Family Reunion "J" (19 page)

“How long have we been in here?”

The technician looked at the chart he held in his hand. “Looks like about thirty hours. We kept you under for the first twenty-four in case… well, in case you turned. Look sir, I know you have many questions, but I’m not the best one to answer them. I’m just the blood guy. Someone will be along to debrief you tonight. I have to go check on your son.” With that, the technician nodded at him and then moved out of Julian’s line of sight. Julian heard the whoosh of air as the tech disconnected his hose and left the room. The metal hatch clanked shut and resealed. He felt the pressure in his ears.

In a room, a half mile from where Julian lay, a meeting was just getting underway. Seventeen CDC scientists from several different specialties gathered with a few administrative types to discuss the arrival of Dr. Ruegg and his data.

Dr. Brian Pearson was among them and started the meeting off. “Gentlemen, and ladies, Dr. Ruegg’s arrival is both fortuitous and also dangerous. We currently have him in isolation and are running tests on both him and his son.” He stopped speaking and nodded to the young man who had just entered the room.

“Dr. Nelson is handing out the workups of Dr. Ruegg’s blood, and as you will see, there are nanites present in his system. The data on the drive he brought in recorded that he was one of the first to receive the vaccine. That was over two weeks ago, closer to three.”

A low murmur spread among the scientists as they looked over the papers they were just handed. Until today, the facts that they had suggested that no one who had taken the vaccination survived without turning. No one currently in the room, or in the group of survivors on the campus, had taken the vaccine. Chosen to be part of the control group, selected prior to the distribution of the vaccine, they’d been seen as the unlucky ones. The ones who would most likely die because they didn’t get the vaccine.

The flu took many lives among the control group. Of the original twenty-three hundred chosen, only one hundred and eighty-four survived. All of them now lived on campus secured underground while trying to reverse the effects of the vaccine.

Dr. Pearson continued, “As you can see by this documentation, Dr. Ruegg and his son did not develop the accelerated mutations that we have come to expect in those that have taken the vaccine. The reason for this is currently unclear, but we hope with further study of this documentation, and the study of Dr. Ruegg and his son, that we will be able to determine whatever biological or external factors contributed to their immunity.”

Again, the murmuring swelled until quieted by Dr. Pearson’s raised hands. “People, please, I know that you all have questions and ideas about how to proceed. We will continue to follow the protocols laid out for us in the contingency plan as written by Director Patel until such time that deviation from that plan becomes necessary.”

“As I said at the beginning of this meeting, the two subjects coming here is both fortuitous and dangerous. It is fortuitous because now we have the vaccine’s creator with us, and because we have two subjects that are apparently immune to the effect of the vaccine. It is dangerous because we do not understand how these mutations will evolve, which means the doctor and his son could be time bombs waiting to explode and destroy any chance the human race has at surviving this extinction-level event.”

“Dr. Nelson, can you please read the bullet points we agreed to at our last meeting?”

“Yes sir, bullet point one: Re-create the nanites, type 1 and type 2.”

One of the many PhD’s in the room pushed his signal button requesting the floor. A corresponding light on Dr. Pearson’s screen appeared.

“Yes, Dr. Sheehan?”

“Why re-create them? We have the bots we found in Dr. Ruegg’s blood. Why not just use those?”

“Good question, Jack.” Brian Pearson recognized that this meeting might take longer than anticipated. “I’ll let our chief engineer explain.”

The chief engineer stood and walked to a whiteboard at the head of the table. “Well, rather than take up a lot of time explaining the propulsion systems of the two types of nanites in detail, I will give you the quick and dirty rundown.” This got a grateful nod from Dr. Pearson, who had asked Rick to keep it short and simple before they came to the meeting.

“Type 1, or the ‘A team’ nanites, are like a mag train. This type changes polarity in order to generate the energy that drives its spiral tail, like a sperm.” He drew on the board to diagram the polarity switching on and off, representing this by ones and zeros.

“Type 2 nanites use DNA strings to pull the nanites through the system. These are the bots referred to as the ‘B team’ by Dr. Ruegg in his notes. Then the nanite itself causes the nerve stimulation required to modify the immune system.” He looked around the room to see the group nodding.

“We need to build the type 1 nanites in order to determine what could cause the coding to become corrupted, and we need to replicate this in order to determine how the type 2 nanites’ strings of DNA are built, and therefore, how they could possibly mutate.”

The discussion continued for three hours before Dr. Pearson called for a recess. “I have to debrief Dr. Ruegg. Let’s reconvene this meeting at oh five hundred.”

Forty minutes later, he stood at Dr. Ruegg’s bedside. “Julian, are you awake?”

Julian stirred and opened his eyes. “Brian? It is good to see you, my friend.” Brian reached out and squeezed his bare hand with the heavily plied glove. “Good to see you too. Do you remember Dr. Hernandez? I believe you met at the conference in Puerto Rico. She is going to take notes while I ask you some questions. Is that all right?”

