Dream Sky (19 page)

The examination went on for another ten minutes, but the questioning seemed to be done. After they finished, Ben was turned over to the two guards who had accompanied the doctors earlier. They escorted him through the interior of the stadium, then down a corridor glowing with sunlight from the far end.

As they exited the corridor, Ben saw they had come out into one of the dugouts inside the stadium. The dugout was two tiered. The tier the tunnel opened onto was the lower one and covered by the dugout roof.  The second tier was more a series of steps and a few flat areas right up against the railing that lined the ball field.

Beyond the field, he could see grandstands full of empty seats rising high into the sky, but it was the field itself that held his attention. Where before there had been base paths and chalk lines and grass and a pitcher’s mound, there now were fences and posts and razor wire, all strung together to form enclosures. He couldn’t tell how many, but definitely more than one.

“What is this?” he asked the guards as they guided him up the stairs to the field.

“Holding areas,” one of them said. “Keeps you isolated and safe from exposure. Only a precaution.”

The words would have been more comforting if they hadn’t sounded so rote.

When he was standing at field level, he could see two enclosures. The nearest ran from about midway between what had been home plate and third base—where it was narrowest—out a good hundred feet into left field, where it widened to about another hundred feet. A giant triangle. The second enclosure was similar, the only difference being it ran up the first-base side.

The guards led him to the gate of the nearest enclosure, opened it, and motioned him in.

“Am I the only one here?” Ben asked, looking around.

“Haven’t had a lot of people come in the last few days,” the guard closing the gate said. “There are four others.” He nodded his chin toward the building at the back of the enclosure. “Probably in the dorm.”

“So I’m just supposed to stay here?”

“For your protection.”

The guard snapped the lock closed, then he and his buddy headed back toward the dugout.

Ben stared after them until they disappeared, then he did a three-sixty and took in his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was that the grandstands surrounding the field weren’t as deserted as he’d originally thought. Spaced all the way around the stadium were ten armed soldiers. The second thing he noticed was that the fence surrounding his enclosure was not only on top of the ground but had been buried into it. That, combined with the three strands of razor wire running along the top, sent the clear message that attempting to leave was not encouraged.

Yes, he could understand precaution. Yes, he could understand the need for isolation. But what he couldn’t understand was the need to treat him like a prisoner. Because that’s what he felt like. Thirty minutes earlier he had been so elated. Now the hairs on his arms were standing on end.

Martina. He had come here for Martina. It didn’t matter if they locked him up. As long as he could find her, everything would be okay. Before he realized it, he was running toward the dorm building, thinking one of the four people inside might be her. When he reached the door, he flung it open and raced inside.

The large main room was lined with triple high bunks running down both sides. At the midway point was an open area where a few tables and some chairs were set up. The four people the guard had mentioned were sitting in the chairs facing one of the walls, with the distinct glow of a television falling on them. Instead of looking at the TV, though, they had all turned toward the door when Ben rushed in.

One man and three women, none of whom was Martina.

__________

T
HEIR NAMES WERE
Ava, Grace, Melody, and Diego. None had known each other before the outbreak, though Ava and Grace had found each other prior to making the journey to the survival station.

Diego had been there the longest, ten hours shy of two days. The women had all arrived a day later, Melody first, then Ava and Grace a few hours after that. Diego said there had been six others in the holding area when he arrived, but when he woke after his first night, they were gone. The person who brought the food told him all six had cleared their quarantine period, been inoculated, and sent on to one of the UN safe zones.

“The six who were here—was one of them a girl, about eighteen, named Martina?” Ben said.

Diego shook his head. “There were only two women. One was probably around forty, and the other had to be in her seventies.”

Ben felt defeated. He had been so sure he would find her here. Of course, if she had come as soon as the survival stations opened, she could have already moved on to this safe zone.

“Are there people in the other fenced-in area?” he asked.

