”

  There’s no point in keeping me alive. If you don’t kill me and I can kill you, I will.

  “Hey,” the man with the screen said. “She’s wanted. A Chinese agent. That’s what the White House said. The ones who released the flu virus.”

  What?

  “Then let’s shoot her,” the woman insisted.

  “Hey, there’s another one just like her up in Wausau. Two more besides that. Clones. They’re all alike, clones. Let’s take her and turn her in. That’s what the White House wants.”

  Irene and Avril! And the fourth.

  “Let’s hurry. Dupe girl, unlock the back doors. You can do that, right?”

  “If you let me move.”

  “Nothing fast,” the man said.

  She reached inside the cab and punched a button. The cab smelled of blood. Neal. He wasn’t moving. Please be playing dead.

  The counterrebels grabbed boxes as fast as they could, even her backpack—“Evidence,” the woman said, glaring at her—and shoved it into a nearby van.

  “Get in,” screen man said. He threw her a face mask. “Put this on.”

  She obeyed. She was immune to a virus, but not a bullet. Somehow that immunity would give her an advantage. How exactly could she kill these people?