The Flu 2: Healing (23 page)

“W-what?” Henry stuttered. “How is that possible? That’s
not
possible. He has to be wrong.”

Kurt added, “It has to be something else. They just developed symptoms of hemorrhagic fever? Can’t happen.”

Lars shook his head. “No. They arrived with it. Travelers from west to east. It’s a big thing now, you know, going east. Well, at least for those not going through Erie. This is strange.” Lars leaned back. “If there were enough readers left alive, I’d write a book.”

Tom chuckled. “Probably end up one of them gay erotica novels you write.”

“I wrote romance,” Lars corrected. “Romantic comedy. I resent that.”

“Lots of people said it,” Tom replied. “Called that one book gay erotica.”

Lars shook his head. “One scene. One paragraph and I’m scorned with quips from right wing fanatics.”

“Rose called it that,” Tom said. “You think she’s right wing?”

All them, Lars, Henry, and Kurt responded at the same time. “Yes.”

“She ain’t right wing, she swears too much,” Tom argued. “And I’m worried about her. Nelson said he was sending a party out for her and he’d get back. Something is wrong.” He looked down when his phone rang and he lifted it. “Maybe not. There is a bright spot.” He grinned.

“Rose?” Lars asked.

“Yep.” Tom pressed a button and brought the phone to his ear. “Rose, damn it. Where the hell are you? You should have been back in Lodi hours ago. We’re worried.”

Henry watched Tom’s face. The smile dropped instantaneously and suddenly his expression was drawn.

Lars stood, as did Kurt, and they watched Tom.

Tom said nothing. The five second conversation was over and Tom’s arm dropped.

“What’s wrong?” Henry asked. “What is it?”

“We got more problems,” Tom said then pursed his lips. “They have Rose.”

* * *

Erie, PA

The bottle of water dropped on the floor and rolled toward Rose, followed by a bag of bandages. Rose looked at them.

“That’s a start. We’ll see what happens next …” he paused, “
Rose
.”

Slowly, Rose lifted her eyes to Ace.

“I said I’d bring you water and bandages when you were ready to talk. Because I am a kind and generous man … here they are.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“No, but your belongings did. Actually, your phone. It survived the accident and you had several missed calls.” Ace said. “Actually, I didn’t expect the person that answered to spew out everything I needed to know.”

“No one would give you information,” Rose snapped.

“Oh, but they did. They answered the phone calling for you and saying you should have been home hours ago … in Lodi.”

Rose closed her eyes.

“Yeah, Lodi.” Ace grinned. “I’ll be calling them back.”

“Lodi has nothing you want,” Rose said.

“You’re kidding right?” Ace laughed. “Apparently, you must have been so busy in that town that you missed the news. Oh, yeah, coverage galore about how Lodi was spared. How Lodi’s chief of police put an iron wall of bikes around the town, quarantining it from the world. And how the government, in an attempt to save them, dumped tons of medical supplies in there. Medical supplies that would save the town should they get the flu. Along with weapons.”

“It didn’t work,” Rose said, her voice weakening.

“Yes it did,” Ace argued. “Let’s look at Erie, this town. Population pre-flu was 100,000 people. The mayor, who by the way is a good friend since our securing his town and feeding his people, says maybe ten percent remained. Ten percent? That’s not including how many of the survivors died from starvation, other ailments, chaos. Any city over 100,000 burned itself out and is lucky to have five percent remaining after all was said and done. They’re still dying. Smaller towns fared better, keeping about twenty to thirty percent alive. But Lodi …. how many did you lose? Thirty percent? That’s nothing. Not in the scheme of everything. It was the golden child. Why was Lodi so special?”

Rose shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“I do and that’s why you are special to me. The best bargaining chip ever.”

“I’m not important enough for Lodi to bargain.”

Ace fluttered his lips. “It’s Lodi, every person there is a bargaining chip. I had to hear about that down in the bunker. I was locked in. Against my will. I couldn’t get out of that government bunker. I had to hear praises about Lodi, stories about it while my family died without me there.”

“That’s not our fault.”

“Really? Because my wife didn’t catch the flu until after supplies were sent to Lodi,” Ace said. “If I remember correctly, without treatment you stood a 99 percent chance of dying if you caught the flu. With the treatment, your odds of dying were a quarter of that. It pissed me off and I resent that.”

“So why bargain? If you hate Lodi and resent it so much, do what you need to do. Try.”

“I will. After I get what I want.”

Rose shook her head. “There’s nothing in Lodi you can’t get elsewhere.”

“I beg to differ. There’s something very special in Lodi.” He turned and walked to the door.

Lola, who had remained silent, hurried to stop him. “Ace, she’s needs more than bandages. She’s got a fever. An infection. She’s in pain. She needs a doctor.”

Ace titled his head with smug look. “I don’t have one … yet.” He opened the door and, after a smile to Rose, he walked out.

* * *

Las Vegas, NV

A map was spread out across the counter and Lexi’s phone, on speaker was in the center of it. Bill stood across from her.

She had a hint of excitement to her, and rightfully so; she believed she had figured out the source of the illnesses and a way to end and anticipate any further outbreaks.

“Currently,” she said, in a speakerphone conversation to Lars, Henry and Kurt, “there are fourteen BSL-4 facilities in the United States.”

Bill asked. “BSL?”

“Biosafety Level Four,” Lexi explained. “They hold the world’s deadliest and biggest threats. There are fourteen in the United States. These are known facilities. There are several private ones that may carry but are unauthorized to hold BSL-4 viruses, the bulk of which are in the east. In Virginia, Boston, Georgia and Maryland. Fort Detrick, to be exact, has five labs there, because as we know, it’s US Army Medical Command.”

Henry cut in, “That is federally run and houses the weapons research.”