“I saw someone in the big one next to us last night,” Grace said. “He didn’t look well, though.”

“I’ve seen a couple there, too,” Diego said. “None of them looked too good.”

“Makes sense,” Ben said. “Separate the sick from the healthy.”

“Don’t know about the small holding area, though,” Diego said.

“Small holding area?” Ben asked. He had only seen the two.

“It’s out in center field, but the fence is covered with a tarp so you can’t see in.”

“I’ve heard some voices from over there,” Melody said. “Couldn’t understand anything, though.”

“How many voices?”

“Three or four maybe.”

“Male or female?”

“Female, I think, but I can’t be sure.”

Though he knew he was grasping at straws, Ben couldn’t help but feel a resurgence of hope. “Have any of the guards told you what that area’s for?”

“They don’t say much. I was lucky just to get one of them to tell me what happened to the people who left,” Diego said.

“Have any of you tried to get out?” Ben asked.

“Get out?” Melody said. “Why would we want to get out?”

“Doesn’t it seem kind of weird for them to lock us up like this?”

“They’re trying to keep us safe,” Ava said. “After we pass our two days, we’ll get the shot and we can go.”

“But if they’re really trying to make sure we aren’t sick, wouldn’t they put each of us in our own room?” Ben said, adding, “If one of us turned out to be sick, we could infect the others. So what good would that do?”

He could see none of them had thought about it. Confusion began leaking into their expressions.

“No,” Ava said. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing. It’s the UN, for God’s sake. They’re trying to keep people alive, so why would they do something that would harm us?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said.

“Exactly my point. We just need to do our time and everything will be fine.”

The thought had come to Ben as he was sitting there, and he wasn’t sure he was right so he decided not to push it any further. Still, it troubled him.

The conversation fell into stories about what each of them had gone through to get there. After a while, Ben said he wanted to stretch his legs and went outside.

He walked slowly around the perimeter of his holding area. When he reached the point closest to the smaller enclosure out in center field, he stopped.

Like Diego had said, the fence was covered with a green tarp. Ben was willing to bet it’d been cut from the covering that was once used to protect the playing field from rain.

He turned his ear toward the other area but could hear no voices.

Facing the tarped enclosure once more, he cupped his hands around his mouth and said, “Martina?” Even as her name left his lips, he knew he wasn’t speaking loudly enough. He tried it again, raising his volume a bit. “Martina?”

No response.

“Martina?” he said, louder.

Nothing at all.

He was tempted to shout, but didn’t know how the guards would react if they heard him. Until he discovered otherwise, drawing attention to himself didn’t seem like a good idea.

“Martina,” he said one last time.

Silence.

16

WARD MOUNTAIN NORTH, NEVADA

5:19 PM PST

C
ALEB’S FIRST ATTEMPT
to remotely control the equipment at the abandoned Mumbai survival station failed miserably.

“Son of a…” He looked back at Jesse, Devin, and Mya. “What the hell did you forget?”

“We didn’t forget anything,” Devin said.

“Well, that’s obviously not true or it would be working, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe you messed up the schematic,” Jesse said.

Caleb leveled his gaze at him. “Not possible.”

“Who’s got it?” Mya asked. “Let me see it again.”

Devin retrieved the plans Caleb had sketched out and gave them to her.

She looked at it, following lines with her finger. She moved over to the equipment rack they’d put together and glanced from the paper to the actual item and back.

“Looks good to me,” she said, holding out the paper to Caleb.

“Of course it does,” he said, snatching it from her, sounding more confident than he felt.

“Must be on Arjun’s end,” Jesse said.

The Mumbai side of things
was
the weak link, Caleb knew. Unfortunately, he’d only been able to talk the Indian man through what to do and couldn’t see the work.

Caleb opened the phone application, switched on the external speaker, and dialed.

“We’re having a problem,” he said once Arjun was on the line.

“What type of problem?” Arjun asked.