Julian looked at Susan Hernandez with recognition. “Certainly, Brian. Have you distributed the data to the World Health Organization, and to the nonmember nations?”

Brian answered the question with a nod. “We uploaded it shortly after you brought it in.”

He pulled up a stool next to the bed and began asking Julian questions. At two o’clock in the morning he stood.

“Well, we’ll go and let you get some rest.”

Julian asked again, “When can I see Simon, Brian?”

Dr. Pearson smiled at him. “Maybe tomorrow. It depends on if we find any change in your blood work. If things remain stable, I will bring it up at our meeting in the morning. Get some rest—doctor’s orders.”

The three of them spent all day organizing and working to beef up the condo’s defenses. While they were confident that the zombies couldn’t get to them on the second floor, they secured the first floor as well by boarding up all the windows and doors in Winnie’s place to keep that area clear.

Auddy worried about Danny. He was eating everything in sight. Every time she turned around, he was munching on something. It wasn’t like him to snack, and the last time she’d said something about it he snapped at her: “I know my own body and don’t need you to babysit me!” His agitation grew as the day wore on. The better he seemed physically, the more annoyed he became with both Auddy and Winnie. Auddy chalked it up to the stress of the situation, but it was starting to piss her off. When she asked him before dinner if he’d checked his sugar, he’d told her that she needed to quit being a nagging bitch. Her reply made it clear that he wouldn’t be receiving anything from her in the near future.

Winnie had kept quiet most of the day about Danny and Auddy’s bickering. She figured it was none of her business, but after dinner, while she and Danny were sitting on the porch, she complained about their incessant arguing. “Why are you two even together?” she asked.

“Fuck you, you gnarled old cunt! Why don’t you fucking mind your own business?” Danny’s outburst shocked Winnie. She got up, went to her room, and closed the door.
What in the world has gotten into him?
she wondered.

Danny remained on the porch in the dark and listened to the shrieking zombies in the distance. All day he’d been having trouble keeping his temper in check. He’d eaten more in one day than he usually ate in a week and yet his sugar levels had remained stable. He felt stronger and full of energy all day, and even now, when he should be tired from all the work, he felt like he could go run ten miles.

Something caught his eye and he looked across the street to another set of condos. Then it occurred to him:
How am I seeing that? It’s dark out here and I can see like it was twilight.
He followed the movement that caught his eye, and glimpsed a zombie ducking around the corner of the building.

He thought about the delicious rib-eye steak his dad fixed for him the last time he was in New Jersey. So rare the blood ran down his chin. He pictured himself eating it.
What the hell is going on? I’m sitting in the dark daydreaming about eating steak while watching zombies play in the neighbor’s yard.

He shook his head, got up, and went inside to lie down on the couch. He knew better than to try to approach Auddy tonight.

It woke and sniffed the air. It didn’t recognize the lair it found itself in. The air was heavy with the scent of prey. It looked around, it was the dark time, and the burning light was not in the sky. It must hunt, it must feed. It heard the call of its kind in the distance and rose to its feet. Hunger tore at its belly; it inhaled deeply and let out a call to hunt. Another of its kind sent a mind picture showing the outside of a building. The message was clear: there was prey inside. It stumbled over obstacles in the unfamiliar lair in which it found itself. More mind pictures flooded the thing’s brain. Several of its kind surrounded the building with its prey inside. There was something in the mind pictures: a figure on the dark porch rose and went inside the building. It quickened its pace as the scent of prey became richer, thick in the air.

It broke through a weak door and found its prey. Launching itself across the room, it landed on top of the fresh living thing, tore at its neck, and reveled in the warm bath of the sweet blood that poured out. It tilted its head back, released the hinge in its jaw, and shrieked out to its kind the joy of a fresh kill.

The loud shriek woke Auddy. It sounded close by. She hurried off the bed and grabbed the shotgun. Danny had taken the time to show her how it worked. She ran for the door and went into the living room. The flashlight on the barrel of the shotgun shined around the room in an arc. Seeing nothing, she ran for the spare room. She heard a second loud shriek as she cleared the doorway into Winnie’s room. The light fell on a form astride Winnie on the bed. It turned toward Auddy, the blood cascading down its chin and onto the chest she loved to lay her head.

A bright light blinded it. It didn’t hurt like the burning light but it made it hard to see. There was a loud scream that meant nothing. There was no message in the scream, only terror. The bright light dipped down some and it saw the new prey. It leapt forward in anticipation, shrieking as it bounded toward the fresh prey. The loud boom filled its brain and caused searing heat in every corner of its being.

Auddy shook violently as she stood there staring at Danny’s body at her feet. She felt the warm wet liquid on her thighs where her bladder had forsaken her in the trauma of the moment. She shined the light back on the bed to the ruined form of Winnie, her head almost completely severed from her body. Auddy dropped the shotgun, went to her knees, and began to sob.