Gabriel's Stand (26 page)

A month later in Manhattan, at St. John's Hospital for Children

The child was alone in the hospital room. Through the window in the closed door, the woman in the orange hospital visitor uniform could see the little girl's freckled face through the clear respirator mask, whose hopeful eyes were searching the window in vain for a familiar face. The girl tried to identify the woman peering at her from outside the quarantine. She made eye contact with the lady's eyes looking over the mask; they were beautiful gray eyes, but they were the eyes of a stranger. Where was Mommy? Where was Dad? The woman was just tall enough to see in the window without standing on tiptoes. Reluctantly, she turned away.

It was evening, well past supper time, and the window was a narrow one, recessed in a door marked with a large sign: QUARANTINE AREA, SEE PRECAUTION PROTOCOL A.

The air in the corridor outside was still as a crypt.

“Should I call you Reverend or—?” It was the duty nurse.

“You can call me whatever you like. Where are the little girl's parents?” The nurse, a tall, spare woman, just spread her hands and shrugged. “Can't I just go in with my mask?” The woman pulled away her mask and looked into window. She smiled at the little girl. “I'll come in soon,” she mouthed.

“You will need the whole ensemble, I'm afraid. You need the air filter mask, the blue suit and gloves.”

The woman nodded. “Where is Doctor Stern?” she asked.

“Off duty. Dr. Wallace is on call for this wing right now. No physicians are here. There's not much…” The nurse let the sentence die.

“I know, I know. So let's get me suited up. Where
are
her parents?”

“The airports are still closed. We haven't heard anything else.”

“What is her name?”

“Jenny Ryan,” the nurse answered.

The nurse opened the door a crack, allowing a light breeze from the corridor to enter the negative pressure environment. “Jenny,” the nurse said gently. “Your mommy and daddy are still trying to get here but the airport is still closed. So they have sent someone to see you.” The woman quickly suited up, and after the nurse left, she took the chair by the bed. She noticed with a pang that second bed in the room was empty. Its little occupant had died earlier that day. The woman reached out her hand, closed it around the small child's hot fist.

Jenny was a five or six year old girl, clutching a well-worn and well-loved teddy bear with her other hand. She let her fist relax at the woman's touch. She opened her eyes and attempted a smile.

“Hi, sweetie,” the woman said. “You don't have to talk. I'm staying with you tonight. I have some stories to tell you. I think you'll like them.” The little girl nodded, closing her eyes. She formed words with her mouth. The woman leaned over the bed, looking closely at the girl's moving lips through her translucent mask, and she said, “Jenny, I think I got part of that.”

Jenny repeated herself, mouthing, “Why can't they help me?” Jenny was obviously a very bright child. The woman repeated her words out loud and Jenny, nodded, mouthing, “Why did God let me get so sick?”

That was a particularly hard question for the woman to repeat. It had taken the child a long time to form the two questions. It was more than long enough for the woman to feel the accompanying chill. She stopped, trying to control her sudden anger.

Why? Why God? What the hell can I tell her?

She stroked the child's tiny arm. “Why did God let you get so sick?” She paused, feeling a deep dread in the pit of her stomach. “A lot of people are getting it, Jenny. Haven't you been sick before?” Jenny nodded. “So have I. It's not much fun, isn't it?” Jenny nodded again solemnly.
What a cop out
, the woman thought
.

After a moment, Jenny's eyes opened a crack. “Don't leave.” The words formed over and over again.

“Leave you? I'll be right here. Would you like a story right now?”

The little girl clutched her bear and nodded. “Let me tell about a place far away and long ago. There was a young Indian girl in the mountains. She had a horse, named Wind. She was seven years old and it was a bright sunny day…”

——

Hours later, Helen Hawke made this entry in her journal:

I've just seen another innocent child die, a victim of Gaia's revenge. Tuberculosis 6 is already the century's great plague, more than a public health disaster
.
It could easily rival the Black Death, India Plague… Or the genocide of the Tribal Nations from smallpox. I am almost wept out, but I shed a tear for Jenny tonight.

She snapped the journal shut and angrily shoved it in her carry bag. Suddenly spent, she shuffled wearily to the elevator.

——

This Commission video ran on all media markets on the same day. Because of the technology confiscations, it was no longer possible to estimate the number of viewers.

The scene is a corporate boardroom. Three men in suits are sitting around a conference table. There is a soft drum beat in the soundtrack.

The first executive says, “They will never find out.”

“But what about the obvious birth defect clusters?” the second asks.

