H10N1 (3 page)

“Sorry, Johnson. When I took this position, I didn’t see genocide in the job description.”

“And I’ll bet you told them all that.”

Taeya didn’t feel like rehashing her outburst against Doctor Sherman at the departmental meeting. She knew she’d gone too far when she slapped the tabletop and asked Sherman if they would be replacing the Medical Center sign with something like Auschwitz. None of the other department heads ever stuck their neck out, but true to form, as soon as the meeting ended, they came running to her with their comments. When Taeya asked why they didn’t bring up their objections during the meeting, they always gave her the same tired excuse. “It wouldn’t do any good.” What they really meant was they didn’t want to get bumped to second shift, or have their credits reduced.

She rubbed the tension out of her forehead. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“You’re going to love this one.” Johnson turned back to his keyboard, clacked a few keys, and in the sealed examining room beyond, a mechanical arm drew a tissue sample from one of two cadavers on stainless steel gurneys.

“I thought
Monicolitis
was a good mutation,” he said, “but this one is perfect.”

Johnson had been naming new viral strains as they came along.
Monicolitis
had been named for his ex-wife Monica because the virus attacked the alimentary system and he’d always said she was a pain in the butt.

With precision, Johnson guided the mechanical arm to a petri dish and an image of squamous epithelium appeared on his screen. “Healthy enough, wouldn’t you say?”

The irregular mosaic design of cells looked like a cluster of fried eggs, their nuclei protruding from each center.

“Watch this.” Johnson guided the mechanical arm and drew a sample of blood from the second cadaver. He released a drop into the tissue sample and within seconds Taeya watched the nuclei shrivel and disappear. “This is why Sherman came up with the new directives.”

Johnson switched off the program and the screen went blank again. “If this is airborne, I can guarantee anyone downwind of this sucker will be dead tomorrow.”

Taeya could only stare at the screen.

CHAPTER TWO

Exhausted, Taeya unlocked the door to her living quarters in the nurses’ wing. Not a day went by that she didn’t smart from the insult. She tried to tell herself she was lucky, that seven doctors had been dismissed while she had only been demoted to second shift. But mostly, she berated herself for speaking her mind to Doctor Sherman. Even today, she’d jumped into the fray without thinking, telling Sherman he was no better than a third world dictator, an executioner. Now she wondered if Sherman had been baiting her, giving him a good excuse to bump her down again.

Many times her husband Randall had warned her about her volatility. In fact, when they first started working together, she’d questioned his procedures and motives. But with most of the world in chaos now, maybe Randall would understand her need to insist on compassion.

Her room wasn’t much larger than a dorm room, with a small desk and computer, an armchair with a reading light, and the daybed. The space was half the size of her doctors’ quarters. At least she didn’t have to share a room like most of the other nurses. She slipped her shoes off and changed into a pair of flannel pants and a tee shirt.

Sitting in her armchair, she pulled out her Blackberry and checked inner office e-mails. For someone who had been relegated to the second string, she was still on a lot of mailing lists. She deleted most of the messages, pausing a couple of times to rub her tired eyes.

She had nearly dozed off when a swooshing sound startled her. Squinting, she checked the time on her PDA but it was rebooting.

Once it flickered back on, she typed in her user ID three times and failed to gain access. Surely, Doctor Sherman wasn’t so cowardly that he would pull the plug on her in the middle of the night. Then again, at the staff meeting he had listened to her arguments without his usual insistence that she submit her comments in writing. At one point he even said he appreciated her concern. Now she understood why. He knew it was the last time he would have to put up with her.

A feeling of doom weighed on her shoulders. The nerve endings in her fingers tingled. If her intranet access had been revoked, it must mean she was off the staff. She envisioned being ushered to the front door in the morning, along with the nurses. Her top lip puckered in a snarl as she thought of Rick DeAngelo hovering nearby, scoping out potential babes-in-distress.

What a way for her career to end. Four years ago, during the Williamsport incident, she’d been selected over dozens of others by the World Health Organization, hand-picked by Randall Anderson to join his premier team. Later, when she was chosen by the CDC to head up their national surveillance division, she’d been the youngest woman to ever hold that position. It was only Sherman’s military background that put him in the top slot here at the Army Medical Center, not his ability.