“I’m not able to connect into the system there. I’m going to have Jesse talk you—”

“One moment, please,” Arjun said. “Are you saying you tried already?”

“Well, yeah,” Caleb said.

“The computer would then have to be on, yes?”

Caleb groaned and looked up at the trailer’s ceiling. “Yes, of course. Are you saying it’s not?”

“Naturally.”

Caleb could feel his frustration surge, but before he could say anything, Arjun spoke again.

“You were the one who told me to leave it off until you gave me the go-ahead. You have not done this yet.”

A laugh burst out of Devin, while Mya slapped a hand over her mouth, trying to contain her amusement.

“Oops,” Jesse said.

“I am sorry,” Arjun said. “I do not think I heard that correctly.”

“It was nothing,” Caleb said quickly. “I want you to go ahead and switch on the computer.”

“Stand by, please.”

“Nice one,” Devin whispered, holding out his hand like he wanted to give Caleb a fist bump.

Caleb glared at him. “Fine. I’m not perfect.”

“I’m sorry,” Mya said. “I don’t think we heard that correctly. Can you repeat that?”

“Go to hell. All of you.” He turned back to his terminal.

A few moments later, Arjun said, “The computer is cycling up, and…there we go. It is on and asking for a password.”

“All right. Let’s see if this thing’s working.” Caleb reinitiated the link between the systems.

Three seconds passed, then the message on his screen changed from
ESTABLISHING CONNECTION
to
CONNECTION SUCCESSFUL
.

Caleb and his team shouted in triumph.

“The password box has disappeared,” Arjun said. “Does that mean it is working now?”

“Damn straight, it does,” Caleb said. “Great job, Arjun. Thank you. I’m going to hang up, but I need you to keep your phone with you in case anything comes up.”

“If I do not answer, Darshana or Sanjay will.”

“Sanjay’s there now?”

“He will be soon. He wanted to see for himself.”

__________

C
ALEB SPENT THE
next hour familiarizing himself with the Project Eden operating system. When he finally felt he had a handle on things, he decided to see what else was out there.

“They’re definitely using encrypted voice transmission and e-mails. Looks like there are also some password-protected document-sharing sites.” He hunted through the code a bit more. “Oh, looks like they use a lot of video transmissions, too. There appears to be several conversations going on right now. Let’s see if we can eavesdrop on one, shall we?”

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he attempted to gain access to the video feed. He managed to break in, but the image was far too scrambled for him to make anything out, and the audio was nothing more than pops and electronic echoes that were impossible to decipher.

“Let me take a look at that,” Devin said.

While Caleb thought highly of his own skills, he was well aware there were people far better at certain tasks than he. When it came to hacking through scrambled signals, few on the planet—even when there had still been seven billion others around—were better than Devin.

Caleb scooted out of the seat and Devin moved in.

After studying the signal for nearly a minute, Devin looked back at Mya. “Can you get me my laptop? My backpack’s over by the door.”

When she returned with it, he launched a program that looked a lot like a recording studio audio board, and then used the Bluetooth function to sync with Caleb’s machine. As he adjusted the sliding levers on the laptop, the video image began to come into focus.

There were two images side by side. A graying man with a mustache on the right and another man, perhaps ten years younger, on the left.

“That’s good enough for the video right now,” Caleb said. “Try fixing the audio.”

Devin changed a setting at the top of the laptop screen and manipulated the sliders again. At first there was little change, but then sounds much more human than the digital noise from before began to seep out. Finally—

“…tons per hundred,” the older man said.

“That syncs with what I have here,” the younger one replied. “Column B?”

“Second quarter. Four hundred thirty-five metric tons per hundred. Eighty-two-point-seven-five metric tons per hundred. Nine hundred twenty-three-point-two-five metric tons per hundred. Four hundred seventy-one—”

“Sounds like someone’s doing inventory,” Mya said.

“Let’s check some of the other signals,” Caleb said.