“Yes,” Lexi stated. “The other labs; two are in Texas, one in Kansas, Montana, Ohio and the newest facility is in California. I believe that is where our diseases here are coming from. If you recall, the Centers for Disease Control were one of two places in the world that had smallpox, until this California facility was approved.”

Lars said, “Which would explain our pilgrims having hemorrhagic fever. Animals, birds, food, water, you name it. Dr. Martin, how did you find the facilities and locations so quickly?”

“I knew them,” Lexi replied. “Kurt may remember that he gave snap quizzes on this stuff all the time to the field workers.”

“You snap quizzed your workers?” Lars asked, turning to Kurt. “How anal.”

“Guilty,” Kurt said. “But it works out now. So, Lexi, basically, this facility went hot.”

“It had to. Power went out, safeguards went down, sealants no longer worked, and the germs are seeping into the air and ground and anything and everything passing through will carry it. It is a hot zone right now.”

“Wait a second,” Bill interrupted. “These places carry dangerous shit, why aren’t safeguards put in for this? Don’t they have a self destruct button or something?”

“The failsafe mode has to be initiated,” Kurt answered. “I recall we did that at both Georgia buildings and Vermont. I know specifically because I flipped the switch. By now the labs are extinguished, and I am a hundred percent certain that those two are sealed.”

Henry added, “I can vouch for Virginia. Kurt and I pulled the kill switch on the viruses before we left. But we were working closely at the end. I don’t know about the others.”

Lexi said, “Apparently the California facility went hot, which leaves me to worry, what about the others? Are they hot as well, or on their way? Would the president have received notice?”

“If the computers were up and running,” Lars said, “Homeland Security would have recovered the alert on what labs were put into failsafe mode. Again, if the computers were up and running.”

“Wait,” Henry interrupted. “The Assistant Director is with the President. He may know.”

“If he remembers,” Kurt said. “He may not recall which labs sent alerts if they don’t have access to that info.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Bill asked. “I would think that’s some vital info to remember. Heck, to even think about right away.”

Lexi nodded. “I agree. But then, did we … yes, Henry and Kurt shut things down, but after, did you worry if the others did? You may have assumed, but the problem is we were all consumed with the flu.”

“Assume, consume,” Lars said. “We should assume none of the remaining labs hit failsafe and consume ourselves with fixing this. Now, a lot of our remaining soldiers have joined forces with our diligent militia who have been putting things together.”

“I heard about that,” Lexi commented. “Pilgrims said a division over this side of the country was encouraging people to go east. Keep everyone together to work together.”

Henry suggested, “Maybe we can get the groups to work with us to shut these down.”

“We have Matt,” Lexi said. “He’ll get some men, they can handle the California labs, Montana and Kansas.”

“That could be dangerous,” Lars noted. “California is a hot zone, probably a good mile circumference. They all could be.”

“Then they suit up before going in. I’ll instruct them on precautions and what to do. Get them in, report a breach if there is one and burn it out.”

“In the meantime,” Kurt said, “since you have a soup of sickness, try to keep them apart. The last thing we need is for these viruses to marry into one super bug.”

“Oh my God,” Henry uttered.

Lexi looked at Bill. There was something about his tone. “What?” she asked.

“There
is
a superbug,” Henry replied. “We all know it. Think. Lexi you probably don’t, but Lars does. Kurt does too. Hell, you signed the petition and were the first one.”

“Holy shit, I forgot!” Kurt gasped. “The MHS.”

Lars groaned. “They already married them to create a super weapon. It’s a married virus of three types. It was created to be climate controlled. It’s a surface and particle weapon. Release it, it attatches, breeds and remains on surfaces. Victims that don’t inhale it upon release can aspire it from any surface. The fault was, it didn’t work in hot environments, the bug would burn out in higher temperatures. Starting at eighty degrees, it lost potency. It can be burned out, but the colder it is the longer its stays alive on surfaces. The colder it is, the longer it lives. Days, weeks, months.”

“Fortunately,” Henry added, “there is supposed to be an antidote.”

“Yeah, but you read the specs,” Kurt said. “If given within two hours of exposure. After that, forget it. This is deadly, no treatment, no cure. Theoretically it shouldn’t be an extinction bug. It’s a weapon. Ground zero victims die immediately. Those exposed take a couple of days to get sick and they aren’t even contagious until a day before symptoms appear. And when they do, it’s an internal time bomb. Our biggest concern is someone getting this weapon.”

“Who would want it?” Bill asked. “It’s a dead world already. Who would want a biological weapon?”

“Crackpots like those that built the wedge in Erie,” Henry answered. “Who knows? This has to be top priority. Whoever we send to Maryland not only has to go in there, they have to find this bug, confirm it’s there and guarantee it is destroyed.”

Lexi made a huge circle over Maryland. “I’ll work on my end to get people out there ASAP.”

“We’ll start organizing on this end,” Henry said. “And we’ll touch base in the morning. Let’s try to get our first team out by then.”

“Oh, I’ll have a team out,” Lexi said. “Rest assured, I’m on this now.”

The conversation ended and Lexi sighed, looking to Bill. “This is a nightmare.”

“I know. I want to go.”

Her eyes widened. “You can’t.”

“No, Lex, I can and I will,” Bill retorted. “I know how the suits work, hell, how many people did you and I suit up? Plus,” he closed one eye, “I want to make sure this is done. I want to be certain this can’t be a threat and I’ll not know it, if I’m not there.”

“All this can be done in a couple of days,” Lexis said. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, I am.”

“I hate sending you, but I don’t think I’d feel secure about it if you didn’t go. I trust you.”

Bill slipped his hand behind her head, brought Lexi close, and placed his lips gently to her head. “It’ll get done. All of the facilities. I feel it. Then after, let’s make a pact.”