She jerked open the small refrigerator under her desk, and pulled out a bottle of wine. Usually she didn’t barter with the underground here, but when rumors circulated that some guy had a case of Pinot Grigio — was it that idiot Rick? — she’d traded a whole week’s credits for a single bottle. What had she been saving it for? Anger boiled in her veins as she drilled a corkscrew and yanked out the cork. The end of the world, evidently.

She flipped the switch to a shortwave radio on her bookshelf and grabbed the mike. “This is W2TMS calling K6MAI. Are you there, Mai?”

While she waited, she took a long drink from a plastic cup, and pondered her next move. If Walter Reed was reducing staff, she didn’t see much hope in getting on board, particularly if it meant taking another doctor’s position. The same probably held true for hospitals in Chicago, Denver and Atlanta. Supplies were severely limited. From now on, it would be every man for himself.

Maybe it was time to change fields. Most of her medical career had been the pursuit and management of disease. Why not work with people who weren’t dying for a change? Monitor high blood-pressure, advise patients on lowering their cholesterol, take pap smears, prescribe Viagra. Some day, when the population recovered, and children were plentiful again, she’d tend to their sore throats and sniffles, advise mothers on the best way to ease the itching from chicken pox.

The idea didn’t depress her as much as it used to. But she would surely miss the chase. It was like taking a homicide detective and giving him a ticket book for parking meters. Taeya swigged another long gulp of wine.

One thing was certain. She wouldn’t be practicing at the Long Island colony in Brookhaven. Not with Sherman as liaison. Maybe the Cape Charles colony in Virginia?

Fear soured the wine in her stomach and reflux brought it up her throat. She swallowed hard. “This is W2TMS calling K6MAI…”

“Taeya, is that you?” a voice crackled through the radio.

“Mai! Thank God!” The sound of a friendly voice brought some of the feeling back to her fingertips. She exhaled a lungful of tension. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Are you all right?”

“I couldn’t be better.” Mai squawked out a laugh

Her friend’s cheeriness annoyed Taeya. “Are things going that well out there?”

The radio sputtered and popped. Whatever Mai replied was floating somewhere in the sky between New York and Arizona. Taeya lowered the volume until the static died down.

At least her friend was still alive. And it sounded like she was doing well. How did Mai always manage to pull some crazy stunt and make it work? She’d met some guy over the shortwave radio and just took off for Arizona like a mail-order bride.

Taeya drained her glass. Mai had done the same thing with Jason. How long had she known him? Six days? She’d met him one drunken night at a club in Jakarta and by the next weekend, they were married. If he hadn’t been re-stationed in Teheran and gotten blown to bits, they might still be together.

The radio buzzed on, so Taeya poured another glass of wine. Who was she to judge Mai? A month after Taeya joined Randall’s team, she was bouncing over dirt roads with him, on the way to Puttalam, Sri Lanka for a quick marriage ceremony. People didn’t love each other so much as they needed each other, to keep sane.

She flicked off the radio and turned it back on. The static continued. Annoyed, she turned it off. Maybe she would try again later, although she wasn’t sure what the point was in telling Mai she’d been dismissed, unless it was a little self-castigation. She decided it might be better if Mai’s last memory of Taeya was not about her ultimate failure.

Taeya propped her head on her hand, tipped the bottle and dribbled out the last of the wine. Her hopeless situation pushed its way to the front of her mind. Every VIP in the Northeast was heading for the Medical Center with the intentions of bribing Sherman for a room. She scanned her tiny quarters, wondering if some city council member or basketball star would soon occupy it. Until this afternoon, she might have had a chance at one of the remaining nursing positions, but she’d made sure that wouldn’t happen.

She sucked the last of the wine out of the cup, and banged the plastic down hard. So, that was it, out on the streets with nowhere to go. She snorted at the idea of Sherman doling out Nexinol as their severance package.

When she stood, the wine went to her head. Gripping the chair back, she steadied herself. Her legs wobbled, but her mind was rolling. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of dismissing her. The words echoed in her head before she even knew they were forming.
I’m out of here
.