The third executive explains: “They can't be traced to the gene-altered chicken.”

“Good,” Executive One says, “no one should be allowed to stand in the way of progress.”

Executive Three adds, “Production will be up five fold. We will feed millions.”

The first executive stands, smiling. “What's a few thousand minor birth defects, anyway?”

The other two executives stand, looking cheerful. “Progress!” they say.

The background drum beat swells in volume and picks up pace.

Next, the audience sees a hospital room, where a woman is in the last stages of labor, with physician and husband standing close by. When the baby emerges, the physician frowns.

“Sorry, Mrs. Jones.”

“Oh my God!” the husband says.

The mother cries, “What is wrong?”

“I'm afraid your baby has no face.”

The scene changes: It is a doctor's office. Two physicians are talking.

“That makes two hundred so far this month.”

“The same defect?”

“Yes.”

“What do you suspect?”

“We saw none of these before these new gene altered foods appeared.”

“Frankenfoods.”

“We're calling the Commission.”

The last scene is in the same corporate boardroom. The same three executives are sitting around the same conference table.

“We are agreed on secrecy then?”

“Yes,” they say in unison.

The conference room door bursts open. Two uniformed officers and a man in a suit enter.

“This is an official Commission visit, gentlemen. Take 'em downtown, boys.”

Executives are handcuffed.

Triumphal music swells.

An announcer's voice says, “Your Technology Licensing Commission. Fighting the special interests and the corporate profiteers.”

The image fades to reveal the Gaia logo. The music swells to full volume.

The picture fades to green.

——

Uncounted months had passed while Snowfeather settled into her new life as a stealth rebel, occupying a small apartment in a larger complex secretly funded by The Human Conspiracy. Just before dawn, Snowfeather's bedside intercom chimed. She stirred slightly; then she pulled the covers around her. The chime repeated. She opened her eyes, staring into the dark. “What?” she snapped.

“Very sorry to bother you so early, Reverend Hawke, but the gentleman insisted.” It was Little Al, the giant doorman.

“Gentleman? What gentleman?”

“He says to tell you, ‘it's a tribal meeting.'”

“Stocky man, long gray hair?”

“Yes.”

Dad!
“Send him up.” Quickly, Snowfeather found her better robe and started the coffee pot.

Moments later, as the coffee burbled in the kitchenette, Standing Bear stood grinning in the doorway to his daughter's rooms. “My God,” she said, “it
is
you.”

Gabriel hugged his daughter. As they parted, he could feel the dampness of her tears on his chest.

“I'm so glad you are okay,” she said.

“You've been watching my webcasts, then?”

“Every one. Now drink some coffee.”

“Great ratings,” Gabriel said, sipping his coffee, “but no sponsors.” He stared at his beautiful daughter and she stared back.
Oh, that penetrating appraisal of hers
. “So I see you stuck with it,” he said. “This preaching business.”

“Not so much preaching. My day job is at the hospital. My night job is much more fun. Real, honest rabble rousing, Dad. The Human Conspiracy at work. Does Mom approve?”

“Oh yeah, Alice worries and she approves.” Gabriel stood to stretch. “This is quite a setup here,” he said.

“Three preachers, two rabbis, a lawyer and a Buddhist monk.”

“Sounds like the opening of an old joke.”

Snowfeather smiled. “And a Bishop who launders money from a drug dealer. It helps with the rent.”

“This part is all yours?”

“Almost. That door next to the bathroom cuts into Roberto Kahn's quarters—Fred Loud Owl recruited us both at the same time. But I have my own kitchen.” Snowfeather stared at her father's face. His twinkle was an unmistakable giveaway. “I know that look,” she said. “Out with it. You have some news,” she said with finality.

“Well, I do have a surprise or two. Now get dressed. Jeans and something warm. We're going to be outside for a while. Don't take too long. My flight leaves at noon.” He was smiling.

“What do you have in mind?”

“You'll see.”

In the taxi, Gabriel turned to Snowfeather. “A question has been really bothering me lately. Why isn't there much more public opposition to these restrictions on medical technology? The new diseases are terrifying.”

Snowfeather answered while looking out the window. “At the hospital, everyone is under orders not to speculate and not to complain. The Commission has quietly threatened careers, that sort of thing. They comply because they are wimps. The sad fact is that these are new pathogens and we just don't have access to the new drugs that really work. The best of the old ones are ineffective. They work maybe a few days, a few weeks; then the pathogen is strengthened and even more people get sick and die. Everybody's now thinking in terms of the great India plague.”

“You mean: just let it burn itself out?”

“Right. Like a big forest fire.”

“Burning people. But there
are
new drugs. John Owen is smuggling more of them in every day.”

“Really? Are they any good? I'd love to see some of them here,” she said.

“The latest ones can flat out cure TB6.”

“Oh Dad, we need these new drugs, yesterday.”

——

The taxi let them off at the edge of Central Park. Dawn had leaked into the cloud-streaked patches of sky behind the east side buildings. Gabriel stood, looking up, entranced. “Beautiful, even here,” he said softly.

“It is. Now what?” she asked.

“Just one more minute,” he said, striding away. As she followed, she could see the NYPD kiosk, a faintly glowing island twenty yards in from the street.

“Are we going there?”

“Yup.” As they approached, Snowfeather could make out massive shapes lurking behind, near a cluster of trees.
Horses?

“Hello, Senator,” the officer said.

“Wilson, this is my daughter. This is Sergeant Wilson Lean Wolf O'Shaunnesy, an old friend from tribal days. I'd trust him with my life.”

“Hi,” Wilson said, shaking her hand. “They're ready.” He pointed to the horses. “One black and one paint, both saddled and bridled.” Lean Wolf looked at Snowfeather. “I understand you are an excellent rider.”

“Since she was five,” Standing Bear said, chuckling.

“And not since I was sixteen.”

“You forgot those pack horses,” Gabriel said.

“They didn't count, Dad,” she said.

“I'd take the paint, if it was me,” Lean Wolf offered.

“Come on, Princess, you never forget those skills.”

Half an hour later, Gabriel led a short gallop through an open stretch of untraveled pavement; then they led the horses on a walk over damp grass. Snowfeather's paint kept trying to stop to nibble on the grass. “Let's hold up here for a moment,” Gabriel said, relaxing the reins. He stared ahead. “They are after me, you know.”

“Does Mom know that?”

“Of course. And she worries.”

“Of course. I'm worried too.”

“About me? I am being very careful.”

“Is Mom still safe?”

Gabriel nodded. “Safe enough. It's you and me she's most concerned about. I'm doing webcasts like crazy now.”

“And you've become quite the cult figure, haven't you? You really should get a sponsor.”

“That'll be the day.” He turned to face her. “They're probably on to you, too.”

“I doubt that,” she said lightly. “My new name and identity are working well. I also think that Louise gave up on me. She's likely got bigger fish to fry than me. And I've been so busy at the hospital, I haven't even worried about it. Oh, Dad, this TB6 is so awful…” The sun lanced through a crack in the clouds, casting a shaft of light through a space in the buildings at the edge of the park.

“It's the smallpox all over again, Princess. Edge Medical's new drugs are starting to trickle in now. John's people are getting past the blockade.”

“Who'd have thought? Dr. Owen, an outlaw drug dealer. So, is John okay?”

“Very much. He's built facilities far out of the Commission's way. We talk frequently on an encrypted line. Before you go back to your apartment, I'm going to give you a special way you can reach him. He wants to send you some of the latest antibiotics.”

“Oh,” Snowfeather said softly. “Thank God.” Her eyes glistened for a moment. “To think we might be able to help…”

Gabriel's horse was standing in a pool of yellow light. Birds were chirping. A homeless man wandered into the meadow where the two horses and riders were standing, then retreated. “Boy, I have missed this,” Snowfeather said. “Being with you on horseback.”

“Lean Wolf says he can work this out again for you—when you're not in jail, of course.”

“Hah. I was only arrested once for giving a speech. It'd be a lot kinder of him to cover my next bail.”

“You
are
trying to stay out of jail, aren't you? We want this hypothetical-someday grandchild to experience the out-of-doors…”

Snowfeather chuckled. “So far, just that one arrest.”

“I heard you are sticking your neck out on a regular basis.”

“Helen Hawke is. Snowfeather has gone to ground. And you're using your own name!”

“Got me there. At least I'm in faraway Idaho. You're warning neighborhoods about Retirement orders in the very heart of the Commission crackdown. That's risky, Princess. Those people don't like critics.”

“And they just
love
you, right?” The two were silent while their horses clopped along a worn path through the grass. “What's going to happen, Dad?”

“It is a war, Princess.”

“I see casualties in the hospital every day.”

“God help the little ones. I just don't know how you keep it up.”

“Some days, I just can't.”

“Well, put in a good word for all of us, will you?” he asked. He pointed skyward.

Snowfeather laughed. “Roberto points up there, too.”