The thought startled her. Where would she go? Out to Arizona? She squeezed her eyes against bombarding thoughts: vehicles in the parking garage, food supplies in the kitchen, long stretches of deserted highway. Impossible. It would never work. There were too many contingencies. The odds were against her even getting out of the building undetected.

But there didn’t seem to be an alternative. She doubted Sherman would even let her stay to cook or clean toilets. Not that she could handle that kind of daily humiliation. Fear churned in her stomach once again. Maybe she should just pop a Nexinol and give it up. Absolutely not!

Taeya checked her watch. 12:45. One thing was certain. If this was going to work, she had to sober up. She headed for the shower.

Her wet hair dripped down her back. Using the sleeve of her terry cloth robe, Taeya squeezed out more water. She dragged a pair of blue jeans off a hanger and stuffed them into a duffle bag, then surveyed her empty closet. That was everything. Most of her adult life, she’d been traveling light, jumping from hot spot to hot spot all over the world. This trip would be no different than chasing an outbreak in Bangladesh. Okay, so technically, she was fleeing, but still.

She felt relatively sober when she pulled her door open a crack to check the hallway. Her plan had seemed perfectly clear half an hour ago, as she’d tottered around her room, but now that her head was clear, the mission felt a little muddled. She bolstered her confidence with a mumbled mantra. “This will work. You can do it.”

Taeya unlocked a supply closet at the end of a small hallway, telling herself that if she hit a snag she would simply return to her room and forget it. But she found everything she needed: a lab coat, a surgical mask, and a bright red carrying case with a big biohazard emblem on the side. She ripped the shrink-wrap off the clean plastic container.

The mask was a stroke of genius. Not only did it add authenticity to the container, but no one would be able to smell her breath.

Next stop, the dispensary on third floor. At this time of night, there should only be one staffer on duty. With any luck it would be someone she could intimidate.

Charlie, the night custodian, leaned over the counter carrying on a one-sided conversation with Brenda, the security officer on duty. Taeya admired the woman. She took her job seriously, but her large breasts, even when tightly harnessed, drew a lot of attention, particularly from night creatures like Charlie.

Dressed in the lab coat, Taeya strolled up to the counter and slammed the biohazard container down right next to Charlie. He backed away, his eyes bulging as though expecting something to crawl out. Like a skittering rat, he grabbed his cleaning cart and sprinted away.

“These late night emergencies have to stop.” Taeya turned to Brenda, and spoke through the gauze mask. “My head is killing me and I can’t keep my eyes open.”

She reached for the key card on the desk and Brenda rolled her chair to the far end. “I’m going to grab a couple ZeeBees. Okay with you?”

Brenda nodded, never taking her eyes off the biohazard container. With an exaggerated turn, Taeya followed the woman’s gaze.

“Oh. Sorry.” She hefted the box as though it was heavy, and took it with her into the meds room.

Her heart raced. She leaned against the door for a second to regroup before she loaded the container with vaccines, pain relievers, broad-spectrum antibiotics, morphine, even anti-depressants. No way she was going out into that madness without a full arsenal of supplies.

She mumbled a quick thanks to Brenda before lugging the heavy box down the hallway. The two people she passed along the way gave her a wide berth when they saw how she was dressed and what she was carrying. Beneath the mask, she smiled.

In the food service kitchen, she loaded a stainless steel cart with six cases of military Meals Ready to Eat. It could take days to get to Arizona — if she was lucky. She stacked two cases of bottled water on top of the MREs. On the wall, she spotted a first-aid kit and yanked it off its brackets. As an after thought, she grabbed a case of chocolate chip granola bars.

She made one last stop at her office to pack her framed pictures into her laptop bag. Those three photographs represented all that remained of her history. She would not leave them behind.

The service elevator opened to the parking garage. The first thing she saw was the Center’s delivery van, a sleek, windowless fortress the size of Rhode Island. On the front was the signature intake scoop that sucked in water vapor. Sherman had tried to explain hydrogen engines to her. How the hydrogen was separated from oxygen, then liquefied and cooled. The hydrogen was compressed and stored in a tank until something in the engine remixed it with oxygen to cause combustion. Was that right? Taeya shook her wine-addled brain. Close enough. Sherman seemed to think these new engines could travel almost limitlessly if there was enough water vapor in the air. But in the Arizona desert? Best not to worry about that yet.